By 'balanced' I don't mean a CPU and GPU of the same price - that would, as you pointed out, but absurd. What I mean is balanced from a performance perspective. That often means quite the opposite of what you implied: as an example, someone comes to us and saves a configuration with a $600 six-core CPU and a $600 video card, and I point out that the CPU is overkill and he could save $200-300 on a quad-core with a faster clock speed.
Likewise, I sometimes have folks who save a setup with a great GPU but an anemic processor. Just how important the CPU is depends heavily on the game, and some titles simply don't perform well on a dual-core any more. From what I have read on the forums, the new Mechwarrior Online game seems to be along those lines, and a lot of RTS games can be as well (Starcraft 2, Civilization 5, and even older ones like Supreme Commander).
What it comes down to is identifying a customer's performance needs, and then putting together a system that is well-balanced and within their budget:)
I saw that micro-stutter article too - I really like Toms Hardware and AnandTech for such articles. I also tend to recommend single graphics cards for most folks, rather than two lesser cards, because of that. Dual higher-end cards are a bit better now in that regard than they were a year ago, though, which helps.
As for games needing more than two cores, though, you might be surprised. Strategy games with tons of AI controlled units can really bring things to a crawl - Starcraft 2 is a good example, or even older titles like Supreme Commander. Mechwarrior Online, a game in closed beta now, is also supposed to be like that: their minimum specs are a fast dual-core, and the devs have stated it works much, much better on a quad-core.
The research into frame-rate latencies is really interesting, but the whole idea that *anyone* knowledgeable about PC gaming would have *ever* denied that the CPU was an important factor in performance is ridiculous. I am a consultant at a boutique PC builder (http://www.pugetsystems.com/) and I have always told gamers they want to get a good balance of CPU and GPU performance, and enough RAM to avoid excessive paging during gameplay. Anything outside of that is less important... but to ignore the CPU? Preposterous!
Then again, it is a Slashdot headline... I probably should expect nothing less (or more)!
A book by Tom Clancy, from well before 9/11, which involved most of the US government being wiped out when a plane is crashed into the capitol building during a ceremony that put almost the entire legislative and executive branches in the same building. Was sort of interesting (horrifying?) to see that sort of attack played out a few years later, albeit without the coordination to hit that much of our government in one swoop.
I like this idea, and will likely do so with my children (age 2 and 3 now). However, what I remember from childhood was my father reading the Wizard of Oz books to me. I'm not sure how old I was, but it must have been pretty young. I think they are probably better aimed at little kids, since the wording and level of violence is lower than even the Hobbit.
Actually, the idea of a single entity pre-existing - and creating everything else - seems much more logical than *everything* existing for no particular reason. For example, which makes more sense: a single chicken, when you can see no reason for its existence, or a multitude of chicken eggs and baby chicks - again, with no visible cause for their existence?
That is a poor comparison, but I couldn't think of a better one in the few seconds allotted between things at work:)
Further, if the divine creation idea is correct, then we can't actually impose the logic we are used to in this universe on the origin of that creator. He / it would have made this universe, and hence exists outside it. We cannot posit anything about what such existence would be like.
Interestingly, I also tried to call up this month to cancel our cable TV service. We rarely use it any more, mostly depending on Netflix + Hulu (the free stuff) + Amazon Prime (wish there was a Media Center plugin!). I thought it would be a great way to save $10-20 a month... and boy was I wrong!
You see, as long as I pay for cable TV - even the most basic package which we have been using, at around $15 a month - we get a discounted rate on cable internet. Our total bill is ~$70 or so with taxes.
However, if we drop cable TV we no longer get the discounted internet rate... and our total monthly bill would actually go *up* by $0.27 (yes, twenty-seven cents).
THAT is how they keep you from cancelling cable TV entirely, by threatening to charge you more for less:/
I was getting worried about our usage at home, since the kids now watch a few hours of Neflix a day along with out other internet usage. I called Comcast because I was having trouble finding where on our account management page the data was about how much we actually used each month - and when they showed me where to find it I was amazed at how little it was. 30-70GB a month on average, occasionally peaking past 100GB. So even in what I would consider a moderate to heavy internet usage household we were way under the existing cap, and will still be with a 300GB limit.
The only problem I can see here is if they don't notify users when they approach that cap. If something happened and I went way over, but was never warned till the bill came, I would be upset.
Are you sure of that? Granted, I've never done a pre-order with them... but every encounter I have had with Sprint's customer service has been excellent. Maybe you could try having them switch you over to the Galaxy Nexus? I just got two - one for me and one for the wife - and we love them.
And what do you do when the server isn't in Texas? That is the issue at hand here, if brick & mortar retailers get their way and Congress changes laws to require all online sales to remit state and local sales taxes. Suddenly things are much, much more complex. It needs to be either left alone (as it is now) or overhauled completely and made much simpler. I've got a top-level thread going below about that idea, and it is something I have written about elsewhere in the past. Kind of a close-to-home issue, as I work for a small business that sells all over the US.
Hmm, can that same system automatically write the appropriate checks to the dozens (or hundreds, in states with county / city level taxes) of different government entities on the right time schedule for each one, keeping track of all of it in case of an audit, and not costing enough to drive a small business into debt? Yeah, didn't think so...
Sure, Amazon can probably handle it with minimal impact (though you can be sure that added costs will get passed along to consumers) - but what of the small businesses this begins to set a standard for? Mom & pop shops suddenly having to deal with orders of magnitudes more on the financial side... it *would* drive a lot of companies to either restrict sales by regions or go out of business entirely.
The problem I have with this is not that it is necessarily wrong from any ethical standpoint, but that it would be a *massive* additional burden on small businesses. Any online company selling outside of its state would have to keep track of potentially 50 times as many different sales taxes (not all states have sales tax, I am aware), and then the rules each state has for remitting sales tax (when, where, etc). As someone who works at a small business (a couple dozen employees) I can tell you this would be a huge extra load for our financial department.
Long-term I would love to see a national sales tax replace many (all?) of the existing taxes, as it would be much cleaner and I think more fair as well. Then a central agency, maybe the IRS, could take in all sales tax revenue and split it up according to the feds + state of sale origin + state of company + local municipalities... and that, if done correctly, could lower the overall manpower burden of the tax system, freeing up more of the taxes for doing what they are actually for.
1“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3“But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
However, with that said, I don't think Bill Gates is doing this for his own gain or recognition. He seems more interested in using his name to attract attention to the charitable causes, rather than the inverse. Many of the things his foundation champions are fantastic, and I much prefer the idea of private individuals doing this sort of thing instead of the government (who have better things to worry about).
The only qualitative difference is that people understand the theory of gravity better than the theory of abiogenesis.
No, the difference is that we can *test* and *prove* gravity to be happening, even though we may not understand how it works 100%. We cannot test, and therefore cannot prove, abiogenesis. It remains an untested theory, and therefore the origins of life - on this planet or anywhere else - remain rather more mysterious than gravity.
Yup, you said it: "no earthly way"... but it wasn't supposed to be 'earthly', now was it? A God that couldn't make a bush burn without being consumed wouldn't be much of a God...
Slashdot Mirror
By 'balanced' I don't mean a CPU and GPU of the same price - that would, as you pointed out, but absurd. What I mean is balanced from a performance perspective. That often means quite the opposite of what you implied: as an example, someone comes to us and saves a configuration with a $600 six-core CPU and a $600 video card, and I point out that the CPU is overkill and he could save $200-300 on a quad-core with a faster clock speed.
Likewise, I sometimes have folks who save a setup with a great GPU but an anemic processor. Just how important the CPU is depends heavily on the game, and some titles simply don't perform well on a dual-core any more. From what I have read on the forums, the new Mechwarrior Online game seems to be along those lines, and a lot of RTS games can be as well (Starcraft 2, Civilization 5, and even older ones like Supreme Commander).
What it comes down to is identifying a customer's performance needs, and then putting together a system that is well-balanced and within their budget :)
No, sorry - William George of Seattle, WA
I saw that micro-stutter article too - I really like Toms Hardware and AnandTech for such articles. I also tend to recommend single graphics cards for most folks, rather than two lesser cards, because of that. Dual higher-end cards are a bit better now in that regard than they were a year ago, though, which helps.
As for games needing more than two cores, though, you might be surprised. Strategy games with tons of AI controlled units can really bring things to a crawl - Starcraft 2 is a good example, or even older titles like Supreme Commander. Mechwarrior Online, a game in closed beta now, is also supposed to be like that: their minimum specs are a fast dual-core, and the devs have stated it works much, much better on a quad-core.
The research into frame-rate latencies is really interesting, but the whole idea that *anyone* knowledgeable about PC gaming would have *ever* denied that the CPU was an important factor in performance is ridiculous. I am a consultant at a boutique PC builder (http://www.pugetsystems.com/) and I have always told gamers they want to get a good balance of CPU and GPU performance, and enough RAM to avoid excessive paging during gameplay. Anything outside of that is less important... but to ignore the CPU? Preposterous!
Then again, it is a Slashdot headline... I probably should expect nothing less (or more)!
Pardon my American ignorance, but what the heck holidays are in August?
God just didn't give us the API manual :)
To the community at large: no. End of line.
Links with info for folks interested in the book I mentioned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a94clancybook
A book by Tom Clancy, from well before 9/11, which involved most of the US government being wiped out when a plane is crashed into the capitol building during a ceremony that put almost the entire legislative and executive branches in the same building. Was sort of interesting (horrifying?) to see that sort of attack played out a few years later, albeit without the coordination to hit that much of our government in one swoop.
I like this idea, and will likely do so with my children (age 2 and 3 now). However, what I remember from childhood was my father reading the Wizard of Oz books to me. I'm not sure how old I was, but it must have been pretty young. I think they are probably better aimed at little kids, since the wording and level of violence is lower than even the Hobbit.
Actually, the idea of a single entity pre-existing - and creating everything else - seems much more logical than *everything* existing for no particular reason. For example, which makes more sense: a single chicken, when you can see no reason for its existence, or a multitude of chicken eggs and baby chicks - again, with no visible cause for their existence?
That is a poor comparison, but I couldn't think of a better one in the few seconds allotted between things at work :)
Further, if the divine creation idea is correct, then we can't actually impose the logic we are used to in this universe on the origin of that creator. He / it would have made this universe, and hence exists outside it. We cannot posit anything about what such existence would be like.
Interestingly, I also tried to call up this month to cancel our cable TV service. We rarely use it any more, mostly depending on Netflix + Hulu (the free stuff) + Amazon Prime (wish there was a Media Center plugin!). I thought it would be a great way to save $10-20 a month... and boy was I wrong!
You see, as long as I pay for cable TV - even the most basic package which we have been using, at around $15 a month - we get a discounted rate on cable internet. Our total bill is ~$70 or so with taxes.
However, if we drop cable TV we no longer get the discounted internet rate... and our total monthly bill would actually go *up* by $0.27 (yes, twenty-seven cents).
THAT is how they keep you from cancelling cable TV entirely, by threatening to charge you more for less :/
I was getting worried about our usage at home, since the kids now watch a few hours of Neflix a day along with out other internet usage. I called Comcast because I was having trouble finding where on our account management page the data was about how much we actually used each month - and when they showed me where to find it I was amazed at how little it was. 30-70GB a month on average, occasionally peaking past 100GB. So even in what I would consider a moderate to heavy internet usage household we were way under the existing cap, and will still be with a 300GB limit.
The only problem I can see here is if they don't notify users when they approach that cap. If something happened and I went way over, but was never warned till the bill came, I would be upset.
Are you sure of that? Granted, I've never done a pre-order with them... but every encounter I have had with Sprint's customer service has been excellent. Maybe you could try having them switch you over to the Galaxy Nexus? I just got two - one for me and one for the wife - and we love them.
Wow... where are my mod points when I need them? +1 Insightful to you, good sir!
Yup - check out the trailer for MWO, I love that they kept the classic phrasing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6aFV1W8-jU
Coming soon, to a PC near you: MechWarrior Online (http://mwomercs.com/)
And what do you do when the server isn't in Texas? That is the issue at hand here, if brick & mortar retailers get their way and Congress changes laws to require all online sales to remit state and local sales taxes. Suddenly things are much, much more complex. It needs to be either left alone (as it is now) or overhauled completely and made much simpler. I've got a top-level thread going below about that idea, and it is something I have written about elsewhere in the past. Kind of a close-to-home issue, as I work for a small business that sells all over the US.
Hmm, can that same system automatically write the appropriate checks to the dozens (or hundreds, in states with county / city level taxes) of different government entities on the right time schedule for each one, keeping track of all of it in case of an audit, and not costing enough to drive a small business into debt? Yeah, didn't think so...
Sure, Amazon can probably handle it with minimal impact (though you can be sure that added costs will get passed along to consumers) - but what of the small businesses this begins to set a standard for? Mom & pop shops suddenly having to deal with orders of magnitudes more on the financial side... it *would* drive a lot of companies to either restrict sales by regions or go out of business entirely.
The problem I have with this is not that it is necessarily wrong from any ethical standpoint, but that it would be a *massive* additional burden on small businesses. Any online company selling outside of its state would have to keep track of potentially 50 times as many different sales taxes (not all states have sales tax, I am aware), and then the rules each state has for remitting sales tax (when, where, etc). As someone who works at a small business (a couple dozen employees) I can tell you this would be a huge extra load for our financial department.
Long-term I would love to see a national sales tax replace many (all?) of the existing taxes, as it would be much cleaner and I think more fair as well. Then a central agency, maybe the IRS, could take in all sales tax revenue and split it up according to the feds + state of sale origin + state of company + local municipalities... and that, if done correctly, could lower the overall manpower burden of the tax system, freeing up more of the taxes for doing what they are actually for.
I have to say that I don't consider being 'against' the 'right' to murder an innocent human a bad thing...
Matthew 6:1-4 is applicable to your question:
1“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3“But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
However, with that said, I don't think Bill Gates is doing this for his own gain or recognition. He seems more interested in using his name to attract attention to the charitable causes, rather than the inverse. Many of the things his foundation champions are fantastic, and I much prefer the idea of private individuals doing this sort of thing instead of the government (who have better things to worry about).
The only qualitative difference is that people understand the theory of gravity better than the theory of abiogenesis.
No, the difference is that we can *test* and *prove* gravity to be happening, even though we may not understand how it works 100%. We cannot test, and therefore cannot prove, abiogenesis. It remains an untested theory, and therefore the origins of life - on this planet or anywhere else - remain rather more mysterious than gravity.
Yup, you said it: "no earthly way"... but it wasn't supposed to be 'earthly', now was it? A God that couldn't make a bush burn without being consumed wouldn't be much of a God...