Now that is a fair point, if you are using CPU based video recording / streaming while gaming. I personally prefer GPU-based streaming myself, but I have heard some folks say that CPU based can give better looking results with a sufficiently powerful system. I wonder if programs like OBS can really utilize that many cores effectively, though? If you have a 12 or 16 core processor and are playing a modern game that needs 4 cores (a good average) then you have 8-12 cores left over for CPU encoding. I have not seen tests looking at whether OBS and similar applications can really utilize that many cores effectively, but it would be interesting to know.
Oh yeah, using multiple VMs or doing video editing are great cases for higher core count processors! I am under the impression that Alienware's target market is gaming, though, and even though newer APIs like Vulkan are making the move toward multiple cores it is still the case that today's games tend to favor higher clock speed over more cores (once you have 4 or maybe 6 cores). Have a 16 or even 12-core dedicated gaming system is a waste, you'd be better off spending the extra money on a more powerful GPU.
Since gaming is not very well threaded, and in clock-limited situations these won't be any better than Ryzen. Intel still wins out for performance there, and these are expensive processors to be using in applications which won't use all the cores. Oh well, I guess some folks may just want them for bragging rights?
Jesus didn't specifically address homosexuality, but He did address another sin that under Levitical law was due a death sentence: adultery. Look at John 8:2-11 [ https://www.biblegateway.com/p... ].
The call to the woman accused of adultery was to 'go and sin no more'. The teachings of Jesus' disciples do still clearly paint both adultery and homosexual activity as sins, but we as Christians are not to be carrying out punishment on those who sin. It is not our place as individuals, and I would argue that any government not directly ruled by God (as the Old Testament nation of Israel was, and which many of the Levitical laws were aimed at) shouldn't be focusing on personal sins like those to be punished. If that was the case, Jesus of all people would have been in the right position (having not sinned himself, and being God incarnate) to have carried out such punishment.
I actually used to have a DVR - home built PC, running Windows XP Media Center for years and then Windows 7 (still with MC). Finally dropped it and moved to streaming when it became easier to get more content that way for a lower price and not have to worry about manually skipping through commercials on recorded content. When cable went from analog to digital things got messier, and then when cable cards became a requirement I got out. Besides, paying for a high-end cable package costs as much as Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube Red, Amazon Prime, and something like SlingTV all together. Yes, Sling still has commercials... but its only used (in my home) for the things that we can't get through those other ad-free services. I still use the HTPC for viewing that stuff, but never bought into the CableCard thing. I did try OTA, but can't get much reception without a roof-top antenna (which is more than I want to deal with).
For those of us not as interested in illegality, there is also Netflix, YouTube Red (for normal YT content without ads plus some unique programming), Hulu Plus (a few things will have a very short, single ad at the beginning and end), and purchasing tv seasons and movies a la carte via any number of services (Amazon, Google, etc).
There are tons of applications where performance matters, and the differences between one desktop and another even at similar price points can be drastic depending on where the money is spent. Video editing, animation, rendering, engineering... just to name a few. Even if the difference is only 20-30%, saving that much time throughout a workday can make a huge difference in a user's overall productivity.
I dunno, my phone (a Nexus 6, so no slouch) is nowhere near as fast as my desktop - especially when it comes to multitasking. Granted, it may rival a 2005 desktop... but really, 12 year old computers is the benchmark?
I can see giving a phone a larger screen when to make some activities like watching movies more enjoyable, but it will be a long time before phone / mobile hardware is fast enough to satisfy me in a desktop environment. And anyone using their desktop or workstation for serious stuff - Photoshop, video editing, programming, etc - will not be pleased with a phone's performance, storage, or OS capabilities.
I would concur that they are a 'threat' to secularism, in that they believe and will preach in opposition to it, but the OP stated "Democracy, Secularism, and the rule of law, and civil rights". Using "and" makes it inclusive, and if even one of the four listed is not true then the whole statement becomes untrue. But I digress.
As for civil rights, I would say that depends on what rights you are looking at. Free speech, self defense, the right to life... all of these are fully supported by Christianity (both in general and specifically Evangelical Protestants) as far as I have ever seen. Now some of the newer ideas of civil rights, like homosexual marriage, are of course contested.
I also wonder what problem you - or people in general - have with someone spreading what they believe their God says? In the case of Christianity, the core message is that we humans are sinful by nature, that as such we deserve death (we all do die, that seems to be a fact), and that Jesus came to earth and died in our place so that while we may still physically die we can be brought back to life and live forever with him. That isn't a message that harms anyone, and it has to be taken pretty far out of context to be used to cause injury or lead people do commit crimes. Sure, people *have* managed to mangle it and other teachings to cause problems... but the same can happen with the philosophy of Darwin (survival of the fittest -> kill those who aren't fit) or numerous other ideologies.
And *if* Christians are right, but they kept the good news to themselves, then you'd be pretty pissed to find that out after you died. So they are in a catch-22, so to speak: tell people what they believe, and be persecuted for it, or don't and disobey their God as well as potentially harm people by not warning them.
"Is Evangelical Protestant Christianity a dangerous cult that is a clear and present danger to Democracy, Secularism, and the rule of law, and civil rights?"
I disagree with you - the Christians I know mostly fall into this particular section of the spectrum, and not a single one is a threat to or opposed to democracy or the rule of law. I nearly modded you down, but... free speech is important! You have your opinions, I have mine. An open discussion and dialog is more important than trying to silence our opponents.
I tend to manually turn off a lot of that stuff, in so far as possible. Turn off Cortana, don't use the Windows Store (never seem to need it), don't use Edge (prefer Chrome), etc. At work, though, we recommend a program called O&O ShutUp10 for folks who want to automate a portion of that. I'm not sure how well it handled updates, though.
Very true. My approach is to only re-enable after there is a major upgrade that would encapsulate lots of smaller patches - the rough equivalent of the old Service Packs. Oh, and back up your drive first! That way you get what should be a fairly stable update all around, and if something does go sideways you can just restore from your backup.
I do agree, though, that having more fine-tuned controls over both when updates happen and what updates you install would be better. I wish MS would stop taking away controls like that: its fine to default to settings that will automatically 'take care' of the less tech-savvy, but let those of us who are capable have more control please!
No more updates unless you want them, and turn the service back on. Not quite as elegant as the old controls we had over Windows Updates in previous versions, but better than getting hit by random faulty updates.
That lack of control is part of why I still use a home theater PC. I can control what is going on more, and have access to far more entertainment options than any "Smart" TV or even a plug-in like Roku.
I think my latest TV might actually have some "Smart" features, but I don't use them and never connected it to my WiFi network... so even if it had the capacity to be used for monitoring, being off the Internet prevents any such nefarious use.
If that is correct, then the article linked to in the summary was in error. To quote:
"Amazon is contesting a search warrant from police in Arkansas, who are seeking 48 hours worth of recordings and responses made by an Amazon Echo that belonged to a murder victim."
If so, shouldn't the decision about whether or not to release that info be up to the victim's family - whoever now has ownership over his estate? You would think that if the recordings would help in prosecuting the murderer that they would want to release them. I could see Amazon's argument if they were being compelled to release something belonging to the accused, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.
Didn't figure it was worthwhile at first, but tried it on a 3-month free trial... and now I love it. Well worth the money, just like Netflix. No ads, some additional video content not otherwise available, and being able to play (audio only of course) in the background while using other apps on Android - or even with the screen off to save power!
Then you are using the wrong SSDs. Yes, they fail silently when they do go - but Intel and Samsung have failure rates below 1% (speaking from experience with thousands of units, mostly SATA based). And failure should not lead to data loss; if it does that means you aren't backing up properly or often enough.
So they artificially downclocked an Intel processor, and are able to *barely* beat it clock-for-clock. But that Intel processor should be running at a higher clock speed, and if they have it fixed at 3GHz then they also turned off Turbo Boost - which would have pushed the Broadwell-E chip up to 3.5GHz when all 8 cores are active. At those speeds, presumably, the Intel chip beats the AMD; if not, they wouldn't have bothered to downclock the Intel processor.
To sum up then: AMD's next-gen, unreleased processor still cannot outperform Intel's existing model. This doesn't surprise me, though: ever since Intel caught back up with (and then passed) AMD's performance - starting back with the first Core series processors - AMD has been trying to catch up... and failing. They do have a role in the low-price / budget system market, and maybe this new Zen stuff will cost a lot less than Intel's offerings. It doesn't look like it will truly rival Intel for high performance applications, though, where the fastest speed is worth a few hundred dollars more. After all, in the grand scheme of a several thousand dollar workstation a few hundred dollars isn't a huge deal - and 5, 10, or 20% performance difference could easily pay for itself over time.
Hopefully if this does happen they will keep making the existing products, at least until they *do* manage performance improvements that catch up / exceed older stuff. Where I work we have lots of customers that *need* more processing power, and efficiency be damned.
Well, I mean the current incarnation of the Windows phone. Their previous OS was actually a *lot* closer to the iOS / Android user interface... but they really didn't market it like they needed to. And then their modernization, and the big advertising pushes, all came years too late.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that is a fair point, if you are using CPU based video recording / streaming while gaming. I personally prefer GPU-based streaming myself, but I have heard some folks say that CPU based can give better looking results with a sufficiently powerful system. I wonder if programs like OBS can really utilize that many cores effectively, though? If you have a 12 or 16 core processor and are playing a modern game that needs 4 cores (a good average) then you have 8-12 cores left over for CPU encoding. I have not seen tests looking at whether OBS and similar applications can really utilize that many cores effectively, but it would be interesting to know.
Oh yeah, using multiple VMs or doing video editing are great cases for higher core count processors! I am under the impression that Alienware's target market is gaming, though, and even though newer APIs like Vulkan are making the move toward multiple cores it is still the case that today's games tend to favor higher clock speed over more cores (once you have 4 or maybe 6 cores). Have a 16 or even 12-core dedicated gaming system is a waste, you'd be better off spending the extra money on a more powerful GPU.
Since gaming is not very well threaded, and in clock-limited situations these won't be any better than Ryzen. Intel still wins out for performance there, and these are expensive processors to be using in applications which won't use all the cores. Oh well, I guess some folks may just want them for bragging rights?
Jesus didn't specifically address homosexuality, but He did address another sin that under Levitical law was due a death sentence: adultery. Look at John 8:2-11 [ https://www.biblegateway.com/p... ].
The call to the woman accused of adultery was to 'go and sin no more'. The teachings of Jesus' disciples do still clearly paint both adultery and homosexual activity as sins, but we as Christians are not to be carrying out punishment on those who sin. It is not our place as individuals, and I would argue that any government not directly ruled by God (as the Old Testament nation of Israel was, and which many of the Levitical laws were aimed at) shouldn't be focusing on personal sins like those to be punished. If that was the case, Jesus of all people would have been in the right position (having not sinned himself, and being God incarnate) to have carried out such punishment.
I actually used to have a DVR - home built PC, running Windows XP Media Center for years and then Windows 7 (still with MC). Finally dropped it and moved to streaming when it became easier to get more content that way for a lower price and not have to worry about manually skipping through commercials on recorded content. When cable went from analog to digital things got messier, and then when cable cards became a requirement I got out. Besides, paying for a high-end cable package costs as much as Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube Red, Amazon Prime, and something like SlingTV all together. Yes, Sling still has commercials... but its only used (in my home) for the things that we can't get through those other ad-free services. I still use the HTPC for viewing that stuff, but never bought into the CableCard thing. I did try OTA, but can't get much reception without a roof-top antenna (which is more than I want to deal with).
For those of us not as interested in illegality, there is also Netflix, YouTube Red (for normal YT content without ads plus some unique programming), Hulu Plus (a few things will have a very short, single ad at the beginning and end), and purchasing tv seasons and movies a la carte via any number of services (Amazon, Google, etc).
There are tons of applications where performance matters, and the differences between one desktop and another even at similar price points can be drastic depending on where the money is spent. Video editing, animation, rendering, engineering... just to name a few. Even if the difference is only 20-30%, saving that much time throughout a workday can make a huge difference in a user's overall productivity.
I dunno, my phone (a Nexus 6, so no slouch) is nowhere near as fast as my desktop - especially when it comes to multitasking. Granted, it may rival a 2005 desktop... but really, 12 year old computers is the benchmark?
I can see giving a phone a larger screen when to make some activities like watching movies more enjoyable, but it will be a long time before phone / mobile hardware is fast enough to satisfy me in a desktop environment. And anyone using their desktop or workstation for serious stuff - Photoshop, video editing, programming, etc - will not be pleased with a phone's performance, storage, or OS capabilities.
I would concur that they are a 'threat' to secularism, in that they believe and will preach in opposition to it, but the OP stated "Democracy, Secularism, and the rule of law, and civil rights". Using "and" makes it inclusive, and if even one of the four listed is not true then the whole statement becomes untrue. But I digress.
As for civil rights, I would say that depends on what rights you are looking at. Free speech, self defense, the right to life... all of these are fully supported by Christianity (both in general and specifically Evangelical Protestants) as far as I have ever seen. Now some of the newer ideas of civil rights, like homosexual marriage, are of course contested.
I also wonder what problem you - or people in general - have with someone spreading what they believe their God says? In the case of Christianity, the core message is that we humans are sinful by nature, that as such we deserve death (we all do die, that seems to be a fact), and that Jesus came to earth and died in our place so that while we may still physically die we can be brought back to life and live forever with him. That isn't a message that harms anyone, and it has to be taken pretty far out of context to be used to cause injury or lead people do commit crimes. Sure, people *have* managed to mangle it and other teachings to cause problems... but the same can happen with the philosophy of Darwin (survival of the fittest -> kill those who aren't fit) or numerous other ideologies.
And *if* Christians are right, but they kept the good news to themselves, then you'd be pretty pissed to find that out after you died. So they are in a catch-22, so to speak: tell people what they believe, and be persecuted for it, or don't and disobey their God as well as potentially harm people by not warning them.
"Is Evangelical Protestant Christianity a dangerous cult that is a clear and present danger to Democracy, Secularism, and the rule of law, and civil rights?"
I disagree with you - the Christians I know mostly fall into this particular section of the spectrum, and not a single one is a threat to or opposed to democracy or the rule of law. I nearly modded you down, but... free speech is important! You have your opinions, I have mine. An open discussion and dialog is more important than trying to silence our opponents.
I tend to manually turn off a lot of that stuff, in so far as possible. Turn off Cortana, don't use the Windows Store (never seem to need it), don't use Edge (prefer Chrome), etc. At work, though, we recommend a program called O&O ShutUp10 for folks who want to automate a portion of that. I'm not sure how well it handled updates, though.
https://www.oo-software.com/en...
Very true. My approach is to only re-enable after there is a major upgrade that would encapsulate lots of smaller patches - the rough equivalent of the old Service Packs. Oh, and back up your drive first! That way you get what should be a fairly stable update all around, and if something does go sideways you can just restore from your backup.
I do agree, though, that having more fine-tuned controls over both when updates happen and what updates you install would be better. I wish MS would stop taking away controls like that: its fine to default to settings that will automatically 'take care' of the less tech-savvy, but let those of us who are capable have more control please!
Yup, this is what I do. Works on Home and Pro versions (I have both).
No more updates unless you want them, and turn the service back on. Not quite as elegant as the old controls we had over Windows Updates in previous versions, but better than getting hit by random faulty updates.
That lack of control is part of why I still use a home theater PC. I can control what is going on more, and have access to far more entertainment options than any "Smart" TV or even a plug-in like Roku.
I think my latest TV might actually have some "Smart" features, but I don't use them and never connected it to my WiFi network... so even if it had the capacity to be used for monitoring, being off the Internet prevents any such nefarious use.
If that is correct, then the article linked to in the summary was in error. To quote:
"Amazon is contesting a search warrant from police in Arkansas, who are seeking 48 hours worth of recordings and responses made by an Amazon Echo that belonged to a murder victim."
https://qz.com/917790/amazon-c... (second paragraph)
If so, shouldn't the decision about whether or not to release that info be up to the victim's family - whoever now has ownership over his estate? You would think that if the recordings would help in prosecuting the murderer that they would want to release them. I could see Amazon's argument if they were being compelled to release something belonging to the accused, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.
Didn't figure it was worthwhile at first, but tried it on a 3-month free trial... and now I love it. Well worth the money, just like Netflix. No ads, some additional video content not otherwise available, and being able to play (audio only of course) in the background while using other apps on Android - or even with the screen off to save power!
Unlimited bandwidth? I have 1Gbps fiber internet at home, a decent cable connection at work, and unlimited 4G LTE on my cell phone.
I do play some music from my local network at home, and my phone caches recently played songs, but I don't have to worry about bandwidth.
Then you are using the wrong SSDs. Yes, they fail silently when they do go - but Intel and Samsung have failure rates below 1% (speaking from experience with thousands of units, mostly SATA based). And failure should not lead to data loss; if it does that means you aren't backing up properly or often enough.
So they artificially downclocked an Intel processor, and are able to *barely* beat it clock-for-clock. But that Intel processor should be running at a higher clock speed, and if they have it fixed at 3GHz then they also turned off Turbo Boost - which would have pushed the Broadwell-E chip up to 3.5GHz when all 8 cores are active. At those speeds, presumably, the Intel chip beats the AMD; if not, they wouldn't have bothered to downclock the Intel processor.
To sum up then: AMD's next-gen, unreleased processor still cannot outperform Intel's existing model. This doesn't surprise me, though: ever since Intel caught back up with (and then passed) AMD's performance - starting back with the first Core series processors - AMD has been trying to catch up... and failing. They do have a role in the low-price / budget system market, and maybe this new Zen stuff will cost a lot less than Intel's offerings. It doesn't look like it will truly rival Intel for high performance applications, though, where the fastest speed is worth a few hundred dollars more. After all, in the grand scheme of a several thousand dollar workstation a few hundred dollars isn't a huge deal - and 5, 10, or 20% performance difference could easily pay for itself over time.
You made the right choice. Having used both, the Vive is a much more fun and rewarding experience. Room scale makes *all* the difference :)
No, a lot of applications don't scale well across multiple cores / CPUs.
Hopefully if this does happen they will keep making the existing products, at least until they *do* manage performance improvements that catch up / exceed older stuff. Where I work we have lots of customers that *need* more processing power, and efficiency be damned.
Well, I mean the current incarnation of the Windows phone. Their previous OS was actually a *lot* closer to the iOS / Android user interface... but they really didn't market it like they needed to. And then their modernization, and the big advertising pushes, all came years too late.