There's more to it than "1.2GHz". We don't know much about the Shiva architecture. According to the article it's "ARM9-like" because it's based on Feroceon and XScale. How many ARM9 encoders or transcoders have you heard of?
Also consider that although the Xbox can decode most everything, it's a closed system, which I'm sure added a little to the performance of XBMC code. I doubt a similar 733MHz Celeron desktop would be as capable even if it had more than 64MB of RAM.
Aside from serving video, the system may not be able to saturate its gigabit ethernet either. I read that spec as Marvell saying the CPU and SoC can push more than 100mbits, so they used gbit ethernet. Maybe its throughput is limited to, say, 20MBytes/s.
This is a sweet little toy, especially for its price, but it's not going to compare to most x86 mini-computers.
In a 3 drive RAID 0 array 350MB/s isn't that impressive. That's 116 2/3 MB/s per drive which is only slightly higher than the 1TB SATA spindles that were on sale months ago for less than a SSD. (Those speeds were maximums, though. Min was in the upper 60's I believe.)
That performance is cool but its price premium is huge for a drive that provides only a fraction of spindles' capacity. Until they drop in price or are handled more efficiently to improve their performance, they may be ready for prime time but they're being sold for PPV prices.
I don't think a Microsoft store would be like an Apple store. At an Apple store the salespeople think a chipset is a processor and the higher cost is justified because Apple uses different "premium" hardware in their computers that's not available in others. They're designed to sell nice features like MagSafe, glossy screens, and multi-finger touchpads.
I'm not saying the salespeople at the Microsoft store are going to be experts, just that Microsoft has never highlighted their similarities to Apple. They'll sell their products as devices rather than parts of a unique computing experience. The failed ad campaign you mentioned surely made them aware that their userbase is not interested in computing experiences; they're interested in things, and don't care too much about image or the emotional states promoted by some experience.
Not trying to sound like some weird Microsoft fan or rant nonsensically, just in a metaphorical mood..
An article about teaching nerds social skills is posted to Slashdot and it takes less than an hour before there is discussion of a female from Star Trek..and allusion to Enterprise being terrible.:)
I think this stuff is standard practice for a big organization in a powerful position. Yesterday I tried buying coffee beans from a small (2 location) coffee shop located in a mall. Apparently Starbucks had leased a spot elsewhere in the mall and negotiated a clause into their contract with the mall. The small shop could sell Starbucks beans or make coffee with their own beans, but was forbidden from selling their own beans.
I'm not sure why that situation doesn't qualify as anti-competitive, but controlling distribution options is a basic part of some businesses' plans.
Oh, and of course this could be avoided by not counting movements less than 10-20ft towards vehicles' travel distance but that's more complex and less fun:)
Though the locations provided through GPS are accurate, they're not perfect. For a vehicle traveling at highway speeds the distance traveled between each reading is great, and inaccuracies are tiny in comparison. At lower speeds the ratio of the distances becomes closer. At a stop there will still be a slight location difference detected on each interval.
Somebody primarily traveling via city streets or during rush hour would be charged for tiny extra distances over time; considering Oregon's population the state will be scraping off a nice bonus from building reflections etc.
I haven't been able to figure out why, but my ISP offers 6mb/768kb DSL with a phone line for $20 cheaper than 1.5mb/384kb "dry-loop" DSL. With the added cost of a super-limited phone line and the taxes & fees, it's only a couple bucks more.
Well said! I have only been in the position to do this once, where I was tasked with designing a line graph within our product. I made the y value of the graph increase along the x axis: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. 99% of our customers will see it as an example. The other 1% will think "Oh. These guys are nerds like me! Cool!":)
Greenpeace complains about lots of big companies' non-greenness. I heard from a co-worker who canvassed for Greenpeace long ago, for years, that they are a "greenwash".
There was another Greenpeace complaint recently, and when the canvassers in the downtown metropolitan area I work in were informed (by me) that "Greenpeace is a marketing organization; their information is skewed." the entire group of canvassers that I recognized every day on the way to work disappeared. Almost as if they investigated what I said and agreed.
About three weeks later new canvassers appeared. None of them were the same. One told me that my information was "wrong" but had no sources or reasoning to back that up.
The ideas behind Greenpeace are great general points that should be kept in mind but it seems that many of their statements should be taken with a grain of salt.
For reference, people made all kinds of fun toys after gaining knowledge of the insides of the engine and netcode. They then fixed so much that they released their own versions of the server, and eventually used that as a great line on their resume to get hired into the game coding biz. I think Slashdot would be glad to hear those details:)
The Quake engine was the basis for both the Half-Life engine and the Quake2 engine, so they are related but there was no 'hybrid' per se. The Quake and Quake2 engines were released under the GPL. If the Half-Life engine source isn't available, it's likely due to it being a pre-GPL fork of the Quake engine (or something like that).
Uncle AC wonders if releasing code will expose vulnerabilities. Since so much of the engine has been available for years (since 1999, IIRC), there is relatively little risk. There was when the source for Quake was released. All kinds of hacks and cheats flooded around (for all Quake-engine games).. But that was long ago; perhaps people have forgotten.
Headlines are marketing, even if the body of a story is well balanced and objective. This particular story is somewhat balanced, but it's not being relayed objectively.
Take a quick look at the sources in the CNN article and their position on the subject. The first source, the one linking violent games to aggression, is a researcher (read: knowledgeable, but not necessarily experienced).
The only one who is actually a professional in the mental health field says "It's not the violence per se that's the problem.." and that "violent video games" is too vague.
The last doesn't actually say that video games are responsible for violence, just that they are an element of a "culture of disrespect" which is the real problem. He says the real impact is from the shaping of norms and attitude. That's a pretty distinct responsibility of parenting, not video games.
All that aside, the links to "celebrity-mom slugfest over vaccines" and "why food allergies in children are on the rise" that are interspersed throughout the story should indicate pretty strongly that CNN is interested in readers & page views, not thoughtful, objective communication.
I have no idea why it's like that. I was in school about 10 years ago, and the rules were made very clear. Every act of aggression is equal, including not only retaliation but self-defense, too.
If a bully attacks you with a bat you should take it. You won't be punished (except for being beaten with a bat). If you try to defend yourself both of you will be given equal punishments. Even if you get hit in the face but are able to push the person over and run like hell, that's somehow as bad as the initial attack.
I have no idea why people think crazy kids and school shootings are the result of videogames, and ignore the principals that order children to succumb to violent attacks because the authoritative figure said so.
..also, I would venture a guess that this may have something to do with the lack of respect for authority.
Well, like I said, it's probably a rarity. The feedback on the site I linked is about 50/50. It's either high praise or huge disappointment.
As for your AppleCare, I'll raise you a generic anecdote: I don't think worry of an unlikely situation should be motivation for buying an extended warranty.
If I ever get Apple anything again, it will be from a local Apple owned store. Just in case..
For reference store.apple.com is terrible. This is likely a rare case, but it happened.
Objective: I ordered a refurbished iPod from store.apple.com but it wouldn't charge via my computer or the wall adapter. I called their tech support, but they wouldn't help me at first because my warranty had expired. Eventually they decided the wall adapter was the culprit, and sent a replacement. It didn't work either. I had to return the iPod.
Subjective: My "refurbished" iPod didn't work at all. I was sure it was the iPod because it wouldn't charge via the firewire connector in my PC or the wall adapter. I called tech support, but the "genius" on the other end told me my warranty expired two months ago. How the hell did a one year warranty expire 1.5 months _before_ I made the purchase? Eventually, said "genius" claimed the iPod was not broken, the wall adapter was. The fact that the firewire port didn't charge the iPod either was because it was a PC's firewire port. Sometimes PC's firewire ports are only 4 wires instead of 6. I informed the moron that I had built the PC myself, it was a front panel port connected with a wiring harness, and it did in fact have 6 wires. "It's probably the wall adapter, we'll send you a new one." ...
After waiting a week the new adapter came and it didn't charge the iPod. I called to complain, but my warranty had expired. I was forced to return the iPod, but they wouldn't tell me how I could ship the broken, never refurbished (this is why the serial number lead to an iPod with an expired warranty; it was returned as broken and they simply threw it in a pile of refurbished iPods and sold it to me), piece of junk. They shipped me a completely broken piece of hardware and I had to make several calls to DHL to figure out how to return it.
Disclaimer: this is from the point of view of a traditional voice/data network, I don't know some specifics of WiMax..
There should have been simulations run before the network went live. The loads created by the simulations are a prerequisite for the network going into service.
The big test is the day the network actually goes live. Most if not all problems occur on the first day, or at least within the first 36-48 hours. If it's still up now, you don't have much to worry about; to cause a significant problem the client base must increase at a great rate in all areas covered by the network.
That's pretty much all you need to look at. If you need bus speed get the Q8200. If you need cache and VT get the Q6600. They are configured for entirely different uses.
Roommate tip: Invest in a router that has QoS. Make Bittorrent traffic lower priority than all other traffic. You will feel like you have a new connection:)
I think you left out some details which affect the impression the summary gives.
Her husband, who isn't her but is pretty close, openly states that he targeted the trooper, while she was in office, and he did so on his subjective opinions of the troopers health.
As for the stun gun, he wasn't attacking the child (which is what it sounds like imo). Not that the reasoning behind it was sound, but there was reasoning behind it. And it should be noted that his penalty was reduced.
The story and its links contain good background material, and should be read before deciding whether an abuse of power took place.
Quite a few pirates are gamers. They just love the replay value of a bigger, broader game; especially when it has human opponents rather than AI.
Cliff, I think, of the things you mentioned, DRM and ease of access are what should be focused on by the developer/publisher. What else stands in the way of obtaining and starting to play a game?
Slashdot Mirror
There's more to it than "1.2GHz". We don't know much about the Shiva architecture. According to the article it's "ARM9-like" because it's based on Feroceon and XScale. How many ARM9 encoders or transcoders have you heard of?
Also consider that although the Xbox can decode most everything, it's a closed system, which I'm sure added a little to the performance of XBMC code. I doubt a similar 733MHz Celeron desktop would be as capable even if it had more than 64MB of RAM.
Aside from serving video, the system may not be able to saturate its gigabit ethernet either. I read that spec as Marvell saying the CPU and SoC can push more than 100mbits, so they used gbit ethernet. Maybe its throughput is limited to, say, 20MBytes/s.
This is a sweet little toy, especially for its price, but it's not going to compare to most x86 mini-computers.
In a 3 drive RAID 0 array 350MB/s isn't that impressive. That's 116 2/3 MB/s per drive which is only slightly higher than the 1TB SATA spindles that were on sale months ago for less than a SSD. (Those speeds were maximums, though. Min was in the upper 60's I believe.)
That performance is cool but its price premium is huge for a drive that provides only a fraction of spindles' capacity. Until they drop in price or are handled more efficiently to improve their performance, they may be ready for prime time but they're being sold for PPV prices.
I don't think a Microsoft store would be like an Apple store. At an Apple store the salespeople think a chipset is a processor and the higher cost is justified because Apple uses different "premium" hardware in their computers that's not available in others. They're designed to sell nice features like MagSafe, glossy screens, and multi-finger touchpads.
I'm not saying the salespeople at the Microsoft store are going to be experts, just that Microsoft has never highlighted their similarities to Apple. They'll sell their products as devices rather than parts of a unique computing experience. The failed ad campaign you mentioned surely made them aware that their userbase is not interested in computing experiences; they're interested in things, and don't care too much about image or the emotional states promoted by some experience.
Not trying to sound like some weird Microsoft fan or rant nonsensically, just in a metaphorical mood..
An article about teaching nerds social skills is posted to Slashdot and it takes less than an hour before there is discussion of a female from Star Trek ..and allusion to Enterprise being terrible. :)
I think this stuff is standard practice for a big organization in a powerful position. Yesterday I tried buying coffee beans from a small (2 location) coffee shop located in a mall. Apparently Starbucks had leased a spot elsewhere in the mall and negotiated a clause into their contract with the mall. The small shop could sell Starbucks beans or make coffee with their own beans, but was forbidden from selling their own beans.
I'm not sure why that situation doesn't qualify as anti-competitive, but controlling distribution options is a basic part of some businesses' plans.
Oh, and of course this could be avoided by not counting movements less than 10-20ft towards vehicles' travel distance but that's more complex and less fun :)
Though the locations provided through GPS are accurate, they're not perfect. For a vehicle traveling at highway speeds the distance traveled between each reading is great, and inaccuracies are tiny in comparison. At lower speeds the ratio of the distances becomes closer. At a stop there will still be a slight location difference detected on each interval.
Somebody primarily traveling via city streets or during rush hour would be charged for tiny extra distances over time; considering Oregon's population the state will be scraping off a nice bonus from building reflections etc.
I haven't been able to figure out why, but my ISP offers 6mb/768kb DSL with a phone line for $20 cheaper than 1.5mb/384kb "dry-loop" DSL. With the added cost of a super-limited phone line and the taxes & fees, it's only a couple bucks more.
Well said! I have only been in the position to do this once, where I was tasked with designing a line graph within our product. I made the y value of the graph increase along the x axis: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. :)
99% of our customers will see it as an example. The other 1% will think "Oh. These guys are nerds like me! Cool!"
Greenpeace complains about lots of big companies' non-greenness. I heard from a co-worker who canvassed for Greenpeace long ago, for years, that they are a "greenwash".
There was another Greenpeace complaint recently, and when the canvassers in the downtown metropolitan area I work in were informed (by me) that "Greenpeace is a marketing organization; their information is skewed." the entire group of canvassers that I recognized every day on the way to work disappeared. Almost as if they investigated what I said and agreed.
About three weeks later new canvassers appeared. None of them were the same. One told me that my information was "wrong" but had no sources or reasoning to back that up.
The ideas behind Greenpeace are great general points that should be kept in mind but it seems that many of their statements should be taken with a grain of salt.
For reference, people made all kinds of fun toys after gaining knowledge of the insides of the engine and netcode. They then fixed so much that they released their own versions of the server, and eventually used that as a great line on their resume to get hired into the game coding biz. :)
I think Slashdot would be glad to hear those details
The Quake engine was the basis for both the Half-Life engine and the Quake2 engine, so they are related but there was no 'hybrid' per se. The Quake and Quake2 engines were released under the GPL. If the Half-Life engine source isn't available, it's likely due to it being a pre-GPL fork of the Quake engine (or something like that).
Uncle AC wonders if releasing code will expose vulnerabilities. Since so much of the engine has been available for years (since 1999, IIRC), there is relatively little risk. There was when the source for Quake was released. All kinds of hacks and cheats flooded around (for all Quake-engine games).. But that was long ago; perhaps people have forgotten.
Headlines are marketing, even if the body of a story is well balanced and objective. This particular story is somewhat balanced, but it's not being relayed objectively.
Take a quick look at the sources in the CNN article and their position on the subject. The first source, the one linking violent games to aggression, is a researcher (read: knowledgeable, but not necessarily experienced).
The only one who is actually a professional in the mental health field says "It's not the violence per se that's the problem.." and that "violent video games" is too vague.
The last doesn't actually say that video games are responsible for violence, just that they are an element of a "culture of disrespect" which is the real problem. He says the real impact is from the shaping of norms and attitude. That's a pretty distinct responsibility of parenting, not video games.
All that aside, the links to "celebrity-mom slugfest over vaccines" and "why food allergies in children are on the rise" that are interspersed throughout the story should indicate pretty strongly that CNN is interested in readers & page views, not thoughtful, objective communication.
I have no idea why it's like that. I was in school about 10 years ago, and the rules were made very clear. Every act of aggression is equal, including not only retaliation but self-defense, too.
If a bully attacks you with a bat you should take it. You won't be punished (except for being beaten with a bat). If you try to defend yourself both of you will be given equal punishments. Even if you get hit in the face but are able to push the person over and run like hell, that's somehow as bad as the initial attack.
I have no idea why people think crazy kids and school shootings are the result of videogames, and ignore the principals that order children to succumb to violent attacks because the authoritative figure said so.
..also, I would venture a guess that this may have something to do with the lack of respect for authority.
Well, like I said, it's probably a rarity. The feedback on the site I linked is about 50/50. It's either high praise or huge disappointment.
As for your AppleCare, I'll raise you a generic anecdote: I don't think worry of an unlikely situation should be motivation for buying an extended warranty.
If I ever get Apple anything again, it will be from a local Apple owned store. Just in case..
For reference store.apple.com is terrible. This is likely a rare case, but it happened.
Objective: I ordered a refurbished iPod from store.apple.com but it wouldn't charge via my computer or the wall adapter. I called their tech support, but they wouldn't help me at first because my warranty had expired. Eventually they decided the wall adapter was the culprit, and sent a replacement. It didn't work either. I had to return the iPod.
Subjective: My "refurbished" iPod didn't work at all. I was sure it was the iPod because it wouldn't charge via the firewire connector in my PC or the wall adapter. I called tech support, but the "genius" on the other end told me my warranty expired two months ago. How the hell did a one year warranty expire 1.5 months _before_ I made the purchase? Eventually, said "genius" claimed the iPod was not broken, the wall adapter was. The fact that the firewire port didn't charge the iPod either was because it was a PC's firewire port. Sometimes PC's firewire ports are only 4 wires instead of 6. I informed the moron that I had built the PC myself, it was a front panel port connected with a wiring harness, and it did in fact have 6 wires.
"It's probably the wall adapter, we'll send you a new one."
...
After waiting a week the new adapter came and it didn't charge the iPod. I called to complain, but my warranty had expired. I was forced to return the iPod, but they wouldn't tell me how I could ship the broken, never refurbished (this is why the serial number lead to an iPod with an expired warranty; it was returned as broken and they simply threw it in a pile of refurbished iPods and sold it to me), piece of junk.
They shipped me a completely broken piece of hardware and I had to make several calls to DHL to figure out how to return it.
It just works.
Disclaimer: this is from the point of view of a traditional voice/data network, I don't know some specifics of WiMax..
There should have been simulations run before the network went live. The loads created by the simulations are a prerequisite for the network going into service.
The big test is the day the network actually goes live. Most if not all problems occur on the first day, or at least within the first 36-48 hours. If it's still up now, you don't have much to worry about; to cause a significant problem the client base must increase at a great rate in all areas covered by the network.
That's pretty much all you need to look at. If you need bus speed get the Q8200. If you need cache and VT get the Q6600. They are configured for entirely different uses.
Roommate tip: Invest in a router that has QoS. Make Bittorrent traffic lower priority than all other traffic. You will feel like you have a new connection :)
Story here, with links to background material: http://www.adn.com/politics/story/468174.html
I think you left out some details which affect the impression the summary gives.
Her husband, who isn't her but is pretty close, openly states that he targeted the trooper, while she was in office, and he did so on his subjective opinions of the troopers health.
As for the stun gun, he wasn't attacking the child (which is what it sounds like imo). Not that the reasoning behind it was sound, but there was reasoning behind it. And it should be noted that his penalty was reduced.
The story and its links contain good background material, and should be read before deciding whether an abuse of power took place.
Holy crap, I wish I had sprayed milk out my nose.. But I'm eating chili :(
Apparently, even while in POSIX mode, bash isn't quite POSIX-compliant: http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-POSIX-Mode.html
Quite a few pirates are gamers. They just love the replay value of a bigger, broader game; especially when it has human opponents rather than AI.
Cliff, I think, of the things you mentioned, DRM and ease of access are what should be focused on by the developer/publisher. What else stands in the way of obtaining and starting to play a game?
Perhaps this is an indication that the ???? step before Profit! is MPAA lawyers..
..that I met over the weekend, it means you're a "weirdo who ate too much paste as a kid."
I don't think that convinced the other guy to install a closed-source alternative to OpenOffice.