This is why there should always be 2 copies of the BIOS. One that is physically read-only and contains the BIOS as shipped. And another writable one that can be disabled with a jumper. If your BIOS is corrupted or hijacked, you could always go back to the backup BIOS and restore.
Isn't this the case for most every motherboard, nowadays? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding how the procedure works, but I have thrashed my BIOS plenty of times during upgrades and have had to pop the coin battery and short the CMOS reset jumper to erase the EEPROM and restore the factory default BIOS. This implies, to me, that the motherboard kept a second copy of the factory BIOS lying around for when the EEPROM doesn't seem to exist.
Am I looking at this wrong, or aren't there two BIOSes, a programmable and a read-only-backup, on my motherboards?
I think it's silly how people constantly try to eliminate every imaginable element of risk from their lives instead of just getting out there and living it.
As someone with family members who have Type I diabetes (and may, myself), I would love for a computer that could automatically monitor blood sugar and adjust insulin accordingly (and maybe sound a warning if something gets too far out of whack) so that I/we could, as you put it, just get out there and live life.
With diabetes, if you are not closely monitored--either manually or by a machine--then going out and living/eating/acting as you wish produces an unacceptable level of risk. If you slowly and carefully monitor everything manually, you now have a significant impact to your daily life.
So yes, I would love to have a machine take care of the mundane, daily worries of such a condition. It's not about eliminating every possible risk in life (I enjoy climbing and hiking, and hope to continue to do so even if I am diagnosed with Type I diabetes), but about using the technology that we have to be able to push some things into the background so that we can focus on what *we* decide.
Much of the upper management is in RTP. Much development is in the process of moving to Bangalore.
My daily commute into Santa Clara takes me on a ten-to-fifteen minute drive through Cisco's main campus, where the majority of their engineering and design takes place. Yes, ten to fifteen minutes of actual driving, down a 2-3 mile stretch of road where nearly every office building you can see has the Cisco logo proudly displayed out front.
Maybe management fled the CA hustle for RTP, but engineering is still going strong in Cisco's dozens of building here in the Valley. (Plus, they funnel plenty of money into beautification of the roads and ways in their campus... it makes for a nice scenic drive when friends and family come to visit the area.:-) )
So, I guess Cisco, IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, Sony Ericson, NIH, EPA, NetApp, EMC, Red Hat and others don't count?
Cisco: Absolutely huge campus (headquarters) in San Jose/Milpitas, in the Silicon Valley
IBM: Research in Almaden and Austin, headquarters in New York
GlaxoSmithKline: Headquartered in UK, U.S. offices split between RTP and Pittsburgh, PA
Bayer: World headquarters: Germany; U.S. headquarters: Pittsburgh, PA. Minor research in RTP
Sony Ericsson: Everywhere.
NetApp: Headquarters (and most offices) in Sunnyvale, CA, in the Valley
EMC: Headquartered in Massachusetts, major offices in the Valley and China
Red Hat: Main offices near RTP
No one said that they don't count, but, as you can see, the RTP is more a conglomeration of small branch-offices of companies who direct their main focus elsewhere. I've been to Boston, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and the RTP, and the latter simply can't hold a candle to the tech environment and opportunities of the other three.
I just upgraded to a Phenom II 940 last night (I still haven't had time for benchmarks). One of the best features, for me, is that I was able to drop it right into my 1.5 year old AM2+/DDR1066 motherboard, upgrade the BIOS, and be on my way.
Though ROI and convenience weighed heavily, for me, there is one more bit of philosophy that affected my decision: If Intel and AMD were to offer me equal and balanced options, I would purchase AMD, so that next time I go looking for a CPU, I still have the choice.
I am a Mormon (converted a few years back, in college) and have lived in Ohio and California, but never Utah. I've visited friends in the area and my wife has some extended family there, but I have to say that I can't stand the so-called "Mormon culture" that has sprung up in some areas.
On issues of religion, we agree fully. As Latter-Day Saints (the actual name of members of the "Mormon" church), I would call them my brethren. But I most certainly don't get the Jello-eating, "oh-my-heck"-cursing, conservative-voting subculture that dominates the state.
At its core, this Utah behavior is a culture/tradition set rather than a religion. For example: Though the Vatican is an enclave of Italy, Irish Catholics and Latino Catholics bear little cultural resemblance to their Italian brethren.
The population of Utah is actually fairly small. Most Latter-Day Saints in the United States don't live in Utah, and most Latter-Day Saints in the world don't live in the United States. Please don't let Utah give us a bad name.:-)
One year ago, I was a quite healthy 160 lbs, enjoyed hiking, climbing, raquetball, etc., and was certainly "in shape".
Fast forward to now when I have a desk job and an infant at home... I am now only 120 lbs, having lost most of my former muscle mass. I love my job, but I am certainly no longer "in shape", as it were, and simply don't have the time to go out and exercise any more. I'd love to gain my weight back so I can fit into my old clothes (I had to cut new holes in my belt) and not feel so darn tired all day long.
Exercise really is key to health, even more so than diet, from my experience.
And I must say that Bucca di Beppo, as well as your description of it, hits quite close to the "real thing" seen at many family Easters and Thanksgivings.
then you have to use the odds of them making a mistake as the probability of the event happening.
This isn't what the actual study states, though the summary seems to hint that way. To quote from one-of-the-FA's:
Which means we are left with the possibility that their argument is wrong which Ord reckons conservatively to be about 10^-4, meaning that out of a sample of 10,000 independent arguments of similar apparent merit, one would have a serious error. Of course, this doesn't mean that the LHC is dangerous, only that there is no reasonable assurance of safety which, as Mark Buchanan writing in New Scientist this week says, is not the same thing at all.
To sum it up, they say that if a researcher predicts an occurrence rate for an event that is less than the researcher's own error rate, then the occurrence rate remains unknown ('cannot be assured')... not that it is equal to the researcher's error rate.
Re:Vista deserves credit...
on
Less Is Moore
·
· Score: 1
It's even worse than that. If you RTFA, you'll notice that they admit that Windows 7... well... really isn't any faster than Vista in its core. To quote the article:
I've been running a few benchmarks, just to find out exactly what sort of speed boost we're talking about. And I can exclusively reveal that the actual performance gap between Vista and Windows 7 is... nada. Absolutely nothing. Our Office benchmarks and video encoding tests complete in precisely the same time regardless of which OS is installed.
Yes, they've sped up bits of the front-end--perhaps by optimizing or even removing parts of Aero--but the core system seems to have remained the same. As a result, the user will see a snappier/less laggy interface and will claim "improvement!" while the heart of the OS lies unchanged.
I know I mentioned this elsewhere in the comments, but I wanted to agree with you and raise another point that most people haven't heard of.
In fact, extending the data is *damaging* because it's forcing tv stations to spend double the power output, which they can't afford, and cancel the hiring of technicians who would have performed the antenna upgrades. A delay hurts.
I work for a wireless company who purchased portions of the spectrum that the analog broadcasters are supposed to be moving out of. We have new services and technical improvements which utilize this spectrum, which means that we also have--as you mentioned--technicians to perform the upgrades and changes who are now on hold, support staff who now will have nothing to do until June, etc.
Though I agree that $50 is not a drop in the bucket to many, (I'm the kind of person who purchases the $1.25 pasta rather than the $1.75 pasta) I think that the negative effects of the government waffling on the issue are far greater than a decisive go or no go decision.
As I said in my other comment: we purchased this spectrum, paid for it, built technologies around it, and now are suddenly being told that we can't have it.
Actually, the timing of this does matter, though not to who probably comes to mind first when you consider the issue.
Certain wireless companies are getting hit hard by this change, as we (the companies) purchased portions of the supposed-to-be-former analog spectrum from the FCC. Companies already had roll-out plans in place for new services that were to begin this February which are now being put on hold (as well as all of the support staff and other employees dedicated to the new service) while the government mucks through this mess.
It's not a pretty picture. We purchased this spectrum, paid for it, built technologies around it, and now are suddenly being told that we can't have it.
I tried RTFA (sorry, please mod me done for this;) but, after clicked the "print" version, I couldn't find anything that looked like a benchmark report. No numbers. No tables. No graphs. All I saw was a page of [[weasel words]] or something like that.
I agree. I guess I've been spoiled by *real* benchmarks by spending the week on Tom's Hardware...
Though this article did give us the following gem:
Windows 7 essentially mirrored Vista in almost every scenario. Database tasks? Roughly 118 percent slower than XP on dual-core
...Would any CS grad student like to step in and inform us what 118% slower means in software terms? Does Windows 7 cause the CPU's program counter to mysteriously run backwards, now? ...*confused*...
I've moved three times since then, but I've always managed to land within a 20 minute drive of a Microcenter. Quite lucky, considering that there are only 21 nationwide.
The "going out of business" "20-50% off", etc prices were still higher than the BB across the street.
Agreed. When the Circuit City I mentioned earlier in the discussion went out of business, I figured I could at least pick up a PC game or two, or maybe a DVD for my wife, on the cheap, as their sale progressed to "20-80% Off Storewide".
No such luck.
Their DVD racks were mostly empty by that time, and those that remained were $20 - $30 for titles I had never heard of. (I managed to pick up Juno for $5 at the adjacent Target, though). The PC games? They were even worse. Ten-year-old Starcraft was selling for $50 - 20%, TES IV: Oblivion had been marked up to something like $69.99 - 20%, and even bargain bin titles such as Roller Coaster Tycoon 2: WhoKnowsWhat Expansion had a ticket price of $30.
Circuit City...overpriced and useless to the very end.
In my hometown, we had a Best Buy, a Circuit City, and a Microcenter within about a.25 mile radius. (Don't ask me which planning genius decided we needed that level of saturation, but at least there were advantages for the consumer.) My options, when it came to purchasing that tech-whatever-on-sale that I needed, tended to go as follows:
* Best Buy -- Be told that there are 6 of the item remaining in stock, but... uh... "We can't seem to find them. No, we don't do rainchecks, why do you ask?".
* Circuit City -- Find the item, take it to the cashier, see it ring up at 125% of the shelf-listed price, and be told "Sorry, what the cash register says is what goes."
* Microcenter -- Find the item (no advertised sale, but a decent price nonetheless), chat with a guy for 10 minutes about the latest AMD motherboards, and check out without further issues.
Needless to say, one of these stores received the majority of my business, as well as that of the other tech-knowledgeables in the area. The other two shops are not doing quite as well.
It affects lots of things, such as adoption, hospital visits, and survivorship. how'd you like to live with someone for 40 years and lose your house when he dies because you can't automatically inherit the place of residence? There are lots of benefits to marriage that gays are being denied.
Regardless of what you think/believe/wish/want on the issue of Proposition 8, it is important to get the basic facts straight. In CA (which is the only place where the exact issue known as Proposition 8 applies), all the rights you mentioned and more are given to both heterosexual "spouses" and homosexual "domestic partners".
There is no distinction between the two as far as rights are concerned in CA law. The issue that Proposition 8 addressed was the use and application of the term "marriage" in state law.
From a biological perspective, humans need the "help" of the intermediary insect. The silkworm food does not contain the complete proteins that a human needs to survive.
We're omnivores--i.e. our bodies do not possess the faculties to produce all the end-product proteins from the silkworm's simple diet of mulberry leaves. Instead, we evolved to "outsource" that protein production to other animals, as it gave our ancestors some sort of evolutionary advantage.
So, rather than trying to invent an artificial kitchen that, Larry Niven style, can transform plant matter and sunlight into a complete human-sustaining diet, we instead rely on the already-existing organisms in nature that can perform that step for our bodies.
This has been one of Obama's big issues since the early primaries. It is one of the reasons my wife (who works in the healthcare industry) threw her support behind him right off the bat. I'm sure McCain mentioned it one time or another, but that doesn't mean that Obama should suddenly turn his back on the idea and walk straight in the opposite direction...
Now, I know I'm just an anecdote, but I have been witness to many ways that hospitals make this quite difficult, HIPAA or otherwise. My wife and I have moved a number of times in the past few years, and we've seen all sorts of tricks.
One hospital would not give us her records until we showed up in person and paid a number of random fees. They refused to simply send on her records to our new hospital. When we later wanted to have a specialty procedure done in Boston, the new hospital only sent insufficient fragments of the records to Boston.
We've even had such extremes as a doctor personally taking certain records and storing them at his home as he wanted to do some "extra research". It came as a surprise to us when these records were "unavailable" when it came time for us to move.
We're both privacy advocates, but we also agree that this is a change that is essential to the healthcare industry (and was one of our major reasons for supporting Obama). It's certainly about time.
Okay, your comment inspired me to throw this together. Behold, a review of the characters and character portrayal in each Final Fantasy!
FF I -- 0/5 - Your characters don't really have... "characters". Personality had not yet been invented.
FF II -- * To be honest... I never played this one.
FF III -- 3/5 - Even without individualized personalities, both PCs and NPCs manage to come off as quite lovable and entertaining in this NES classic, though it gets awkward when Princess Sarah expresses her love for you... er... all of you.
FF IV -- 2/5 - Each character now has a specific personality, but these personalities tend to be more stereotypes than actual characters-with-dimension: I'm a bad guy! Rarrr!.. I'm a good guy! *holy*.. I'm his wife! *swoon*.. etc.
FF V -- 3/5 - Similar style to FF IV, but a definite improvement. This is the earliest FF with real individualized character attachment (who doesn't love Galuf?), and it really plays on this.
FF VI -- 5/5 - A slew of characters are presented, but this doesn't stop the game from giving each one a back story, personality, and room for growth. The myriad side-quests let you explore more of every character if you so desire, and the well-written dialog (no more "You spoony bard!") is a plus.
FF VII -- 3/5 - Fewer PCs in this game, and, somehow, not as well done as those in FF VI. Though the characters are developed more, they also seem to grow less. It's like everyone is waiting for Aeris to come back or something.
FF VIII-- 1/5 - Beginning of game: I'm emo, I'm goth, I'm a punk. *whine*...... End of game: I'm emo, I'm goth, I'm a punk. *sigh*
FF IX -- 5/5 - An excellent combination of VII's character scheme with VI's character development. Good guys and bad guys and the rest cover every available character niche, and even move between them as the story progresses. People lose their naivete, power corrupts, the lonely find family, etc. etc. etc. This game focuses more on the characters in your party than the world around them, and does it well.
FF X -- 4/5 - Similar to FF VII, but with a bit more simulated character growth. That, and Wakka is debatably the best FF character, ever.
FF XI -- NaN/5 - This game does not exist. Heathens!
FF XII -- 3/5 - Unfortunately, Vaan seems to get stupider as the game goes on. Other than that, Balthier rivals Wakka in many ways, and you do kind of get worried that Ashe just wants to rule the world. Some of the most *interesting* characters come from this game, but there is nary a side quest to develop them further. Sadly, all the side quests were converted from miniature storylines to MMO style grinds and runs.
So there you have it! I think I'll go play FF III once this day is out.
For a good, low power processor, you need to either have a very innovative, low-power design, or have a very high-tech process that can produce low-power circuits.
Intel has the latter, as their fabs are pretty much the best in the world, hence the success of the Atom. On the other hand are CPU's like the Qualcomm Snapdragon, which, though it uses a less cutting edge technology, it has a design that is the result of over a decade of low-power design. No company, at present, has both the design and the tech. (Thankfully. Otherwise, competition could vanish quickly.)
So I think [as does AMD] that it's best that AMD, whose innovations are in the fairly different world of high-performance and clock-by-clock optimization, stick with competing against Intel on the desktop/server/non-ultra-mobile-laptop market. I hope the best for AMD in this market... not out of any fanboy-ism, but because, next time I build myself a gaming computer, I still want a choice of processors.
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This is why there should always be 2 copies of the BIOS. One that is physically read-only and contains the BIOS as shipped. And another writable one that can be disabled with a jumper. If your BIOS is corrupted or hijacked, you could always go back to the backup BIOS and restore.
Isn't this the case for most every motherboard, nowadays? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding how the procedure works, but I have thrashed my BIOS plenty of times during upgrades and have had to pop the coin battery and short the CMOS reset jumper to erase the EEPROM and restore the factory default BIOS. This implies, to me, that the motherboard kept a second copy of the factory BIOS lying around for when the EEPROM doesn't seem to exist.
Am I looking at this wrong, or aren't there two BIOSes, a programmable and a read-only-backup, on my motherboards?
I think it's silly how people constantly try to eliminate every imaginable element of risk from their lives instead of just getting out there and living it.
As someone with family members who have Type I diabetes (and may, myself), I would love for a computer that could automatically monitor blood sugar and adjust insulin accordingly (and maybe sound a warning if something gets too far out of whack) so that I/we could, as you put it, just get out there and live life.
With diabetes, if you are not closely monitored--either manually or by a machine--then going out and living/eating/acting as you wish produces an unacceptable level of risk. If you slowly and carefully monitor everything manually, you now have a significant impact to your daily life.
So yes, I would love to have a machine take care of the mundane, daily worries of such a condition. It's not about eliminating every possible risk in life (I enjoy climbing and hiking, and hope to continue to do so even if I am diagnosed with Type I diabetes), but about using the technology that we have to be able to push some things into the background so that we can focus on what *we* decide.
Much of the upper management is in RTP. Much development is in the process of moving to Bangalore.
My daily commute into Santa Clara takes me on a ten-to-fifteen minute drive through Cisco's main campus, where the majority of their engineering and design takes place. Yes, ten to fifteen minutes of actual driving, down a 2-3 mile stretch of road where nearly every office building you can see has the Cisco logo proudly displayed out front.
:-) )
Maybe management fled the CA hustle for RTP, but engineering is still going strong in Cisco's dozens of building here in the Valley. (Plus, they funnel plenty of money into beautification of the roads and ways in their campus... it makes for a nice scenic drive when friends and family come to visit the area.
So, I guess Cisco, IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, Sony Ericson, NIH, EPA, NetApp, EMC, Red Hat and others don't count?
Cisco: Absolutely huge campus (headquarters) in San Jose/Milpitas, in the Silicon Valley
IBM: Research in Almaden and Austin, headquarters in New York
GlaxoSmithKline: Headquartered in UK, U.S. offices split between RTP and Pittsburgh, PA
Bayer: World headquarters: Germany; U.S. headquarters: Pittsburgh, PA. Minor research in RTP
Sony Ericsson: Everywhere.
NetApp: Headquarters (and most offices) in Sunnyvale, CA, in the Valley EMC: Headquartered in Massachusetts, major offices in the Valley and China
Red Hat: Main offices near RTP
No one said that they don't count, but, as you can see, the RTP is more a conglomeration of small branch-offices of companies who direct their main focus elsewhere. I've been to Boston, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and the RTP, and the latter simply can't hold a candle to the tech environment and opportunities of the other three.
I just upgraded to a Phenom II 940 last night (I still haven't had time for benchmarks). One of the best features, for me, is that I was able to drop it right into my 1.5 year old AM2+/DDR1066 motherboard, upgrade the BIOS, and be on my way.
Though ROI and convenience weighed heavily, for me, there is one more bit of philosophy that affected my decision:
If Intel and AMD were to offer me equal and balanced options, I would purchase AMD, so that next time I go looking for a CPU, I still have the choice.
Agreed.
:-)
I am a Mormon (converted a few years back, in college) and have lived in Ohio and California, but never Utah. I've visited friends in the area and my wife has some extended family there, but I have to say that I can't stand the so-called "Mormon culture" that has sprung up in some areas.
On issues of religion, we agree fully. As Latter-Day Saints (the actual name of members of the "Mormon" church), I would call them my brethren. But I most certainly don't get the Jello-eating, "oh-my-heck"-cursing, conservative-voting subculture that dominates the state.
At its core, this Utah behavior is a culture/tradition set rather than a religion. For example: Though the Vatican is an enclave of Italy, Irish Catholics and Latino Catholics bear little cultural resemblance to their Italian brethren.
The population of Utah is actually fairly small. Most Latter-Day Saints in the United States don't live in Utah, and most Latter-Day Saints in the world don't live in the United States. Please don't let Utah give us a bad name.
Agreed.
One year ago, I was a quite healthy 160 lbs, enjoyed hiking, climbing, raquetball, etc., and was certainly "in shape".
Fast forward to now when I have a desk job and an infant at home... I am now only 120 lbs, having lost most of my former muscle mass. I love my job, but I am certainly no longer "in shape", as it were, and simply don't have the time to go out and exercise any more. I'd love to gain my weight back so I can fit into my old clothes (I had to cut new holes in my belt) and not feel so darn tired all day long.
Exercise really is key to health, even more so than diet, from my experience.
I am an Italian American.
And I must say that Bucca di Beppo, as well as your description of it, hits quite close to the "real thing" seen at many family Easters and Thanksgivings.
then you have to use the odds of them making a mistake as the probability of the event happening.
This isn't what the actual study states, though the summary seems to hint that way. To quote from one-of-the-FA's:
Which means we are left with the possibility that their argument is wrong which Ord reckons conservatively to be about 10^-4, meaning that out of a sample of 10,000 independent arguments of similar apparent merit, one would have a serious error.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the LHC is dangerous, only that there is no reasonable assurance of safety which, as Mark Buchanan writing in New Scientist this week says, is not the same thing at all.
To sum it up, they say that if a researcher predicts an occurrence rate for an event that is less than the researcher's own error rate, then the occurrence rate remains unknown ('cannot be assured')... not that it is equal to the researcher's error rate.
I've been running a few benchmarks, just to find out exactly what sort of speed boost we're talking about. And I can exclusively reveal that the actual performance gap between Vista and Windows 7 is... nada. Absolutely nothing. Our Office benchmarks and video encoding tests complete in precisely the same time regardless of which OS is installed.
Yes, they've sped up bits of the front-end--perhaps by optimizing or even removing parts of Aero--but the core system seems to have remained the same. As a result, the user will see a snappier/less laggy interface and will claim "improvement!" while the heart of the OS lies unchanged.
In fact, extending the data is *damaging* because it's forcing tv stations to spend double the power output, which they can't afford, and cancel the hiring of technicians who would have performed the antenna upgrades. A delay hurts.
I work for a wireless company who purchased portions of the spectrum that the analog broadcasters are supposed to be moving out of. We have new services and technical improvements which utilize this spectrum, which means that we also have--as you mentioned--technicians to perform the upgrades and changes who are now on hold, support staff who now will have nothing to do until June, etc.
Though I agree that $50 is not a drop in the bucket to many, (I'm the kind of person who purchases the $1.25 pasta rather than the $1.75 pasta) I think that the negative effects of the government waffling on the issue are far greater than a decisive go or no go decision.
As I said in my other comment: we purchased this spectrum, paid for it, built technologies around it, and now are suddenly being told that we can't have it.
Actually, the timing of this does matter, though not to who probably comes to mind first when you consider the issue.
Certain wireless companies are getting hit hard by this change, as we (the companies) purchased portions of the supposed-to-be-former analog spectrum from the FCC. Companies already had roll-out plans in place for new services that were to begin this February which are now being put on hold (as well as all of the support staff and other employees dedicated to the new service) while the government mucks through this mess.
It's not a pretty picture. We purchased this spectrum, paid for it, built technologies around it, and now are suddenly being told that we can't have it.
I tried RTFA (sorry, please mod me done for this ;) but, after clicked the "print" version, I couldn't find anything that looked like a benchmark report. No numbers. No tables. No graphs. All I saw was a page of [[weasel words]] or something like that.
I agree. I guess I've been spoiled by *real* benchmarks by spending the week on Tom's Hardware...
Though this article did give us the following gem:
Windows 7 essentially mirrored Vista in almost every scenario. Database tasks? Roughly 118 percent slower than XP on dual-core
...Would any CS grad student like to step in and inform us what 118% slower means in software terms? Does Windows 7 cause the CPU's program counter to mysteriously run backwards, now?
...*confused*...
A case of beer is up to $13? Is that the good stuff or the cheap stuff?
...Wow... now I know why I switched to Pepsi.
Close... Cleveland.
I've moved three times since then, but I've always managed to land within a 20 minute drive of a Microcenter. Quite lucky, considering that there are only 21 nationwide.
The "going out of business" "20-50% off", etc prices were still higher than the BB across the street.
Agreed. When the Circuit City I mentioned earlier in the discussion went out of business, I figured I could at least pick up a PC game or two, or maybe a DVD for my wife, on the cheap, as their sale progressed to "20-80% Off Storewide".
No such luck.
Their DVD racks were mostly empty by that time, and those that remained were $20 - $30 for titles I had never heard of. (I managed to pick up Juno for $5 at the adjacent Target, though). The PC games? They were even worse. Ten-year-old Starcraft was selling for $50 - 20%, TES IV: Oblivion had been marked up to something like $69.99 - 20%, and even bargain bin titles such as Roller Coaster Tycoon 2: WhoKnowsWhat Expansion had a ticket price of $30.
Circuit City...overpriced and useless to the very end.
I'll drink to that.
In my hometown, we had a Best Buy, a Circuit City, and a Microcenter within about a .25 mile radius. (Don't ask me which planning genius decided we needed that level of saturation, but at least there were advantages for the consumer.) My options, when it came to purchasing that tech-whatever-on-sale that I needed, tended to go as follows:
* Best Buy -- Be told that there are 6 of the item remaining in stock, but... uh... "We can't seem to find them. No, we don't do rainchecks, why do you ask?".
* Circuit City -- Find the item, take it to the cashier, see it ring up at 125% of the shelf-listed price, and be told "Sorry, what the cash register says is what goes."
* Microcenter -- Find the item (no advertised sale, but a decent price nonetheless), chat with a guy for 10 minutes about the latest AMD motherboards, and check out without further issues.
Needless to say, one of these stores received the majority of my business, as well as that of the other tech-knowledgeables in the area. The other two shops are not doing quite as well.
It affects lots of things, such as adoption, hospital visits, and survivorship. how'd you like to live with someone for 40 years and lose your house when he dies because you can't automatically inherit the place of residence? There are lots of benefits to marriage that gays are being denied.
Regardless of what you think/believe/wish/want on the issue of Proposition 8, it is important to get the basic facts straight. In CA (which is the only place where the exact issue known as Proposition 8 applies), all the rights you mentioned and more are given to both heterosexual "spouses" and homosexual "domestic partners".
There is no distinction between the two as far as rights are concerned in CA law. The issue that Proposition 8 addressed was the use and application of the term "marriage" in state law.
From a biological perspective, humans need the "help" of the intermediary insect. The silkworm food does not contain the complete proteins that a human needs to survive.
We're omnivores--i.e. our bodies do not possess the faculties to produce all the end-product proteins from the silkworm's simple diet of mulberry leaves. Instead, we evolved to "outsource" that protein production to other animals, as it gave our ancestors some sort of evolutionary advantage.
So, rather than trying to invent an artificial kitchen that, Larry Niven style, can transform plant matter and sunlight into a complete human-sustaining diet, we instead rely on the already-existing organisms in nature that can perform that step for our bodies.
Wait-wait-wait-wait... Do you mean to say that you've found a job in the (non-government) tech industry that lets you work only 40 hours a week?
... Are they hiring?
Uh... Citation Needed?
This has been one of Obama's big issues since the early primaries. It is one of the reasons my wife (who works in the healthcare industry) threw her support behind him right off the bat. I'm sure McCain mentioned it one time or another, but that doesn't mean that Obama should suddenly turn his back on the idea and walk straight in the opposite direction...
It's pretty easy to get your records now.
Now, I know I'm just an anecdote, but I have been witness to many ways that hospitals make this quite difficult, HIPAA or otherwise. My wife and I have moved a number of times in the past few years, and we've seen all sorts of tricks.
One hospital would not give us her records until we showed up in person and paid a number of random fees. They refused to simply send on her records to our new hospital. When we later wanted to have a specialty procedure done in Boston, the new hospital only sent insufficient fragments of the records to Boston.
We've even had such extremes as a doctor personally taking certain records and storing them at his home as he wanted to do some "extra research". It came as a surprise to us when these records were "unavailable" when it came time for us to move.
We're both privacy advocates, but we also agree that this is a change that is essential to the healthcare industry (and was one of our major reasons for supporting Obama). It's certainly about time.
Yeah... I ignored that for a reason. I chose to rebuke the demons of FF XI, but X-2? It warrants not a mention.
Okay, your comment inspired me to throw this together. Behold, a review of the characters and character portrayal in each Final Fantasy!
... er... all of you.
.. I'm a good guy! *holy* .. I'm his wife! *swoon* .. etc.
... ... End of game: I'm emo, I'm goth, I'm a punk. *sigh*
FF I -- 0/5 - Your characters don't really have... "characters". Personality had not yet been invented.
FF II -- * To be honest... I never played this one.
FF III -- 3/5 - Even without individualized personalities, both PCs and NPCs manage to come off as quite lovable and entertaining in this NES classic, though it gets awkward when Princess Sarah expresses her love for you
FF IV -- 2/5 - Each character now has a specific personality, but these personalities tend to be more stereotypes than actual characters-with-dimension: I'm a bad guy! Rarrr!
FF V -- 3/5 - Similar style to FF IV, but a definite improvement. This is the earliest FF with real individualized character attachment (who doesn't love Galuf?), and it really plays on this.
FF VI -- 5/5 - A slew of characters are presented, but this doesn't stop the game from giving each one a back story, personality, and room for growth. The myriad side-quests let you explore more of every character if you so desire, and the well-written dialog (no more "You spoony bard!") is a plus.
FF VII -- 3/5 - Fewer PCs in this game, and, somehow, not as well done as those in FF VI. Though the characters are developed more, they also seem to grow less. It's like everyone is waiting for Aeris to come back or something.
FF VIII-- 1/5 - Beginning of game: I'm emo, I'm goth, I'm a punk. *whine*
FF IX -- 5/5 - An excellent combination of VII's character scheme with VI's character development. Good guys and bad guys and the rest cover every available character niche, and even move between them as the story progresses. People lose their naivete, power corrupts, the lonely find family, etc. etc. etc. This game focuses more on the characters in your party than the world around them, and does it well.
FF X -- 4/5 - Similar to FF VII, but with a bit more simulated character growth. That, and Wakka is debatably the best FF character, ever.
FF XI -- NaN/5 - This game does not exist. Heathens!
FF XII -- 3/5 - Unfortunately, Vaan seems to get stupider as the game goes on. Other than that, Balthier rivals Wakka in many ways, and you do kind of get worried that Ashe just wants to rule the world. Some of the most *interesting* characters come from this game, but there is nary a side quest to develop them further. Sadly, all the side quests were converted from miniature storylines to MMO style grinds and runs.
So there you have it!
I think I'll go play FF III once this day is out.
For a good, low power processor, you need to either have a very innovative, low-power design, or have a very high-tech process that can produce low-power circuits.
Intel has the latter, as their fabs are pretty much the best in the world, hence the success of the Atom. On the other hand are CPU's like the Qualcomm Snapdragon, which, though it uses a less cutting edge technology, it has a design that is the result of over a decade of low-power design. No company, at present, has both the design and the tech. (Thankfully. Otherwise, competition could vanish quickly.)
So I think [as does AMD] that it's best that AMD, whose innovations are in the fairly different world of high-performance and clock-by-clock optimization, stick with competing against Intel on the desktop/server/non-ultra-mobile-laptop market. I hope the best for AMD in this market... not out of any fanboy-ism, but because, next time I build myself a gaming computer, I still want a choice of processors.