I think the most interesting thing to come out of E3 this time round was the consoles. It isn't all that often when the three big time players release details around the same dates, and I suspect that many people were interested to find Sony's response to the Xbox 360 'launch party'.
I think it was most disappointing that Nintendo couldn't elaborate on the capabilities of their latest console or give us an insight into what they truly believe will compete with the PSP -- after all, rumors suggest that the DS is merely a 'third pillar'. It was also pretty dreadful that Sony chose to show concept videos and pre-rendered trailers instead of actual game footage rendered in real time, as Microsoft did -- even if it was on Alpha hardware (read: PowerMac G5s).
It definitely showed for one thing, that gaming is taking a nice twist down the High Definition path -- and that online services and expectations are much, much higher than four years ago. The only thing I fear, is that the price will be much higher too...
Exactly. Remember a couple of years ago when we got zero? That was just months after we went to war with Iraq, much to Europe's annoyance. Coincidence? I think not.
As for your second point, why would the amount of money contributed to the EU correlate in any way with the popularity of the songs? Looking above, you'd expect the opposite, actually. A country is a large contributor because it's, well, a large country. And a large country tend (other things being equal) to be more insular and less influenced by the cultures around it. The songs will tend not to appeal as widely among its neighbours or other european countries as the smaller, more exposed, countries.
Quite true; however, it is simply too coincidental for this to be happening consistently year after year. Also, this year many of the songs sounded nearly identical, suggesting that more political motives were at work, rather than simply differing tastes.
I hope that MS learned from the modchips of the past to find out that people want to fully harness the power of the machine, and not be limited to playing only XBox games on it.
Why would Microsoft learn from mod chips? Especially not in a positive way, as far as the modders are concerned. Microsoft are in the business to make money, and they do that by selling games. Xbox Games. They don't make any money from PS2 games someone tries to play on a modded Xbox, so they aren't going to make it nice and easy to mod the Xbox. I strongly suspect, that Microsoft has learned from mod chips, and that they are going to do everything in their power to snub them out at the source.
The other serious problem with the mod chips, is the enormous amount of integration with the Xbox Live services. On older Xboxes, if you modified the console in any way you could kiss goodbye to your Live subscription. With free Xbox Live access, and access tied into many of the features, Microsoft could seriously cut the features for people using modded Xboxes, just by cutting out the Xbox Live.
As far as the Dashboard is concerned, it is supposed to be quite customisable. Various colour schemes and skins are planned for the future, with the possibility of user built skins. In this case, you wouldn't need to suffer what you consider a nasty dashboard -- change it!
Yeah, I could do that, but i'd feel a little foolish on a packed train instructing my phone to "Dial Davy Jones on his mobile"... and then watching as my phone screws it up and I have to try again.:)
The host, Terry Wogan of BBC Radio 2, has to be the only reason I watch the Eurovision Song Contest. As a UK resident too, it is one of the silliest programs we have on our schedule -- and we continue to humiliate ourselves year after year.
This year, we lost out right at the bottom, with only 18 points. Compare that to a Moldovan granny banging a drum, which sailed on to 6th place with 128 points. And, before you ask, the granny in question was beating the drum from a rocking chair on stage. The commentary before and after that little number was hilarious.
The real problem with Eurovision, is the underlying politics. The Eastern European and Baltic Countries cannot dismiss this as a singing competition. They instead fight furiously for votes, and vote for the neighbours whenever possible. This is what is turning the whole competition into a farce... the Baltic 'block voting' means that the 4 primary contributors to the European economy (France, UK, Germany and Spain) are the last 4 on the leaderboard -- year after year.
I makes me wonder exactly why we continue this ridiculous tradition -- Greece gives 12 points to Cyprus, Cyprus gives 12 points to Greece, and on and on... Quite frankly also, the singing was abysmal -- I can sing better when drunk than the winning entry this year, and that is saying something.
The integration of their other services is what makes this a not-so-hidden gem. I like being able to have my Gmail, Google News and regular Google Search all viewable on the one page. The weather, Slashdot and other news options are an enormous bonus -- as yet, this is replacing my RSS aggregator as all my feeds are on the site.
I like the fact that Google have not lost sight of their original focus: search. Many of the other web portals, like Yahoo or MSN, have all the graphics heavy customisation on the page and then throw their search box in as an afterthought (although this is becoming less obvious).
Google has just a couple of additions to make in order to produce another winning solution: integrated RSS feeds (as someone has already suggested), international weather information (or international versions of the customised page) and the option to put customised search buttons (like the useful Search Linux and Search Uncle Sam) under the search box. That I would like to see.
True, the ground based telescopes are having a great impact on the research, but I believe many 'citizens who want to see pretty pictures' may be quite disillusioned with NASA after HST is grounded. As you say, it (along with the Shuttle) is their main PR device.
However, I do believe there is a place for space telescopes -- they provide pictures from outwith atmospheric interference/scattering, as well as being able to see further in many cases. The problem I have with NASA at the moment is not the inevitable grounding of the HST (it is outdated and broken), it is the lack of a replacement in the foreseeable future. To me, the great research from Hubble represents the space telescopes, and that is a technology worth saving.
Take a good look at those photos. How would you feel if NASA pulled the plug on such a successful project tomorrow, without a replacement for many years?
I think it would be a terrible shame if such an asset to the space program -- something that has had huge benefits to the world of Astronomy and science -- was just pulled out of the sky because of money troubles. It would be a sad reflection on the world we live in.
I believe it is overkill from performance and cooling point of view. I don't believe that 'liquid metal' cooling will provide any better performance than other (likely less expensive) options such as fans/heatsinks and water cooling.
Also, anyone who has a water-cooled GPU that sits unused doesn't really need to fork out lots of money for 'liquid metal' cooling do they?
Granted, it doesn't need mechanical pumps, waterblocks, but we've been told precious little about the specifications and technology behind it.
It may well need a bigger reservoir than we think, or it may well have a tiny reservior, with the potential to be scaled down for use in mini-PCI and onboard chips -- that still reach ludicrous temperatures. If the latter is true, then i've underrated it and misunderstood entirely.
At this stage, we can only speculate, but thats my humble opinion. Whether it is correct or not (most likely not) is beside the point:D
First in the Blizzard range will be the SAPPHIRE Blizzard RADEON X850 XT and Blizzard RADEON X850 XT Platinum Editions. Blizzard delivers the future of gaming with the ability to push blistering frame rates and deliver environments erupting with vibrant colours and highly detailed textures rendered in High-Definition clarity.
Combining Sapphire innovations with game developers' creations, users won't miss a single feature of today's gaming titles. This hardware boasts 16 parallel pixel pipelines, 256MB of GDDR3 memory, and PCI Express interface. From innovative minds working to deliver to users who demand the peak of performance in every aspect of their graphics card, the Sapphire Blizzard RADEON X850 XT Turns the Ordinary into Extraordinary.
Is all this not a little overkill? I mean, really, isn't water-cooling cool enough for people? Certainly, I have a GPU cooled with the good 'ol fan & heatsink combo -- I get damn good performance, pretty close to what they're describing and it didn't cost me the Earth. The noise isn't bad either: it's drowned out many times over by the fans on the PSU.
The other interesting thing to note -- while this may be really useful for the up and coming mini-PCs (think Mac Mini) that need a well cooled (to prevent overheating) and quiet solution -- it'll take up too much space. An extra PCI slot is just a no go when space is at a premium. I'd also love to see this type of technology implemented on mini-PCI slots, where the extra cooling is essential for performance. Now that would be useful.
I suppose that really, the true call to the phone manufacturers should be to not lose sight of the original purpose of the device, rather than cut out features.
I guess I was just unlucky with the phone I chose. It also hits home again, that the control is with the end-user: try before you buy, and pick one that suits your needs. But those key shortcuts sound like a damn good idea to me.:)
We're back to the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none situation here.
With the amount of new technology and features in phones today, their original purpose is becoming less and less efficient.
For example: on my old Nokia 3310, I pushed the 'Down' button until I found the person I wanted to call, then I pressed the 'Phone' button and it dialled the number. No difficulties there.
On my new, all-singing-all-dancing Samsung monstrosity, I must press the 'Menu' button, whisk past 'Camera' and 'Applications' to find 'Phone Book', press 'OK', scroll down to the person I want to phone, press 'OK' again, select the number, then press 'Phone'.
I can grasp that some people want to be able to snap pictures at ridiculously low resolutions, send those unintelligable photos to their friends, watch videos while on the bus, etc etc etc... Now, in this technologically oriented world, we are inundated with devices that do one job supremely well -- I have an iPod for music, a PDA for organisation.. Why is finding a phone that just phones such a difficulty?
You can still have links categorized by hand. Just use a directory, not a search engine.
There's still the original Yahoo directory: http://dir.yahoo.com/. Which, by the way, you can actually search for what you want. All links are hand moderated, so what you're looking for should be relevent to the category.
There's also the Open Directory Project: http://dmoz.org/. This is the roughly the same as the Yahoo version.. but its open!:)
Slashdot Mirror
I think the most interesting thing to come out of E3 this time round was the consoles. It isn't all that often when the three big time players release details around the same dates, and I suspect that many people were interested to find Sony's response to the Xbox 360 'launch party'.
I think it was most disappointing that Nintendo couldn't elaborate on the capabilities of their latest console or give us an insight into what they truly believe will compete with the PSP -- after all, rumors suggest that the DS is merely a 'third pillar'. It was also pretty dreadful that Sony chose to show concept videos and pre-rendered trailers instead of actual game footage rendered in real time, as Microsoft did -- even if it was on Alpha hardware (read: PowerMac G5s).
It definitely showed for one thing, that gaming is taking a nice twist down the High Definition path -- and that online services and expectations are much, much higher than four years ago. The only thing I fear, is that the price will be much higher too...
Exactly. Remember a couple of years ago when we got zero? That was just months after we went to war with Iraq, much to Europe's annoyance. Coincidence? I think not.
As for your second point, why would the amount of money contributed to the EU correlate in any way with the popularity of the songs? Looking above, you'd expect the opposite, actually. A country is a large contributor because it's, well, a large country. And a large country tend (other things being equal) to be more insular and less influenced by the cultures around it. The songs will tend not to appeal as widely among its neighbours or other european countries as the smaller, more exposed, countries.
Quite true; however, it is simply too coincidental for this to be happening consistently year after year. Also, this year many of the songs sounded nearly identical, suggesting that more political motives were at work, rather than simply differing tastes.
I hope that MS learned from the modchips of the past to find out that people want to fully harness the power of the machine, and not be limited to playing only XBox games on it.
Why would Microsoft learn from mod chips? Especially not in a positive way, as far as the modders are concerned. Microsoft are in the business to make money, and they do that by selling games. Xbox Games. They don't make any money from PS2 games someone tries to play on a modded Xbox, so they aren't going to make it nice and easy to mod the Xbox. I strongly suspect, that Microsoft has learned from mod chips, and that they are going to do everything in their power to snub them out at the source.
The other serious problem with the mod chips, is the enormous amount of integration with the Xbox Live services. On older Xboxes, if you modified the console in any way you could kiss goodbye to your Live subscription. With free Xbox Live access, and access tied into many of the features, Microsoft could seriously cut the features for people using modded Xboxes, just by cutting out the Xbox Live.
As far as the Dashboard is concerned, it is supposed to be quite customisable. Various colour schemes and skins are planned for the future, with the possibility of user built skins. In this case, you wouldn't need to suffer what you consider a nasty dashboard -- change it!
Yeah, I could do that, but i'd feel a little foolish on a packed train instructing my phone to "Dial Davy Jones on his mobile"... and then watching as my phone screws it up and I have to try again. :)
The host, Terry Wogan of BBC Radio 2, has to be the only reason I watch the Eurovision Song Contest. As a UK resident too, it is one of the silliest programs we have on our schedule -- and we continue to humiliate ourselves year after year.
This year, we lost out right at the bottom, with only 18 points. Compare that to a Moldovan granny banging a drum, which sailed on to 6th place with 128 points. And, before you ask, the granny in question was beating the drum from a rocking chair on stage. The commentary before and after that little number was hilarious.
The real problem with Eurovision, is the underlying politics. The Eastern European and Baltic Countries cannot dismiss this as a singing competition. They instead fight furiously for votes, and vote for the neighbours whenever possible. This is what is turning the whole competition into a farce... the Baltic 'block voting' means that the 4 primary contributors to the European economy (France, UK, Germany and Spain) are the last 4 on the leaderboard -- year after year.
I makes me wonder exactly why we continue this ridiculous tradition -- Greece gives 12 points to Cyprus, Cyprus gives 12 points to Greece, and on and on... Quite frankly also, the singing was abysmal -- I can sing better when drunk than the winning entry this year, and that is saying something.
The integration of their other services is what makes this a not-so-hidden gem. I like being able to have my Gmail, Google News and regular Google Search all viewable on the one page. The weather, Slashdot and other news options are an enormous bonus -- as yet, this is replacing my RSS aggregator as all my feeds are on the site.
I like the fact that Google have not lost sight of their original focus: search. Many of the other web portals, like Yahoo or MSN, have all the graphics heavy customisation on the page and then throw their search box in as an afterthought (although this is becoming less obvious).
Google has just a couple of additions to make in order to produce another winning solution: integrated RSS feeds (as someone has already suggested), international weather information (or international versions of the customised page) and the option to put customised search buttons (like the useful Search Linux and Search Uncle Sam) under the search box. That I would like to see.
True, the ground based telescopes are having a great impact on the research, but I believe many 'citizens who want to see pretty pictures' may be quite disillusioned with NASA after HST is grounded. As you say, it (along with the Shuttle) is their main PR device.
However, I do believe there is a place for space telescopes -- they provide pictures from outwith atmospheric interference/scattering, as well as being able to see further in many cases. The problem I have with NASA at the moment is not the inevitable grounding of the HST (it is outdated and broken), it is the lack of a replacement in the foreseeable future. To me, the great research from Hubble represents the space telescopes, and that is a technology worth saving.
Please explain, that was a little cryptic.
You can look at the most recent Hubble photographs (and a fairly extensive archive) at: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/.
Take a good look at those photos. How would you feel if NASA pulled the plug on such a successful project tomorrow, without a replacement for many years?
I think it would be a terrible shame if such an asset to the space program -- something that has had huge benefits to the world of Astronomy and science -- was just pulled out of the sky because of money troubles. It would be a sad reflection on the world we live in.
I believe it is overkill from performance and cooling point of view. I don't believe that 'liquid metal' cooling will provide any better performance than other (likely less expensive) options such as fans/heatsinks and water cooling.
:D
Also, anyone who has a water-cooled GPU that sits unused doesn't really need to fork out lots of money for 'liquid metal' cooling do they?
Granted, it doesn't need mechanical pumps, waterblocks, but we've been told precious little about the specifications and technology behind it.
It may well need a bigger reservoir than we think, or it may well have a tiny reservior, with the potential to be scaled down for use in mini-PCI and onboard chips -- that still reach ludicrous temperatures. If the latter is true, then i've underrated it and misunderstood entirely.
At this stage, we can only speculate, but thats my humble opinion. Whether it is correct or not (most likely not) is beside the point
"Back to the start, we are. Wasted our time, we did"
First in the Blizzard range will be the SAPPHIRE Blizzard RADEON X850 XT and Blizzard RADEON X850 XT Platinum Editions. Blizzard delivers the future of gaming with the ability to push blistering frame rates and deliver environments erupting with vibrant colours and highly detailed textures rendered in High-Definition clarity.
Combining Sapphire innovations with game developers' creations, users won't miss a single feature of today's gaming titles. This hardware boasts 16 parallel pixel pipelines, 256MB of GDDR3 memory, and PCI Express interface. From innovative minds working to deliver to users who demand the peak of performance in every aspect of their graphics card, the Sapphire Blizzard RADEON X850 XT Turns the Ordinary into Extraordinary.
Is all this not a little overkill? I mean, really, isn't water-cooling cool enough for people? Certainly, I have a GPU cooled with the good 'ol fan & heatsink combo -- I get damn good performance, pretty close to what they're describing and it didn't cost me the Earth. The noise isn't bad either: it's drowned out many times over by the fans on the PSU.
The other interesting thing to note -- while this may be really useful for the up and coming mini-PCs (think Mac Mini) that need a well cooled (to prevent overheating) and quiet solution -- it'll take up too much space. An extra PCI slot is just a no go when space is at a premium. I'd also love to see this type of technology implemented on mini-PCI slots, where the extra cooling is essential for performance. Now that would be useful.
I suppose that really, the true call to the phone manufacturers should be to not lose sight of the original purpose of the device, rather than cut out features.
:)
I guess I was just unlucky with the phone I chose. It also hits home again, that the control is with the end-user: try before you buy, and pick one that suits your needs. But those key shortcuts sound like a damn good idea to me.
We're back to the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none situation here.
With the amount of new technology and features in phones today, their original purpose is becoming less and less efficient.
For example: on my old Nokia 3310, I pushed the 'Down' button until I found the person I wanted to call, then I pressed the 'Phone' button and it dialled the number. No difficulties there.
On my new, all-singing-all-dancing Samsung monstrosity, I must press the 'Menu' button, whisk past 'Camera' and 'Applications' to find 'Phone Book', press 'OK', scroll down to the person I want to phone, press 'OK' again, select the number, then press 'Phone'.
I can grasp that some people want to be able to snap pictures at ridiculously low resolutions, send those unintelligable photos to their friends, watch videos while on the bus, etc etc etc... Now, in this technologically oriented world, we are inundated with devices that do one job supremely well -- I have an iPod for music, a PDA for organisation.. Why is finding a phone that just phones such a difficulty?
You can still have links categorized by hand. Just use a directory, not a search engine.
:)
There's still the original Yahoo directory: http://dir.yahoo.com/. Which, by the way, you can actually search for what you want. All links are hand moderated, so what you're looking for should be relevent to the category.
There's also the Open Directory Project: http://dmoz.org/. This is the roughly the same as the Yahoo version.. but its open!