If you can make solar panels for $5 per 100 watt panel.. you can bet I'll be off grid. I don't care about efficiency, I only care about cost You paid ~ $10,000 to have a licenced electrician (time and materials) wire your fuse box to the grid. For that kind of money you could buy a solar system that would keep you in electricity for a long time. There would be thousands of dollars left over. If you invested that along with your monthly electric payments you would have a fund that would replace anything that failed in your home system for much of the rest of your life.
And yet LCD prices continue to collapse year-on-year whilst getting bigger, brighter and more contrastful (suck on that word, grammar nazis).
I believe in would be most cromulent to say "... bigger and brighter while contrastiness enbiggens..."
Intel seems to get a bit of a pass on the whole memory controller thing. When you see people compare power usage you rarely see the memory controller on the Northbridge added onto the Intel ledger.
Bottom line is we get very fast efficient chips for cheap.
Those are examples of realizing tangable assets in the real world.
I would think that if I exchange a small fortune of in-game currency for a +7 sword of ogre evisceration that I still haven't realized anything in the real world. I'm merely engaging in my hobby.
In your spare time you paint. You've created some fantasticaly valuable paintings. Should you be liable for income on that body of work if you don't realize the income by selling the paintings? I think most reasonable people would say no.
If you come home from work and log into your PC and play your favorite MMO should you be taxed on potential income if you never sell your stuff? Again I think most reasonable peole would say no.
You're a mechanic and handy man. Over the course of 52 weekends you did the equivalent of $7000 dollars of mainanence on your vehicles and $1000 worth of plumbing. Should you be required to report that to the IRS?
I see these things as being all roughly equivalent. Its what you did in your hobby with your spare time. Yes it was industrious and you created something of 'value'.
It think instead we should tax people for watching TV.
The capacitors in the power section of your motherboard have a finite life. If you are handy with the soldering iron you can replace these in an afternoon for about $15. I wonder how well the new (to motherboards at least) solid core Capacitors will do.
I've never been fired on in 1.0 space. The only way the above scenario happens is if you are in a corp that has been war deced (newbie corps can't be war deced) by another corp or you have committed a transgression (like stealing) against that player. All other instances the penalty for shooting a player in 1.0 space will be swift and severe.
Perhaps Intel is running out of rivers in the Pacific Northwest to name processors after. Although they still have the Umpqua and the Rouge. It might take some balls to call a CPU Rouge.
OK - I don't drink a gallon of coffee a day - and my trip to work certainly burns that. Still you have the waste stream of cows, pigs, and chickens to process as well. You could put a fair dent in the oil imports (and thus balance of trade) to this country. It would be worth doing.
Sounds like it might make it easier to process the waste stream as well.
Low latency DDR is basically the same as high speed RAM. Its all about how much time it takes for the module to do its thing. IIRC its a little more difficult to hit 2-2-2 than it is to run at high speed so if you want really fast RAM low latency may be your best bet.
When I posted this I made a bit of a mistake - you see an AGP video card will not go into a PCI-e slot on the motherboard. So either choose an AGP mother board (New Egg has several in the price range - I like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16813123242) or get a roughly $60 PCIe graphics card. A non TC 6200 if you can find one.
Microsoft Windows XP (OEM version of XP Home is $75)
PC with 1.4 GHz equivalent or higher processor
256 MB of system RAM
2 GB available hard disk space
32x speed or faster CD-ROM drive
64 MB video card with support for hardware transformation and lighting required
Sound card, speakers or headphones required for audio
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
56.6 Kbps or better modem for online play
A system that meets or exceeds the above:
CPU 60.00 AMD Sempron64 2500+ HS/Fan 0.00 Motherboard 75.00 DFI nF4X Infinity RAM 35.00 512MBB DDR400 RAM Video Card 45.00 Radeon 9100 from AllStarShop.com Hard Drive 48.50 Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 40GB DVDROM 20.00 LITE-ON 16X DVD-ROM Model SOHD-16P9S Case 34.99 Foxconn 3GTW001-W-HP350 sound 0.00 On board lan 0.00 On board Monitor 0.00 used 17" Keyboard 12.00 Mouse 13.00 MS Optical speakers 29.00 Logitech X-230 floppy 2.99 Used OS 74.99 Win XP Home (OEM)
450.47 + Shipping
I make the Rash assumption that you can scrounge a monitor. Lots of people are switching to LCD. Its a good time to be looking for a free CRT. All prices are from NewEgg except the Video card which is from AllStarShop.com. Further I assume that you will be using the onboard LAN for network play. Failing that the same person who donated the monitor could reasonably be expected to have a modem that hasn't been used since he or she got broad band internet some years ago.
It doesn't matter so much what language the rule engine was written in. What matters is that we have access to the rules the AI parses. Over time we can improve the play of the AI's.
One of the problems with Civ 2 was that the AI's weren't very bright so they had to gang up on you to make it any sort of challenge. Any fan could have improved the heuristics that the game was using and the individual AIs would have been much worthier opponents.
Well now we can improve the game - as a collective. I'm so sold on this version of Civ!
You could put GUIDs into cookies. Offer some reason for people to want your cookie (like saving personal preferences). Record the GUID into the web logs for each page access.
I realize its not 100% but it works reasonably well. It works very well for your biggest users - and you can still mine statistics for your unGUIDed users.
What about code Gorillas, or code Bonobos? One would think they would be paid more.
I think it's only fitting that COBOL programmers get paid more - they would have to give me a hell of a raise before I would put up with programming in COBOL.
The flood plains of rivers make excellent farm land. The earliest agriculture is in the the flood plains of rivers - hence the oldest cities are also built where it routinely floods.
New Orleans is built in an excellent place to transfer cargo between ocean going ships and river barges. That's why it was built in the first place and why we'll rebuild it after Katrina.
I think you will want one of the newer PCI-e cards.
The older AGP standard transmitted data to the card very fast but could only read it slowly. This worked well for the things that graphics cards traditionally do.
The newer PCI-e cards can read from the graphics card at a much higher rate.
> Windows NT would NOT work with Cyrix, it kept locking up.
I owned a Cyrix based computer with NT 4 - it had no locking issues. Cyrix tried to run the PCI bus out of spec. If you weren't selective about your expansion cards they could cause the machine to lock. But Cyrix CPUs worked fine with NT4.
The point of Free Civ wasn't to recreate Civ II it was to pick up where Civ II left off and make it better. The AI is very good now. In the Original the AI was dumb as a box of rocks. The only reason it was a challenge was that the AI "cheated".
Free Civ is an update to a commercially available game. Good old Civ 2 is still played by many people and has an active on-line presence.
People are still discussing what whould be done to make Civ 2 perfect. The Free Civ dev team is just a group of people really working on this. I suspect most of the Free Civ communitee owns Civ 2 or Civ 3 (many of them both) and will be first in line when Civ 4 comes out.
I suspect a certain percentage of the readers here are going to be in that line too.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe in would be most cromulent to say "... bigger and brighter while contrastiness enbiggens
Intel seems to get a bit of a pass on the whole memory controller thing. When you see people compare power usage you rarely see the memory controller on the Northbridge added onto the Intel ledger.
Bottom line is we get very fast efficient chips for cheap.
Those are examples of realizing tangable assets in the real world.
I would think that if I exchange a small fortune of in-game currency for a +7 sword of ogre evisceration that I still haven't realized anything in the real world. I'm merely engaging in my hobby.
Does this mean I can pay my federal taxes in ISK?
In your spare time you paint. You've created some fantasticaly valuable paintings. Should you be liable for income on that body of work if you don't realize the income by selling the paintings? I think most reasonable people would say no.
If you come home from work and log into your PC and play your favorite MMO should you be taxed on potential income if you never sell your stuff? Again I think most reasonable peole would say no.
You're a mechanic and handy man. Over the course of 52 weekends you did the equivalent of $7000 dollars of mainanence on your vehicles and $1000 worth of plumbing. Should you be required to report that to the IRS?
I see these things as being all roughly equivalent. Its what you did in your hobby with your spare time. Yes it was industrious and you created something of 'value'.
It think instead we should tax people for watching TV.
The capacitors in the power section of your motherboard have a finite life. If you are handy with the soldering iron you can replace these in an afternoon for about $15. I wonder how well the new (to motherboards at least) solid core Capacitors will do.
I've never been fired on in 1.0 space. The only way the above scenario happens is if you are in a corp that has been war deced (newbie corps can't be war deced) by another corp or you have committed a transgression (like stealing) against that player. All other instances the penalty for shooting a player in 1.0 space will be swift and severe.
Perhaps Intel is running out of rivers in the Pacific Northwest to name processors after. Although they still have the Umpqua and the Rouge. It might take some balls to call a CPU Rouge.
I my body could turn coffee into gasoline ...
OK - I don't drink a gallon of coffee a day - and my trip to work certainly burns that. Still you have the waste stream of cows, pigs, and chickens to process as well. You could put a fair dent in the oil imports (and thus balance of trade) to this country. It would be worth doing.
Sounds like it might make it easier to process the waste stream as well.
Your hardware store sells kits that let you put a layer of clear plastic over your windows. Very helpful for the coldest winter months.
So I'm not the only one who thinks the ultimate goal of the browser is to become an X-Windows server.
Low latency DDR is basically the same as high speed RAM. Its all about how much time it takes for the module to do its thing. IIRC its a little more difficult to hit 2-2-2 than it is to run at high speed so if you want really fast RAM low latency may be your best bet.
When I posted this I made a bit of a mistake - you see an AGP video card will not go into a PCI-e slot on the motherboard. So either choose an AGP mother board (New Egg has several in the price range - I like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16813123242) or get a roughly $60 PCIe graphics card. A non TC 6200 if you can find one.
System Requirements from the website http://www.microsoft.com/games/pc/age3.aspx
Microsoft Windows XP (OEM version of XP Home is $75)
PC with 1.4 GHz equivalent or higher processor
256 MB of system RAM
2 GB available hard disk space
32x speed or faster CD-ROM drive
64 MB video card with support for hardware transformation and lighting required
Sound card, speakers or headphones required for audio
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
56.6 Kbps or better modem for online play
A system that meets or exceeds the above:
CPU 60.00 AMD Sempron64 2500+
HS/Fan 0.00
Motherboard 75.00 DFI nF4X Infinity
RAM 35.00 512MBB DDR400 RAM
Video Card 45.00 Radeon 9100 from AllStarShop.com
Hard Drive 48.50 Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 40GB
DVDROM 20.00 LITE-ON 16X DVD-ROM Model SOHD-16P9S
Case 34.99 Foxconn 3GTW001-W-HP350
sound 0.00 On board
lan 0.00 On board
Monitor 0.00 used 17"
Keyboard 12.00
Mouse 13.00 MS Optical
speakers 29.00 Logitech X-230
floppy 2.99 Used
OS 74.99 Win XP Home (OEM)
450.47 + Shipping
I make the Rash assumption that you can scrounge a monitor. Lots of people are switching to LCD. Its a good time to be looking for a free CRT. All prices are from NewEgg except the Video card which is from AllStarShop.com. Further I assume that you will be using the onboard LAN for network play. Failing that the same person who donated the monitor could reasonably be expected to have a modem that hasn't been used since he or she got broad band internet some years ago.
It doesn't matter so much what language the rule engine was written in. What matters is that we have access to the rules the AI parses. Over time we can improve the play of the AI's.
One of the problems with Civ 2 was that the AI's weren't very bright so they had to gang up on you to make it any sort of challenge. Any fan could have improved the heuristics that the game was using and the individual AIs would have been much worthier opponents.
Well now we can improve the game - as a collective. I'm so sold on this version of Civ!
Well -
You could put GUIDs into cookies. Offer some reason for people to want your cookie (like saving personal preferences). Record the GUID into the web logs for each page access.
I realize its not 100% but it works reasonably well. It works very well for your biggest users - and you can still mine statistics for your unGUIDed users.
What about code Gorillas, or code Bonobos? One would think they would be paid more.
I think it's only fitting that COBOL programmers get paid more - they would have to give me a hell of a raise before I would put up with programming in COBOL.
The flood plains of rivers make excellent farm land. The earliest agriculture is in the the flood plains of rivers - hence the oldest cities are also built where it routinely floods.
New Orleans is built in an excellent place to transfer cargo between ocean going ships and river barges. That's why it was built in the first place and why we'll rebuild it after Katrina.
Well they're still on the cutting edge -2 005/millennium_g550_pcie.cfmMatrox announces world's first PCI Express x1 graphics card
http://www.matrox.com/mga/media_center/press_rel/
I think you will want one of the newer PCI-e cards.
The older AGP standard transmitted data to the card very fast but could only read it slowly. This worked well for the things that graphics cards traditionally do.
The newer PCI-e cards can read from the graphics card at a much higher rate.
Don't you mean Daimler Chrysler?
> Windows NT would NOT work with Cyrix, it kept locking up.
I owned a Cyrix based computer with NT 4 - it had no locking issues. Cyrix tried to run the PCI bus out of spec. If you weren't selective about your expansion cards they could cause the machine to lock. But Cyrix CPUs worked fine with NT4.
The point of Free Civ wasn't to recreate Civ II it was to pick up where Civ II left off and make it better. The AI is very good now. In the Original the AI was dumb as a box of rocks. The only reason it was a challenge was that the AI "cheated".
Free Civ is an update to a commercially available game. Good old Civ 2 is still played by many people and has an active on-line presence.
People are still discussing what whould be done to make Civ 2 perfect. The Free Civ dev team is just a group of people really working on this. I suspect most of the Free Civ communitee owns Civ 2 or Civ 3 (many of them both) and will be first in line when Civ 4 comes out.
I suspect a certain percentage of the readers here are going to be in that line too.