P2P won't work because the network and the users can't support it at a traffic (hardware/bandwidth) level. This, at a time when more people are buying faster hardware and broadband than ever before, and access, even over POTS, is moving towards the "ludicrously cheap" end of the monthly utility spectrum?
Granted, most users are selfish assholes who don't, for whatever reason, bother to share the files they have "shared" from other people. The motivations for this behavior elude me - my files download into the same directory that I share by default.
With the looming goodness of wireless broadband, FTTC (fiber to the curb), and ever-more-powerful personal computers and handheld devices, the whole Chicken Little argument comes down in tatters.
(since nobody else made this snide comment, and I haven't posted much lately. . . )
If so-called "violent" games cause the players to act out violently in meatspace, where is the glut in the Masonry profession from all the recovering Tetris addicts?
Or were they all included in that amnesiac study? I forget. . . .
Just to take a completely different tack from the other excellent trains of thought being presented here, I would like to ask after each candidate's stance on this fundamental principle of the United States.
Where should the line, philosophically be speaking, be drawn between individuals' "Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" and the responsibility of the government to maintain a safe and healthy environment for its citizens?
Just to clarify and state the obvious, 200 knots is only 220 mph. Mach 2 is, in air, something on the order of 1300 mph (depending on altitude), and underwater, more like 4500 mph. Rafe
Too bad the article Katz basically rehashed here wasn't simply quoted in toto instead of, well, rehashed. It was clearer, more concise. . . . less Katzian. And it's been up for a week.
PopeAlien said M$ made the following "innovations": Kerberos, Email, TCP/IP, the GUI
Kerberos: Open standard since at least 1992, recently the target of an attempted "embrace and extend" at the hands of M$ (perhaps you saw the thread that got/. threatened with legal action, hmmm?)
Email: You're kidding, right? Microsoft invented email? What the blue fsck was I using on the VAX mainframe at college?
TCP/IP: Again, an protocol that existed prior to MS's existence, much less something they've done anything good with (unless you count providing exploit opportunities, my little MOOB packet).
The GUI: One word - Macintosh. As the old joke goes, "Windows95 = Macintosh '84"
This was just ludicrous. How did it get moderated to +2?
You wrote: I dug the quiet moment at the end, where Randy sees the stream of gold
This bugged me for one big reason:
Isn't molten gold pretty friggin HOT?!?
I may be wrong, but sitting just a couple feet above what is essentially a cauldron or crucible of molten metal, we'd have ended up with an asphyxiated Randy Kebob.
You know what this is? Neither do I. But it's attention-getting, innit?
Now, for all the Pro- and Anti-Katz sentiment wafting through/., I'm going to blithely ignore both Jon and his column on "Individualism" ("We're all different!" "I'm not!" ) in the interest of actually making a coherent point somewhere along the way.
Each of us is, by definition, and individual. To state anything to the contrary implies that we've somehow become the Borg, and, goddammit, I wanted to be the first one with nifty implants.
Nobody can tell us, deep down, what to think or feel. How we act is broadly governed by the social mores of our era, and those aren't just spewed out by some massive PR machine. They're learned from intelligent, caring human beings. Folks like our parents (I know you don't read/, Mom, but Happy Mother's Day anyhow). Our friends. Our teachers.
We're all individuals. Period. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Now, I am constantly irritating my boss, and probably his boss, and almost certainly the boss above him, because I refuse to wear a tie, have unnatural-colored hair, and have no compunction about expressing my (often critical) opinion about the practices, procedures, and policies at the office. This has resulted in my being snubbed at promotion time, has led to friction about my representing the department at meetings, and has probably caused a lot of people a nontrivial amount of difficulty.
I don't give a shit. I'm not here to make my boss happy, I'm here to be competent. If I was incompetent, I wouldn't keep getting paid.
So they tolerate what can be called my "deplorable lack of personality" (to steal M. Crichton's one and only good line from Jurassic Park) because I am damn good at what I do.
You see, Jon, that you don't have to be an isolationist to be individual. Perhaps you'd consider Neal Stephenson's approach in The Diamond Age and consider breeding subversiveness instead.
After all, wasn't that what you had in mind when you said we needed a 'net head in the Oval Office? Rot from within? Divide and conquer? Fold, spindle, and mutilate?
Okay, I'm done with my esoteric ranting. I had some karma to burn.
Thank you for clearing that up for me. I'd completely forgotten that commercial radio ostensibly serves as a "legitimate" distribution channel for music (and I'm not being sarcastic or facetious, surprisingly enough).
I guess that having the same nine songs on rotation for weeks on end cuts down on those costs, huh?
Judge Rakoff was quoted as saying, "this is simply another way of saying that the unauthorized copies are being retransmitted in another medium... an insufficient basis for any legitimate claim of transformation."
Then I suppose every radio station that plays music that isn't "live in the studio" is breaking the law in the same way.
You wrote: if you've ever seen a scene out of a movie without music, you know how critical music is to setting an environment.
I agree with your point, but wanted to comment that there are some superb movie scenes that are made -better- by the lack of background music "enhancing" the dramatic effect.
The chase scenes in Ronin for example are accompanied by nothing but the rev of the engines and the squeal of tires. I pointed this out to friends while we watched for the express purpose of showing that we don't NEED dramatic scores crammed down our throats.
Then there is the stark silence of Eraserhead which just adds to the desolation (fwiw, I don't like the movie, but this device works well for what it's meant to do).
I agree with you that orchestration for its own sake is hollow, but I don't think anyone here on/. would view Star Wars the same way without the Opening Theme or the Imperial March.
As a long-time listener (okay, fan, of the group's music, your actions in this case have successfully alientated me in ways that even your albums since Load haven't been able to. That being said, I do not question your right to defend being paid for your artistic efforts, I merely question your methods.
In your Yahoo! interview (http://www.metallica.com/news/2000/000503.html), you claim that Napster "cuts out the middle man." My question is this:
Why don't -you- cut out the middle man instead? Screw the record companies' bloated marketing system, screw the warehousing distribution juggernaut, and still make money by -using- the Internet and the emerging formats (MP3 included) to distribute your music directly to your fans.
As it stands, you've taken a hugely unpopular stance, and have irreprably damaged your reputations as being rebellious in the face of The Man. You've become The Man, boys. And nobody is sorrier to see that happen than your true, old-school, die-hard fans.
I won't burn my old concert T's, but your actions made that previously unthinkable idea cross my mind.
You wrote: thus letting people from hardcore gamers running at 640x480 in low detail, to those that desire 32bit quality and large detail.
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to see what kind of difference three generations of processor and video card can mean side-by-side. At one end is my box (P3 @ 560, DDR GeForce), in the middle is a P3 500 with a Voodoo3 3000, and at the other end is a K6-2 450 with the same Voodoo card. Setting up Q3:A under Win98 on all three machines for a LAN party gave me a chance to see just how each system would run with the same settings.
My results (YMMV):
Both Voodoo machines ran the default settings (800x640) around 42FPS, and tinkering with textures and detail levels could alter this from 38-45 on both systems. Clearly, the Voodoo was overmatched by even the K6-2. The GeForce machine gave 66 FPS.
Turning on all the bells and whistles (everything cranked up, 32 bit colors and textures, etc, etc), the GeForce still put out 59FPS at 1280x1024. The Voodoo machines returned 37 and 33 FPS, respectively.
Am I going to upgrade from my Elsa Erazor X2 to a GTS or Voodoo 4/5 or Radeon? Nope. Not until Q1 2001, anyways (or I land a job that pays well enough to support my technowhoring *g*). Would the other guys? Probably when the NV20 is released and the NV15 takes a price cut.
You wrote: my work computer, where i have a need for stability and reliability (and where I have someone else who can afford to buy me top of the line equipment) is not overclocked.
Precisely. Besides, unless you're the boss or the head of IT, it's a bad idea to void warranties too blatantly. My work box has software tweaks only applied (Powerstrip, just so that I can up the resolution without getting screen flicker when the refresh rate takes a hit).
It depends on the stepping of your celerons. If they're relatively new ones, you could reasonably expect to reach, say 83FSB with each. Perhaps more.
As for fans, I would recommend the Golden Orb, as it's relatively small and inexpensive, not to mention quiet and efficient. Check out any one of the overclocking sites out there (firingsquad.com, hardocp.com, overclockin.com, etc) for reviews and links to placed to pick one up.
I can recommend this setup fairly thoroughly - my best friend and the b*stard who got me into PC's and building them is contemplating that same mainboard/cooling setup, but with 533's running @ 800.
You wrote: Perhaps a similar situation is occuring with the overclockers of the world - it is a way to apply the same sorts of thought modes to a realworld situation and achieve a tangible product.
There is, but it's geeky and esoteric. Frames Per Second is the overclocker's watchword. Much like Low ET's in the quarter mile for car guys, ratcheting those last three frames out of Q3:A are what give you the biggest clock.dick around. *chuckles* The fact that you've gone from 147 to 150 FPS at ultra-low resolution, with all the visual toys turned off isn't the point. . . the fact that you -got- 150 is.
At which point, I promptly turn on all the pretty and sparkly and splattery bits, and get 54 FPS. But hey! I'd have only gotten 47 FPS if I hadn't fiddled with it in the first place! [1]
[1] These values are random, I couldn't tell you what my real-life FPS is, because I haven't benchmarked lately. *grin*
Think about it: the original Pentiums, P2's, and their AMD counterparts were neither bus or multiplier-locked. You could clock them to whatever they would take if you didn't mind fiddling with the jumpers for an afternoon.
Then Intel decided it didn't like us getting more than we paid for so easily. Entrez-vouz the P3 and multiplier locking. Yes, you can jack with the FSB, but you're screwed to the wall with that 4. 4.5, 5, or whatever clock-lock Intel built in unless you lucked into getting an "engineering" sample that didn't have this "feature."
The Athlon can be twiddled in both directions by means of a GFD/GFA, but that's one more item to include, and there's no guarantee that they'll remain so friendly to hobbyists and the like. *sigh*
As for the pride/perception the manufacturer has for their OC'd product, it might be a combination of shame and greed - we know they downgrade some chips, and when we get their full potential back out of them, we've essentially bilked them of a couple hundred dollars' profit that they'd have made if we'd bought the "officially" faster chip.
"Binning" is a necessary evil for Intel & AMD - not everyone wants to pony up for an 850MHz chip, and by detuning it to 600, they'll reach more customers. They have learned to accept, grudgingly, that some of us will get those back up where they belong before even booting that processor the first time out of the box.
As evidence, I point you to Kyle @ HardOCP who got a Cel-II 633 to run at 1011MHz yesterday. The lucky bastage.;-)
The joy of text-based communication, eh? "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm about to be misunderstood. . . " *chuckles*
Innovation? Well, there are new and unintended uses for tupperware and garden hose, the occasional lump of dry ice. . . and the more conventional mods, such as Peltier coolers and water blocks. (Just a tad scared of using them in my box ATM, maybe once I get my next chip (leaning towards a Slot 1 650E P!!!) I'll get. . . "adventurous" with my 450 *g*).
Overclockers are just bargain-hunting. The venerable Celeron 300A was a watershed - it could perform, and perform well, at 150% of what Intel marked on the box and the chip casing, with only the addition of a $30 heat sink and fan. Why would anyone (barring those with a reasoned aversion to tinkering with a pricy piece of silicon) not desire to get more than they paid for?
The trend among OCers seems to be, wait for a new stepping (the.18 mfg process, for instance), wait for the first chips on it to come down in price as significantly faster chips come to market, then pounce.
For example, now that Coppermines and Athlons are reliably hitting 850+MHz, getting a 600MHz chip is both less expensive than it was when those were the flagship, and also stands a better chance of being a "detuned" top-end chip because of "binning."
I will take the $600 per-chip savings, drop $30-85 on cooling accessories, and be perfectly happy with my one-step-from-the-summit performance at less than half the price.
It's a matter of degree. Some of us do strange and unusual things (supercooled mineral baths, et al). That's way too much trouble for me, because my main box needs to uproot every weekend and I really don't want weird substances dripping all over my carpet, or my car.
For someone who doesn't want to get crazy, a simple software program to increase the frequency of the video card and refresh rate (such as Powerstrip) might be all you want. Call it the equivalent of putting Premium in the tank instead of Regular in the car metaphor.:-)
Me? I fall in between. I cleaned up the wiring rat's nest in my case with some cable loam, installed a couple of extra fans to take out the heat generated by the OC'd processor and video card. *shrug*
Reliability? My box has run at 24% above the rated speed on the processor almost 24/7, cracking distributed.net keys, for 8 months straight, with only the standard Win9x-induced reboots necessary.
Feel free to contact me (doing the obvious to my address) to discuss things further. See also: Pride In Ownership.:-)
While the article on the whole was a tad banal and vacuous, one of the metaphors seemed very apt:
Instead of spending our weekends in the driveway or garage under the hood of our primary mode of transport, we spend time optimizing the drivers or cooling arrangements on our primary mode of communication.
Is it "Hot-rodding"? I sometimes feel like it could be. . . the Frankensteinian monster I spend 16 hours a day with may not have bolts on its neck, but it roars, moans, and has the odd edge in need of a dremel touch-up.
I think it's a simple matter of pride of ownership. "When I bought this, it was able to do X. Because I put my time and brain and some elbow grease into it, it can do X+n, and my X+n is different from everybody else's, because I did it with my own two hands."
I overclock, and I can't honestly say when or if I will stop. It's not the fastest rig on the world (though it might be king of the office extracurricular LAN), but it could be.
Yes, Quake is a common cry for the X-box, but why? Have you tried playing Quake on a shared monitor?
What, I ask you, would be the point? Driving games (Gran Turismo, as a for instance) are bad enough when you have to share the display area, but a game that requires the ability to sneak up on opponent. . . that element is utterly lacking when you're both looking at the same display. (Remember, kids, this thing comes with -four- controllers.)
Or maybe I'm just jaded b/c the resolution looks lousy compared to my monitor. And I have a hatred of Spyro the Dragon that rivals Barney the Dinosaur.
Slashdot Mirror
(Segmentation Fault: Welcome to Idaho)
. . . it would be a Private crash, if it were to happen.
Rafe
V^^^^V
Let me see if I've got this straight -
P2P won't work because the network and the users can't support it at a traffic (hardware/bandwidth) level. This, at a time when more people are buying faster hardware and broadband than ever before, and access, even over POTS, is moving towards the "ludicrously cheap" end of the monthly utility spectrum?
Granted, most users are selfish assholes who don't, for whatever reason, bother to share the files they have "shared" from other people. The motivations for this behavior elude me - my files download into the same directory that I share by default.
With the looming goodness of wireless broadband, FTTC (fiber to the curb), and ever-more-powerful personal computers and handheld devices, the whole Chicken Little argument comes down in tatters.
Rafe
V^^^^V
How, precisely, does one represent themselves dancing a jig and going "Nyah, nyah" in ASCII?
Or should I be asking the folks at AMD, Micron, et al? *grins*
Rafe
V^^^^V
(since nobody else made this snide comment, and I haven't posted much lately. . . )
If so-called "violent" games cause the players to act out violently in meatspace, where is the glut in the Masonry profession from all the recovering Tetris addicts?
Or were they all included in that amnesiac study? I forget. . . .
Rafe
V^^^^V
Just to take a completely different tack from the other excellent trains of thought being presented here, I would like to ask after each candidate's stance on this fundamental principle of the United States.
Where should the line, philosophically be speaking, be drawn between individuals' "Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" and the responsibility of the government to maintain a safe and healthy environment for its citizens?
Rafe
V^^^^V
You wrote: over 2 mach speed.
Just to clarify and state the obvious, 200 knots is only 220 mph. Mach 2 is, in air, something on the order of 1300 mph (depending on altitude), and underwater, more like 4500 mph.
Rafe
V^^^^V
You wrote:
I want to know what the guy who invented beer is working on now.
Very little. Since beer was invented hundreds of years ago, I suspect the guy's dead. *G*
Rafe
V^^^^V
Too bad the article Katz basically rehashed here wasn't simply quoted in toto instead of, well, rehashed. It was clearer, more concise. . . . less Katzian. And it's been up for a week.
Rafe
V^^^^V
PopeAlien said M$ made the following "innovations":
/. threatened with legal action, hmmm?)
Kerberos, Email, TCP/IP, the GUI
Kerberos: Open standard since at least 1992, recently the target of an attempted "embrace and extend" at the hands of M$ (perhaps you saw the thread that got
Email: You're kidding, right? Microsoft invented email? What the blue fsck was I using on the VAX mainframe at college?
TCP/IP: Again, an protocol that existed prior to MS's existence, much less something they've done anything good with (unless you count providing exploit opportunities, my little MOOB packet).
The GUI: One word - Macintosh. As the old joke goes, "Windows95 = Macintosh '84"
This was just ludicrous. How did it get moderated to +2?
Rafe
V^^^^V
You wrote:
I dug the quiet moment at the end, where Randy sees the stream of gold
This bugged me for one big reason:
Isn't molten gold pretty friggin HOT?!?
I may be wrong, but sitting just a couple feet above what is essentially a cauldron or crucible of molten metal, we'd have ended up with an asphyxiated Randy Kebob.
Rafe
V^^^^V
*holds up a severed head*
/., I'm going to blithely ignore both Jon and his column on "Individualism" ("We're all different!" "I'm not!" ) in the interest of actually making a coherent point somewhere along the way.
/, Mom, but Happy Mother's Day anyhow). Our friends. Our teachers.
You know what this is? Neither do I. But it's attention-getting, innit?
Now, for all the Pro- and Anti-Katz sentiment wafting through
Each of us is, by definition, and individual. To state anything to the contrary implies that we've somehow become the Borg, and, goddammit, I wanted to be the first one with nifty implants.
Nobody can tell us, deep down, what to think or feel. How we act is broadly governed by the social mores of our era, and those aren't just spewed out by some massive PR machine. They're learned from intelligent, caring human beings. Folks like our parents (I know you don't read
We're all individuals. Period. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Now, I am constantly irritating my boss, and probably his boss, and almost certainly the boss above him, because I refuse to wear a tie, have unnatural-colored hair, and have no compunction about expressing my (often critical) opinion about the practices, procedures, and policies at the office. This has resulted in my being snubbed at promotion time, has led to friction about my representing the department at meetings, and has probably caused a lot of people a nontrivial amount of difficulty.
I don't give a shit. I'm not here to make my boss happy, I'm here to be competent. If I was incompetent, I wouldn't keep getting paid.
So they tolerate what can be called my "deplorable lack of personality" (to steal M. Crichton's one and only good line from Jurassic Park) because I am damn good at what I do.
You see, Jon, that you don't have to be an isolationist to be individual. Perhaps you'd consider Neal Stephenson's approach in The Diamond Age and consider breeding subversiveness instead.
After all, wasn't that what you had in mind when you said we needed a 'net head in the Oval Office? Rot from within? Divide and conquer? Fold, spindle, and mutilate?
Okay, I'm done with my esoteric ranting. I had some karma to burn.
Rafe
V^^^^V
Thank you for clearing that up for me. I'd completely forgotten that commercial radio ostensibly serves as a "legitimate" distribution channel for music (and I'm not being sarcastic or facetious, surprisingly enough).
I guess that having the same nine songs on rotation for weeks on end cuts down on those costs, huh?
Rafe
V^^^^V
. . . from radio broadcasts?
... an insufficient basis for any legitimate claim of transformation."
Judge Rakoff was quoted as saying, "this is simply another way of saying that the unauthorized copies are being retransmitted in another medium
Then I suppose every radio station that plays music that isn't "live in the studio" is breaking the law in the same way.
Rafe
V^^^^V
You wrote:
/. would view Star Wars the same way without the Opening Theme or the Imperial March.
if you've ever seen a scene out of a movie without music, you know how critical music is to setting an environment.
I agree with your point, but wanted to comment that there are some superb movie scenes that are made -better- by the lack of background music "enhancing" the dramatic effect.
The chase scenes in Ronin for example are accompanied by nothing but the rev of the engines and the squeal of tires. I pointed this out to friends while we watched for the express purpose of showing that we don't NEED dramatic scores crammed down our throats.
Then there is the stark silence of Eraserhead which just adds to the desolation (fwiw, I don't like the movie, but this device works well for what it's meant to do).
I agree with you that orchestration for its own sake is hollow, but I don't think anyone here on
Rafe
V^^^^V
Hi Guys.
As a long-time listener (okay, fan, of the group's music, your actions in this case have successfully alientated me in ways that even your albums since Load haven't been able to. That being said, I do not question your right to defend being paid for your artistic efforts, I merely question your methods.
In your Yahoo! interview (http://www.metallica.com/news/2000/000503.html), you claim that Napster "cuts out the middle man." My question is this:
Why don't -you- cut out the middle man instead? Screw the record companies' bloated marketing system, screw the warehousing distribution juggernaut, and still make money by -using- the Internet and the emerging formats (MP3 included) to distribute your music directly to your fans.
As it stands, you've taken a hugely unpopular stance, and have irreprably damaged your reputations as being rebellious in the face of The Man. You've become The Man, boys. And nobody is sorrier to see that happen than your true, old-school, die-hard fans.
I won't burn my old concert T's, but your actions made that previously unthinkable idea cross my mind.
Rafe
V^^^^V
You wrote:
thus letting people from hardcore gamers running at 640x480 in low detail, to those that desire 32bit quality and large detail.
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to see what kind of difference three generations of processor and video card can mean side-by-side. At one end is my box (P3 @ 560, DDR GeForce), in the middle is a P3 500 with a Voodoo3 3000, and at the other end is a K6-2 450 with the same Voodoo card. Setting up Q3:A under Win98 on all three machines for a LAN party gave me a chance to see just how each system would run with the same settings.
My results (YMMV):
Both Voodoo machines ran the default settings (800x640) around 42FPS, and tinkering with textures and detail levels could alter this from 38-45 on both systems. Clearly, the Voodoo was overmatched by even the K6-2. The GeForce machine gave 66 FPS.
Turning on all the bells and whistles (everything cranked up, 32 bit colors and textures, etc, etc), the GeForce still put out 59FPS at 1280x1024. The Voodoo machines returned 37 and 33 FPS, respectively.
Am I going to upgrade from my Elsa Erazor X2 to a GTS or Voodoo 4/5 or Radeon? Nope. Not until Q1 2001, anyways (or I land a job that pays well enough to support my technowhoring *g*). Would the other guys? Probably when the NV20 is released and the NV15 takes a price cut.
Rafe
V^^^^V
You wrote:
my work computer, where i have a need for stability and reliability (and where I have someone else who can afford to buy me top of the line equipment) is not overclocked.
Precisely. Besides, unless you're the boss or the head of IT, it's a bad idea to void warranties too blatantly. My work box has software tweaks only applied (Powerstrip, just so that I can up the resolution without getting screen flicker when the refresh rate takes a hit).
Rafe
V^^^^V
It depends on the stepping of your celerons. If they're relatively new ones, you could reasonably expect to reach, say 83FSB with each. Perhaps more.
As for fans, I would recommend the Golden Orb, as it's relatively small and inexpensive, not to mention quiet and efficient. Check out any one of the overclocking sites out there (firingsquad.com, hardocp.com, overclockin.com, etc) for reviews and links to placed to pick one up.
I can recommend this setup fairly thoroughly - my best friend and the b*stard who got me into PC's and building them is contemplating that same mainboard/cooling setup, but with 533's running @ 800.
Rafe
V^^^^V
You wrote:
Perhaps a similar situation is occuring with the overclockers of the world - it is a way to apply the same sorts of thought modes to a realworld situation and achieve a tangible product.
There is, but it's geeky and esoteric. Frames Per Second is the overclocker's watchword. Much like Low ET's in the quarter mile for car guys, ratcheting those last three frames out of Q3:A are what give you the biggest clock.dick around. *chuckles* The fact that you've gone from 147 to 150 FPS at ultra-low resolution, with all the visual toys turned off isn't the point. . . the fact that you -got- 150 is.
At which point, I promptly turn on all the pretty and sparkly and splattery bits, and get 54 FPS. But hey! I'd have only gotten 47 FPS if I hadn't fiddled with it in the first place! [1]
[1] These values are random, I couldn't tell you what my real-life FPS is, because I haven't benchmarked lately. *grin*
Rafe
V^^^^V
They're trying to do this already, you might say.
;-)
Think about it: the original Pentiums, P2's, and their AMD counterparts were neither bus or multiplier-locked. You could clock them to whatever they would take if you didn't mind fiddling with the jumpers for an afternoon.
Then Intel decided it didn't like us getting more than we paid for so easily. Entrez-vouz the P3 and multiplier locking. Yes, you can jack with the FSB, but you're screwed to the wall with that 4. 4.5, 5, or whatever clock-lock Intel built in unless you lucked into getting an "engineering" sample that didn't have this "feature."
The Athlon can be twiddled in both directions by means of a GFD/GFA, but that's one more item to include, and there's no guarantee that they'll remain so friendly to hobbyists and the like. *sigh*
As for the pride/perception the manufacturer has for their OC'd product, it might be a combination of shame and greed - we know they downgrade some chips, and when we get their full potential back out of them, we've essentially bilked them of a couple hundred dollars' profit that they'd have made if we'd bought the "officially" faster chip.
"Binning" is a necessary evil for Intel & AMD - not everyone wants to pony up for an 850MHz chip, and by detuning it to 600, they'll reach more customers. They have learned to accept, grudgingly, that some of us will get those back up where they belong before even booting that processor the first time out of the box.
As evidence, I point you to Kyle @ HardOCP who got a Cel-II 633 to run at 1011MHz yesterday. The lucky bastage.
Rafe
V^^^^V
The joy of text-based communication, eh? "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm about to be misunderstood. . . " *chuckles*
Innovation? Well, there are new and unintended uses for tupperware and garden hose, the occasional lump of dry ice. . . and the more conventional mods, such as Peltier coolers and water blocks. (Just a tad scared of using them in my box ATM, maybe once I get my next chip (leaning towards a Slot 1 650E P!!!) I'll get. . . "adventurous" with my 450 *g*).
Rafe
V^^^^V
You've hit the nail on the head.
.18 mfg process, for instance), wait for the first chips on it to come down in price as significantly faster chips come to market, then pounce.
Overclockers are just bargain-hunting. The venerable Celeron 300A was a watershed - it could perform, and perform well, at 150% of what Intel marked on the box and the chip casing, with only the addition of a $30 heat sink and fan. Why would anyone (barring those with a reasoned aversion to tinkering with a pricy piece of silicon) not desire to get more than they paid for?
The trend among OCers seems to be, wait for a new stepping (the
For example, now that Coppermines and Athlons are reliably hitting 850+MHz, getting a 600MHz chip is both less expensive than it was when those were the flagship, and also stands a better chance of being a "detuned" top-end chip because of "binning."
I will take the $600 per-chip savings, drop $30-85 on cooling accessories, and be perfectly happy with my one-step-from-the-summit performance at less than half the price.
Rafe
V^^^^V
It's a matter of degree. Some of us do strange and unusual things (supercooled mineral baths, et al). That's way too much trouble for me, because my main box needs to uproot every weekend and I really don't want weird substances dripping all over my carpet, or my car.
:-)
:-)
For someone who doesn't want to get crazy, a simple software program to increase the frequency of the video card and refresh rate (such as Powerstrip) might be all you want. Call it the equivalent of putting Premium in the tank instead of Regular in the car metaphor.
Me? I fall in between. I cleaned up the wiring rat's nest in my case with some cable loam, installed a couple of extra fans to take out the heat generated by the OC'd processor and video card. *shrug*
Reliability? My box has run at 24% above the rated speed on the processor almost 24/7, cracking distributed.net keys, for 8 months straight, with only the standard Win9x-induced reboots necessary.
Feel free to contact me (doing the obvious to my address) to discuss things further. See also: Pride In Ownership.
Rafe
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While the article on the whole was a tad banal and vacuous, one of the metaphors seemed very apt:
Instead of spending our weekends in the driveway or garage under the hood of our primary mode of transport, we spend time optimizing the drivers or cooling arrangements on our primary mode of communication.
Is it "Hot-rodding"? I sometimes feel like it could be. . . the Frankensteinian monster I spend 16 hours a day with may not have bolts on its neck, but it roars, moans, and has the odd edge in need of a dremel touch-up.
I think it's a simple matter of pride of ownership. "When I bought this, it was able to do X. Because I put my time and brain and some elbow grease into it, it can do X+n, and my X+n is different from everybody else's, because I did it with my own two hands."
I overclock, and I can't honestly say when or if I will stop. It's not the fastest rig on the world (though it might be king of the office extracurricular LAN), but it could be.
Rafe
V^^^^V
Yes, Quake is a common cry for the X-box, but why? Have you tried playing Quake on a shared monitor?
What, I ask you, would be the point? Driving games (Gran Turismo, as a for instance) are bad enough when you have to share the display area, but a game that requires the ability to sneak up on opponent. . . that element is utterly lacking when you're both looking at the same display. (Remember, kids, this thing comes with -four- controllers.)
Or maybe I'm just jaded b/c the resolution looks lousy compared to my monitor. And I have a hatred of Spyro the Dragon that rivals Barney the Dinosaur.
Rafe
V^^^^V