I'm not sure one could describe an Apple user as "common man". Last I checked, those Macs weren't cheap;-) If only Apple would finally make an x86 version of its OS, then Linux would really have some competition in the user-friendly *nix arena.
The notion of a European Super State is very widespread amongst anti-European groups, but I think it is a matter of mis-interpretation. Further union doesn't mean a superstate. Like I said, Europe needs to speak with one voice when it comes to foreign policy if it wants an effective policy and the military to back it up. This doesn't say anything about how this will be implemented, the anti-euros simply, in their limited imagination, assume it will function like the US. However, I don't think the EU will ever resemble anything close to the USA. Unlike the US, the European Nations truely are seperate Nations, whereas the US is only one Nation. Why people think the EU is going to be like the US politically is beyond me.
Question is, who made the US the "mother" of Europe,
Europe itself is the one to blame the most. Ever heard of the two World Wars? Militarily, Europe still hasn't recovered from its self-annihilation. Ever since it has been far more practical and cost-effective to hide under Uncle Sam's umbrella. Europe could be a major power if it wanted and I think it will be, but we need further union (on foreign policy and such) before that can happen, and we all know how difficult that will be;-)
In a way Europe is the true sleeping giant, but it will take quite some time before it will arise once more.
Saying "The US lost the race when Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space on April 12, 1961, orbiting the Earth for 108 minutes in Vostok 1." is as stupid and simplistic as saying that
the US won it because the US put the first man on the moon.
Not exactly, it depends on what race you're talking about. The race to get into space was most definitely won by the Soviets. As this race is what most people consider to be the most important part of the Space Race as a whole, you could argue they won the race. You'd be wrong of course, the real answer is, the race is still going. It all depends where you set your goals and for some reason;-) the Americans consider the Moon to be one of the more important ones.
I am not based on just von Braun! Exactly who Kubrick had in mind when he made Dr. Strangelove is not known, but the most likely candidates are von Braun (minor), Henry Kissinger (who wrote a paper on nuclear war in those days) and, of course, Edward Teller, a major influence.
Why do a lot of people assume the next-gen console battle will only be between Sony and MS? I don't understand how you can dismiss Nintendo so casually. Sure, the N64 was a dismal failure and Nintendo still doesn't cater to certain groups specifically, but that still doesn't mean the big N (they don't call it that for nothing) will fade away.
Of course, they very well might if the GC isn't a succes, but you can't assume it won't be. The GC will not be another N64. In fact, if I were to make a guess, I'd say X-Box will have the most problems in establishing itself. They have no console experience, no true game experience and I don't see the X-Box immediately taking off in a crucial market, Japan. That doesn't mean they'll fail, but that you can't assume they will win for sure. See what I mean?
A lot of people treat Nintendo this way, but you have to remember Nintendo is a lot like IBM. Both once ruled the world (Nintendo in the 80's, IBM in the 60's-70's), then lost their momentum and public image (Nintendo to Sony, IBM to MS), but they held on with markets no-one else has (Nintendo has portable gaming, IBM has the big contracts and hardware), thus remaining very profitable and are now attempting to show the upstarts a thing or two (Nintendo with GC and GBA, IBM with Linux?)
These guys are not the only ones sensing the industry might be heading in a wrong direction, the direction of flashy presentation without content. This article is a very interesting interview with the venerable Yamauchi, Head of Nintendo, who basically states that unless game developers start adressing this issue and begin placing fun in games as the top priority, the industry might be about to relive 1984 all over again, with people no longer being interested in games.
No, they never did, "manned" means with humans, and the Soviets (alas) never got this far. You may be confused because they managed to do everything except land a man on the moon, from 20+ lunar missions, fly-bys, landings, sample-collecting and even a Rover.
Now now, there no need to be so gentle;-)) Kidding aside, isn't this an excellent argument against the hoaxers? One of 'm claimed that NASA actually killed the Apollo 1 crew to shut them up, and that they arranged the deaths of others who where about to go public. Apart from being highly slanderous, wouldn't the person claiming this to be true be placed on top of the hit-list if it where true? I guess where gonna find out;-)
They most certainly did! Not with cosmonauts, no, but they landed several robotic explorers which did collect and bring home Moon samples. Not all Moon rocks were collected by the Americans.
Not exactly, Pluto was suspected to exist because the then current gravitational models suggested a planet beyond Neptune. However Pluto was dicovered optically by comparing images over a certain period of time. Of course, once people found out just how small it was, the search continued for another planet beyond Pluto, as it was simply too small to account for the effects observed in Neptune's orbit.
Nowadays we realise this search was in vain. Updated grav-models do not show the need for another planet, the peculiarities in Neptune's orbit can be fully explained by these better models, without the existance of a large ninth planet. Pluto does not in any significant way influence Neptune.
Add to this the fact of Pluto's odd orbit and that we're now discovering a lot of "Plutoids" and you'll understand why things are looking rather grim for Pluto's status as a full-blown planet.;-)
I would not classify this as a planet, rather as a Kuiper Belt Object. There are several of them discovered already, and if one compares the Objects closely, you'll find that Pluto doesn't really deserve to be called a planet either.
One of the recent (well, last few decades) developments in astronomy is the realisation that there is a zone of many planetoids, little (in comparison) balls of ice and dust, outside Neptun's orbit. These are called Trans-Neptunian or Kuiper Belt Objects.
Now that the number of them is increasing, maybe we can finally declassify Pluto and put it in its rightful place. Of course, the Pluto-fraction won't be happy.
Well if one were to pronounce it with an American accent i.e. the "u" at the end becomes an "uh" which sounds like an "a", it would sound a lot like...Vrisuh...Frizuh...Frieza!
You are mistaken, both the SNES and the N64 launched with respectively Super Mario World and Super Mario 64, but Zelda games have never been available at launch.
Super Zelda a.k.a. Zelda 3 a.k.a A Link To The Past came out about a year after the launch of the SNES and Zelda 64 a.k.a Zelda 5 a.k.a. The Ocarina Of Time wasn't available until two years after N64's launch.
While it's safe to assume there will be a Super Mario Cubed to accompany the GameCube, I wouldn't expect Zelda Cubed before 2003.
and often showed pictures of Africans and Indians (from India) in their pictures
That wouldn't be too surprising, black Africans lived nearby to the south (Nubia, Kush) and India probably was known to them via Mesopotamia or Persia and its trade with the East. India was known to the Greeks as well. Had any of them known about the Chinese or Japanese, I would've been impressed;-)
The old writings say they would use forien crews for their boats. I wonder if there was something about their religion that keep them from going far.
Probably not, Egypt had to rely on foreigners, because they supplied the boats. You see, Egypt had no large supply of timber to be used for shipbuilding. So they went to the master mariners of the region, the Phoenicians, in present-day Lebanon where vast pineforests formed a precious resource.
In fact, that solar boat you mentioned contains beams so large they had to have been made from a single Lebanese pine. Nothing special, until you realise there aren't any pines that big left. We wouldn't be able to build another solar boat, not because of lack of technology, but of the resource needed.
So the Phoenician sailors simply came with the package, as they would later serve the Persians against the Greeks.
Re:3D Realism is becoming dangerous.
on
Nvidia's NV20
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· Score: 1
Exactly. I think people will adapt to any new development. Just like young people don't have any problem watching MTV-style fast cutting television. You'll still realise you're sitting behind a monitor, not a window.
Once we get to the level of holodecks, it's time to be worried;-)
but what are they going to do with a 500Mhz ramdac
I think they may be confusing it with the DDR-memory clockspeed which will be 500 MHz. A RAMDAC of that speed would be overkill, there aren't any monitors big enough for those resolutions, and the upcoming LCD and digital monitors don't even need a RAMDAC.
300% increase in FSAA speed
Why not? You have to remember that the GeForces did FSAA in software. They probably added a hardware-based implementation, like 3dfx did with the VSA-100.
how crap the V5 are compared to GF2 if you talk about speed.
The V5 wasn't that bad when it came to speed per se (especially with FSAA), it's just that their top card with 4 VS-100 never panned out, thus giving the GeForce 2 and up the edge. nVidia is still far ahead in terms of quality though.
It's perhaps more tragic than Netscape's downfall. In 1995 it was generally assumed 3D-cards would be the next big thing in graphics. nVidia was one of the first with their NV1 chip. Then others followed, all with their own API, since Direct3D did not yet exist in usable form. There were so-so chips such as S3's Virge and excellent add-on cards with Rendition's Verite or the PowerVR.
But one company simply outclassed 'm all. The Voodoo 1 was somewhat expensive, but in a league of its own. With its excellent API (Glide) and John Carmack's GLQuake port it conquered the market.
I don't think they lost it because they didn't innovate, they lost it because their innovations (high fill-rate, FSAA) weren't what the market wanted. This is how nVidia after their desastrous NV1 and NV2 chips came back with the NV3 and especially the NV4 (TNT).
High fill-rate was secondary to 32-bit color and sound OpenGL support. 3dfx realised this too late and it's been downhill ever since.
Actually, I think the Pentium IV would be the 80786. Intel only used to increase the number for a new architecture, not has as they do these days with every enhancement. For instance, the difference between a 386SX and a 386DX was that the latter had a 32-bit bus, a pretty significant architectural difference. What counts is the core of the processor.
Had Intel continued to do this, we would have had:
80586..........Pentium
80586+........Pentium MMX
80686..........Pentium Pro
80686DX.....Pentium II
80686SX.....Celeron
80686DX+...Pentium III
80686SX+...Celeron FC-PGA
80786..........Pentium IV
If you look at the title of my post, you'll see why it might be significant: Bush Sr. once stated that he didn't consider atheists to be citizines in full. I don't think the apple has fallen too far from the tree.
And you don't appear to understand what atheism means. I have no religion. Most atheists don't "practice" anything. Dubya obviously has to acknowledge the 1st Amendement, but it is precisely because it doens't recognize atheism that the Constitution could be abused by the RR.
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Amen, that would probably be the only example. "All In The Family" was actually better than "Till Death Us Do Part", I think.
I'm not sure one could describe an Apple user as "common man". Last I checked, those Macs weren't cheap ;-) If only Apple would finally make an x86 version of its OS, then Linux would really have some competition in the user-friendly *nix arena.
The notion of a European Super State is very widespread amongst anti-European groups, but I think it is a matter of mis-interpretation. Further union doesn't mean a superstate. Like I said, Europe needs to speak with one voice when it comes to foreign policy if it wants an effective policy and the military to back it up. This doesn't say anything about how this will be implemented, the anti-euros simply, in their limited imagination, assume it will function like the US. However, I don't think the EU will ever resemble anything close to the USA. Unlike the US, the European Nations truely are seperate Nations, whereas the US is only one Nation. Why people think the EU is going to be like the US politically is beyond me.
Question is, who made the US the "mother" of Europe,
;-)
Europe itself is the one to blame the most. Ever heard of the two World Wars? Militarily, Europe still hasn't recovered from its self-annihilation. Ever since it has been far more practical and cost-effective to hide under Uncle Sam's umbrella. Europe could be a major power if it wanted and I think it will be, but we need further union (on foreign policy and such) before that can happen, and we all know how difficult that will be
In a way Europe is the true sleeping giant, but it will take quite some time before it will arise once more.
Saying "The US lost the race when Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space on April 12, 1961, orbiting the Earth for 108 minutes in Vostok 1." is as stupid and simplistic as saying that the US won it because the US put the first man on the moon.
;-) the Americans consider the Moon to be one of the more important ones.
Not exactly, it depends on what race you're talking about. The race to get into space was most definitely won by the Soviets. As this race is what most people consider to be the most important part of the Space Race as a whole, you could argue they won the race. You'd be wrong of course, the real answer is, the race is still going. It all depends where you set your goals and for some reason
I am not based on just von Braun! Exactly who Kubrick had in mind when he made Dr. Strangelove is not known, but the most likely candidates are von Braun (minor), Henry Kissinger (who wrote a paper on nuclear war in those days) and, of course, Edward Teller, a major influence.
Why do a lot of people assume the next-gen console battle will only be between Sony and MS? I don't understand how you can dismiss Nintendo so casually. Sure, the N64 was a dismal failure and Nintendo still doesn't cater to certain groups specifically, but that still doesn't mean the big N (they don't call it that for nothing) will fade away.
Of course, they very well might if the GC isn't a succes, but you can't assume it won't be. The GC will not be another N64. In fact, if I were to make a guess, I'd say X-Box will have the most problems in establishing itself. They have no console experience, no true game experience and I don't see the X-Box immediately taking off in a crucial market, Japan. That doesn't mean they'll fail, but that you can't assume they will win for sure. See what I mean?
A lot of people treat Nintendo this way, but you have to remember Nintendo is a lot like IBM. Both once ruled the world (Nintendo in the 80's, IBM in the 60's-70's), then lost their momentum and public image (Nintendo to Sony, IBM to MS), but they held on with markets no-one else has (Nintendo has portable gaming, IBM has the big contracts and hardware), thus remaining very profitable and are now attempting to show the upstarts a thing or two (Nintendo with GC and GBA, IBM with Linux?)
Hell, DOOM was ported to the friggin' 16-bit SNES, I don't see why they couldn't technically do a GBA port.
These guys are not the only ones sensing the industry might be heading in a wrong direction, the direction of flashy presentation without content. This article is a very interesting interview with the venerable Yamauchi, Head of Nintendo, who basically states that unless game developers start adressing this issue and begin placing fun in games as the top priority, the industry might be about to relive 1984 all over again, with people no longer being interested in games.
No, they never did, "manned" means with humans, and the Soviets (alas) never got this far. You may be confused because they managed to do everything except land a man on the moon, from 20+ lunar missions, fly-bys, landings, sample-collecting and even a Rover.
Now now, there no need to be so gentle ;-)) Kidding aside, isn't this an excellent argument against the hoaxers? One of 'm claimed that NASA actually killed the Apollo 1 crew to shut them up, and that they arranged the deaths of others who where about to go public. Apart from being highly slanderous, wouldn't the person claiming this to be true be placed on top of the hit-list if it where true? I guess where gonna find out ;-)
Now, about Vietnam there can be no doubts whatsoever, but there is some truth to what you're saying about the Cuban Crisis...
They most certainly did! Not with cosmonauts, no, but they landed several robotic explorers which did collect and bring home Moon samples. Not all Moon rocks were collected by the Americans.
Mein Fuehrer!
(suppresses right arm...)
Not exactly, Pluto was suspected to exist because the then current gravitational models suggested a planet beyond Neptune. However Pluto was dicovered optically by comparing images over a certain period of time. Of course, once people found out just how small it was, the search continued for another planet beyond Pluto, as it was simply too small to account for the effects observed in Neptune's orbit.
;-)
Nowadays we realise this search was in vain. Updated grav-models do not show the need for another planet, the peculiarities in Neptune's orbit can be fully explained by these better models, without the existance of a large ninth planet. Pluto does not in any significant way influence Neptune.
Add to this the fact of Pluto's odd orbit and that we're now discovering a lot of "Plutoids" and you'll understand why things are looking rather grim for Pluto's status as a full-blown planet.
I would not classify this as a planet, rather as a Kuiper Belt Object. There are several of them discovered already, and if one compares the Objects closely, you'll find that Pluto doesn't really deserve to be called a planet either.
One of the recent (well, last few decades) developments in astronomy is the realisation that there is a zone of many planetoids, little (in comparison) balls of ice and dust, outside Neptun's orbit. These are called Trans-Neptunian or Kuiper Belt Objects.
Now that the number of them is increasing, maybe we can finally declassify Pluto and put it in its rightful place. Of course, the Pluto-fraction won't be happy.
Well if one were to pronounce it with an American accent i.e. the "u" at the end becomes an "uh" which sounds like an "a", it would sound a lot like...Vrisuh...Frizuh...Frieza!
;-)
Now I'm worried
You are mistaken, both the SNES and the N64 launched with respectively Super Mario World and Super Mario 64, but Zelda games have never been available at launch.
Super Zelda a.k.a. Zelda 3 a.k.a A Link To The Past came out about a year after the launch of the SNES and Zelda 64 a.k.a Zelda 5 a.k.a. The Ocarina Of Time wasn't available until two years after N64's launch.
While it's safe to assume there will be a Super Mario Cubed to accompany the GameCube, I wouldn't expect Zelda Cubed before 2003.
and often showed pictures of Africans and Indians (from India) in their pictures
;-)
That wouldn't be too surprising, black Africans lived nearby to the south (Nubia, Kush) and India probably was known to them via Mesopotamia or Persia and its trade with the East. India was known to the Greeks as well. Had any of them known about the Chinese or Japanese, I would've been impressed
The old writings say they would use forien crews for their boats. I wonder if there was something about their religion that keep them from going far.
Probably not, Egypt had to rely on foreigners, because they supplied the boats. You see, Egypt had no large supply of timber to be used for shipbuilding. So they went to the master mariners of the region, the Phoenicians, in present-day Lebanon where vast pineforests formed a precious resource.
In fact, that solar boat you mentioned contains beams so large they had to have been made from a single Lebanese pine. Nothing special, until you realise there aren't any pines that big left. We wouldn't be able to build another solar boat, not because of lack of technology, but of the resource needed.
So the Phoenician sailors simply came with the package, as they would later serve the Persians against the Greeks.
Exactly. I think people will adapt to any new development. Just like young people don't have any problem watching MTV-style fast cutting television. You'll still realise you're sitting behind a monitor, not a window.
;-)
Once we get to the level of holodecks, it's time to be worried
but what are they going to do with a 500Mhz ramdac
I think they may be confusing it with the DDR-memory clockspeed which will be 500 MHz. A RAMDAC of that speed would be overkill, there aren't any monitors big enough for those resolutions, and the upcoming LCD and digital monitors don't even need a RAMDAC.
300% increase in FSAA speed
Why not? You have to remember that the GeForces did FSAA in software. They probably added a hardware-based implementation, like 3dfx did with the VSA-100.
how crap the V5 are compared to GF2 if you talk about speed.
The V5 wasn't that bad when it came to speed per se (especially with FSAA), it's just that their top card with 4 VS-100 never panned out, thus giving the GeForce 2 and up the edge. nVidia is still far ahead in terms of quality though.
It's perhaps more tragic than Netscape's downfall. In 1995 it was generally assumed 3D-cards would be the next big thing in graphics. nVidia was one of the first with their NV1 chip. Then others followed, all with their own API, since Direct3D did not yet exist in usable form. There were so-so chips such as S3's Virge and excellent add-on cards with Rendition's Verite or the PowerVR.
But one company simply outclassed 'm all. The Voodoo 1 was somewhat expensive, but in a league of its own. With its excellent API (Glide) and John Carmack's GLQuake port it conquered the market.
I don't think they lost it because they didn't innovate, they lost it because their innovations (high fill-rate, FSAA) weren't what the market wanted. This is how nVidia after their desastrous NV1 and NV2 chips came back with the NV3 and especially the NV4 (TNT).
High fill-rate was secondary to 32-bit color and sound OpenGL support. 3dfx realised this too late and it's been downhill ever since.
Actually, I think the Pentium IV would be the 80786. Intel only used to increase the number for a new architecture, not has as they do these days with every enhancement. For instance, the difference between a 386SX and a 386DX was that the latter had a 32-bit bus, a pretty significant architectural difference. What counts is the core of the processor.
Had Intel continued to do this, we would have had:
80586..........Pentium
80586+........Pentium MMX
80686..........Pentium Pro
80686DX.....Pentium II
80686SX.....Celeron
80686DX+...Pentium III
80686SX+...Celeron FC-PGA
80786..........Pentium IV
Dude, any movie that has both Godzilla and the Dukes Of Hazzard cannot, by definition, be all bad ;-)
If you look at the title of my post, you'll see why it might be significant: Bush Sr. once stated that he didn't consider atheists to be citizines in full. I don't think the apple has fallen too far from the tree.
And you don't appear to understand what atheism means. I have no religion. Most atheists don't "practice" anything. Dubya obviously has to acknowledge the 1st Amendement, but it is precisely because it doens't recognize atheism that the Constitution could be abused by the RR.