Wow, wow, your average GPS is nowhere near 1 cm accuracy it is infact around the range that the paper suggests. (It can be much less or much more depending on conditions.)
The only way this technology gets to 1cm accuracy is through a number of techniques built on to the GPS technology. WAAS can get it way down, RTK is by far the best and probably what that receiver youve mentioned works on. However, neither of these technologies are perfect nor can we be certain what technology specifically was being used on this experiment and if we assume they are using top level stuff (Which is a pretty safe bet) I am not sure what effect the ground based improvements to distance accuracy would have on the experiment timings. (Perhaps someone can elaborate on the technology and clear this up for me.)
I do still think it would be surprising if they hadnt taken in to account relativistic effects like those mentioned in the paper but it is still an important possibility to be ruled out and contrary to what multiple/. 'experts' in GPS suggest it isnt immediately ruled out by our current use of the tech. Thats not directed specifically at this post but there are an awful lot of/. posts saying 'My tomtom works fine this guys gotta be an idiot.'
(Note, no I am not an expert either but arguing the point of being ignorant gives me the edge, and I do know enough to be quite sure the accuracy of GPS can get complicated.)
While its true the start menu gets cluttered its not actually MS that determines what a piece of software shoves in there.
MS cant mandate all companies use the name of their software in the start menu and not their company name its just not possible to do that. They can tell you whats best for the user and they probably already do but if a company says screw that then there isnt anything they can do. (Except remove the functionality entirely...)
Hang on, initial detection rates have nothing to do with the actual quantities you could later harvest. Though that can usually be extrapolated, which it has in the admittedly optimistic paper on the extraction. They measure extraction in micrograms a year depending on the body being harvested and also use the collected material in conjunction with other methods to power any project.
Now I doubt it would ever become a fuel source, Im sure other means will be ready long before we could scoop up that material, but its a fascinating idea to be considered and clearly more viable than trying to fuel something off a handful of particles every year.
Incidentally, someone suggested trying Jupiter for more material, the paper also goes in to that (If only there was some kind of acronym thats constantly posted telling us to read these things.) Turns out Saturn will have a better supply which is interesting in and of itself because it obviously doesnt have the larger magnetic field, its all a bit more complicated than that.
My story is kind of opposite to most posts here. In second year of university I had a particularly hard time with a key module. I clocked up hours of lab time, went to every lecture, put in a lot of work, but the module wasnt sticking. My grade for that module was ultimately terrible despite my best efforts, but where others got similar grades and werent seen to be working, my lecturer was around for a lot of the time I clocked up and he basically let me pass based on that fact.
It was the _wrong_ thing to do and I shouldnt have accepted that decision, I should have re-sat the year like many many others had (It was a tough year, the course was restructured during us going through it and failure rates were very high.) Ill always regret that decision, and I failed a third year where I was completely out of my depth. It was only on the third attempt at that third year I finally passed with a shoddy mark for the degree. I wasnt nearly so hard working by then and somewhat bitter at seeing everyone else in my old year catchup and surpass me.
There were certainly other factors to all this but when I chose to take the wrong decision no matter how well-meant it was it had a pretty dramatic effect on the rest of my education and likely the rest of my life.
Did anyone actually read the article? because everybody seems intent on trashing it for saying this is like MS antitrust when the mainstay of the article is about googles whining that 'bogus' patents are being drawn up against it. Now are apple and MS patent trolling? Who knows! Google certainly havent gone in to detail about it so it has to go to the courts. This isnt some small startup getting picked on by big corporations this is a _massive_ company with the majority of the market share and they are acting like they are being picked on! Whats more they are getting huge support over this when, should google genuinely be infringing on patents, they have the power to immediately destroy any potential for profit on the ideas by distributing it immediately across a vast network. Thats the point of the article, all of that is what 95% of the text was about.
You may think its fine for google to distribute things for free patent or not, especially when the source of the features are from equally big players. Thats a different discussion. You may think the patent system is horribly broken. (well durr.) Also a different discussion. However, if you think google is the kid being bullied by the nasty profiteering giants then youve really got to get a grip, but of course you should know this because its just parroting what the article said...
The comparison to MS anti-trust was daft and the cases are very different but the sites a freakin windows super site. So many calling him a windows shill as if he doesnt pretty much advertise his allegiances... If you didnt go in to it in the knowledge that there was going to be some bias you are being painfully naive. (Incidentally that goes for _any_ site that unashamedly labels themselves after the product they support.) That doesnt mean a lot of the points made werent valid. Google arnt the underdog any more, havent been for some time.
[Note, let me pre-empt a strawman or two by pointing out that neither his post nor mine are saying MS and Apple are any better than Google in this situation.]
'Essentially, he's butthurt that people actually are designing games with higher artistic (and conceptual) goals in mind than just pushing the graphical power of another FPS, and he's taking it personally that they find his games boring.' - That is _entirely_ fabricated. He never put down those aiming for originality, he never commented on them finding his games boring, youve invented your straw-man for a good beating.
'You chose your road, live with it, and let people who have other ambitions do what they do.' - Hows beating on that straw-man going for ya? Or would you like to quote the part that Carmack said other people should dump their ambitions.
'Carmack is one of those generation of game designers who were artistically unsophisticated, yet craved the credibility of "art."' Wow... do you know the guy? Were you friends for some period of time? The number of assumptions crammed in here youd have to know the guy or this would just be a really arrogant thing to say. Needless to say Carmack has never claimed to be aiming for fine art, that was pretty much a good chunk of what he was saying.
Carmack basically made one point, originality isnt the be all and end all. He didnt say people shouldnt be original, he didnt say people had to accept his games, most of his references werent even to games he made. He is just sick of the bracket of people that pooh pooh _incredibly_ successful games because each new game isnt 'creative'. Or to sum it up from the article, hes basically down on the attitude that 'if it’s popular, it’s not good'. (and NO that doesnt mean hes saying 'if it is popular, it is good' mister interpret things for vicious straw-man beatings.) You want to disagree with that fine but quit making crap up to get riled about and actually read what the man is saying.
'If you hate social networking sites, then ignore them!' - You cant without ostracizing yourself as more and more social events run through facebook pretty much exclusively. That doesnt mean they are useless or even that those people dont use them, it does mean that they will continue to complain bitterly about them though.
Strawman Number 1: 'Of course maybe you're the guy who announced that he would never again write a letter or mail a check once he got his first piece of unsolicited junk mail from Publisher's Clearinghouse.' Or you are the guy who complains about the junk mail even today long after the practice was started, which is... well perfectly reasonable, junk mail costs us millions a year to deal with. The crap that social networks throw up shouldnt just be forgotten about because its a few years down the line. This shit _can_ and _should_ still be fixed.
'That boat sailed a long time ago.' - No, no it didnt. Not according to the law, not according to millions of people who still fight for it, not even according to half these companies who make promises about it and lose valuable PR when those promises go wrong. You have to be naive to think data you throw up will be secure, but youd have to be weak or daft to just accept it without complaint.
Strawman Number 2: 'Unless you're the guy who has refused to own a telephone for eighty years because you were pissed off about having your name and address published in the White Pages.' Or you are the guy who has his name and address removed and wants that kept private, which is exactly what millions of people do and want.
Im not trolling, Im not trying to get a rise out of people. Just trying to point something out that I see as being quite prevalent on articles such as this.
but you are right, I didnt comment on the article itself so ill try fix that now.
Ive run larger and larger heatsinks with slower quieter larger fans to get my CPU clocking up nice and quiet and cool. The fan provides only a small amount of air movement these days but without it its still a long way off being passively cooled. Ive often wondered if there was a better way of getting that little bit of airflow and abandon the fan altogether all the better if it could reduce the size of my heatsink to smaller than your average breeze block.
This research is fascinating, its a remarkably simple concept at its heart. (That has some complex issues of course.) The idea never dawned on me and seems to solve a lot of issues; those are my favorite kind of discoveries. For the same power Im putting in to my fan at the moment I could have a much smaller quieter setup if this technology works and thats just in my daft desktop PC. Perhaps hes being optimistic with his estimates of how it will improve efficiency across the board but cooling systems are a huge expense and if it can do even a fraction of what is claimed itll be a heck of a boon. (Which, to go back to my previous point, is why if it has to be written-off by people it should be those whove read all the information and built a solid argument against it.)
I know its said a lot and should be common knowledge but I think it pays to stress it more strongly on occasion. This seems like an ideal time, READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE.
Several posts now, numerous mod points and dozens of follow ups all frankly making complete asses of themselves ironically complaining about how the IQ of/. has dropped while they make angry complaints and rants about the story that are fully addressed in the documentation.
and if you think that the fact that the summary screwed up is still a good sign of/. intelligence drop then you really need to look right back in the archives because bad summaries have been around on/. and virtually everywhere else pretty much from the beginning. Unsurprisingly the people posting the stories dont have total knowledge of the often fairly complex material posted and they screw it up good and proper on occasion. Which is probably why you should be judging the posts on the documents they link to and not the quickly thrown together summary by an admitted layman. Anything else is ironically a really stupid thing to do.
READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE.
(and no this doesnt mean the documentation is flawless but make commentary on that, not the summary, it will raise that intelligence level a lot of you are so eager to whine about.)
Anti-competitive doesnt just mean you cant throw discounts at people even if you are the apparently evil Microsoft. It means that you are going so far that all other competition can not keep up. Whether with money or litigation etc. MS were up against Google, there is nothing stopping google weighing in with a discount that could easily counter MSs offer. They chose not to and they lost the business that is if anything a perfect example of good competition.
So, could people please stop applying anti-competitive to everything that involves a company they dont like succeeding...
"That won't ever happen, you guys need to STFU and let us scientists get on with the science."
Id like you to link to the article where someone said that, and I dont mean some 12 year old comment on a forum an actual article where someone of any merit at all said that. Otherwise youve started off your moral outrage with a lie.
"We can't even agree it is a bad idea and will almost certainly have bad consequences."
So its a bad idea because you say so and we are doomed because you say so. So far your argument is failing to convince me, your coverage of the moral and ethical implications is sorely lacking.
Now, ignoring the fact that this news is far far from 'designer babies' and full genetic control. Ill try do better, what can possibly go wrong with designer babies?
1. prefrences that damage gender balances is one of the biggest issues ive seen presented, certain countries prefer male children over female but wait, these are the same countries that people who want male children are actually euthanising girls. So it basically boils down to this, if they want male children they are going to have them you either have infanticide or you chuck away an embryo, your choice.
2. an elite class, perhaps even more troubling than the first issue genetics could bread a superior class of people immune to genetic diseases deformity and highly resistant to anything that could crop up later in life. This doesnt cripple the idea though, it just means we have to be responsible with it. That means places like America may have to man up and provide a bit of socialist genetic health care for the good of the entire nation. Anything outside the cosmetic should be handled by NHSs and controlled on a country level by the entire populace through democratic methods. Dont think that cant happen because the costs of keeping alive hundreds of thousands with genetic based conditions is phenominal. This is a win win situation for the government and the populace.
3. Fashion trends, this is perhaps the most confusing one to me. People get up in arms about the idea of a parent having control of hair colour, eye colour etc. These same parents will ultimately have control over diet, education, and the entire welfare of there child. You know what, if a parent really wants there kid to have blond hair I dont care, I honestly dont give a shit. The moment its born there will be considerably larger issues to deal with.
There are other issues im sure and of course an unpredictable component but this is the same of all technology, when we invented the microchip it could have led to dire consequences but we cant stagnate in fear of what might be.
I find the problems with designer babies are entirely founded on problems that already exist and we are having difficulty sweeping them under the carpet (1). Or in a pessimistic attitude to the way our society will handle and give out the health improvements this could bring about (2). Or are just plain deity loving fear mongering about how we shouldnt play God (Despite the fact we already do on a daily.) for no good reason what so ever (3).
Meanwhile the benefits are an end to the most unpleasant of diseases. Diseases that dont just kill they slowly slowly destroy a person and everyone that person is connected to. Not only this but it could significantly reduce our vulnerability to diseases that arnt direct genetically manifest, that we merely have a predisposition to. You are talking about a health revolution on the scale of having clean drinking water. Millions of lives saved, millions of years of human life improved unimaginably.
It isnt immoral or unethical to consider this technology. Its immoral and unethical to not even consider the monumental impact it could have on so many that are suffering. If there is any reason we would ever face our doom it would be because of blinkered ignorant views of world changing science and technology. I for one am not willing to go back to living in a cave.
You are right but your argument is extremely flawed.
There is nothing to say that regardless of dimensions you will only ever be able to view things in a dimension below. The reason why we cant manipulate a true 3D display is because we dont see in 3D.
3D is an illusion of 2D images and perspective, your brain does an exceptionally good job of it, ask anyone and they will tell you they see in 3D but ask them to tell you whats on the other side of an object and theyll have to go around to the other side to see it. If you were truly seeing in 3D that wouldnt be necessary.
This is something you see demonstrated in programming where in order to display anything you have to effectively remove a dimension in order to project it to the screen. (The same can be said of every representation of 3D, photographs, paintings, neither of them have actual depth.) Everything on your display is 2D whether it looks 3D or not, likewise everything 3D in reality is viewed in our eyes in 2D whether it is or not, and there in lies the problem.
When you make information 3D it doesnt change your ability to only see in 2D and as such you will have to do more complicated tasks in order to get to the information. 2.5D which is what we commonly call the current desktop layout is the minimal amount of effort to get to the information. (Drag and slide something away and you see whats behind it.) ITs precisely how we organise information in real life. E.g. Fileing cabinets.
The more you dabble in 3D the more you have to do to get the information and the less intuitive the interface becomes.
Ultimately it becomes a case of more information on screen weighed up against complexity of viewing it and so far nobody has come even remotely close to beating 2.5D and there have been _a lot_ of attempts.
However, this is nothing to do with some invented axiom of how much something can see in a given number of dimensions. If our eyes were very different and could somehow see and take in the world in length, height _and_ depth then our displays would no doubt be very different. Probably having to be 3D holograms to seem anything other than extremely primitive to something with such visual prowess.
From the unreal creator I expected more, or at least something that actually makes sense.
First off not sure which marketing people hes talking about, I have not seen a single advert on TV or pretty much anywhere for 3 way SLI. This is like a strawman, its like hes saying 'Oh so they think we need 20Gig of RAM and 50 graphics cards well we dont!' No one ever said you do, and indeed to play any game today, even Crysis, you dont.
Second since the freaking voodoo 1 a graphics card has been a necessary addition to play modern games. If hes saying PC gaming is going in the wrong direction because computers dont come prefitted with modern graphics tech then hes saying its been going in the wrong direction for over a decade. In computing terms, since the dawn of time. Now theoretically you used to be able to scale down you PC without decent graphics, in reality it was virtually completely unplayable. The fact he uses Unreal as an example is laughable, that game is still joked about in this house today for being absurdly hard to run on any of our computers. We still assume the starting sweep around the castle would jitter like crazy. No gamer would sit on a PC without that additional card soon after the first ever ones were released. That includes for games like Unreal. (Which incidentally was the game I bought a brand new voodoo 2 for...)
Third his rubbish about every PC being a full on gaming platform... Out of all the PCs in use today a tiny, tiny fraction are ever required to play a game. _Tiny_. To make all PCs games platforms is patently absurd. Out of the dozens of people I know there are maybe 4 or 5 who would ever even notice that there graphics card had been taken out of there system if it had come with one. So, yeah, lets charge everyone a hundred more quid for useless technology to artificially boost a small industry. Good plan.
His idea of software rendering sounds like its equally as daft, I dont have the processor design knowledge but I do know that specifically designed processing units gain a vast speed boost, (The old maths co-processors boosted performance in there tasks by anything up to 100 fold, a similar value to what he refers to when describing the difference between a system with and without a graphics card.) and that the GPU is more complicated than your average CPU (You wont see GPU in a CPU ala the maths co-processor, its pretty much physically impossible.) How he expects CPU's to suddenly leap in power 100 fold so that it makes software rendering worthwhile I dont know. Even if you gave it a decade of development the people at Nvidia and AMD will be boosting there processors as well so the 100x gap will probably always be there unless Intel has some kind of fantastic CPU epiphany.
This is rambling, contradictory, nonsensical, rubbish. Mostly about the old PC is dying argument that gets trotted out every single month. (and quit comparing PCs to consoles, consoles are dedicated games machines, if there games industry wasnt a damn site bigger than the PC one they wouldnt be making them at all!) Funny thing, after years and years of the PC is dying PC gaming profits remain as good as ever. Oh would you look at that, Nvidia and AMD making record profits, even ignoring console sales. Must be because PC gaming is in its death throes... Its almost like these self proclaimed analysts are full of shit. (I dont care how much I enjoyed playing unreal, if your going to talk crap im going to bitch about it on some forums.)
Err actually I just finished UT3 on my 2.8GHz P4 with 6600... It wasnt exactly high graphics but it ran smoothly and I could kill as easily as ever.
I have bought a new computer just recently, because not all games are as forgiving. (Though dont get me wrong, I can actually count the number that wont run on my system on one hand.) Other than that $45 you mention (It was actually £45 for me.) I have not spent a penny on my system for close to 5 years, I checked my ebuyer account just to be sure. Now ive laid out 350 quid, which is some 70 to 80 quid less than I spent for that first computer, and I will have a very good system. We are talking a factory clocked 8800GT, 2GB of top grade RAM, an excellent motherboard and CPU, whole new case with powerful PSU, etc.
Never mind UT3 this thing will run Crysis pretty damn smooth at eye bleedingly good level. Thats 350 quid, 400 if you consider an equivalent upgrade in the next 5 years. 80 quid a year for something that will run any game, thats pretty much cheaper than any modern console and you dont have to take in to account the fact a PC does a hell of a lot more.
This is basically just more toss about how PC gaming is dying. No, no it isnt. Even if you say its dying every single year (or month as it seems to be) it doesnt make it any more true. PC gaming is making pretty much the same as it always has been and will probably continue to make the same for the foresable future. That is _a lot_ less than consoles but then thats been true of the market since consoles first took off. They are dedicated games systems, if the console game industry was not a hell of a lot larger than the PC one you wouldnt have consoles at all.
Console FPS and PC FPS are basically two different genres, or sub genres as the case maybe. A console FPS has to be slower and as a result balanced differently to a PC FPS where you can spin on the spot in a fraction of a second. (Which is why if people ever do port a game they need to be very careful about it and not just slap it on a new platform ala Halo.)
That doesnt make console FPSs worse or better, just different. I know just as many players who are masters of Quake games and dont see anything special in Halo and its like (Me included) as I do people who think the exact opposite.
You are right that Quake3 players on the dreamcast got devestated by PC players but then they were supposed to be seperated because of that fact and having played Quake3 4 player co-op on dreamcast I can tell you its a lot of fun regardless. Now I still prefer Quake3 on PC because im rather good at it and when your good you tend to enjoy the game a whole lot more, but the people I was playing were better at console than PC and enjoyed it like that. Neither of us are categorically right in our prefrence and thats the thing to remember.
Yes you can kill more efficiently with a mouse keyboard control but thats the difference between finishing with 10 or 30 frags, it doesnt mean its less fun. Or to put it another way, cycling to work could get you there fast but pogoing might still be a heck of a lot more fun.
Or perhaps slashdot on another uneducated baseless diatribe directed towards that little known company MS.
Did you read the article or did you just check the headline and decide to try get cheap mod points? Ill point out why you dont deserve them.
'Paul Ducklin, head of technology for security firm Sophos, said the security hole found by Boileau was not a vulnerability or bug in the traditional sense, because the ability to use the Firewire port to access a computer's memory was actually a feature of Firewire.'
Now maybe this was just excuses but the fact it came from a third party with no particular connection to MS should have made you pause for thought. Even if you dont know much about firewire it would take you moments to do a quick search and actually realise this is a 'feature' of the actual specification itself. As in _every_ O/S had the same problem. Linux, OSX even BSD were using this exploit even before MS were cracked. There are still reports of new OSX and Linux systems being hacked by firewire right in to 2008. (Though admitedly ive not heard much from BSD, probably because there admins tend to actually have a clue.)
This is a universal flaw in security stemming from naivety with regard to externally connected hardware. You want secure firewire, disable it when you are not using it yourself. That goes for any system, any O/S, any person. End of story.
'Don't a lot of old-timers say that the keyboards of old, where you actually got some resistence from the keys, were more comfortable to type with than the yielding keyboards of today?'
No, they tend to say the keyboards of old have more feedback from the keys which make them more comfortable to type on. They are correct.
If a keyboard doesnt have reasonable feedback from the keys, as in the difference between the click of a buckle spring keys (Yay model M!) and the lack of anything from some of the newer keyboards, then people are known to push all the harder with there fingers increasing the stress a great deal and causing aches and pains and in the long term perhaps even worse. (You can actually get the computer to make clicks upon it getting a key input and it does actually help.)
Buttons that feel like you are pushing them in to playdoh every tmie you hit them are terrible for the hands and typing speed. The optimus is pretty much worthless if it cant get the most basic element of the keyboard right, the keys.
You would have a point except Yahoo is in decline, they have been declining for a few years now and the only reason Yahoo stock is worth what it is today is entirely because of the MS take over bids.
If MS walks away, and there is a reasonable chance of that happening, there is no reason why Yahoo shares wont collapse back down again and continue to decline until they are worthless or they pull some miracle out of the bag to get them on the rise again. (Which is highly unlikely given there key areas are being increasingly dominated by Google and Microsoft themselves.)
Not selling was hugely risky and I dont believe any sane person at Yahoo was making that choice to keep the integrity of the company, they wanted more money out of the deal and that greed may cost them. (It may also make them more rich of course but the question of whether the risk was worth it is easily debateable enough to make these actions understandable.)
Go to metacritic. Open up all the recent games good and bad for all the different consoles. Now count how many of them have the typical huge busted scantily clad fantasy women.
I did it. Turns out about 2, and one of them is Lara Croft who has actually been gaining increasingly realistic body measurements. (There are a hell of a lot more muscle bound macho heroes but its a stereotype most men enjoy so carry on with that.) If you think it should be 0 then you are being ridiculous, men like sexy women. Its not a minority opinion, its a major thing in society, and its not going away. Some parts of every medium will always cater to it and to be honest that really isnt that bad a thing.
This like many of the female related 'problems'* in the games industry is a myth bound to a tiny selection of games. There are more busty nude women in just about every other medium.
Games have already hit the mainstream, there are plenty of women involved with them, everything is fine.
*You _still_ get countless articles on how there are no games for women, how women dont play or enjoy games, blah blah blah. Women make up over 44% of gamesplayers. These worries are all a load of bunk, ironically probably driven by geeks desperately overprotective of the 'weaker' sex.
At no point in any of the articles is it said people just flicked their wrist or played the Wii in any specific way. Indeed the one quote about it suggested the players 'were on their feet and they moved in all directions.'.
Unless you can provide some kind of evidence that those being studied were just flicking their wrists ill have to assume you are a bit of a fanboy and just making this up.
'I don't think anyone ever said that the Wii is suppose to replace any type of exercise regimen.'
Ill stop you and the mods who claim this to be insightful right there. You dont think the article with the header 'Study Says Wii Can't Replace Workout' is about anyone saying it can replace a workout...
Even if the article was refering to 2% of your exercise regime (which others have pointed out it is not.) the slashdot summary, the heading, the whole article is about it replacing exercise. That is not a good thing.
No one said this is anything to do with faulty Nintendo claims its just that a lot of people, including myself I admit, believed that the controller can be a decent aid in a bit of exercise.
It is extremely worrying to me that this comment can get modded 5 insightful.
We are talking about children here and while I am not a fan of over protecting or sheltering children the internet is chocked full of the most disturbing content. Sex, death, drugs you can see it all with a simple search even in google images, and you dont have to be very specific for some horrifying stuff to turn up.
No good parent should allow children free reign on something like that. You let your children go out and have fun, you dont let them take a trip to amsterdam to check out hookers though.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, wow, your average GPS is nowhere near 1 cm accuracy it is infact around the range that the paper suggests. (It can be much less or much more depending on conditions.)
The only way this technology gets to 1cm accuracy is through a number of techniques built on to the GPS technology. WAAS can get it way down, RTK is by far the best and probably what that receiver youve mentioned works on. However, neither of these technologies are perfect nor can we be certain what technology specifically was being used on this experiment and if we assume they are using top level stuff (Which is a pretty safe bet) I am not sure what effect the ground based improvements to distance accuracy would have on the experiment timings. (Perhaps someone can elaborate on the technology and clear this up for me.)
I do still think it would be surprising if they hadnt taken in to account relativistic effects like those mentioned in the paper but it is still an important possibility to be ruled out and contrary to what multiple /. 'experts' in GPS suggest it isnt immediately ruled out by our current use of the tech. Thats not directed specifically at this post but there are an awful lot of /. posts saying 'My tomtom works fine this guys gotta be an idiot.'
(Note, no I am not an expert either but arguing the point of being ignorant gives me the edge, and I do know enough to be quite sure the accuracy of GPS can get complicated.)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41f4b8rM4KL._SS400_.jpg Nuff said.
Anyone who doesnt want to bounce on a glorified space-hopper all day is no friend of mine.
While its true the start menu gets cluttered its not actually MS that determines what a piece of software shoves in there.
MS cant mandate all companies use the name of their software in the start menu and not their company name its just not possible to do that. They can tell you whats best for the user and they probably already do but if a company says screw that then there isnt anything they can do. (Except remove the functionality entirely...)
Theyre the only ones who can get the bombs working...
Hang on, initial detection rates have nothing to do with the actual quantities you could later harvest. Though that can usually be extrapolated, which it has in the admittedly optimistic paper on the extraction. They measure extraction in micrograms a year depending on the body being harvested and also use the collected material in conjunction with other methods to power any project.
Now I doubt it would ever become a fuel source, Im sure other means will be ready long before we could scoop up that material, but its a fascinating idea to be considered and clearly more viable than trying to fuel something off a handful of particles every year.
Incidentally, someone suggested trying Jupiter for more material, the paper also goes in to that (If only there was some kind of acronym thats constantly posted telling us to read these things.) Turns out Saturn will have a better supply which is interesting in and of itself because it obviously doesnt have the larger magnetic field, its all a bit more complicated than that.
My story is kind of opposite to most posts here. In second year of university I had a particularly hard time with a key module. I clocked up hours of lab time, went to every lecture, put in a lot of work, but the module wasnt sticking. My grade for that module was ultimately terrible despite my best efforts, but where others got similar grades and werent seen to be working, my lecturer was around for a lot of the time I clocked up and he basically let me pass based on that fact.
It was the _wrong_ thing to do and I shouldnt have accepted that decision, I should have re-sat the year like many many others had (It was a tough year, the course was restructured during us going through it and failure rates were very high.) Ill always regret that decision, and I failed a third year where I was completely out of my depth. It was only on the third attempt at that third year I finally passed with a shoddy mark for the degree. I wasnt nearly so hard working by then and somewhat bitter at seeing everyone else in my old year catchup and surpass me.
There were certainly other factors to all this but when I chose to take the wrong decision no matter how well-meant it was it had a pretty dramatic effect on the rest of my education and likely the rest of my life.
Did anyone actually read the article? because everybody seems intent on trashing it for saying this is like MS antitrust when the mainstay of the article is about googles whining that 'bogus' patents are being drawn up against it. Now are apple and MS patent trolling? Who knows! Google certainly havent gone in to detail about it so it has to go to the courts. This isnt some small startup getting picked on by big corporations this is a _massive_ company with the majority of the market share and they are acting like they are being picked on! Whats more they are getting huge support over this when, should google genuinely be infringing on patents, they have the power to immediately destroy any potential for profit on the ideas by distributing it immediately across a vast network. Thats the point of the article, all of that is what 95% of the text was about.
You may think its fine for google to distribute things for free patent or not, especially when the source of the features are from equally big players. Thats a different discussion. You may think the patent system is horribly broken. (well durr.) Also a different discussion. However, if you think google is the kid being bullied by the nasty profiteering giants then youve really got to get a grip, but of course you should know this because its just parroting what the article said...
The comparison to MS anti-trust was daft and the cases are very different but the sites a freakin windows super site. So many calling him a windows shill as if he doesnt pretty much advertise his allegiances... If you didnt go in to it in the knowledge that there was going to be some bias you are being painfully naive. (Incidentally that goes for _any_ site that unashamedly labels themselves after the product they support.) That doesnt mean a lot of the points made werent valid. Google arnt the underdog any more, havent been for some time.
[Note, let me pre-empt a strawman or two by pointing out that neither his post nor mine are saying MS and Apple are any better than Google in this situation.]
What an ironically snooty post...
'Essentially, he's butthurt that people actually are designing games with higher artistic (and conceptual) goals in mind than just pushing the graphical power of another FPS, and he's taking it personally that they find his games boring.' - That is _entirely_ fabricated. He never put down those aiming for originality, he never commented on them finding his games boring, youve invented your straw-man for a good beating.
'You chose your road, live with it, and let people who have other ambitions do what they do.' - Hows beating on that straw-man going for ya? Or would you like to quote the part that Carmack said other people should dump their ambitions.
'Carmack is one of those generation of game designers who were artistically unsophisticated, yet craved the credibility of "art."' Wow... do you know the guy? Were you friends for some period of time? The number of assumptions crammed in here youd have to know the guy or this would just be a really arrogant thing to say. Needless to say Carmack has never claimed to be aiming for fine art, that was pretty much a good chunk of what he was saying.
Carmack basically made one point, originality isnt the be all and end all. He didnt say people shouldnt be original, he didnt say people had to accept his games, most of his references werent even to games he made. He is just sick of the bracket of people that pooh pooh _incredibly_ successful games because each new game isnt 'creative'. Or to sum it up from the article, hes basically down on the attitude that 'if it’s popular, it’s not good'. (and NO that doesnt mean hes saying 'if it is popular, it is good' mister interpret things for vicious straw-man beatings.) You want to disagree with that fine but quit making crap up to get riled about and actually read what the man is saying.
'If you hate social networking sites, then ignore them!' - You cant without ostracizing yourself as more and more social events run through facebook pretty much exclusively. That doesnt mean they are useless or even that those people dont use them, it does mean that they will continue to complain bitterly about them though.
Strawman Number 1: 'Of course maybe you're the guy who announced that he would never again write a letter or mail a check once he got his first piece of unsolicited junk mail from Publisher's Clearinghouse.'
Or you are the guy who complains about the junk mail even today long after the practice was started, which is... well perfectly reasonable, junk mail costs us millions a year to deal with. The crap that social networks throw up shouldnt just be forgotten about because its a few years down the line. This shit _can_ and _should_ still be fixed.
'That boat sailed a long time ago.' - No, no it didnt. Not according to the law, not according to millions of people who still fight for it, not even according to half these companies who make promises about it and lose valuable PR when those promises go wrong. You have to be naive to think data you throw up will be secure, but youd have to be weak or daft to just accept it without complaint.
Strawman Number 2: 'Unless you're the guy who has refused to own a telephone for eighty years because you were pissed off about having your name and address published in the White Pages.'
Or you are the guy who has his name and address removed and wants that kept private, which is exactly what millions of people do and want.
Im not trolling, Im not trying to get a rise out of people. Just trying to point something out that I see as being quite prevalent on articles such as this.
but you are right, I didnt comment on the article itself so ill try fix that now.
Ive run larger and larger heatsinks with slower quieter larger fans to get my CPU clocking up nice and quiet and cool. The fan provides only a small amount of air movement these days but without it its still a long way off being passively cooled. Ive often wondered if there was a better way of getting that little bit of airflow and abandon the fan altogether all the better if it could reduce the size of my heatsink to smaller than your average breeze block.
This research is fascinating, its a remarkably simple concept at its heart. (That has some complex issues of course.) The idea never dawned on me and seems to solve a lot of issues; those are my favorite kind of discoveries. For the same power Im putting in to my fan at the moment I could have a much smaller quieter setup if this technology works and thats just in my daft desktop PC. Perhaps hes being optimistic with his estimates of how it will improve efficiency across the board but cooling systems are a huge expense and if it can do even a fraction of what is claimed itll be a heck of a boon. (Which, to go back to my previous point, is why if it has to be written-off by people it should be those whove read all the information and built a solid argument against it.)
I know its said a lot and should be common knowledge but I think it pays to stress it more strongly on occasion. This seems like an ideal time, READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE.
Several posts now, numerous mod points and dozens of follow ups all frankly making complete asses of themselves ironically complaining about how the IQ of /. has dropped while they make angry complaints and rants about the story that are fully addressed in the documentation.
and if you think that the fact that the summary screwed up is still a good sign of /. intelligence drop then you really need to look right back in the archives because bad summaries have been around on /. and virtually everywhere else pretty much from the beginning. Unsurprisingly the people posting the stories dont have total knowledge of the often fairly complex material posted and they screw it up good and proper on occasion. Which is probably why you should be judging the posts on the documents they link to and not the quickly thrown together summary by an admitted layman. Anything else is ironically a really stupid thing to do.
READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE.
(and no this doesnt mean the documentation is flawless but make commentary on that, not the summary, it will raise that intelligence level a lot of you are so eager to whine about.)
For a good analog try play QWOP.
http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html
Anti-competitive doesnt just mean you cant throw discounts at people even if you are the apparently evil Microsoft. It means that you are going so far that all other competition can not keep up. Whether with money or litigation etc.
MS were up against Google, there is nothing stopping google weighing in with a discount that could easily counter MSs offer. They chose not to and they lost the business that is if anything a perfect example of good competition.
So, could people please stop applying anti-competitive to everything that involves a company they dont like succeeding...
"That won't ever happen, you guys need to STFU and let us scientists get on with the science."
Id like you to link to the article where someone said that, and I dont mean some 12 year old comment on a forum an actual article where someone of any merit at all said that. Otherwise youve started off your moral outrage with a lie.
"We can't even agree it is a bad idea and will almost certainly have bad consequences."
So its a bad idea because you say so and we are doomed because you say so. So far your argument is failing to convince me, your coverage of the moral and ethical implications is sorely lacking.
Now, ignoring the fact that this news is far far from 'designer babies' and full genetic control. Ill try do better, what can possibly go wrong with designer babies?
1. prefrences that damage gender balances is one of the biggest issues ive seen presented, certain countries prefer male children over female but wait, these are the same countries that people who want male children are actually euthanising girls. So it basically boils down to this, if they want male children they are going to have them you either have infanticide or you chuck away an embryo, your choice.
2. an elite class, perhaps even more troubling than the first issue genetics could bread a superior class of people immune to genetic diseases deformity and highly resistant to anything that could crop up later in life. This doesnt cripple the idea though, it just means we have to be responsible with it. That means places like America may have to man up and provide a bit of socialist genetic health care for the good of the entire nation. Anything outside the cosmetic should be handled by NHSs and controlled on a country level by the entire populace through democratic methods. Dont think that cant happen because the costs of keeping alive hundreds of thousands with genetic based conditions is phenominal. This is a win win situation for the government and the populace.
3. Fashion trends, this is perhaps the most confusing one to me. People get up in arms about the idea of a parent having control of hair colour, eye colour etc. These same parents will ultimately have control over diet, education, and the entire welfare of there child. You know what, if a parent really wants there kid to have blond hair I dont care, I honestly dont give a shit. The moment its born there will be considerably larger issues to deal with.
There are other issues im sure and of course an unpredictable component but this is the same of all technology, when we invented the microchip it could have led to dire consequences but we cant stagnate in fear of what might be.
I find the problems with designer babies are entirely founded on problems that already exist and we are having difficulty sweeping them under the carpet (1). Or in a pessimistic attitude to the way our society will handle and give out the health improvements this could bring about (2). Or are just plain deity loving fear mongering about how we shouldnt play God (Despite the fact we already do on a daily.) for no good reason what so ever (3).
Meanwhile the benefits are an end to the most unpleasant of diseases. Diseases that dont just kill they slowly slowly destroy a person and everyone that person is connected to. Not only this but it could significantly reduce our vulnerability to diseases that arnt direct genetically manifest, that we merely have a predisposition to. You are talking about a health revolution on the scale of having clean drinking water. Millions of lives saved, millions of years of human life improved unimaginably.
It isnt immoral or unethical to consider this technology. Its immoral and unethical to not even consider the monumental impact it could have on so many that are suffering. If there is any reason we would ever face our doom it would be because of blinkered ignorant views of world changing science and technology. I for one am not willing to go back to living in a cave.
You are right but your argument is extremely flawed.
There is nothing to say that regardless of dimensions you will only ever be able to view things in a dimension below. The reason why we cant manipulate a true 3D display is because we dont see in 3D.
3D is an illusion of 2D images and perspective, your brain does an exceptionally good job of it, ask anyone and they will tell you they see in 3D but ask them to tell you whats on the other side of an object and theyll have to go around to the other side to see it. If you were truly seeing in 3D that wouldnt be necessary.
This is something you see demonstrated in programming where in order to display anything you have to effectively remove a dimension in order to project it to the screen. (The same can be said of every representation of 3D, photographs, paintings, neither of them have actual depth.) Everything on your display is 2D whether it looks 3D or not, likewise everything 3D in reality is viewed in our eyes in 2D whether it is or not, and there in lies the problem.
When you make information 3D it doesnt change your ability to only see in 2D and as such you will have to do more complicated tasks in order to get to the information. 2.5D which is what we commonly call the current desktop layout is the minimal amount of effort to get to the information. (Drag and slide something away and you see whats behind it.) ITs precisely how we organise information in real life. E.g. Fileing cabinets.
The more you dabble in 3D the more you have to do to get the information and the less intuitive the interface becomes.
Ultimately it becomes a case of more information on screen weighed up against complexity of viewing it and so far nobody has come even remotely close to beating 2.5D and there have been _a lot_ of attempts.
However, this is nothing to do with some invented axiom of how much something can see in a given number of dimensions. If our eyes were very different and could somehow see and take in the world in length, height _and_ depth then our displays would no doubt be very different. Probably having to be 3D holograms to seem anything other than extremely primitive to something with such visual prowess.
From the unreal creator I expected more, or at least something that actually makes sense.
First off not sure which marketing people hes talking about, I have not seen a single advert on TV or pretty much anywhere for 3 way SLI. This is like a strawman, its like hes saying 'Oh so they think we need 20Gig of RAM and 50 graphics cards well we dont!' No one ever said you do, and indeed to play any game today, even Crysis, you dont.
Second since the freaking voodoo 1 a graphics card has been a necessary addition to play modern games. If hes saying PC gaming is going in the wrong direction because computers dont come prefitted with modern graphics tech then hes saying its been going in the wrong direction for over a decade. In computing terms, since the dawn of time. Now theoretically you used to be able to scale down you PC without decent graphics, in reality it was virtually completely unplayable.
The fact he uses Unreal as an example is laughable, that game is still joked about in this house today for being absurdly hard to run on any of our computers. We still assume the starting sweep around the castle would jitter like crazy.
No gamer would sit on a PC without that additional card soon after the first ever ones were released. That includes for games like Unreal. (Which incidentally was the game I bought a brand new voodoo 2 for...)
Third his rubbish about every PC being a full on gaming platform... Out of all the PCs in use today a tiny, tiny fraction are ever required to play a game. _Tiny_. To make all PCs games platforms is patently absurd. Out of the dozens of people I know there are maybe 4 or 5 who would ever even notice that there graphics card had been taken out of there system if it had come with one. So, yeah, lets charge everyone a hundred more quid for useless technology to artificially boost a small industry. Good plan.
His idea of software rendering sounds like its equally as daft, I dont have the processor design knowledge but I do know that specifically designed processing units gain a vast speed boost, (The old maths co-processors boosted performance in there tasks by anything up to 100 fold, a similar value to what he refers to when describing the difference between a system with and without a graphics card.) and that the GPU is more complicated than your average CPU (You wont see GPU in a CPU ala the maths co-processor, its pretty much physically impossible.) How he expects CPU's to suddenly leap in power 100 fold so that it makes software rendering worthwhile I dont know. Even if you gave it a decade of development the people at Nvidia and AMD will be boosting there processors as well so the 100x gap will probably always be there unless Intel has some kind of fantastic CPU epiphany.
This is rambling, contradictory, nonsensical, rubbish. Mostly about the old PC is dying argument that gets trotted out every single month. (and quit comparing PCs to consoles, consoles are dedicated games machines, if there games industry wasnt a damn site bigger than the PC one they wouldnt be making them at all!) Funny thing, after years and years of the PC is dying PC gaming profits remain as good as ever. Oh would you look at that, Nvidia and AMD making record profits, even ignoring console sales. Must be because PC gaming is in its death throes... Its almost like these self proclaimed analysts are full of shit. (I dont care how much I enjoyed playing unreal, if your going to talk crap im going to bitch about it on some forums.)
Err actually I just finished UT3 on my 2.8GHz P4 with 6600...
It wasnt exactly high graphics but it ran smoothly and I could kill as easily as ever.
I have bought a new computer just recently, because not all games are as forgiving. (Though dont get me wrong, I can actually count the number that wont run on my system on one hand.) Other than that $45 you mention (It was actually £45 for me.) I have not spent a penny on my system for close to 5 years, I checked my ebuyer account just to be sure. Now ive laid out 350 quid, which is some 70 to 80 quid less than I spent for that first computer, and I will have a very good system. We are talking a factory clocked 8800GT, 2GB of top grade RAM, an excellent motherboard and CPU, whole new case with powerful PSU, etc.
Never mind UT3 this thing will run Crysis pretty damn smooth at eye bleedingly good level. Thats 350 quid, 400 if you consider an equivalent upgrade in the next 5 years. 80 quid a year for something that will run any game, thats pretty much cheaper than any modern console and you dont have to take in to account the fact a PC does a hell of a lot more.
This is basically just more toss about how PC gaming is dying. No, no it isnt. Even if you say its dying every single year (or month as it seems to be) it doesnt make it any more true. PC gaming is making pretty much the same as it always has been and will probably continue to make the same for the foresable future. That is _a lot_ less than consoles but then thats been true of the market since consoles first took off. They are dedicated games systems, if the console game industry was not a hell of a lot larger than the PC one you wouldnt have consoles at all.
Actually I would say you were both wrong,
Console FPS and PC FPS are basically two different genres, or sub genres as the case maybe. A console FPS has to be slower and as a result balanced differently to a PC FPS where you can spin on the spot in a fraction of a second. (Which is why if people ever do port a game they need to be very careful about it and not just slap it on a new platform ala Halo.)
That doesnt make console FPSs worse or better, just different. I know just as many players who are masters of Quake games and dont see anything special in Halo and its like (Me included) as I do people who think the exact opposite.
You are right that Quake3 players on the dreamcast got devestated by PC players but then they were supposed to be seperated because of that fact and having played Quake3 4 player co-op on dreamcast I can tell you its a lot of fun regardless. Now I still prefer Quake3 on PC because im rather good at it and when your good you tend to enjoy the game a whole lot more, but the people I was playing were better at console than PC and enjoyed it like that. Neither of us are categorically right in our prefrence and thats the thing to remember.
Yes you can kill more efficiently with a mouse keyboard control but thats the difference between finishing with 10 or 30 frags, it doesnt mean its less fun. Or to put it another way, cycling to work could get you there fast but pogoing might still be a heck of a lot more fun.
Or perhaps slashdot on another uneducated baseless diatribe directed towards that little known company MS.
Did you read the article or did you just check the headline and decide to try get cheap mod points? Ill point out why you dont deserve them.
'Paul Ducklin, head of technology for security firm Sophos, said the security hole found by Boileau was not a vulnerability or bug in the traditional sense, because the ability to use the Firewire port to access a computer's memory was actually a feature of Firewire.'
Now maybe this was just excuses but the fact it came from a third party with no particular connection to MS should have made you pause for thought. Even if you dont know much about firewire it would take you moments to do a quick search and actually realise this is a 'feature' of the actual specification itself. As in _every_ O/S had the same problem. Linux, OSX even BSD were using this exploit even before MS were cracked. There are still reports of new OSX and Linux systems being hacked by firewire right in to 2008. (Though admitedly ive not heard much from BSD, probably because there admins tend to actually have a clue.)
This is a universal flaw in security stemming from naivety with regard to externally connected hardware. You want secure firewire, disable it when you are not using it yourself. That goes for any system, any O/S, any person. End of story.
'Don't a lot of old-timers say that the keyboards of old, where you actually got some resistence from the keys, were more comfortable to type with than the yielding keyboards of today?'
No, they tend to say the keyboards of old have more feedback from the keys which make them more comfortable to type on. They are correct.
If a keyboard doesnt have reasonable feedback from the keys, as in the difference between the click of a buckle spring keys (Yay model M!) and the lack of anything from some of the newer keyboards, then people are known to push all the harder with there fingers increasing the stress a great deal and causing aches and pains and in the long term perhaps even worse. (You can actually get the computer to make clicks upon it getting a key input and it does actually help.)
Buttons that feel like you are pushing them in to playdoh every tmie you hit them are terrible for the hands and typing speed. The optimus is pretty much worthless if it cant get the most basic element of the keyboard right, the keys.
You would have a point except Yahoo is in decline, they have been declining for a few years now and the only reason Yahoo stock is worth what it is today is entirely because of the MS take over bids.
If MS walks away, and there is a reasonable chance of that happening, there is no reason why Yahoo shares wont collapse back down again and continue to decline until they are worthless or they pull some miracle out of the bag to get them on the rise again. (Which is highly unlikely given there key areas are being increasingly dominated by Google and Microsoft themselves.)
Not selling was hugely risky and I dont believe any sane person at Yahoo was making that choice to keep the integrity of the company, they wanted more money out of the deal and that greed may cost them. (It may also make them more rich of course but the question of whether the risk was worth it is easily debateable enough to make these actions understandable.)
Go to metacritic.
Open up all the recent games good and bad for all the different consoles.
Now count how many of them have the typical huge busted scantily clad fantasy women.
I did it. Turns out about 2, and one of them is Lara Croft who has actually been gaining increasingly realistic body measurements. (There are a hell of a lot more muscle bound macho heroes but its a stereotype most men enjoy so carry on with that.) If you think it should be 0 then you are being ridiculous, men like sexy women. Its not a minority opinion, its a major thing in society, and its not going away. Some parts of every medium will always cater to it and to be honest that really isnt that bad a thing.
This like many of the female related 'problems'* in the games industry is a myth bound to a tiny selection of games. There are more busty nude women in just about every other medium.
Games have already hit the mainstream, there are plenty of women involved with them, everything is fine.
*You _still_ get countless articles on how there are no games for women, how women dont play or enjoy games, blah blah blah. Women make up over 44% of gamesplayers. These worries are all a load of bunk, ironically probably driven by geeks desperately overprotective of the 'weaker' sex.
Um, where is this written exactly?
At no point in any of the articles is it said people just flicked their wrist or played the Wii in any specific way. Indeed the one quote about it suggested the players 'were on their feet and they moved in all directions.'.
Unless you can provide some kind of evidence that those being studied were just flicking their wrists ill have to assume you are a bit of a fanboy and just making this up.
'I don't think anyone ever said that the Wii is suppose to replace any type of exercise regimen.'
Ill stop you and the mods who claim this to be insightful right there.
You dont think the article with the header 'Study Says Wii Can't Replace Workout' is about anyone saying it can replace a workout...
Even if the article was refering to 2% of your exercise regime (which others have pointed out it is not.) the slashdot summary, the heading, the whole article is about it replacing exercise.
That is not a good thing.
No one said this is anything to do with faulty Nintendo claims its just that a lot of people, including myself I admit, believed that the controller can be a decent aid in a bit of exercise.
It is extremely worrying to me that this comment can get modded 5 insightful.
We are talking about children here and while I am not a fan of over protecting or sheltering children the internet is chocked full of the most disturbing content. Sex, death, drugs you can see it all with a simple search even in google images, and you dont have to be very specific for some horrifying stuff to turn up.
No good parent should allow children free reign on something like that. You let your children go out and have fun, you dont let them take a trip to amsterdam to check out hookers though.