Ah, well in that case you do have things to keep private (passwords and financial information), so I don't consider that too much of a waste.
I don't have financial information or other especially private documents on my machine, but I do have stuff like saved firefox and VPN passwords which I wouldn't want getting into the wrong hands. I'm not sure that encrypting the disk would provide much extra protection over the encryption that is already there on the FireFox and OSX keychain password files though. If someone can crack those, they could probably get past disk encryption too (unless there are known weaknesses in the OSX keychain or Firefox master password systems). To me it makes much more sense that work data be encrypted more than my music or *ahem* picture collections, but there are an extremely limited set of people who would find my work related source code in any way interesting or useful.
I use hard and soft becaues I'm just tinfoil like that. Don't even have anything to hide either, just like my privacy.
So you take a fairly large disk performance hit - and even lose some CPU time - for absolutely no reason? That's possibly the most cleverest thing I've heard all year.
Are you actually the guy mentioned in the summary who is forcing all these computationally intensive research departments to encrypt their disks for no reason?
No, actually there is single player content too, I just think that the level editing and creativity involved is meant to be as much of what makes the game fun as the actual playing through the levels.
Why do you think Garry's Mod for HL2 ever got popular? It's because people enjoy messing about with cool physics engines. I didn't bother much with Garry's mod beyond trying it out and shooting a few watermelons, but with LittleBigPlanet the level editing is meant to be pretty good fun, and it will be much easier to share your creations or download other ones, which makes it a bit more appealing. Even for an antisocial geek like me.
I'm quite happy for you to pass though, you don't sound like you'd bring anything interesting to the table. I've enjoyed making my own computer games as well as mods for other games in the past (levels for Quake and Half-Life, a mod and weapons for Quake III, bots for Counter-Strike) I'm going to enjoy LittleBigPlanet no matter others think about it. Funnily enough, I think the majority of people who actually try it will love it though. It's the sort of quirky game that even non gamers can appreciate (you know, like all those people who bought Wiis probably would like this game, though it looks much better than any Wii game ever did, and the Wii probably couldn't handle the physics engine adequately either). Hardcore platform gamers can make insanely difficult levels for other hardcore gamers, and those who just want to see what cool machines they can create can do that. I'm thinking about making a football (the soccer kind) level with automated scoring. Not sure if that's even possible. but it's worth a try. I'm not really into football, but engineering can be fun:p
That's a good way of putting it. As I mentioned in my first post, here in the UK it's a flat 20% for everyone under £35k a year and then all earnings over that are taxed at 40%. But by the time you're earning enough to have the 40% tax, IMO you shouldn't ever complain about a lack of money because you're already earning enough that you basically will never have real money worries, as long as inflation is kept under control and you aren't gambling or otherwise being an idiot with your spending.
Don't be sorry about me not having so much money growing up, we weren't living in squalor, we just didn't go on expensive holidays or get consoles or whatever. I don't even like the idea of fancy holidays these days (well, I think I'd like Japan but I'm not too fussed about going anywhere else), and I'm glad I had some old Amigas growing up instead of SEGAs and Nintendos, otherwise I wouldn't have learned half as much as I know about computers, and probably wouldn't have the great job I do today.
When I started earning around £23k a year I realised I don't have to worry about money in the same way that I used to, and now I just try not to be too concerned about money overall. That's why I don't have a problem with taxing those who are earning over a certain amount. All money over your basic living costs plus a couple of luxuries each month, plus savings/pensions/investments/whatever, isn't terribly important (in my opinion, but obviously not for a lot of people who think money is the most important thing in the world). I just have a hard time with the idea that people who hardly earn enough to cover their utility bills should be taxed just the same as those with mansions and private jets. I saw someone on/. mention the idea of getting rid of income tax and increasing sales tax, that could make things more 'fair'.
First of all, I'm not part of the American public so you don't need to lose your faith in them. I lost faith in them myself a long time ago though. While my comment was perhaps a little long, you could have at least skimmed it if you were going to reply.
Secondly, it takes more than just the existence of corporations and small businesses for an economy to work. You seem to be pretty averse to the US taking part in the global economy too, which is strange since you seem to want your local economy to do well. The global economy is just an extension of the idea of a national economy, which is an extension of local marketplaces, which were a collaborative effort by people who had one thing and wanted another.. you get the idea. If you are worried that the US isn't exporting enough products or services, then do something about it to start bringing foreign money back in. America isn't going to just get cut off from the rest of the world overnight (though who knows what will happen if energy gets really pricey).
I worked at a major data center about 10 years ago. There was no secret room but there was hidden equipment that belonged to the government. I was fairly high up in the company and I only learned about it years after it was installed. I was never officially told about it, but my boss happened to mention what it was one day. If he hadn't mentioned it, I would never have suspected it was there.
"Damn, this toupee itches! My grandfather stole it from Dwight Eisenhower"
You judge equality by how much money someone makes? I'd hate to think like that.
Under Mr. Obama I would get more money and I would have to change nothing. That is not what I want.
So you're happy for rich corporations or individuals to get tax rebates (I don't know much about the US tax system, or any tax system to be fair, so I just have to go by people whining about the rich being made even richer through political corruption), but you don't want poorer people to get any breaks? Nice.
Personally I think it's good to ease up on poorer people, and then perhaps a few of them will be able to afford to send their kids to college. Then everyone benefits through better average levels of education in the country, which can only be a positive thing IMO (though I live in the UK so we have a different tax system, and it seems to be a lot harsher than the US one, but there are all kinds of other taxes that perhaps balance everything out.. then again, perhaps not). A tax rebate isn't about giving more to those worse off, surely? It's just about taking less from them. That's a similar idea but it's not exactly the same thing. Is it possible to actually get more in rebates than you paid in tax?
I used to think that higher taxes for higher levels of pay would really suck, but that was when I wasn't making that much money. Now I'm earning almost twice what I did when I was a student, so I don't feel like I'm struggling to get by anymore. The idea of more tax coming off my wages if I get a payrise doesn't worry me. I'm happy to pay a bit more tax (okay it's a lot more, it jumps from 20% to 40% on all earnings over £35k), and for those taxes to go back into running the country and even looking after those less fortunate than me.
My parents didn't have that much money when I was growing up either, but mum got money for each of us kids, which must have helped a lot (especially when my dad left the police and went to get an undergraduate degree). I remember my mum saying how she had less money once I turned 16. The downside to welfare like that is of course that some people just take advantage of it. I've heard that people in poorer areas often have kids just to get the benefits - and indeed most parents seem to treat their kids like shit in the housing estate next to where I work, always shouting at them. Once I honestly heard one shout "DON'T YOU FUCKIN' SWEAR!" at her toddler. *sigh*
I was going to reply to you, but cgenman pretty much nailed everything anyway. I'm sure he probably meant 100Mhz, but there are x86 processors down to at least 10Mhz that could technically run IE if they had enough RAM.
Yes, knowing how much RAM your system is going to have could make a big difference in how you design and code your operating system and applications.
What does stuff like bus speed have to do with performance? Are you serious? Oh well. As for talking about graphics cards, he was just trying to illustrate simply how you can't rely on a Windows machine having any capabilities beyond the basic x86 instruction set, so Windows programs (or perhaps just the APIs they use) have to take that into account. If they do have different code for different extensions, that adds a bit of bloat to the executables or libraries, which is never going to be a boon for performance, though it won't necessarily slow things down much either beyond the initial startup time.
Windows doesn't draw using the GPU, it draws using Direct X/OpenGL/whatever, which then talks to the driver, which then interfaces with the GPU.
He also suggested a whole paragraph of how to optimise an application on PS3 as opposed to Windows:
you know exactly how many fractions of a millisecond it takes the PS3's main processor to communicate with all of the various subprocessors. You know you can have several threads crunching simultaneously, and they're likely to get a more commanding share fo the processors. You don't have to consider low-ram situations, pagefiling, a lot of the normal security concerns, etc. If you wanted to, you could write more or less directly to the metal on the PS3. Your code is being written from scratch on a very specific piece of hardware, so why not draw to the screen using the graphics co-processor?
If you don't understand how that paragraph relates to optimising code (knowing timings is useful for making efficient use of multithreading for example), then you probably shouldn't be making comments about software optimisation on different platforms.
BTW yes, the PS3 can run tasks in the background while browsing, like downloads, recording TV with PlayTV and running games (well, some games open the browser, but I can't remember if they're completely suspended while that is being done, or whether they keep running).
This is true. I meant more scripting to be able to directly attach flags and behaviours to objects, spawn objects as a result of certain actions, make characters fly etc. If they have stuff like wormholes, and pressure pads that cause other actions to happen in there then you could possibly build a capture the flag or football type game though, with a mechanical scoring system. Will be interesting to see what is possible:)
Broadcasts, or even filesharing networks are a totally different kettle of fish to a set of files that you're only wanting to be available for 24 hours (though of course now they will be all over the P2P networks anyway).
The site is back up now by the way, and I got a nice copy of Crossover Games for Mac (installed Wine at the weekend but it didn't like the games I tried to install). I should get the Linux version too just in case I like Ubuntu 8.10 enough to ditch OS X..
I'm surprised. ' I thought the whole point of this game was to have paying customers do that for them
Cynical much? The point of the game is freedom and creativity. Did you complain when they started to include level editors in Worms? Do you complain when id and Valve release SDKs for their first person shooters? I mean sure it is a way of making their game more popular, but not in a lazy way. It's a lot more work for them to make the game that flexible. Can you imagine all the extra polishing and testing that would be required? Probably not, otherwise you wouldn't be so sarcastic.
We never would have had Team Fortress or Counter-Strike had it not been for mods for Quake and Half-Life respectively. In LittleBigPlanet's case it seems like it will be more just a level editor than an ability to make actual mods, but it has already enabled users to create some awesome stuff. If they add in user scripting (if it isn't already there) then mods will be possible.
I think the best thing to do would be to keep the options well spaced. I haven't seen any of the UI screens so I don't know what it's like.
Even if a touchscreen is calibrated properly for one person, another person may put their finger down in a different way.
I even have to recalibrate my phone's touchscreen just to be able to use the stylus effectively in the opposite hand, so I'd hate to think what it would be like designing a system to be used by thousands of people, left and right handed, some pressing with nails, some with squidgy tips of fingers, some with the even larger surface area of their fingerprint, etc.
You could just use buttons beside the screen like with ATMs, but if/when a button breaks or gets stuck, people will be complaining of conspiracies again..
I'm "a dick" to you anyway, whether or not I steal any games. You see, I do not share your opinions and I exist, therefore you are forced to deal with me.
That makes no sense. I wasn't forced to deal with you, I chose to reply.
I actually am friends with plenty of people who have differing opinions on this matter - some who despise downloading, some who do it all the time with no remorse. I have even downloaded stuff illegally sometimes (I didn't say I can't be a dick sometimes too *shrug*), but these days I prefer to actually support those who make content that I enjoy. I said that people who download things for free are being dicks because they are leeching off of others, not because they have differing opinions to me.
I don't see how it's the "same". You seriously are such a tight bastard that you would rather not pay $6 for the hours of enjoyment that you are going to get out of a game? I make $6 in 15 minutes. I'm happy to give back 15 minutes worth of my time to reward a team that has spent months making a great game, which will give me days, weeks, or perhaps years of enjoyment. I can understand not wanting to pay $80 for a game, but if I don't consider a game worth that, I wait until it comes down in price. You can't really get prices much lower than $6 when it comes to computer games. I spend more than that on lunch each day.
It is of course up to you how you act in life, go do what you want. But if you keep being a leech then I and the rest of decent society are perfectly entitled to refer to openly antisocial people like you as "dicks". If everyone pirated, we wouldn't get commercial quality games. A lot of people have the ability to get free games, music and movies, but they choose not to because they want to encourage the creators to make more of the same, like I said.
If you don't give a fuck, why even bother to reply with your nonsense? It's funny to watch though I guess. Thanks for the entertainment and non sequiturs:)
for the sake of $6-$10 I'd just pay it. If that is more money going to the original creators, or even just stores that explicitly sell their games as DRM free, then I think it's a good thing.
Anyone could get virtually any game, movie, album or TV program for free if they wanted. It's just that not everybody is a dick.
How about this: it's a land vehicle if it normally remains within 10% of it's length of the land?
That would be pretty cool. Then we could have real life pod racing:)
Sadly the land speed record for hovercraft seems to be pretty low.. a quick google turns up about 85mph in 2004 at least, but now I must go home as I finished work over 1.5 hours ago and should stop posting!
It's almost certain that we are having an effect on the environment of course.
I agree about the wardrobe entirely, I spend very little on clothes myself.. often my family just buy me clothes at Christmas and birthdays because they are fed up seeing me walk around in raggedy jeans and t-shirts with holes in them etc.
I do also agree in principle on the jet, it seems a waste and it's part of a culture that shouldn't really be justified (especially since google could easily setup video conferencing). I just want to play a bit of devil's advocate to all these whiny bitches bitching about them buying a jet. They even whine before finding out what it is going to be used for. The fact that google bought it rather than a private individual should have been enough of a hint that it was going to be used for a project, but no, they still complain.
We have sent millions or billions of pounds worth of aid into other countries. A lot of it is intercepted by moronic or corrupt leaders as I said. That isn't an excuse to never give to charity or anything like that of course, but I think that we ourselves have little control over these situations and it is pointless to act like we can suddenly solve everything by just pouring more money into them. It's up to world governments to sort out these guys. I'm not sure what charity/charities I want to be giving to yet. I'd been giving to the church for the last 3 years since I started earning, with the occasional open source contribution or donation to charities work is supporting etc, but have just stopped the church contributions in the last month or two and don't know who else to give to now - I admit freely I haven't been thinking about it much, I still have my student loan to pay off, don't have a house, etc. and it's easy to drift along thinking about your own problems. I expect that putting money towards victims of abuse and things like that in my own country would mean that my donations were more efficiently utilised than if I donated to a charity that sends food packages to areas with bad malnutrition, but I don't know. I certainly don't see the point in donating to animal shelters or anything, I'd rather send my money to Africa than that because I regard human life as worth much more than abandoned puppies (though I also don't want to prolong the life of those living in suffering, as cold as that might sound - I don't know what happens after we die, but not existing at all is probably better than just living a life of pain). Any suggestions would be appreciated too.
Great point. That partially justifies it, but personally even if they were just using it as a barbeque it wouldn't matter - I was just fed up of people's incessant bitching every time someone who is richer than them buys something that they can't afford. It is so petty and pathetic. These guys wouldn't have the money if they didn't earn it (it's not like they're lottery winners), and they and their company do a whole lot more good than most other rich entities. They don't pretend to be ghandi or anything. Their motto isn't even "do good", they just say "don't be evil" which isn't the same thing;)
All these whiners like to ignore that these guys have benefitted the world more than they will ever do in several ways. I wonder if that makes them feel inadequate, so they have to focus on any possible negative to make them feel better about themselves:/
I make enough money to live comfortably. I don't need any more money, and I know this. I don't feel any need to be as rich as these guys, or in fact any richer than I am. I can already buy all the gadgets and books, etc that I want to.
I was just as happy, if not happier when my family was 'poor' by the way - my father was a student (he had spent 9 years in the police but then went to University when I was born) and my mother was a full time housewife for a few years when I was growing up. So I can appreciate the value of the things I have now better than some. I even like to share them with my friends and family too, which doesn't to me seem very selfish, but call it what you will.
I am not particularly 'pursuing' anything at the moment, other than trying to find a new meaning to my life after renouncing Christianity in May. I have lived as a relatively poor person by western standards, and now am probably "middle class".
But yes, I can be a bitter, selfish, angry bastard sometimes. I have gone through bouts of depression, and OCD (read up on it, I didn't realise the way my mind was acting was OCD, I just thought I was weird. OCD involves a lot more messed up shit than just being obsessed with numbers or movements or whatever, the worrying was really crippling and took months to break free from) etc from family and other personal problems in the last 7 years. And then years of bullying before that. I know that I am much better off financially than a lot of the world, and yet a lot of them are better off than me mentally. Life is not all about money you know. I would happily make less money if I knew it meant I could have a better adjusted setup in my brain which enabled me to be a more positive person. I am trying to improve myself anyway. Sorry if my way of looking at things isn't as morally upright as yours.
I used to give a tenth of my income to the church even when I wasn't making as much money. Yes, a significant amount of that went to charity and missionary work. I remembered to stop that payment last month, and no I have not started a regular monthly payment to any other charity yet but I was intending to once I find one that I consider worthy if that makes it any better *shrug*.
I didn't say that I am not influenced by the culture around me, I just think that people who criticise it probably spending a significant percentage of their income on things that are not really necessary too. I do think that is a valid way of looking at it, though obviously once you start earning over a certain level then you have no financial worries and should be giving a higher percentage than before to charity. But if you are expected to give a higher percentage to charity, why shouldn't you be able to spend a higher percentage on toys too? You seem to be taking a very one sided approach to the whole thing. No, I don't think it's right to base your life on the pursuit of material possessions, but there is nothing wrong with having some if you can afford them, either. And I don't actually know what the purpose of life is yet so I wouldn't even say that pursuing possessions is "wrong", though it is of course selfish if you don't help to provide for those less fortunate than you.
After further reading of the comments, it seems that the fighter jet isn't even a toy anyway, it is for research projects (I did suspect something of the sort and mentioned it in a reply above, but I thought it would be more about AI research than just for fitting sensors to or whatever they're doing). So your self righteousness about "silly purchases of toys" is even less fitting.
I have no idea what you're on about with Sam Walton. I recognise the names of [the complete moron who seems to know less about American newspapers than I do, despite neither reading papers often nor living in America] Sarah Palin and Larry at Oracle, but that's about it. I live in the UK and have only watched some YouTube videos of Palin after seeing many comments about her here on slashdot. If you search for her on google images you'll find plenty of retarded photos of her holding guns and flags, etc. She's such an airhead, it's unbelievable.. okay scratch that, when Dubya is the most powerful man in the world, it's perfectly believable..
As for the Boeing thing, again I just don't see why so many people think they have the right to judge them. Many of us that have cars could probably get by without them in some way or another - certainly here in the UK and in built up areas of the US that have public transport and taxis. Very large companies make use of private jets in the same way that 'normal' people make use of cars. They may not always be full of passengers, and so are wasting fuel, but they can save a lot of time and if the company or person involved is willing to waste the money on that fuel to save time, it's up to them. It's not illegal. Some people might find it immoral, but they are probably doing exactly the same things with their cars, just on a different scale. Here in the UK, virtually everybody (apart from a few people in very remote areas like the north coast of Scotland) could get by without a car, but it simply isn't convenient - and so the people that can afford cars and are fit to drive, usually buy cars.
Now the fighter jet is more like buying a motorbike to just cruise around on. It's perhaps valid to criticise the amount of fuel that is being wasted just on joyriding (though how do you know that they aren't buying it for some AI test project? Larry and Sergey love their AI), but anyone that has ever gone for a drive just to clear their head or for fun would be guilty of the same thing, in my opinion.
I do get why people think they are "bad" guys for spending money on these expensive things, and their frivolous wastes of fuel are much more noticeable than other peoples, but I just think it shows a lack of perspective. Why the heck not buy that kind of stuff if you have the money? It's not like they are giving nothing to charity. Why should they be criticized by a bunch of bitter people (who most likely wish they could afford to spend money on stuff like that, and if they started earning a few billion a year would probably end up buying a jet or some other expensive toy at some point) for having a fighter plane any more than a homeless person should criticise someone for buying an expensive mountain bike that, strictly speaking, they don't really need? It just seems kind of pathetic to me.
If I made the kind of money they did, I would give some to charity sure, but I would use some to have fun. Is that selfish? Possibly, but I wouldn't feel too bad about it. If I'm doing a job that really justifies earning that much money, I'd want to have some of the rewards that go along with being successful.
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Ah, well in that case you do have things to keep private (passwords and financial information), so I don't consider that too much of a waste.
I don't have financial information or other especially private documents on my machine, but I do have stuff like saved firefox and VPN passwords which I wouldn't want getting into the wrong hands. I'm not sure that encrypting the disk would provide much extra protection over the encryption that is already there on the FireFox and OSX keychain password files though. If someone can crack those, they could probably get past disk encryption too (unless there are known weaknesses in the OSX keychain or Firefox master password systems). To me it makes much more sense that work data be encrypted more than my music or *ahem* picture collections, but there are an extremely limited set of people who would find my work related source code in any way interesting or useful.
I use hard and soft becaues I'm just tinfoil like that. Don't even have anything to hide either, just like my privacy.
So you take a fairly large disk performance hit - and even lose some CPU time - for absolutely no reason? That's possibly the most cleverest thing I've heard all year.
Are you actually the guy mentioned in the summary who is forcing all these computationally intensive research departments to encrypt their disks for no reason?
No, actually there is single player content too, I just think that the level editing and creativity involved is meant to be as much of what makes the game fun as the actual playing through the levels.
Why do you think Garry's Mod for HL2 ever got popular? It's because people enjoy messing about with cool physics engines. I didn't bother much with Garry's mod beyond trying it out and shooting a few watermelons, but with LittleBigPlanet the level editing is meant to be pretty good fun, and it will be much easier to share your creations or download other ones, which makes it a bit more appealing. Even for an antisocial geek like me.
I'm quite happy for you to pass though, you don't sound like you'd bring anything interesting to the table. I've enjoyed making my own computer games as well as mods for other games in the past (levels for Quake and Half-Life, a mod and weapons for Quake III, bots for Counter-Strike) I'm going to enjoy LittleBigPlanet no matter others think about it. Funnily enough, I think the majority of people who actually try it will love it though. It's the sort of quirky game that even non gamers can appreciate (you know, like all those people who bought Wiis probably would like this game, though it looks much better than any Wii game ever did, and the Wii probably couldn't handle the physics engine adequately either). Hardcore platform gamers can make insanely difficult levels for other hardcore gamers, and those who just want to see what cool machines they can create can do that. I'm thinking about making a football (the soccer kind) level with automated scoring. Not sure if that's even possible. but it's worth a try. I'm not really into football, but engineering can be fun :p
Byebye!
That's a good way of putting it. As I mentioned in my first post, here in the UK it's a flat 20% for everyone under £35k a year and then all earnings over that are taxed at 40%. But by the time you're earning enough to have the 40% tax, IMO you shouldn't ever complain about a lack of money because you're already earning enough that you basically will never have real money worries, as long as inflation is kept under control and you aren't gambling or otherwise being an idiot with your spending.
Don't be sorry about me not having so much money growing up, we weren't living in squalor, we just didn't go on expensive holidays or get consoles or whatever. I don't even like the idea of fancy holidays these days (well, I think I'd like Japan but I'm not too fussed about going anywhere else), and I'm glad I had some old Amigas growing up instead of SEGAs and Nintendos, otherwise I wouldn't have learned half as much as I know about computers, and probably wouldn't have the great job I do today.
When I started earning around £23k a year I realised I don't have to worry about money in the same way that I used to, and now I just try not to be too concerned about money overall. That's why I don't have a problem with taxing those who are earning over a certain amount. All money over your basic living costs plus a couple of luxuries each month, plus savings/pensions/investments/whatever, isn't terribly important (in my opinion, but obviously not for a lot of people who think money is the most important thing in the world). I just have a hard time with the idea that people who hardly earn enough to cover their utility bills should be taxed just the same as those with mansions and private jets. I saw someone on /. mention the idea of getting rid of income tax and increasing sales tax, that could make things more 'fair'.
First of all, I'm not part of the American public so you don't need to lose your faith in them. I lost faith in them myself a long time ago though. While my comment was perhaps a little long, you could have at least skimmed it if you were going to reply.
Secondly, it takes more than just the existence of corporations and small businesses for an economy to work. You seem to be pretty averse to the US taking part in the global economy too, which is strange since you seem to want your local economy to do well. The global economy is just an extension of the idea of a national economy, which is an extension of local marketplaces, which were a collaborative effort by people who had one thing and wanted another.. you get the idea. If you are worried that the US isn't exporting enough products or services, then do something about it to start bringing foreign money back in. America isn't going to just get cut off from the rest of the world overnight (though who knows what will happen if energy gets really pricey).
I worked at a major data center about 10 years ago. There was no secret room but there was hidden equipment that belonged to the government. I was fairly high up in the company and I only learned about it years after it was installed. I was never officially told about it, but my boss happened to mention what it was one day. If he hadn't mentioned it, I would never have suspected it was there.
"Damn, this toupee itches! My grandfather stole it from Dwight Eisenhower"
be forced to make me their equal
You judge equality by how much money someone makes? I'd hate to think like that.
Under Mr. Obama I would get more money and I would have to change nothing. That is not what I want.
So you're happy for rich corporations or individuals to get tax rebates (I don't know much about the US tax system, or any tax system to be fair, so I just have to go by people whining about the rich being made even richer through political corruption), but you don't want poorer people to get any breaks? Nice.
Personally I think it's good to ease up on poorer people, and then perhaps a few of them will be able to afford to send their kids to college. Then everyone benefits through better average levels of education in the country, which can only be a positive thing IMO (though I live in the UK so we have a different tax system, and it seems to be a lot harsher than the US one, but there are all kinds of other taxes that perhaps balance everything out.. then again, perhaps not). A tax rebate isn't about giving more to those worse off, surely? It's just about taking less from them. That's a similar idea but it's not exactly the same thing. Is it possible to actually get more in rebates than you paid in tax?
I used to think that higher taxes for higher levels of pay would really suck, but that was when I wasn't making that much money. Now I'm earning almost twice what I did when I was a student, so I don't feel like I'm struggling to get by anymore. The idea of more tax coming off my wages if I get a payrise doesn't worry me. I'm happy to pay a bit more tax (okay it's a lot more, it jumps from 20% to 40% on all earnings over £35k), and for those taxes to go back into running the country and even looking after those less fortunate than me.
My parents didn't have that much money when I was growing up either, but mum got money for each of us kids, which must have helped a lot (especially when my dad left the police and went to get an undergraduate degree). I remember my mum saying how she had less money once I turned 16. The downside to welfare like that is of course that some people just take advantage of it. I've heard that people in poorer areas often have kids just to get the benefits - and indeed most parents seem to treat their kids like shit in the housing estate next to where I work, always shouting at them. Once I honestly heard one shout "DON'T YOU FUCKIN' SWEAR!" at her toddler. *sigh*
I was going to reply to you, but cgenman pretty much nailed everything anyway. I'm sure he probably meant 100Mhz, but there are x86 processors down to at least 10Mhz that could technically run IE if they had enough RAM.
Yes, knowing how much RAM your system is going to have could make a big difference in how you design and code your operating system and applications.
What does stuff like bus speed have to do with performance? Are you serious? Oh well. As for talking about graphics cards, he was just trying to illustrate simply how you can't rely on a Windows machine having any capabilities beyond the basic x86 instruction set, so Windows programs (or perhaps just the APIs they use) have to take that into account. If they do have different code for different extensions, that adds a bit of bloat to the executables or libraries, which is never going to be a boon for performance, though it won't necessarily slow things down much either beyond the initial startup time.
Windows doesn't draw using the GPU, it draws using Direct X/OpenGL/whatever, which then talks to the driver, which then interfaces with the GPU.
He also suggested a whole paragraph of how to optimise an application on PS3 as opposed to Windows:
you know exactly how many fractions of a millisecond it takes the PS3's main processor to communicate with all of the various subprocessors. You know you can have several threads crunching simultaneously, and they're likely to get a more commanding share fo the processors. You don't have to consider low-ram situations, pagefiling, a lot of the normal security concerns, etc. If you wanted to, you could write more or less directly to the metal on the PS3. Your code is being written from scratch on a very specific piece of hardware, so why not draw to the screen using the graphics co-processor?
If you don't understand how that paragraph relates to optimising code (knowing timings is useful for making efficient use of multithreading for example), then you probably shouldn't be making comments about software optimisation on different platforms.
BTW yes, the PS3 can run tasks in the background while browsing, like downloads, recording TV with PlayTV and running games (well, some games open the browser, but I can't remember if they're completely suspended while that is being done, or whether they keep running).
You should quit talking to your selves out loud, it makes you look kind of crazy.
Yeah, I'm just waiting for it to be released over here in the UK. My pre-order is due on November 5th :)
This is true. I meant more scripting to be able to directly attach flags and behaviours to objects, spawn objects as a result of certain actions, make characters fly etc. If they have stuff like wormholes, and pressure pads that cause other actions to happen in there then you could possibly build a capture the flag or football type game though, with a mechanical scoring system. Will be interesting to see what is possible :)
Broadcasts, or even filesharing networks are a totally different kettle of fish to a set of files that you're only wanting to be available for 24 hours (though of course now they will be all over the P2P networks anyway).
The site is back up now by the way, and I got a nice copy of Crossover Games for Mac (installed Wine at the weekend but it didn't like the games I tried to install). I should get the Linux version too just in case I like Ubuntu 8.10 enough to ditch OS X..
I'm surprised. ' I thought the whole point of this game was to have paying customers do that for them
Cynical much? The point of the game is freedom and creativity. Did you complain when they started to include level editors in Worms? Do you complain when id and Valve release SDKs for their first person shooters? I mean sure it is a way of making their game more popular, but not in a lazy way. It's a lot more work for them to make the game that flexible. Can you imagine all the extra polishing and testing that would be required? Probably not, otherwise you wouldn't be so sarcastic.
We never would have had Team Fortress or Counter-Strike had it not been for mods for Quake and Half-Life respectively. In LittleBigPlanet's case it seems like it will be more just a level editor than an ability to make actual mods, but it has already enabled users to create some awesome stuff. If they add in user scripting (if it isn't already there) then mods will be possible.
I think the best thing to do would be to keep the options well spaced. I haven't seen any of the UI screens so I don't know what it's like.
Even if a touchscreen is calibrated properly for one person, another person may put their finger down in a different way.
I even have to recalibrate my phone's touchscreen just to be able to use the stylus effectively in the opposite hand, so I'd hate to think what it would be like designing a system to be used by thousands of people, left and right handed, some pressing with nails, some with squidgy tips of fingers, some with the even larger surface area of their fingerprint, etc.
You could just use buttons beside the screen like with ATMs, but if/when a button breaks or gets stuck, people will be complaining of conspiracies again..
I downloaded the OSX version (and the Windows version) last week, so I doubt OSX has 0%.
The chipset can only run Vista? Egads! What unholy portent is this? I cast thee OUT!
*throws netbook into the dark Abyss of Tortured Souls and Recycled Cardboard*
I'm "a dick" to you anyway, whether or not I steal any games. You see, I do not share your opinions and I exist, therefore you are forced to deal with me.
That makes no sense. I wasn't forced to deal with you, I chose to reply.
I actually am friends with plenty of people who have differing opinions on this matter - some who despise downloading, some who do it all the time with no remorse. I have even downloaded stuff illegally sometimes (I didn't say I can't be a dick sometimes too *shrug*), but these days I prefer to actually support those who make content that I enjoy. I said that people who download things for free are being dicks because they are leeching off of others, not because they have differing opinions to me.
I don't see how it's the "same". You seriously are such a tight bastard that you would rather not pay $6 for the hours of enjoyment that you are going to get out of a game? I make $6 in 15 minutes. I'm happy to give back 15 minutes worth of my time to reward a team that has spent months making a great game, which will give me days, weeks, or perhaps years of enjoyment. I can understand not wanting to pay $80 for a game, but if I don't consider a game worth that, I wait until it comes down in price. You can't really get prices much lower than $6 when it comes to computer games. I spend more than that on lunch each day.
It is of course up to you how you act in life, go do what you want. But if you keep being a leech then I and the rest of decent society are perfectly entitled to refer to openly antisocial people like you as "dicks". If everyone pirated, we wouldn't get commercial quality games. A lot of people have the ability to get free games, music and movies, but they choose not to because they want to encourage the creators to make more of the same, like I said.
If you don't give a fuck, why even bother to reply with your nonsense? It's funny to watch though I guess. Thanks for the entertainment and non sequiturs :)
for the sake of $6-$10 I'd just pay it. If that is more money going to the original creators, or even just stores that explicitly sell their games as DRM free, then I think it's a good thing.
Anyone could get virtually any game, movie, album or TV program for free if they wanted. It's just that not everybody is a dick.
How about this: it's a land vehicle if it normally remains within 10% of it's length of the land?
That would be pretty cool. Then we could have real life pod racing :)
Sadly the land speed record for hovercraft seems to be pretty low.. a quick google turns up about 85mph in 2004 at least, but now I must go home as I finished work over 1.5 hours ago and should stop posting!
It's almost certain that we are having an effect on the environment of course.
I agree about the wardrobe entirely, I spend very little on clothes myself.. often my family just buy me clothes at Christmas and birthdays because they are fed up seeing me walk around in raggedy jeans and t-shirts with holes in them etc.
I do also agree in principle on the jet, it seems a waste and it's part of a culture that shouldn't really be justified (especially since google could easily setup video conferencing). I just want to play a bit of devil's advocate to all these whiny bitches bitching about them buying a jet. They even whine before finding out what it is going to be used for. The fact that google bought it rather than a private individual should have been enough of a hint that it was going to be used for a project, but no, they still complain.
We have sent millions or billions of pounds worth of aid into other countries. A lot of it is intercepted by moronic or corrupt leaders as I said. That isn't an excuse to never give to charity or anything like that of course, but I think that we ourselves have little control over these situations and it is pointless to act like we can suddenly solve everything by just pouring more money into them. It's up to world governments to sort out these guys. I'm not sure what charity/charities I want to be giving to yet. I'd been giving to the church for the last 3 years since I started earning, with the occasional open source contribution or donation to charities work is supporting etc, but have just stopped the church contributions in the last month or two and don't know who else to give to now - I admit freely I haven't been thinking about it much, I still have my student loan to pay off, don't have a house, etc. and it's easy to drift along thinking about your own problems. I expect that putting money towards victims of abuse and things like that in my own country would mean that my donations were more efficiently utilised than if I donated to a charity that sends food packages to areas with bad malnutrition, but I don't know. I certainly don't see the point in donating to animal shelters or anything, I'd rather send my money to Africa than that because I regard human life as worth much more than abandoned puppies (though I also don't want to prolong the life of those living in suffering, as cold as that might sound - I don't know what happens after we die, but not existing at all is probably better than just living a life of pain). Any suggestions would be appreciated too.
Great point. That partially justifies it, but personally even if they were just using it as a barbeque it wouldn't matter - I was just fed up of people's incessant bitching every time someone who is richer than them buys something that they can't afford. It is so petty and pathetic. These guys wouldn't have the money if they didn't earn it (it's not like they're lottery winners), and they and their company do a whole lot more good than most other rich entities. They don't pretend to be ghandi or anything. Their motto isn't even "do good", they just say "don't be evil" which isn't the same thing ;)
All these whiners like to ignore that these guys have benefitted the world more than they will ever do in several ways. I wonder if that makes them feel inadequate, so they have to focus on any possible negative to make them feel better about themselves :/
I make enough money to live comfortably. I don't need any more money, and I know this. I don't feel any need to be as rich as these guys, or in fact any richer than I am. I can already buy all the gadgets and books, etc that I want to.
I was just as happy, if not happier when my family was 'poor' by the way - my father was a student (he had spent 9 years in the police but then went to University when I was born) and my mother was a full time housewife for a few years when I was growing up. So I can appreciate the value of the things I have now better than some. I even like to share them with my friends and family too, which doesn't to me seem very selfish, but call it what you will.
I am not particularly 'pursuing' anything at the moment, other than trying to find a new meaning to my life after renouncing Christianity in May. I have lived as a relatively poor person by western standards, and now am probably "middle class".
But yes, I can be a bitter, selfish, angry bastard sometimes. I have gone through bouts of depression, and OCD (read up on it, I didn't realise the way my mind was acting was OCD, I just thought I was weird. OCD involves a lot more messed up shit than just being obsessed with numbers or movements or whatever, the worrying was really crippling and took months to break free from) etc from family and other personal problems in the last 7 years. And then years of bullying before that. I know that I am much better off financially than a lot of the world, and yet a lot of them are better off than me mentally. Life is not all about money you know. I would happily make less money if I knew it meant I could have a better adjusted setup in my brain which enabled me to be a more positive person. I am trying to improve myself anyway. Sorry if my way of looking at things isn't as morally upright as yours.
I used to give a tenth of my income to the church even when I wasn't making as much money. Yes, a significant amount of that went to charity and missionary work. I remembered to stop that payment last month, and no I have not started a regular monthly payment to any other charity yet but I was intending to once I find one that I consider worthy if that makes it any better *shrug*.
I didn't say that I am not influenced by the culture around me, I just think that people who criticise it probably spending a significant percentage of their income on things that are not really necessary too. I do think that is a valid way of looking at it, though obviously once you start earning over a certain level then you have no financial worries and should be giving a higher percentage than before to charity. But if you are expected to give a higher percentage to charity, why shouldn't you be able to spend a higher percentage on toys too? You seem to be taking a very one sided approach to the whole thing. No, I don't think it's right to base your life on the pursuit of material possessions, but there is nothing wrong with having some if you can afford them, either. And I don't actually know what the purpose of life is yet so I wouldn't even say that pursuing possessions is "wrong", though it is of course selfish if you don't help to provide for those less fortunate than you.
After further reading of the comments, it seems that the fighter jet isn't even a toy anyway, it is for research projects (I did suspect something of the sort and mentioned it in a reply above, but I thought it would be more about AI research than just for fitting sensors to or whatever they're doing). So your self righteousness about "silly purchases of toys" is even less fitting.
If she stood up there in K-mart clothes people would have perceived her as less sophisticated.
What? Who could possibly perceive here as less sophisticated? E gads!
I have no idea what you're on about with Sam Walton. I recognise the names of [the complete moron who seems to know less about American newspapers than I do, despite neither reading papers often nor living in America] Sarah Palin and Larry at Oracle, but that's about it. I live in the UK and have only watched some YouTube videos of Palin after seeing many comments about her here on slashdot. If you search for her on google images you'll find plenty of retarded photos of her holding guns and flags, etc. She's such an airhead, it's unbelievable .. okay scratch that, when Dubya is the most powerful man in the world, it's perfectly believable..
As for the Boeing thing, again I just don't see why so many people think they have the right to judge them. Many of us that have cars could probably get by without them in some way or another - certainly here in the UK and in built up areas of the US that have public transport and taxis. Very large companies make use of private jets in the same way that 'normal' people make use of cars. They may not always be full of passengers, and so are wasting fuel, but they can save a lot of time and if the company or person involved is willing to waste the money on that fuel to save time, it's up to them. It's not illegal. Some people might find it immoral, but they are probably doing exactly the same things with their cars, just on a different scale. Here in the UK, virtually everybody (apart from a few people in very remote areas like the north coast of Scotland) could get by without a car, but it simply isn't convenient - and so the people that can afford cars and are fit to drive, usually buy cars.
Now the fighter jet is more like buying a motorbike to just cruise around on. It's perhaps valid to criticise the amount of fuel that is being wasted just on joyriding (though how do you know that they aren't buying it for some AI test project? Larry and Sergey love their AI), but anyone that has ever gone for a drive just to clear their head or for fun would be guilty of the same thing, in my opinion.
I do get why people think they are "bad" guys for spending money on these expensive things, and their frivolous wastes of fuel are much more noticeable than other peoples, but I just think it shows a lack of perspective. Why the heck not buy that kind of stuff if you have the money? It's not like they are giving nothing to charity. Why should they be criticized by a bunch of bitter people (who most likely wish they could afford to spend money on stuff like that, and if they started earning a few billion a year would probably end up buying a jet or some other expensive toy at some point) for having a fighter plane any more than a homeless person should criticise someone for buying an expensive mountain bike that, strictly speaking, they don't really need? It just seems kind of pathetic to me.
If I made the kind of money they did, I would give some to charity sure, but I would use some to have fun. Is that selfish? Possibly, but I wouldn't feel too bad about it. If I'm doing a job that really justifies earning that much money, I'd want to have some of the rewards that go along with being successful.