The Itanium is not just a 64bit processor, it was simply designed to be 64bit as they saw the market moving to 64bit when the processor was concived. EPIC is very interesting, and they haven't spent 10 years working on it for nothing, it gets results good enough results for NASA and SGI to invest in it, twice.
EPIC, or something based on EPIC, most likely IS the future, Intel took a big gamble to take on such a project. What has AMD done for innovation? They've spent their existance copying what others have done; I have no respect for that company. More and more we're seeing the research that once made America the greatest technology power on the planet looked upon as a "waste of money", and "not practical". We're so driven by wallstreet that all we look at is price/performance and stock dividen returns. Well if you WANT India to become our replacment then go ahead, keep bashing everyone who takes a risk... nothing is ever perfefect when it first comes out... I don't think you guys realize the amount of work that need to go into something like making the Itanium a reality.
Furthermore, HP ending its partnership is NOT the end of the Itanium line, in contrast it will probablly be better for the Itanium line. I don't see Intel "dropping" a project thats been 10 years in the making and is ACTUALLY GETTING RESULTS.
The AMD push to move to 64bit for the desktop has really hurt the Itanium, because people think of the Itanium as a 64bit chip, and the opteron as a cheeper replacment... AMD64 is nothing amazing, its obvious, and its badly designed... 64bit was a chance to replace a bad arch (i386) but instead they extended it and gave it new life.
EPIC has suffered a lot because it doesnt have an OS really written for it... if an OS that is designed to run on EPIC pops out you'll see quite the performance advantage, based just on a few tests we have done at my University you're looking at double diget percentage performance increase (in case you didn't know the Itanium has still been beating out processors running software designed for them).
Enterprise takes place before the origional Star Trek. Captin Kirk either wouldn't even be born, or would only be a small child. William Shatner is _old_ now. Is this just a ploy to get higher ratings?
This article was writen by someone just screaming to try and have an origional idea and offer the appearence of insight into gaming.
Realisim isn't just about gameplay, it's about progressing computer technology. Games have no doubt been able to help push the industry foward in the realm of graphics. It won't be long before we see the quality of CG work found in "Finding Nemo" in real-time game play. Digital technology is getting pretty close to replicating human beings. If artists can do it on paper, I'm sure artist can do it digitally.
Even more, for trickly stuff, like the way the eye shines differently from different angles, we have the advantage of being able to use complex algorythems in real time to make things look right.
This article could of been writen when "Doom" came out about how we shouldn't use 3D in games because it looks worse than 2D. If people would of listened to a nutjob like this back then we'd all be playing side-scrollers.
Realisim should be decided based on the games needs. Some games, like Medal of Honor, just wouldn't work if everything looked cartoonish. Others, like Mario Cart, look great because they are cartoonish, simple, fun games-- You play Mario Sunshine however and it becomes hard to relate to the catoon figures speaking in the cutscenes, good thing the game has no depth or it would of flopped... oh wait.
Realistic games have more acceptance amoung the older crowds as well, I know a few people who won't play a game if it's not realistic enough for them.
I hate people like this writer. They should shut up unless they have something worthy to say.
Who ever said that schools are funded enough is living on a different planet. In Maine, and to my knowledge most other states, High School teachers make less money than a Manager who works for McDonalds; why is that? If you want kids to take school seriously, you better damn well have teachers who can answer their questions (e.g. we should be hireing Masters for our teachers not Bachlors) and we need to re-think the way we teach. In most schools, we teach democracy but preech dictatorship. The school staff is constantly trying to control the students forcing them to rebel, forcing the teachers to tighten thire grip-- it's a downward spiral.
All too often brilliant kids "slip through the cracks" because the classes are only taught to tailor to a single style of learning. For athletic students, it's not uncommon that their "coach" talks to the teacher and lest them slip by classes... creating one click, then you have the kids who are bored with the material (not fast enough) another click (note these kids often do bad because they simply dont bother) then you have the "go with the flow" kids who do everything their told and are disliked by the other groups because they're selling their souls to satan...err the school board.
I could go on for hours listing problems with todays school system but instead I'm going to assume that you (the reader) are an inteligent being (to a certain extent, granted you probably did attend american schools...)and throw out some ideas on how to fix things:
Eliminate "Grades" as in Kindergarden, Freshmen, Senior... etc. This is a stupid concept. Why should we hold back a student from learning higher level Mathmatics because he/she is not so good at English or History? Let each subject have it's own level system and let the student advance at his/her own pace. E.g. Mathmatics level 5, English level 3, History level 8, etc. Eliminate the grouping of age with subject matter. Do this, and you will find that peer presure of not wanting to at a low level will start to make kids WANT to learn.
Let the students decide what they want to learn. The student should have an assigned Mentor (each mentor should have a limit of 10 or so students at once) which they can talk to for guidence and information. It is up to them to take the initaive to choose the course they want, choose the professor they want, and do what the professor requires for them to advance. Teaching style should be a pleathera of differnt styles with focus on individual attention if needed. E.g. secudled lectures (not too often, but long enough to get things done, like 3 hours), Labs, Trips, Recomended Reading/Viewing, etc. The student should be able to get everything he/she needs out of the text book; everything else is to help if needed. One-on-one meetings with the professor during office hours are recomended. It is up to the professor to determine weather the student is ready to advance or not, be it by interview style orally, by writen exam, or by project. None of the actual tests will go into file, instead (for quality assurance) a writen (noterised, and signed) report/certificate will be writen up (each unique, no standard form) giving a detailed review of what the student knows and that he/she has met the level requiements... Checks will be done on professors at the higher levels (if the professor teaching the next level of the subject determines that the student is not ready they must file a report on the previous professor, so many infractions and the professor risks loss of license and job)
This will teach american students that:
THEY need to take inititave (nothing will be given to them)
They need to WORK for what they want
That they ARE good at something (e.g. subject that they excell at)
And through the process, have a better idea of what they want to do in life.
Of course, this is just fragments of a plan of mine... most are against it because it requires that children be remov
This wil be the begining of the end for Google
on
How does Google do it?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Wallstreet should be seen for what it is: a plague upon american businesses and innovation.
You get your initial investment, which seems great, but then you sell your soul. You will be forced to "cut the fat" and "yeild higher short-term profits" and all resarch projects that make tech companies great will vanish.
This has happened with almost every great American tech company. How often do we see the type of reasearch that came out of Bell Labs today? We don't, instead we see former reasearchers that were once considered the "cream de la cream" of computer scientists out looking for work (most taking up teaching positions at universities).
Along with the presure of Wallstreet, Microsoft will be releasing their direct competitor to Google soon and they will be pushing hard for industry domination.
Wallstreet is the reason that our tech jobs are going to India, Wallstreet is the reason that America is slowly becoming less and less of the technological superpower that it used to be.
IMHO, Google should stay out of Wallstreet and keep doing what it has been doing.
Then again, there are plenty of examples of companies that had alot of hype for an IPO and are still strong and innovating today, VA Linux Systems for example, oh, I mean VA Software, and their one product that is slowly being made obsoleete by Free and Open Source alternitives.
The probelems pointed out in this article have brought up much discussion of motivation. It disipoints me to see that Free Software is being assoicated with this article. Many of the comments on Open Source lacking real motivation to focus on making applications everyone can use are correct. They do not apply to Free Software however. Those of us who assoicate ourselvs with the Free Software camp are motivated by giving users Freedom, not personal gain or satisfaction. It is here that we see Open Source become week, once stipped of the philosiphies behind Free Software it becomes week, and as the author points out becomes more of a closed comunity, not wanting to let others in (reminds me of propritairy software a little).
I remember RMS saying that he wanted the GNU system to be easy to use, like the Macintosh, and that the goals of the GNU system were delivering Freedom to all users, not just software developers.
I often think of GNOME and KDE as the Free Software desktop, vs. the Open Source desktop. While KDE strives to pile on features to create a geek-centric UI, the GNOME project more and more moves towards simplification, standardization and generally making a desktop environment that is easy to use. Obviouslly GNOME has a long way to go before it can compeate with a GUI like Apple's MacOS X environment but the changes are visible between recent changes in 2.4 to 2.6 (clearner, simplified UI). The thing that strikes me as odd is that many people are against the changes occuring in GNOME because it's becoming "too user-centric". Funny, I always thought the goals behind Free Software was to produce Free Software everyone could use, not just the select few.
Firstly, let's clear our minds and not even compare Intel against AMD and Apple (IBM). The Pentium 4 was not designed to compeate against the AMD64 or the G5, if you want to bring Intel into the picture, let's see some Itialium 2 IA64 benchmarks.
In the fight between Apple and AMD, sure Apple said that they had the first, fastest, 64bit processor on the market, and they did-- as far as personal computers go. I don't think Apple really streched the truth that much, when the claims were made they were quite accurate. Unlike other companies who strech the truth considerablly in order to create FUD about their competitors...
As far as AMD goes, everyone is hyped up about them, but I'm not so impressed. The first Athlon 64 that was released was bosted to smoke the P4. This was hardly the case, in fact, the P4 2.4 GHz (800MHz) held it's own against the new AMD chip, and the 3.2 beat it in alot of areas, especially games which is one of AMD's major targets. If AMD 64 is so great why is the first chip on the market slower than the P4 which it was compeating against?
I used to love AMD, then the Athlon came, then the Athlon XP, and now my faith in them is dead. (Any chip maker willing to name a chip after an OS created by Microsoft should be shot IMHO).
So lets think about the facts with AMD. With their new Athlon XP marketing stratigy they outright lied to customers. The Athlon XP 3200 hardley compeates with a P4 2.4 GHz (800) let alone the P4 3.2GHz (which it's name implies it is comparable to). We're talking a serious difference in performance here, a difference that can be mesured with a stopwatch in some cases.
So so far AMD has named a processor after Windows XP, and lied to customers about the speed of their product. Sounds a lot like another company I know, unfortinately for AMD, they have lest than 20% of the market share.
Intel on the other hand spends billions each year on research opposed to AMD's millions. Intel has been a strong supporter of [GNU/]Linux and Free/Open Source Software. Maybe Intel could do more, but they certainly do more than AMD.
Personally, I don't think the PC market was ready for 64 bit computing. AMD (and Apple) jumped the gun on it. 32 bit for home computers would have been fine for another 2 or even 5 years. Intel was taking the right approach with releaseing the Itialium, and Itialium 2, both are native 64 bit, and both have had running versions of Windows for months. Having 64bit IA64 workstations on the market would make it possible to slowly bring over 64bit apps. Sure you wouldn't have 32bit support, but do you really want 32 bit apps on your 64bit system? or do you want to force developers to move to 64bit or be left behind. AMD64 will actually slow down 64bit application development more than accelerate it. The outlook now for developers is:
Intel still supports 32 bit, they have an interesting 64 bit processor, but thats just workstations.
AMD has a 64 bit chip, but it's not compatible with Intel 64bit, and anyone serious about high-end workstations will probably go with Intel which has a much better track record for stability and performance than AMD...
AMD still supports 32 bit though, and is compatible with Intel 32 bit.... hmm.
Welp! guess I wont waste my time with 64 bit just yet.
AMD has always fed off using Intel's x86 arch. The AMD64 is not compatible with IA64, which causes a platform split between the two competitors for 64 bit apps. If Intel maintains it's marketshare (over 80% last time i checked) then it will be a hard sell for anyone serious about 64bit to go with AMD over Intel, especially if the IA64 out performs the Opteron (my suspicion is that it does.)
Am I bitter at AMD? Sure, but if you use your friend google and spend a few hours looking up the facts, you'll find that mostly everything I say here is accurate. (my memory isn't so hot)
Apple is Apple. I love Apple, they are the cool of cool, but as far as processor wars go, bringi
The best advice I can give you is to throw your G3 266 in the nearest dumpster.
Mac OS X has trouble running on some of the older iMac's which came out after the PowerMac G3 your talking about. MacOS X simply doesn't have the hardware drivers for the older Mac's, and since Apple does both software AND hardware, it's unlikely that you'll find any third party drivers you can get your hands on.
You can get a good iBook, or eMac for under $1,000 these days if you're looking for something with OS X, I'd go with a G4 though. The G3's are slowly being phased out completely. I'm pretty sure that what ever version of OS X that comes after Panther won't even support most G3's.
Keep in mind that it has always been the pratice of Apple to 'encourage' you to get the latest hardware by making the latest OS require it.
I've been following the XBox for some time now. Microsoft is trying to gain a monopolly just as they did with Windows. How exacilly are they doing it this time though? Can't we sniff out Microsoft's tricks?
I, as well as many others, belive that the XBox has yet to turn a profit for Microsoft. Yes, it is an incredibly well done package, but Microsoft is using it's wealth to sell it, and promote it, and give developers incentive to develop exclusive XBox games, all at a loss. Why are they doing this? Simple, if they would charge what they want for the XBox (I'm assuming somewhere arround 600 - 700$ USD) no one would buy it. Instead, they're goal is to saturate the market as quickly as possible and try to eliminate the compition, because once the compititon is gone, they can charge what ever they want.
Now Microsoft is taking the next step, offering online gaming service, either at cost, or at a loss. Why? To get people to get into the habit of using it... to make gamers "need" it. Microsoft's goal is to make people say "How could I live without it!" because when people think that way-- and they will, Microsoft, once again, will charge what ever they want, and people will pay it.
We're still paying hundreds of dollars for operating systems on our computers, it won't change-- because Microsoft knows that people today value convience over freedom. That is the sad state of our society. To have the U.S. Government force Microsoft to behave? Not going to happen. Microsoft has washington bought, and with the Republicans in power, washington is more interested in give power to big business than to the people...
"By the people, for the people" is just lauged at as a idealistic dream.
Now, we have these "gameing consols" which are really PC's made by Mircrosoft entering peoples homes... So Microsoft not only controls your software, but your hardware aswell... Can it be long before we start seeing keyboard's for the XBox? and MSN Hotmail intergration? The Network PC for the Home.
By simply using the XBox you give up all your rights to Microsofts will. What we have is a company who has almost as many lawyers as programers, with the prime directive of finding out how to force you to become dependent on Microsoft products.
By supporting them, and giving in to temptation, you sacrifice everything that the founding fathers of america worked for-- what people have died for-- and you throw it away because it has attractive packaging.
Sorry for getting into this so much, I just sickens me that people support this company without thinking twice about it.
Me and some friends drove 10 hours to see Episoide II in a THX certified digital theater. It rocked! (We saw it again in a normal theater and it was disipointing-- especialy the explosions.)
If I wanted higher Karma I could say something like "Yeah! Let's Kick some Terrorist A$$!", but I'd like to think that the people reading this are a bit more inteligent then that.
Personaly, I've found myself saying "Why can we have anyone else but Bush..." under my breath these last few days-- I realise this may anger alot of his supporters, but I have no respect for this, clearly politicaily driven, man. First he get elected from a campaign he knows he can't live up to (read: education--the federal government has little control over; and huge tax cut--the government has no 'extra' money, are we forgeting the national debt.?), that I could look over, the fact that I'll never see the cash I dump into Social Security, I can live with-- But when we have such a tradgidy (this is a somewhat extream way to put it when you consider these things are a daily routine in the middleeast) and all he can say is "we will engage a war on terrorisim, the people are united, and united we stand..." in his smooth Texan accent-- Many people don't see the danger in this-- Insted of pointing out how we will get revenge twice every day since the incident-- couldn't he offer some insight, something that will look good in history books? killing innocent people isn't the answer, when timithy mcveaugh (sp?) did the olklahoma bombing he was trying to point out this very thing-- it wasn't right, but in his trials he used a phrase the militairy often uses for mass murder "clateral damage."-- is that what non-americain human life is? clateral damage? have we turned into the horrific leader we fought so determined agains in world war 2? There are way's to handle these things in secret, with little amouts of man power on the front lines-- but I supose beafing up the militairy and sending our neighbors sons and daughters to this 'war'--so bush can play with his toy solders (read: send thousands into a death trap to place more national hate on your enemy then tell everyone "they were heros who died for there country"--and award the dead metles of honor to shut up the families) We've seen by the presidents actions alredy that he is triger happy, what with his beafing up of the militairy-- proposing a to fix a miscle defence system that couldn't posibly save us if it worked-- when people are hungry for vision, they take the first thing they get, unfortinately not the right thing. What works out beter for Bush? a covert operation to eliminate the suspected-- or declareing war and overiding our elected officials in any descessions they make-- sucking as much money as he pleases, and playing his game.
So what would I like-- for starters; I would like to actualy see us go to defcon 1, send everything we have to afganistans borders-- throw white flowers on the them, and leave. Militairly, they are no match for us-- take the hint, take the warning, do it again and suffer the concequences. --maybe, just maybe... a president who can tell the people something besides "we will have our war".
When will people wake up-- Holy War? there is no such thing. Beware self-proclaimed leaders of faith.
Sorry, Needed to get things out. (excuse the typo's i'm very tired)
The Truth is this. The Human mind develops as a result of what it is exposed to. So of course if you expose young people to violence sutch as Television, Video Games, etc etc.. . In there earily stages of development (up to 17 years old on average) they will develop into being a more violent person. Personaly, I play video games every once and a while and enjoy them, but the difrence between us and most people is that they don't know what wrong from right. Parents stik there 5 year olds infrount of the tv and give them video games to avoide getting a baby sitter. Parents should have there kids Read insted of watching TV. I'm not saying that people shouldn't watch TV or play video games so please don't insult me by saying that I am ; however, I am saying that video games and movies, even televesion should be for people that are mentaly developed, not for young people. Once you teach a child and help it develop it's mind you reach a certain point where they have morals. When that point is hit there IS a need to expose them to violence, teach them about the past, the holocaust etc etc.. . so they can see how wrong it was, and how wrong violence towards fellow man is. But not before.. they shouldn't be exposed to the dramatic violence we see in video games and television before that point, because television and video games have a tendency to glamorise violence. Name one decent video game that the point of the game isn't to kill as many people as you can? But like anything violence is intresting, it makes life seem less dull. But when we expose young people to this, they don't realise that it's wrong, and it's not real, they see it as glamoris, and they try to copy it. Of course violence and hate don't come entirely from video games. Religion is the primairy cause of preduce in the world, causeing people to belive that THEY and only they are right. Also causeing them to fear others, and fear leads to anger, anger to hate, hate to suffering. People don't relise how much truth there is behind that line. For our world to become one whitch is plesent, one without crime, poverty, and hunger.. Humans would need to take the next step in evolution, a mentle one, Money, Religion, Government, they all need to go. Video Games, and Television need to be steped down as well.. I belive that if we don't change soon, that our generation (X?) will see world war three. And when ww3 does happen, It will bring down the earth population from billions to hundreds of thousands.. . Everything we worked to build in the last 1000 years will be destroied and only then will humanity relise that they were wrong. I know I'm getting a little deaper then Video Games, And I'm probly seeing this for more then it is. But I belive in The Human Race, and Science. Not False Religions that keep everyone back in this world. I also belive in 0% Violence, No Person should be in a posision where they would become violent ; however, this is unlikely to happen before we relise it's too late, because there are alredy so many people who have been hurt and neglected. And it probly will take a war that will whipe out the bulk of humanity for us to relise that were wrong. If you wanta make comments to me, post them here or email them to me at : rpsoucy@zzweb.net Thanks for your time. (Even though this will most likely be moderated down;)
This is the perfect Example why All/. Readers should set the Lowest comment score to +2. Some of these comments are aweful, even one for the kkk?! goodness. I brought my score down to the lowest while I was moderating a few days ago and forgot to rais it back up.. . This bunch of comments is what did it for me =) Let the moderators do there job and filter out the bad stuff. You'll Enjoy/. alot more (Hint. Thats why CmdrTaco created moderation and a point system for/.... Use It!)
Ok. Lets take a look at this here. Lucas is trying to work as fast as he can to get Epi 2. Out, and he's decided that since we have all the posibilities of dvd, multipul langauges, alternet endings etc etc.. that he wants to do something special with dvd. He wants the dvd version to blow away most other dvd films. But right now he has 2 years of work to do in one year with Episoid 2. The fans are pushing him to get Epi 2 out as fast as posible and he relises that the new movie is a biger priority then dvd. Yes, I love DVD, it's grate. but lets get real here it's nothing to start a war about it's just a media format. Get a good Hi-Fi 4 head VCR and you'll be as happy as a clown (they sell for under 100$ now)
Ok. Here's something that just makes me mad. The fact that I'm a die-hard Star Wars fan has something to do with this;) When Darth Vader saved his son, Luke, yes, he did do something nice. But he was never praised and forgiven. If you notice.. Vader Dies? They arn't celabrateing for Vader there celabrating the Victory against the empire. Yes, Luke forgave his father, and so did Lea.. but there his kids! what do you expect.. It's much eaiser for them to look back and view there father as someone who changed and gave his life to save his son then it is for them to live with the fact that Vader was a jerk and hated them. Lucas did it exacily how it would happen with the human mind. I think some people need to look deaper into things then whats presented to them on the screens.
... is what ILM uses for equipment for video editing and the creation of computer genertaed creatures/sets. I'd love to be able to find out how they create/merge there computer generated stuff with the real people so flawlessly, yes, I know they use blue screen;) Everyone knows Star Wars Episode I owns all other movies:P HahA (I'll probly get it for that one;)
Muhaha! Now you all must learn what I've known all along.. . the table, and font tags have been deprecated.. . you all need to learn Style Sheets to format your page:P
I don't know about all the other geek's out there but I think the best thing I could get is a Brand New VA LiNUX Box:) (and No, I don't work for them, and I'm not getting paid to say this *grin*) any System would do, but here's a hint, the more you spend the beter the pc;) www.valinux.com
However, on the bright side, this gives me a chance to get my package into Debian before it freezes, meaning it could be in a Debian "stable" before the 21st century (2001). That's always nice. Well I hate to be the one to break this to you but the 21st century is 2000, 2001 is the 22nd;)
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The Itanium is not just a 64bit processor, it was simply designed to be 64bit as they saw the market moving to 64bit when the processor was concived. EPIC is very interesting, and they haven't spent 10 years working on it for nothing, it gets results good enough results for NASA and SGI to invest in it, twice.
EPIC, or something based on EPIC, most likely IS the future, Intel took a big gamble to take on such a project. What has AMD done for innovation? They've spent their existance copying what others have done; I have no respect for that company. More and more we're seeing the research that once made America the greatest technology power on the planet looked upon as a "waste of money", and "not practical". We're so driven by wallstreet that all we look at is price/performance and stock dividen returns. Well if you WANT India to become our replacment then go ahead, keep bashing everyone who takes a risk... nothing is ever perfefect when it first comes out... I don't think you guys realize the amount of work that need to go into something like making the Itanium a reality.
Furthermore, HP ending its partnership is NOT the end of the Itanium line, in contrast it will probablly be better for the Itanium line. I don't see Intel "dropping" a project thats been 10 years in the making and is ACTUALLY GETTING RESULTS.
The AMD push to move to 64bit for the desktop has really hurt the Itanium, because people think of the Itanium as a 64bit chip, and the opteron as a cheeper replacment... AMD64 is nothing amazing, its obvious, and its badly designed... 64bit was a chance to replace a bad arch (i386) but instead they extended it and gave it new life.
EPIC has suffered a lot because it doesnt have an OS really written for it... if an OS that is designed to run on EPIC pops out you'll see quite the performance advantage, based just on a few tests we have done at my University you're looking at double diget percentage performance increase (in case you didn't know the Itanium has still been beating out processors running software designed for them).
Enterprise takes place before the origional Star Trek. Captin Kirk either wouldn't even be born, or would only be a small child. William Shatner is _old_ now. Is this just a ploy to get higher ratings?
Gene is rolling in his grave right now.
If you can't build a reliable system yourself you're pretty pethetic.
HA HA HA
This article was writen by someone just screaming to try and have an origional idea and offer the appearence of insight into gaming.
Realisim isn't just about gameplay, it's about progressing computer technology. Games have no doubt been able to help push the industry foward in the realm of graphics. It won't be long before we see the quality of CG work found in "Finding Nemo" in real-time game play. Digital technology is getting pretty close to replicating human beings. If artists can do it on paper, I'm sure artist can do it digitally.
Even more, for trickly stuff, like the way the eye shines differently from different angles, we have the advantage of being able to use complex algorythems in real time to make things look right.
This article could of been writen when "Doom" came out about how we shouldn't use 3D in games because it looks worse than 2D. If people would of listened to a nutjob like this back then we'd all be playing side-scrollers.
Realisim should be decided based on the games needs. Some games, like Medal of Honor, just wouldn't work if everything looked cartoonish. Others, like Mario Cart, look great because they are cartoonish, simple, fun games-- You play Mario Sunshine however and it becomes hard to relate to the catoon figures speaking in the cutscenes, good thing the game has no depth or it would of flopped... oh wait.
Realistic games have more acceptance amoung the older crowds as well, I know a few people who won't play a game if it's not realistic enough for them.
I hate people like this writer. They should shut up unless they have something worthy to say.
Here is my outlook on Education in the U.S.
Who ever said that schools are funded enough is living on a different planet. In Maine, and to my knowledge most other states, High School teachers make less money than a Manager who works for McDonalds; why is that? If you want kids to take school seriously, you better damn well have teachers who can answer their questions (e.g. we should be hireing Masters for our teachers not Bachlors) and we need to re-think the way we teach. In most schools, we teach democracy but preech dictatorship. The school staff is constantly trying to control the students forcing them to rebel, forcing the teachers to tighten thire grip-- it's a downward spiral.
All too often brilliant kids "slip through the cracks" because the classes are only taught to tailor to a single style of learning. For athletic students, it's not uncommon that their "coach" talks to the teacher and lest them slip by classes... creating one click, then you have the kids who are bored with the material (not fast enough) another click (note these kids often do bad because they simply dont bother) then you have the "go with the flow" kids who do everything their told and are disliked by the other groups because they're selling their souls to satan...err the school board.
I could go on for hours listing problems with todays school system but instead I'm going to assume that you (the reader) are an inteligent being (to a certain extent, granted you probably did attend american schools...)and throw out some ideas on how to fix things:
Eliminate "Grades" as in Kindergarden, Freshmen, Senior... etc. This is a stupid concept. Why should we hold back a student from learning higher level Mathmatics because he/she is not so good at English or History? Let each subject have it's own level system and let the student advance at his/her own pace. E.g. Mathmatics level 5, English level 3, History level 8, etc. Eliminate the grouping of age with subject matter. Do this, and you will find that peer presure of not wanting to at a low level will start to make kids WANT to learn.
Let the students decide what they want to learn. The student should have an assigned Mentor (each mentor should have a limit of 10 or so students at once) which they can talk to for guidence and information. It is up to them to take the initaive to choose the course they want, choose the professor they want, and do what the professor requires for them to advance. Teaching style should be a pleathera of differnt styles with focus on individual attention if needed. E.g. secudled lectures (not too often, but long enough to get things done, like 3 hours), Labs, Trips, Recomended Reading/Viewing, etc. The student should be able to get everything he/she needs out of the text book; everything else is to help if needed. One-on-one meetings with the professor during office hours are recomended. It is up to the professor to determine weather the student is ready to advance or not, be it by interview style orally, by writen exam, or by project. None of the actual tests will go into file, instead (for quality assurance) a writen (noterised, and signed) report/certificate will be writen up (each unique, no standard form) giving a detailed review of what the student knows and that he/she has met the level requiements... Checks will be done on professors at the higher levels (if the professor teaching the next level of the subject determines that the student is not ready they must file a report on the previous professor, so many infractions and the professor risks loss of license and job)
This will teach american students that:
THEY need to take inititave (nothing will be given to them)
They need to WORK for what they want
That they ARE good at something (e.g. subject that they excell at)
And through the process, have a better idea of what they want to do in life.
Of course, this is just fragments of a plan of mine... most are against it because it requires that children be remov
Wallstreet should be seen for what it is: a plague upon american businesses and innovation.
You get your initial investment, which seems great, but then you sell your soul. You will be forced to "cut the fat" and "yeild higher short-term profits" and all resarch projects that make tech companies great will vanish.
This has happened with almost every great American tech company. How often do we see the type of reasearch that came out of Bell Labs today? We don't, instead we see former reasearchers that were once considered the "cream de la cream" of computer scientists out looking for work (most taking up teaching positions at universities).
Along with the presure of Wallstreet, Microsoft will be releasing their direct competitor to Google soon and they will be pushing hard for industry domination.
Wallstreet is the reason that our tech jobs are going to India, Wallstreet is the reason that America is slowly becoming less and less of the technological superpower that it used to be.
IMHO, Google should stay out of Wallstreet and keep doing what it has been doing.
Then again, there are plenty of examples of companies that had alot of hype for an IPO and are still strong and innovating today, VA Linux Systems for example, oh, I mean VA Software, and their one product that is slowly being made obsoleete by Free and Open Source alternitives.
The probelems pointed out in this article have brought up much discussion of motivation. It disipoints me to see that Free Software is being assoicated with this article. Many of the comments on Open Source lacking real motivation to focus on making applications everyone can use are correct. They do not apply to Free Software however. Those of us who assoicate ourselvs with the Free Software camp are motivated by giving users Freedom, not personal gain or satisfaction. It is here that we see Open Source become week, once stipped of the philosiphies behind Free Software it becomes week, and as the author points out becomes more of a closed comunity, not wanting to let others in (reminds me of propritairy software a little).
I remember RMS saying that he wanted the GNU system to be easy to use, like the Macintosh, and that the goals of the GNU system were delivering Freedom to all users, not just software developers.
I often think of GNOME and KDE as the Free Software desktop, vs. the Open Source desktop. While KDE strives to pile on features to create a geek-centric UI, the GNOME project more and more moves towards simplification, standardization and generally making a desktop environment that is easy to use. Obviouslly GNOME has a long way to go before it can compeate with a GUI like Apple's MacOS X environment but the changes are visible between recent changes in 2.4 to 2.6 (clearner, simplified UI). The thing that strikes me as odd is that many people are against the changes occuring in GNOME because it's becoming "too user-centric". Funny, I always thought the goals behind Free Software was to produce Free Software everyone could use, not just the select few.
rps
I'm tired of AMD-zellots talking about the AMD64 vs. the P4. It's like comparing the Athlon XP to the P3.
Firstly, let's clear our minds and not even compare Intel against AMD and Apple (IBM). The Pentium 4 was not designed to compeate against the AMD64 or the G5, if you want to bring Intel into the picture, let's see some Itialium 2 IA64 benchmarks.
In the fight between Apple and AMD, sure Apple said that they had the first, fastest, 64bit processor on the market, and they did-- as far as personal computers go. I don't think Apple really streched the truth that much, when the claims were made they were quite accurate. Unlike other companies who strech the truth considerablly in order to create FUD about their competitors...
As far as AMD goes, everyone is hyped up about them, but I'm not so impressed. The first Athlon 64 that was released was bosted to smoke the P4. This was hardly the case, in fact, the P4 2.4 GHz (800MHz) held it's own against the new AMD chip, and the 3.2 beat it in alot of areas, especially games which is one of AMD's major targets. If AMD 64 is so great why is the first chip on the market slower than the P4 which it was compeating against?
I used to love AMD, then the Athlon came, then the Athlon XP, and now my faith in them is dead. (Any chip maker willing to name a chip after an OS created by Microsoft should be shot IMHO).
So lets think about the facts with AMD. With their new Athlon XP marketing stratigy they outright lied to customers. The Athlon XP 3200 hardley compeates with a P4 2.4 GHz (800) let alone the P4 3.2GHz (which it's name implies it is comparable to). We're talking a serious difference in performance here, a difference that can be mesured with a stopwatch in some cases.
So so far AMD has named a processor after Windows XP, and lied to customers about the speed of their product. Sounds a lot like another company I know, unfortinately for AMD, they have lest than 20% of the market share.
Intel on the other hand spends billions each year on research opposed to AMD's millions. Intel has been a strong supporter of [GNU/]Linux and Free/Open Source Software. Maybe Intel could do more, but they certainly do more than AMD.
Personally, I don't think the PC market was ready for 64 bit computing. AMD (and Apple) jumped the gun on it. 32 bit for home computers would have been fine for another 2 or even 5 years. Intel was taking the right approach with releaseing the Itialium, and Itialium 2, both are native 64 bit, and both have had running versions of Windows for months. Having 64bit IA64 workstations on the market would make it possible to slowly bring over 64bit apps. Sure you wouldn't have 32bit support, but do you really want 32 bit apps on your 64bit system? or do you want to force developers to move to 64bit or be left behind. AMD64 will actually slow down 64bit application development more than accelerate it. The outlook now for developers is:
Intel still supports 32 bit, they have an interesting 64 bit processor, but thats just workstations.
AMD has a 64 bit chip, but it's not compatible with Intel 64bit, and anyone serious about high-end workstations will probably go with Intel which has a much better track record for stability and performance than AMD...
AMD still supports 32 bit though, and is compatible with Intel 32 bit.... hmm.
Welp! guess I wont waste my time with 64 bit just yet.
AMD has always fed off using Intel's x86 arch. The AMD64 is not compatible with IA64, which causes a platform split between the two competitors for 64 bit apps. If Intel maintains it's marketshare (over 80% last time i checked) then it will be a hard sell for anyone serious about 64bit to go with AMD over Intel, especially if the IA64 out performs the Opteron (my suspicion is that it does.)
Am I bitter at AMD? Sure, but if you use your friend google and spend a few hours looking up the facts, you'll find that mostly everything I say here is accurate. (my memory isn't so hot)
Apple is Apple. I love Apple, they are the cool of cool, but as far as processor wars go, bringi
The best advice I can give you is to throw your G3 266 in the nearest dumpster.
Mac OS X has trouble running on some of the older iMac's which came out after the PowerMac G3 your talking about. MacOS X simply doesn't have the hardware drivers for the older Mac's, and since Apple does both software AND hardware, it's unlikely that you'll find any third party drivers you can get your hands on.
You can get a good iBook, or eMac for under $1,000 these days if you're looking for something with OS X, I'd go with a G4 though. The G3's are slowly being phased out completely. I'm pretty sure that what ever version of OS X that comes after Panther won't even support most G3's.
Keep in mind that it has always been the pratice of Apple to 'encourage' you to get the latest hardware by making the latest OS require it.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/17/203722 3&mode=thread&tid=109
I've been following the XBox for some time now. Microsoft is trying to gain a monopolly just as they did with Windows. How exacilly are they doing it this time though? Can't we sniff out Microsoft's tricks?
I, as well as many others, belive that the XBox has yet to turn a profit for Microsoft. Yes, it is an incredibly well done package, but Microsoft is using it's wealth to sell it, and promote it, and give developers incentive to develop exclusive XBox games, all at a loss. Why are they doing this? Simple, if they would charge what they want for the XBox (I'm assuming somewhere arround 600 - 700$ USD) no one would buy it. Instead, they're goal is to saturate the market as quickly as possible and try to eliminate the compition, because once the compititon is gone, they can charge what ever they want.
Now Microsoft is taking the next step, offering online gaming service, either at cost, or at a loss. Why? To get people to get into the habit of using it... to make gamers "need" it. Microsoft's goal is to make people say "How could I live without it!" because when people think that way-- and they will, Microsoft, once again, will charge what ever they want, and people will pay it.
We're still paying hundreds of dollars for operating systems on our computers, it won't change-- because Microsoft knows that people today value convience over freedom. That is the sad state of our society. To have the U.S. Government force Microsoft to behave? Not going to happen. Microsoft has washington bought, and with the Republicans in power, washington is more interested in give power to big business than to the people...
"By the people, for the people" is just lauged at as a idealistic dream.
Now, we have these "gameing consols" which are really PC's made by Mircrosoft entering peoples homes... So Microsoft not only controls your software, but your hardware aswell... Can it be long before we start seeing keyboard's for the XBox? and MSN Hotmail intergration? The Network PC for the Home.
By simply using the XBox you give up all your rights to Microsofts will. What we have is a company who has almost as many lawyers as programers, with the prime directive of finding out how to force you to become dependent on Microsoft products.
By supporting them, and giving in to temptation, you sacrifice everything that the founding fathers of america worked for-- what people have died for-- and you throw it away because it has attractive packaging.
Sorry for getting into this so much, I just sickens me that people support this company without thinking twice about it.
Me and some friends drove 10 hours to see Episoide II in a THX certified digital theater. It rocked! (We saw it again in a normal theater and it was disipointing-- especialy the explosions.)
If I wanted higher Karma I could say something like "Yeah! Let's Kick some Terrorist A$$!", but I'd like to think that the people reading this are a bit more inteligent then that.
Personaly, I've found myself saying "Why can we have anyone else but Bush..." under my breath these last few days-- I realise this may anger alot of his supporters, but I have no respect for this, clearly politicaily driven, man. First he get elected from a campaign he knows he can't live up to (read: education--the federal government has little control over; and huge tax cut--the government has no 'extra' money, are we forgeting the national debt.?), that I could look over, the fact that I'll never see the cash I dump into Social Security, I can live with-- But when we have such a tradgidy (this is a somewhat extream way to put it when you consider these things are a daily routine in the middleeast) and all he can say is "we will engage a war on terrorisim, the people are united, and united we stand..." in his smooth Texan accent-- Many people don't see the danger in this-- Insted of pointing out how we will get revenge twice every day since the incident-- couldn't he offer some insight, something that will look good in history books? killing innocent people isn't the answer, when timithy mcveaugh (sp?) did the olklahoma bombing he was trying to point out this very thing-- it wasn't right, but in his trials he used a phrase the militairy often uses for mass murder "clateral damage."-- is that what non-americain human life is? clateral damage? have we turned into the horrific leader we fought so determined agains in world war 2? There are way's to handle these things in secret, with little amouts of man power on the front lines-- but I supose beafing up the militairy and sending our neighbors sons and daughters to this 'war'--so bush can play with his toy solders (read: send thousands into a death trap to place more national hate on your enemy then tell everyone "they were heros who died for there country"--and award the dead metles of honor to shut up the families) We've seen by the presidents actions alredy that he is triger happy, what with his beafing up of the militairy-- proposing a to fix a miscle defence system that couldn't posibly save us if it worked-- when people are hungry for vision, they take the first thing they get, unfortinately not the right thing. What works out beter for Bush? a covert operation to eliminate the suspected-- or declareing war and overiding our elected officials in any descessions they make-- sucking as much money as he pleases, and playing his game.
So what would I like-- for starters; I would like to actualy see us go to defcon 1, send everything we have to afganistans borders-- throw white flowers on the them, and leave. Militairly, they are no match for us-- take the hint, take the warning, do it again and suffer the concequences. --maybe, just maybe... a president who can tell the people something besides "we will have our war".
When will people wake up-- Holy War? there is no such thing. Beware self-proclaimed leaders of faith.
Sorry, Needed to get things out. (excuse the typo's i'm very tired)
But will it work with the old LC II's >=)
YES!!!!!!!!!! =)
The Truth is this. The Human mind develops as a result of what it is exposed to. So of course if you expose young people to violence sutch as Television, Video Games, etc etc.. . In there earily stages of development (up to 17 years old on average) they will develop into being a more violent person. Personaly, I play video games every once and a while and enjoy them, but the difrence between us and most people is that they don't know what wrong from right. Parents stik there 5 year olds infrount of the tv and give them video games to avoide getting a baby sitter. Parents should have there kids Read insted of watching TV. I'm not saying that people shouldn't watch TV or play video games so please don't insult me by saying that I am ; however, I am saying that video games and movies, even televesion should be for people that are mentaly developed, not for young people. Once you teach a child and help it develop it's mind you reach a certain point where they have morals. When that point is hit there IS a need to expose them to violence, teach them about the past, the holocaust etc etc.. . so they can see how wrong it was, and how wrong violence towards fellow man is. But not before.. they shouldn't be exposed to the dramatic violence we see in video games and television before that point, because television and video games have a tendency to glamorise violence. Name one decent video game that the point of the game isn't to kill as many people as you can? But like anything violence is intresting, it makes life seem less dull. But when we expose young people to this, they don't realise that it's wrong, and it's not real, they see it as glamoris, and they try to copy it. ;)
Of course violence and hate don't come entirely from video games. Religion is the primairy cause of preduce in the world, causeing people to belive that THEY and only they are right. Also causeing them to fear others, and fear leads to anger, anger to hate, hate to suffering. People don't relise how much truth there is behind that line. For our world to become one whitch is plesent, one without crime, poverty, and hunger.. Humans would need to take the next step in evolution, a mentle one, Money, Religion, Government, they all need to go. Video Games, and Television need to be steped down as well.. I belive that if we don't change soon, that our generation (X?) will see world war three. And when ww3 does happen, It will bring down the earth population from billions to hundreds of thousands.. . Everything we worked to build in the last 1000 years will be destroied and only then will humanity relise that they were wrong. I know I'm getting a little deaper then Video Games, And I'm probly seeing this for more then it is. But I belive in The Human Race, and Science. Not False Religions that keep everyone back in this world. I also belive in 0% Violence, No Person should be in a posision where they would become violent ; however, this is unlikely to happen before we relise it's too late, because there are alredy so many people who have been hurt and neglected. And it probly will take a war that will whipe out the bulk of humanity for us to relise that were wrong. If you wanta make comments to me, post them here or email them to me at : rpsoucy@zzweb.net Thanks for your time. (Even though this will most likely be moderated down
Thanks =)
Ok. Lets take a look at this here. Lucas is trying to work as fast as he can to get Epi 2. Out, and he's decided that since we have all the posibilities of dvd, multipul langauges, alternet endings etc etc.. that he wants to do something special with dvd. He wants the dvd version to blow away most other dvd films. But right now he has 2 years of work to do in one year with Episoid 2. The fans are pushing him to get Epi 2 out as fast as posible and he relises that the new movie is a biger priority then dvd. Yes, I love DVD, it's grate. but lets get real here it's nothing to start a war about it's just a media format. Get a good Hi-Fi 4 head VCR and you'll be as happy as a clown (they sell for under 100$ now)
Ok. Here's something that just makes me mad. The fact that I'm a die-hard Star Wars fan has something to do with this ;) When Darth Vader saved his son, Luke, yes, he did do something nice. But he was never praised and forgiven. If you notice.. Vader Dies? They arn't celabrateing for Vader there celabrating the Victory against the empire. Yes, Luke forgave his father, and so did Lea.. but there his kids! what do you expect.. It's much eaiser for them to look back and view there father as someone who changed and gave his life to save his son then it is for them to live with the fact that Vader was a jerk and hated them. Lucas did it exacily how it would happen with the human mind. I think some people need to look deaper into things then whats presented to them on the screens.
... is what ILM uses for equipment for video editing and the creation of computer genertaed creatures/sets. I'd love to be able to find out how they create/merge there computer generated stuff with the real people so flawlessly, yes, I know they use blue screen ;) Everyone knows Star Wars Episode I owns all other movies :P HahA (I'll probly get it for that one ;)
Muhaha! Now you all must learn what I've known all along.. . the table, and font tags have been deprecated.. . you all need to learn Style Sheets to format your page :P
I don't know about all the other geek's out there but I think the best thing I could get is a Brand New VA LiNUX Box :) (and No, I don't work for them, and I'm not getting paid to say this *grin*) any System would do, but here's a hint, the more you spend the beter the pc ;) www.valinux.com
However, on the bright side, this gives me a chance to get my package into Debian before it freezes, meaning it could be in a Debian "stable" before the 21st century (2001). That's always nice. Well I hate to be the one to break this to you but the 21st century is 2000, 2001 is the 22nd ;)