That may be so, but up here in WA we're having to deal with the consequences of the short sightedness and greed of Californians. We could reduce the number of dams we have or allow more water to spill over them here to better serve our commercial fishing industry if we weren't needing to sell that capacity to Californians. Likewise, why should people in Oregon have to lose ground for other purposes so that Californians don't have to put up their own solar arrays?
Californians have been doing this sort of thing for some time, and while we like the money, it really would be better if they stopped behaving like they have the right to export their externalities when folks up here are actually trying to do something about ours.
Transmission lines shouldn't be owned and operated in that fashion. Perhaps utilities are things that are best provided by the government than corporate entities that care very little about providing the necessary service. It's been a problem in Texas where the private companies responsible for maintaining and building the interstate transmission lines basically haven't built it out at all, allowing them to gouge Texans on their electrical bills while providing the cheapest possible electricity. Granted, it's funny because it's Texans getting what they deserve, but it's really not a model which actually works.
That's not entirely accurate, close, but not quite. You do have to consider the amount of production they engage in for the benefit of the developed world. It's still embarrassingly bad, but not quite as bad as you suggest. But the other thing is that China actually has quite a few environmental regulations on the books, they just tend not to be enforced. For instance it's illegal to melt down electronics without proper precautions, but it still happens. Same goes for most of the other practices that leads them to be such heavy polluters.
That's why I keep a back up of files that I download. It's nice in case the server goes down or Ubisoft decides to no longer offer downloads, but you can burn those to discs and have a back up and a copy at hand for quick install. It might be because I don't drive, but it's a lot more convenient than going to the mall and a lot quicker than ordering online.
That being said, I personally prefer physical discs in most cases, places like GoG and free Steam games being the exceptions.
But DRM is evil period. With the possible exception of free games, there's never a legitimate reason to do it. Pirate versions are frequently available before the legitimate ones are. Which tends to make it so that the only people actually dealing with DRM are the paying customers.
I'm not sure how exactly that isn't evil. Perhaps you've got a good reason as to why people who pay ought to have to put up with it when pirates don't.
Um, with normal DRM if something happens you're out 1 game typically at most. With Steam if something goes wrong you can very easily find yourself out the entire account worth of games. Or at a somewhat less bad scenario, without the ability to play any of those games on a sanctioned server.
The thing is that it's unobtrusive until it becomes obtrusive. For free games and as a way of getting game files for use with 3rd party game engines it's great, I just don't personally trust it beyond that.
To be honest, I pretty much have nothing to do with them, except when they're giving away free stuff. I don't personally mind DRM when the content is free, provided I'm able to use it. If they want to give it away with strings attached, that's fine by me.
Just because it's free doesn't mean that it's OK to torrent it. Which is a wee bit silly, but I think the main reason for that is that there's no way that Valve can know whether or not the torrents have been tampered with.
That's not surprising, I've had Warzone 2100 do something similar. Mainly when I've got several AI opponents and hundreds and hundreds of units between them. And that tends to make things slow to a crawl.
Each unit has to be accounted for, and that's one of the reasons why a lot of games have limits on the number that you can create. Doing massive maneuvers may require path finding for each of hundreds of units and more than once to really work.
Depends how the game is designed. A high clockspeed and large cache will generally get you more speed than more cores. However, for some types of games that doesn't entirely apply. If you're into RTS games, there's a lot more that you can do, such as splitting up the AI between cores, running path finding on it's own core and similar.
But in general you're definitely correct, at least for the time being. As multi core computing gets more common and the number of cores involved increases that's likely to change to some extent.
I had a Win CE device, and the problem was that the Desktop paradigm doesn't really translate very well to mobile devices. Pushing it to the netbooks is a bit of a stretch, but by the time you get to PDAs and mobile phones it completely breaks down. The iPhone and Android UIs work a lot better for screens that size, I think that they might even translate up to around about the netbook range without a whole lot of trouble, but then again trying to go beyond that point would likely cause trouble in that they're meant for small devices.
To be fair, the Zune could've been a success had MS not screwed it up. The hardware was actually quite good and the few people I know that owned them really liked them.
You're basic choices come down to Comcast or Qwest. Right now, I'm topping out at 5mbps, yes that's more than you, but that's the most we can get through Qwest. Additionally, it seems quite a bit slower than that, probably the poor quality of modem, but it does seem to have issues keeping up with the promised speed. We had comcast, but they couldn't even get us a signal on a reliable basis.
Supposedly, they're up to 20mbps in places, and have fiber optic to 40, but that's not here yet, and I doubt it will any time soon. Supposedly, Comcast gets to 16mpbs.
With numbers like that it's theoretically possible, but it would require people to go out and purchase the highest priced plan in their neighborhood to even be plausible. More likely that study that found those averages wasn't properly thought through.
Um, we can already do that, Hughesnet for instance can reach pretty much anybody in the US, provided they have a view of the southern sky. Not sure about the quality, but it's definitely broadband. Even if it's not top rate broad band or suitable for gaming.
No he doesn't. For one thing, the 11mbps for WA is wrong. I live in Seattle, and I don't have access to a connection that fast. I'm not sure where the people are that get a connection that fast, but if I in the middle of the most populous city in the region can't get it at any price, then I think it's fair to say that it isn't the average.
Secondly, it's an abuse of the term average, as while it is an average, it doesn't indicate that in Sweden there's access to a much higher connection speed than here. It also doesn't indicate the cost or the reasons why people choose not to. Around here, you can't get that kind of speed without paying for leased lines, typical home owners can't have it.
Because it's discriminatory. Why should I have to pay more because I'm a larger person than you? I'm slender at 200 lbs., and I don't see any reason why I should have to pay more because I was born to be larger. It doesn't matter how much I exercise, I'm not going to ever way 105 lbs., even 160 would be a stretch and unhealthy, following your logic, I should pay more simply because I was unfortunate enough to be born with genes to be larger.
It's one thing to charge people more for taking up a second seat, but charging people who naturally way more isn't really appropriate.
Cramming polygons has it's disadvantages, by doing it you limit the number of people that can play the game without upgrading and thus limit the market. We've pretty much hit the point where there's not really that much left to be gained by doing it either, graphics are pretty life like and definitely enough to tell a good story.
Worse than that, it adds enough latency to the equation that it's marginally better than just playing online. Sure you get the party atmosphere, but you're not getting the kind of performance that you ought to. It's beyond me how Blizzard could go from being one of the best companies in that respect to one of the worst so quickly.
Yes they did, but they still require you to be online if you want all the features. Which is why I'm not buying a copy. Which does suck because it looks like an awesome game, but if they're not going to allow networked play and cripple it with ridiculous DRM I'm not paying.
OK, that does make a lot of sense. And you're right about the SATs, now that I think about it, the restriction was on calculators that had a QWERTY keyboard on them.
But then again, I recall having a professor in college that let us have unlimited notes, books and pretty much everything except each other and the internet. On the basis that you wouldn't finish the test if you were making too much use.
I'm curious as to how exactly one can use these for cheating. IIRC the SATs and most standardized tests don't allow you to have a graphing calculator. Any decent math teacher requires students to show their work, which a graphing calculator can't do. At best they can check to see if the answer you got matches what it should, but that's about it.
Um, you do realize that I was right, your quote even reinforces that notion. The weapon system in question hasn't been tested to the standard required by article 2, as testing is definitely a requirement for feasible precautions to be taken. And without it there's no realistic way of knowing at what point it becomes unreasonably dangerous.
Actually, if that happens there would be grounds for war crimes trials. Blinding the enemy is definitely a war crime. But then again, it's not like the US is really big on prosecuting their own war criminals, except when it's convenient.
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What pray tell, does a snappy new hair cut have to do with any of this?
That may be so, but up here in WA we're having to deal with the consequences of the short sightedness and greed of Californians. We could reduce the number of dams we have or allow more water to spill over them here to better serve our commercial fishing industry if we weren't needing to sell that capacity to Californians. Likewise, why should people in Oregon have to lose ground for other purposes so that Californians don't have to put up their own solar arrays?
Californians have been doing this sort of thing for some time, and while we like the money, it really would be better if they stopped behaving like they have the right to export their externalities when folks up here are actually trying to do something about ours.
Transmission lines shouldn't be owned and operated in that fashion. Perhaps utilities are things that are best provided by the government than corporate entities that care very little about providing the necessary service. It's been a problem in Texas where the private companies responsible for maintaining and building the interstate transmission lines basically haven't built it out at all, allowing them to gouge Texans on their electrical bills while providing the cheapest possible electricity. Granted, it's funny because it's Texans getting what they deserve, but it's really not a model which actually works.
That's not entirely accurate, close, but not quite. You do have to consider the amount of production they engage in for the benefit of the developed world. It's still embarrassingly bad, but not quite as bad as you suggest. But the other thing is that China actually has quite a few environmental regulations on the books, they just tend not to be enforced. For instance it's illegal to melt down electronics without proper precautions, but it still happens. Same goes for most of the other practices that leads them to be such heavy polluters.
That's why I keep a back up of files that I download. It's nice in case the server goes down or Ubisoft decides to no longer offer downloads, but you can burn those to discs and have a back up and a copy at hand for quick install. It might be because I don't drive, but it's a lot more convenient than going to the mall and a lot quicker than ordering online.
That being said, I personally prefer physical discs in most cases, places like GoG and free Steam games being the exceptions.
But DRM is evil period. With the possible exception of free games, there's never a legitimate reason to do it. Pirate versions are frequently available before the legitimate ones are. Which tends to make it so that the only people actually dealing with DRM are the paying customers.
I'm not sure how exactly that isn't evil. Perhaps you've got a good reason as to why people who pay ought to have to put up with it when pirates don't.
Um, with normal DRM if something happens you're out 1 game typically at most. With Steam if something goes wrong you can very easily find yourself out the entire account worth of games. Or at a somewhat less bad scenario, without the ability to play any of those games on a sanctioned server.
The thing is that it's unobtrusive until it becomes obtrusive. For free games and as a way of getting game files for use with 3rd party game engines it's great, I just don't personally trust it beyond that.
To be honest, I pretty much have nothing to do with them, except when they're giving away free stuff. I don't personally mind DRM when the content is free, provided I'm able to use it. If they want to give it away with strings attached, that's fine by me.
Just because it's free doesn't mean that it's OK to torrent it. Which is a wee bit silly, but I think the main reason for that is that there's no way that Valve can know whether or not the torrents have been tampered with.
That's not surprising, I've had Warzone 2100 do something similar. Mainly when I've got several AI opponents and hundreds and hundreds of units between them. And that tends to make things slow to a crawl.
Each unit has to be accounted for, and that's one of the reasons why a lot of games have limits on the number that you can create. Doing massive maneuvers may require path finding for each of hundreds of units and more than once to really work.
Depends how the game is designed. A high clockspeed and large cache will generally get you more speed than more cores. However, for some types of games that doesn't entirely apply. If you're into RTS games, there's a lot more that you can do, such as splitting up the AI between cores, running path finding on it's own core and similar.
But in general you're definitely correct, at least for the time being. As multi core computing gets more common and the number of cores involved increases that's likely to change to some extent.
I had a Win CE device, and the problem was that the Desktop paradigm doesn't really translate very well to mobile devices. Pushing it to the netbooks is a bit of a stretch, but by the time you get to PDAs and mobile phones it completely breaks down. The iPhone and Android UIs work a lot better for screens that size, I think that they might even translate up to around about the netbook range without a whole lot of trouble, but then again trying to go beyond that point would likely cause trouble in that they're meant for small devices.
To be fair, the Zune could've been a success had MS not screwed it up. The hardware was actually quite good and the few people I know that owned them really liked them.
You're basic choices come down to Comcast or Qwest. Right now, I'm topping out at 5mbps, yes that's more than you, but that's the most we can get through Qwest. Additionally, it seems quite a bit slower than that, probably the poor quality of modem, but it does seem to have issues keeping up with the promised speed. We had comcast, but they couldn't even get us a signal on a reliable basis.
Supposedly, they're up to 20mbps in places, and have fiber optic to 40, but that's not here yet, and I doubt it will any time soon. Supposedly, Comcast gets to 16mpbs.
With numbers like that it's theoretically possible, but it would require people to go out and purchase the highest priced plan in their neighborhood to even be plausible. More likely that study that found those averages wasn't properly thought through.
Um, we can already do that, Hughesnet for instance can reach pretty much anybody in the US, provided they have a view of the southern sky. Not sure about the quality, but it's definitely broadband. Even if it's not top rate broad band or suitable for gaming.
No he doesn't. For one thing, the 11mbps for WA is wrong. I live in Seattle, and I don't have access to a connection that fast. I'm not sure where the people are that get a connection that fast, but if I in the middle of the most populous city in the region can't get it at any price, then I think it's fair to say that it isn't the average.
Secondly, it's an abuse of the term average, as while it is an average, it doesn't indicate that in Sweden there's access to a much higher connection speed than here. It also doesn't indicate the cost or the reasons why people choose not to. Around here, you can't get that kind of speed without paying for leased lines, typical home owners can't have it.
Because it's discriminatory. Why should I have to pay more because I'm a larger person than you? I'm slender at 200 lbs., and I don't see any reason why I should have to pay more because I was born to be larger. It doesn't matter how much I exercise, I'm not going to ever way 105 lbs., even 160 would be a stretch and unhealthy, following your logic, I should pay more simply because I was unfortunate enough to be born with genes to be larger.
It's one thing to charge people more for taking up a second seat, but charging people who naturally way more isn't really appropriate.
Cramming polygons has it's disadvantages, by doing it you limit the number of people that can play the game without upgrading and thus limit the market. We've pretty much hit the point where there's not really that much left to be gained by doing it either, graphics are pretty life like and definitely enough to tell a good story.
The Lego games are surprisingly fun, although I think that it probably gets old after you play a couple of them.
Worse than that, it adds enough latency to the equation that it's marginally better than just playing online. Sure you get the party atmosphere, but you're not getting the kind of performance that you ought to. It's beyond me how Blizzard could go from being one of the best companies in that respect to one of the worst so quickly.
Yes they did, but they still require you to be online if you want all the features. Which is why I'm not buying a copy. Which does suck because it looks like an awesome game, but if they're not going to allow networked play and cripple it with ridiculous DRM I'm not paying.
OK, that does make a lot of sense. And you're right about the SATs, now that I think about it, the restriction was on calculators that had a QWERTY keyboard on them.
But then again, I recall having a professor in college that let us have unlimited notes, books and pretty much everything except each other and the internet. On the basis that you wouldn't finish the test if you were making too much use.
I'm curious as to how exactly one can use these for cheating. IIRC the SATs and most standardized tests don't allow you to have a graphing calculator. Any decent math teacher requires students to show their work, which a graphing calculator can't do. At best they can check to see if the answer you got matches what it should, but that's about it.
Um, you do realize that I was right, your quote even reinforces that notion. The weapon system in question hasn't been tested to the standard required by article 2, as testing is definitely a requirement for feasible precautions to be taken. And without it there's no realistic way of knowing at what point it becomes unreasonably dangerous.
Actually, if that happens there would be grounds for war crimes trials. Blinding the enemy is definitely a war crime. But then again, it's not like the US is really big on prosecuting their own war criminals, except when it's convenient.