I've always been underwhelmed by ATI. They continually release products with great specs that never really live up to the hype. They also have a poor track record as far as drivers go.
Actually this is all possible to a certain extend. Consider the consumer savings as more digital video devices enter the market. If you have a DVR, DVD player, and say PVR, all with digital out, you are paying for 3 mpeg2 decoders. Especially in the case of the DVD player, this adds a lot of cost. A DVD player without the decoder is just a drive, some firmware, and IR. You could market that for $70 NOW.
What interests me about this is that it give the consumer a choice: buy one $50 mpeg2 decoder, or get a really good $150 decoder. Also, when new technology comes out you can upgrade incrementally, instead of buying new *everything* to afford the advances.
It's probably slightly less healthy to take it in pill form. It's not completely clear why, but pills seem to hit the body harder (more effectively) than coffee. It's likely that caffeine is absorbed more quickly in pill form.
All of the known sides of caffeine are directly related to its method of action in vivo. There are no "impurities" to worry about.
Since you could buy all the required texts new at year one, and then buy them all again at year 4 for $3000 (not including the "discount" off this price for books that did not require new editions, or for used texts) this is not much of a deal.
Oh, and you'll be required to own a Mac as well, so don't forget to add that to the $4200 bill.
Gee, ~$2500 worth of text, not in hardcopy, all for a mere $5000!
I am writing to inform you of the infringing nature of the email you are currently reading. You will note that the use of the phrase "For Dummies" in the title of this message is confusingly similar to your most renowned trademark and therefore constitutes a case of infringement, which is easily proveable in a court of law and might expose me to various types of financial damages.
Not wishing to enter into a protracted legal suit, I am now bringing this matter to your attention. I look forward to hearing from you on or before May 12th, 2000.
Black is the color which has the most efficient thermal dissipation due to radiated heat. Convection cooling dwarfs thermal radiation but, as they say, every little bit helps.
The problem is that adding a layer of coloring is that you generally increase thermal resistance due to the extra layer. That is the benefit of anodizing...the layer is super-thin but gets the thermal benefit of black. Using regular paint would be counter-productive.
The problem with disclosing the retailer is that it might not be their fault. Many companies sell OEM chips and these chips are purchased wherever they can be found. An unscrupulous distributer or computer manufacturer might have sold remarked goods to an honest business. Since there is no way of knowing who is at fault, it would be unfair to brand the retailer as a thief by listing their name. (even if the word isn't there, the association alone would hurt their business)
Hmm...this is rather interesting...when you fill out the member application the 'Member Agreement' is in a text box at the bottom of the form. An _editable_ text box. When I filled out my application I removed the 'not' from section 2.2 and hit 'i agree'. Processed without errors.
Since ICANN is already at the center of a controversy over the desirability of handing them partial control of the 'net, this is not a good reflection on their expertise and professionalism. Therefore, I'd say that a blunder like this *does* qualify as news. ~Tiroth
Nice new Compaq PC. The FreePC soft was easy to bypass, so I had Win98 (no choice, but I could turn the ads off at least) and Linux running on it for months. Getting the title on the PC now is just icing on the cake. Thanks FreePC!
Well, the problem is that the military has a huge amount of funding to develop new technologies. This is a good thing; without the military/industrial complex our country would probably be a lot worse off today. The fact that many innovations are later applied to the private sector is the _good_ news.
You have to consider a couple of facts: 1) sensitive military developments aren't very useful to the military if everyone knows about them 2) Seldom do doctors, etc, have $10 million+ to blow on experimental training methods.
The fact of the matter is that, using CAVE as an example, this specific virtual reality architecture has almost no applicability to medical science. A medical research group would be foolhardy to invest in it, when better options for training exist. In the same way, who could justify spending that kind of money on teenagers? Have you seen how crowded the DMV usually is? Care to guess how many units you'd need PER CITY?
The government is most concerned with safeguarding its people. Since the bulk of R&D goes on in the military, the output of that is generally military-oriented. Later, much of that technology trickles down.
If, say, the government began developing down other avenues, private industry would start screaming...because the goevernment would be using its relatively-infinte resources to compete with businesses.
About a year ago our Siggraph group got a demo of the CAVE at the University of Illinois...one of the developers working on it had, in his spare time, coded a Quake 2 lookalike using textures ripped from the actual game. It was quite well done...turn to the wall to your right, shoot, duck down, and see your POV change as your enemy falls to the ground. Very immersive.
The real question is, how long until CAVE multiplayer?;)
I agree. The first book was a tremendous work; even people I know that normally wouldn't appreciate fantasy/cyberpunk/etc were able to appreciate and enjoy it.
The second book was good, but somewhat of a letdown from the experience of the first novel. Part of the reason for this was, I believe, the fact that more of the storyline was revealed. Much of the wonder of Otherland is in discovering how the rich and textured world behaves. As noted, the book tends to drag a bit in terms of developing the arc, although it is by no means boring.
The third installment seems to recover somewhat from the problems of the second; although not as good as the first, it is definitely an improvement. I doubt that it would have been possible to make any of the books, with the possible exception of the climax, as good as the first, simply because "Otherland" was our first view into this mysterious and interesting world...staying excited about it puts an additional burden on the author.
It is definitely worthwhile to read all three existing novels; if you have trouble with the second, just hang in there--you'll want to have an intimate knowledge of what occurs in that installment so that you can appreciate the other books.
And Garpenlov: when you have time, go back and give it another shot...maybe after rereading the first novel. You might be surprised!
This is slightly out of place on Slashdot, what with the boycott, but I thought I should mention that Amazon appears to be clearing out the hardcover edition of the first book of Otherland. This is a great chance to get it a lot cheaper than the $25 cover price.
BTW I thought I would inject the notion that for a series like this, it is well worth it to get the sturdier hardcover edition. They last decades longer than paperbacks.
Tad Williams' other epic series is 'Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn' unless I am mistaken. Like 'Otherland' it is essentially one gigantic book split into four installments.
The final book of that series, "To Green Angel Tower" was actually itself split into two parts in the paperback edition...1000+ pages are too much for anything but hardcover!
If competition for Napster (or any other high-bandwidth utility) is great, then by doing QoS bandwidth limiting you may be effectively banning it. At many universities peak network usage for non-educational activities (mp3/warez/pR0n) approaches the entire pipe. Restrict this to 1Mbit burstable to half the pipe if available and you will run into complete saturation of this part of the network.
Sure, you have protected the bandwidth for useful purposes, but if people keep dropping ftp links because of packet loss, etc etc, then the resource is unavailable. This is turn will mean more attempts to access the same content (retries) and more data ultimately transferred (from dropped xfer sessions).
This will also encourage people to start their downloads in the early morning to take advantage of lower utilization. This sounds like a good thing (and it could be!) but it could also mean saturation for a larger percentage of a given day. Instead of the network being slow at night, now it is slow all the time!
What is really necessary is bandwidth arbitration on a client-regulated system. However, the technical and financial hurdles to this are beyond the reach of most institutions. Here at UIUC we restrict dorm users to 500MB of traffic per day, which is somewhat effective. However, we have trouble even getting those statistics, and the system does not work well for people that download 500MB in a day. (one ISO)
There is certainly a problem and nothing short of higher bandwidth is going to solve it. The key is to try to share the bandwidth equally, which is difficult since different people have wildly different usages. Restricting flow in novel ways may help this, but it should not be seen as solving the problem. As I noted above, in some cases it may be tantamount to banning sites or protocols.
The other, larger, problem, is that it may not be technically feasable to block or limit access to certain sites. At the moment, Napster is defeating blocking systems by being IP-agile. In the future we may see companies employ large cooperative clusters that forward packets to their destinations...with a large IP space companies could trade IPs (their routings that is) back and forth keeping net admins on their toes.
Alternatively, as PPTP and other VPN protocols become increasingly common and easy-to-use, we might see "anonymizer" gateways spring up. If you first tunnel out to the gateway, there is no way for the campus to monitor where your traffic is going. It would be simple to create an advertising-based revenue system for something like this because the gateway is in effect a pseudo-ISP.
Hmm...you basically just described the process for making a conventional CD master, except on the master stamp all the pits are inverted. What you might want to suggest is that they instead make a conventional stamped CD, and merely use more durable materials. This way no special reader is necessary. (although a caddy would be preferred to preserve the life of the disc)
Well, not necessarily, but it is certainly wrong to assume that she can't handle the more involved works.
It's also worthwhile to note that many times when younger I would pick up a book, and not really be able to get into it. A couple years later I would take a second go at it and find it to be very interesting. Even if some of the selections aren't appropriate now, they may encourage her to read some good stuff down the road.
I think you make some good points, but I'm actually more afraid of something like your "crazy idea." This would be a great way to equalize human-directed evolution, but the real question then is whether we think that humanity is smart enough to toy with its evolution on that level. We certainly aren't now...look at where the Green Revolution got us in terms of crop gains. [Answer: relatively nowhere, after short term gains]
I'd just be afraid that we'd make all sorts of modifications that would be great in the lab, then inject everyone, and realize that we'd done something horribly wrong. I'm not talking about some easy-to-spot mistake, but rather a higher-order problem that could only be seen under mass infection with the retrovirus.
Who can say we wouldnt be better off if we could control (some parts of) our own evolution instead of leaving it completely to chance?
I think it is inevitable, especially so if we want to allow humanity to go as far as possible. I'm guessing, though, that we will rush headlong into that decision before we are really able to ponder the ramifications.
>>What about developing and Third-World nations, where few will have access to Perfect Baby technologies?
>You mean if everybody can't have it, nobody should have it? I thought that this was a basic idea of Russian communism in the 20s, but it kinda went out of fashion since then. ======================= I think you are missing the point here. Access to genetic engineering (wrt humans) is not a simple commodity like a television set. If parts of the species begin genetically engineering themselves then evolution will be occurring at different rates for different peoples.
Case in point: the U.S. is dominated by rich white people. Rich people can afford to engineer their offspring. In a few generations, rich white people are now stronger, faster, and smarter then 99% of the populations of poorer nations. Not only would this accelerate the geographically inequal distribution of money (power) but it would create more of a distinction between peoples. Think about how white supremicists could go crazy: now their "people" really are, on average, better than those they oppress.
Racial bias is hard enough to overcome even when everyone is basically on a level playing field. As soon as you start creating distinctions between kinds of humans (normal v. enhanced) the problems will explode. Will enhanced people want to mate with dumber, less impressive "normals?" Will racial groups that, statistically, are less able to "improve" themselves suffer discrimination in the workplace?
Finally, what about the many people that, even in developed countries, who will be unable to afford the engineering or oppose it on ethical or moral grounds? They will be subsumed by the rising tide of superior humans. Within a generation their protest will be buried by the legions of more employable, healthier, engineered people. The unengineered might even be seen as a burden on society, consuming more resources (illnesses) and producing less (less intelligent, etc).
There are enormous problems with genetic engineering on this scale...and they will probably never be seriously considered. Oh, we will debate them on Slashdot, and as the time when they are possible comes closer we will see more media coverage. Individuals will not consider the impact on the species, though; they will think of giving their children the best chance in life. No government in the world will be able to prevent engineering from occurring past a certain point, and most corporations will see no reason to limit the aptitude of future employees.
I can't speak for Ontario's weather, but in the mountains in the northeastern U.S. (and presumably any mountainous area) you can drive into 20' visibility fog in a matter of seconds. Sometimes the fog will come rolling across perpendicular to the highway which affords no chance of "seeing ahead." I believe the recent accident in PA that resulted in two deaths was that kind of situation: a fog bank rolled in very quickly, at which point the (professional) bus drivers tried to pull off the road and stop, but the fog was so dense, so quickly, that the buses collided with each other.
Last Friday we blocked all access to the napster domain; basically, NOC freaked out when they realized that >30GB of traffic in a single day were napster sends and recieves. This is a big problem for universities b/c people don't necessarily realize that they are sharing their files, and since the connection speed is very fast, the university network in effect becomes a target.
Personally, I hate to see the 'net restricted like this, but bandwidth is $$$, and the traffic to napster had nowhere to go but up. University networks *are* supposed to be available for actual work to get done once and ahwile.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I've always been underwhelmed by ATI. They continually release products with great specs that never really live up to the hype. They also have a poor track record as far as drivers go.
Actually this is all possible to a certain extend. Consider the consumer savings as more digital video devices enter the market. If you have a DVR, DVD player, and say PVR, all with digital out, you are paying for 3 mpeg2 decoders. Especially in the case of the DVD player, this adds a lot of cost. A DVD player without the decoder is just a drive, some firmware, and IR. You could market that for $70 NOW.
What interests me about this is that it give the consumer a choice: buy one $50 mpeg2 decoder, or get a really good $150 decoder. Also, when new technology comes out you can upgrade incrementally, instead of buying new *everything* to afford the advances.
It's probably slightly less healthy to take it in pill form. It's not completely clear why, but pills seem to hit the body harder (more effectively) than coffee. It's likely that caffeine is absorbed more quickly in pill form.
All of the known sides of caffeine are directly related to its method of action in vivo. There are no "impurities" to worry about.
Caffeine is a beta2 agonist, so you get a certain amount of CNS stimulation from consuming it.
Total cost for the non-limited version: $4200.
Since you could buy all the required texts new at year one, and then buy them all again at year 4 for $3000 (not including the "discount" off this price for books that did not require new editions, or for used texts) this is not much of a deal.
Oh, and you'll be required to own a Mac as well, so don't forget to add that to the $4200 bill.
Gee, ~$2500 worth of text, not in hardcopy, all for a mere $5000!
Tiroth
I am writing to inform you of the infringing nature of the email you are currently reading. You will note that the use of the phrase "For Dummies" in the title of this message is confusingly similar to your most renowned trademark and therefore constitutes a case of infringement, which is easily proveable in a court of law and might expose me to various types of financial damages.
Not wishing to enter into a protracted legal suit, I am now bringing this matter to your attention. I look forward to hearing from you on or before May 12th, 2000.
Sincerely,
Tyler Thornblade
Black is the color which has the most efficient thermal dissipation due to radiated heat. Convection cooling dwarfs thermal radiation but, as they say, every little bit helps.
The problem is that adding a layer of coloring is that you generally increase thermal resistance due to the extra layer. That is the benefit of anodizing...the layer is super-thin but gets the thermal benefit of black. Using regular paint would be counter-productive.
The problem with disclosing the retailer is that it might not be their fault. Many companies sell OEM chips and these chips are purchased wherever they can be found. An unscrupulous distributer or computer manufacturer might have sold remarked goods to an honest business. Since there is no way of knowing who is at fault, it would be unfair to brand the retailer as a thief by listing their name. (even if the word isn't there, the association alone would hurt their business)
Hmm...this is rather interesting...when you fill out the member application the 'Member Agreement' is in a text box at the bottom of the form. An _editable_ text box. When I filled out my application I removed the 'not' from section 2.2 and hit 'i agree'. Processed without errors.
Maybe?
Athlon is faster than PIII at same clock speed.
Athlon is cheaper than PIII at same clock speed.
Is this really a contest?
Since ICANN is already at the center of a controversy over the desirability of handing them partial control of the 'net, this is not a good reflection on their expertise and professionalism. Therefore, I'd say that a blunder like this *does* qualify as news. ~Tiroth
Nice new Compaq PC. The FreePC soft was easy to bypass, so I had Win98 (no choice, but I could turn the ads off at least) and Linux running on it for months. Getting the title on the PC now is just icing on the cake. Thanks FreePC!
~Tiroth
Well, the problem is that the military has a huge amount of funding to develop new technologies. This is a good thing; without the military/industrial complex our country would probably be a lot worse off today. The fact that many innovations are later applied to the private sector is the _good_ news.
You have to consider a couple of facts:
1) sensitive military developments aren't very useful to the military if everyone knows about them
2) Seldom do doctors, etc, have $10 million+ to blow on experimental training methods.
The fact of the matter is that, using CAVE as an example, this specific virtual reality architecture has almost no applicability to medical science. A medical research group would be foolhardy to invest in it, when better options for training exist. In the same way, who could justify spending that kind of money on teenagers? Have you seen how crowded the DMV usually is? Care to guess how many units you'd need PER CITY?
The government is most concerned with safeguarding its people. Since the bulk of R&D goes on in the military, the output of that is generally military-oriented. Later, much of that technology trickles down.
If, say, the government began developing down other avenues, private industry would start screaming...because the goevernment would be using its relatively-infinte resources to compete with businesses.
About a year ago our Siggraph group got a demo of the CAVE at the University of Illinois...one of the developers working on it had, in his spare time, coded a Quake 2 lookalike using textures ripped from the actual game. It was quite well done...turn to the wall to your right, shoot, duck down, and see your POV change as your enemy falls to the ground. Very immersive.
;)
The real question is, how long until CAVE multiplayer?
I agree. The first book was a tremendous work; even people I know that normally wouldn't appreciate fantasy/cyberpunk/etc were able to appreciate and enjoy it.
The second book was good, but somewhat of a letdown from the experience of the first novel. Part of the reason for this was, I believe, the fact that more of the storyline was revealed. Much of the wonder of Otherland is in discovering how the rich and textured world behaves. As noted, the book tends to drag a bit in terms of developing the arc, although it is by no means boring.
The third installment seems to recover somewhat from the problems of the second; although not as good as the first, it is definitely an improvement. I doubt that it would have been possible to make any of the books, with the possible exception of the climax, as good as the first, simply because "Otherland" was our first view into this mysterious and interesting world...staying excited about it puts an additional burden on the author.
It is definitely worthwhile to read all three existing novels; if you have trouble with the second, just hang in there--you'll want to have an intimate knowledge of what occurs in that installment so that you can appreciate the other books.
And Garpenlov: when you have time, go back and give it another shot...maybe after rereading the first novel. You might be surprised!
This is slightly out of place on Slashdot, what with the boycott, but I thought I should mention that Amazon appears to be clearing out the hardcover edition of the first book of Otherland. This is a great chance to get it a lot cheaper than the $25 cover price.
BTW I thought I would inject the notion that for a series like this, it is well worth it to get the sturdier hardcover edition. They last decades longer than paperbacks.
Tad Williams' other epic series is 'Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn' unless I am mistaken. Like 'Otherland' it is essentially one gigantic book split into four installments.
The final book of that series, "To Green Angel Tower" was actually itself split into two parts in the paperback edition...1000+ pages are too much for anything but hardcover!
If competition for Napster (or any other high-bandwidth utility) is great, then by doing QoS bandwidth limiting you may be effectively banning it. At many universities peak network usage for non-educational activities (mp3/warez/pR0n) approaches the entire pipe. Restrict this to 1Mbit burstable to half the pipe if available and you will run into complete saturation of this part of the network.
Sure, you have protected the bandwidth for useful purposes, but if people keep dropping ftp links because of packet loss, etc etc, then the resource is unavailable. This is turn will mean more attempts to access the same content (retries) and more data ultimately transferred (from dropped xfer sessions).
This will also encourage people to start their downloads in the early morning to take advantage of lower utilization. This sounds like a good thing (and it could be!) but it could also mean saturation for a larger percentage of a given day. Instead of the network being slow at night, now it is slow all the time!
What is really necessary is bandwidth arbitration on a client-regulated system. However, the technical and financial hurdles to this are beyond the reach of most institutions. Here at UIUC we restrict dorm users to 500MB of traffic per day, which is somewhat effective. However, we have trouble even getting those statistics, and the system does not work well for people that download 500MB in a day. (one ISO)
There is certainly a problem and nothing short of higher bandwidth is going to solve it. The key is to try to share the bandwidth equally, which is difficult since different people have wildly different usages. Restricting flow in novel ways may help this, but it should not be seen as solving the problem. As I noted above, in some cases it may be tantamount to banning sites or protocols.
The other, larger, problem, is that it may not be technically feasable to block or limit access to certain sites. At the moment, Napster is defeating blocking systems by being IP-agile. In the future we may see companies employ large cooperative clusters that forward packets to their destinations...with a large IP space companies could trade IPs (their routings that is) back and forth keeping net admins on their toes.
Alternatively, as PPTP and other VPN protocols become increasingly common and easy-to-use, we might see "anonymizer" gateways spring up. If you first tunnel out to the gateway, there is no way for the campus to monitor where your traffic is going. It would be simple to create an advertising-based revenue system for something like this because the gateway is in effect a pseudo-ISP.
Hmm...you basically just described the process for making a conventional CD master, except on the master stamp all the pits are inverted. What you might want to suggest is that they instead make a conventional stamped CD, and merely use more durable materials. This way no special reader is necessary. (although a caddy would be preferred to preserve the life of the disc)
Well, not necessarily, but it is certainly wrong to assume that she can't handle the more involved works.
It's also worthwhile to note that many times when younger I would pick up a book, and not really be able to get into it. A couple years later I would take a second go at it and find it to be very interesting. Even if some of the selections aren't appropriate now, they may encourage her to read some good stuff down the road.
I'd just be afraid that we'd make all sorts of modifications that would be great in the lab, then inject everyone, and realize that we'd done something horribly wrong. I'm not talking about some easy-to-spot mistake, but rather a higher-order problem that could only be seen under mass infection with the retrovirus.
I think it is inevitable, especially so if we want to allow humanity to go as far as possible. I'm guessing, though, that we will rush headlong into that decision before we are really able to ponder the ramifications.
>>What about developing and Third-World nations, where few will have access to Perfect Baby technologies?
>You mean if everybody can't have it, nobody should have it? I thought that this was a basic idea of Russian communism in the 20s, but it kinda went out of fashion since then.
=======================
I think you are missing the point here. Access to genetic engineering (wrt humans) is not a simple commodity like a television set. If parts of the species begin genetically engineering themselves then evolution will be occurring at different rates for different peoples.
Case in point: the U.S. is dominated by rich white people. Rich people can afford to engineer their offspring. In a few generations, rich white people are now stronger, faster, and smarter then 99% of the populations of poorer nations. Not only would this accelerate the geographically inequal distribution of money (power) but it would create more of a distinction between peoples. Think about how white supremicists could go crazy: now their "people" really are, on average, better than those they oppress.
Racial bias is hard enough to overcome even when everyone is basically on a level playing field. As soon as you start creating distinctions between kinds of humans (normal v. enhanced) the problems will explode. Will enhanced people want to mate with dumber, less impressive "normals?" Will racial groups that, statistically, are less able to "improve" themselves suffer discrimination in the workplace?
Finally, what about the many people that, even in developed countries, who will be unable to afford the engineering or oppose it on ethical or moral grounds? They will be subsumed by the rising tide of superior humans. Within a generation their protest will be buried by the legions of more employable, healthier, engineered people. The unengineered might even be seen as a burden on society, consuming more resources (illnesses) and producing less (less intelligent, etc).
There are enormous problems with genetic engineering on this scale...and they will probably never be seriously considered. Oh, we will debate them on Slashdot, and as the time when they are possible comes closer we will see more media coverage. Individuals will not consider the impact on the species, though; they will think of giving their children the best chance in life. No government in the world will be able to prevent engineering from occurring past a certain point, and most corporations will see no reason to limit the aptitude of future employees.
It's scary to think about.
~Tiroth
I can't speak for Ontario's weather, but in the mountains in the northeastern U.S. (and presumably any mountainous area) you can drive into 20' visibility fog in a matter of seconds. Sometimes the fog will come rolling across perpendicular to the highway which affords no chance of "seeing ahead." I believe the recent accident in PA that resulted in two deaths was that kind of situation: a fog bank rolled in very quickly, at which point the (professional) bus drivers tried to pull off the road and stop, but the fog was so dense, so quickly, that the buses collided with each other.
Last Friday we blocked all access to the napster domain; basically, NOC freaked out when they realized that >30GB of traffic in a single day were napster sends and recieves. This is a big problem for universities b/c people don't necessarily realize that they are sharing their files, and since the connection speed is very fast, the university network in effect becomes a target.
;)
Personally, I hate to see the 'net restricted like this, but bandwidth is $$$, and the traffic to napster had nowhere to go but up. University networks *are* supposed to be available for actual work to get done once and ahwile.
~Tiroth