perhaps the only reason this is an issue is because the video-game ratings system isn't treated like movie ratings? even so, i can't count how many times i've seen 13 year olds in a rated R theater...
personally, i would think that the smartest thing m$ could do would be to bend over backwards to try pleasing the EU. first of all, this is a HUGE market with the potential to offer a lot of revenue (assuming language compatibility). second, (i would imagine) pissing off the eu would be FAR worse than just pissing off the us. perhaps the eu will boycott m$ for not complying with their request/demand and fine them for wasting their time? as it stands, their potential fine is crawling past the $1 billion mark.
wouldn't the smart idea be to treat the eu the way most places treat wal-mart?
(big customer)=(yes, sir!)
if this sort of thing does go through in the eu's favor, might that get the us govt puppets thinking about sticking it to m$ in anti-trust matters?
i was there in june, it is pretty remarkable. i believe i remember almost everything in that room (ja, nicht das ganzes Zimmer... es tut mir leid) is made of chocolate, but the chocolate used is pretty much the same recipe that is sold in a variety of the items they sell.
after reformatting a couple of times to fix windows installs... didn't you start creating a partition to install windows to and a partition for everything else? actually, with windows, one could easily keep control of much of the system by restricting the write permission to only the things that need to be written by that user.
i don't remember about home (never had multiple users on my xp home machine), but i know pro offers a variety of security features that i have only started experimenting with recently.
and if you would look at some of the benchmarks, amd performs almost the same with a larger cache as with a smaller one. in fact, it is similar with the c2d's, the processing capabilities are so efficient in these newer designs that a massive cache is unnecessary.
i couldn't find the page with the data, i'll look a bit more later on, but i saw a comparison between the 4mb 6600 underclocked to 2.13ghz and the stock 2mb 6400... i think the results were 5-10% better for the 6600? marginal increases that mean little to nothing in real world use (that is, without the higher clock that the 6600 boasts, but that's another matter).
if you will look at the benchmarks for an amd64 3500+ and compare them to another 3500+ with a larger cache, you'll notice almost no change; in fact, when compared, you'll see that the venice core outperforms the larger clawhammer, most of the time.
does that put a nice wrench in your wagon-wheel?
you're making a mistake similar to what a lot of people do, judging the cpu by its cache and clock rather than real-world benchmarks and first-hand experience. i believe one can find a p4 with a 2mb cache (for a single core) and compare it to a 512k cache on an amd64 chip... and the amd64 will outperform. chill out. buy yourself a x1950xt or x1900xt, then take advantage of the lower priced x2's and play stalker (or wow, or whatever your preferred title may be) until amd's next big release.
and if you comment that you can't upgrade to an x2 because you have a 754 board and your gpu is agp instead of pci-e... well, we've found your problem, haven't we?;-)
you should be doing this with everything that you want to get better at/learn more about - essentially, put yourself into situations that you wouldn't normally (well, you don't think you would) get yourself into; this is a rehashing of the "sink or swim" philosophy. fight your way out of all the wet paper bags you can get into, be prepared to reinstall, don't keep anything important on the install/boot partition (just keep all of your important things on your personal fileserver). move things around, change permissions, delete things willy nilly (ie without the package manager or apt-get/emerge/etc) and you'll start to see things happen that you don't want to happen... sometimes the distro will tell you what is wrong and you can fix it by booting up with a livecd or into a safe configuration; if that isn't the case... then just make sure nothing valuable will be lost by reinstalling.
i don't even want to count the number of times i've reinstalled xp (or on how many machines), but eventually i learned that putting all of my goodies on a single partition was making my life much harder. with knoppix, (a couple of differents forms of) gentoo and ubuntu (which i stick with because it is the easiest to get new users into, so i must know it) i have done so many reinstalls and have learned a lot about each os through the random changes i have made and the various problems that arose due to stuff that i didn't realize i had done.
best advice ever: keep your important data safe and secure somewhere. once you've done that... play. the odds are almost zero that what you do wrong will be irrepairable. my favorite thing to tell everyone that asks me to teach them how to handle something better: "i can only show you what i do, what i know works and doesn't; i can't teach you to be reckless, random, cautious and experimental."
does this imply that someone took asimov's laws of robotics seriously? unless i've been left somewhere dark for too long, the last time i checked, robots were limited to their instructions...
"-instruction-" means "-instruction-", regardless of what that target is or what sort of damage it may cause
my best recommendation is to jump onto the c2d bandwagon; personally, i think the best boards are ones that will let you undervolt a lot. i'm using a gigabyte ds3, iirc (single pci-e 16x), and @ 2.33ghz my voltage is only 1.075. this translates into the temp never going above 50C while it sits under my desk churning away at seti 24/7 (stock cpu cooler)
with a x1900xt (oc'd to 668/775), i've been running this at 1920x1440 with everything at max (except the shadow size, that's at low, 512?) and it's actually smooth at 22-26 (lowest fps, it gets a little jerky at 2048x1536) - unpatched (if that actually fixes anything).
when i first saw this come out, i saw people with 8800's whining about framerate and choppiness... once i played it, i immediately decided that these claims were hogwash. am i to believe that everyone with a step below the cream of the crop hardware (and complaining about jerky game-play) is running above 1600x1200? have you people with issues made sure that there isn't a host of other crud running in the background and that all drivers are up-to-date? with a $200 gpu, your game should look excellent and play well. my housemate has a 3800+, 2gb ram and a 7800gt... he doesn't play anything at less than 1600x1200 and says his game runs excellently. in my opinion, this is one of the best times to be playing computer games; gpu's are at great prices for superb performance and cpu's keep going down in cost.
for reference, i have a c2d 6300 @ 2.33, 2gb ram and run xp pro
wow, this top 10 list is great for someone that hasn't explored the options that firefox offers; now i know just what extensions to acquire to make my web-life easier. thanks computerworld, for spawning this discussion about firefox utilities that i hadn't actually tinkered with or heard about yet.
there was a local store around here that was similar, but they specialized in vinyl, hence the name: Vinyl Connection. if you're listening to vinyl, it's not for convenience, it's because you really like music and nothing sounds like it. sadly, they closed down within the last year or so. this brings up a very interesting point... i don't think it's so much that the business model is failing or that piracy is (entirely) the source of the failure of the (financial backbone of) music industry, i think people aren't listening to it as much.
think about it, the quality of what's being released has been going down, way down, and people are still "buying it." regardless of the cruddy quality, they're "listening" to it, not just because so few of us are audiophiles. people (general, blanket statement) don't seem to care about music anymore, they just want some sort of background noise with words that they can focus on. there isn't enough time to pay attention to music, to sit down and appreciate it, but (too many) people still want it to drown out the world (which is where the ipod comes in to play - pun intended).
now that i devote more attention to it, the general populous doesn't seem to be interested in quality music (maybe they never were?); however, the advent of all of the digital media has made it much easier to get all of the soma that joe public can handle, but for free.
interesting and confusing is the idea that the push for quality in films seems to be grabbing the public's interest... why not do this for audio products as well? this could open up a stronger revenue stream from something that was pretty weak, quality stereo components. forget the LOUD stuff, find something that sounds good, then worry about high volume (as most of us know, that means spending more than just buying loud/quality).
this is an excellent point, google seems to be operating in the same "gray" area that allofmp3.com is: they're perfectly legal in their own country and under those laws, which is all that matters to them (and all that should matter?)
i've been using cableone for about three years at my current home, and have no real complaints (except the occasional brown-outs during expansion last year). their policy is hosted here: http://www.cableone.net/internet/cmaup.asp
i downloaded several iso's last year and the year before via ftp (3-5gb at a sitting) and no complaints, life went on. cableone's biggest concern seems to be maintaining a network that everyone can use, but in a libertarian fashion, so no one gets kicked unless they do something stupid (which i haven't seen).
how often does any company find someone that outperforms the records for several months in a row? breaking records for one day is one thing, but to consistently be the best is another matter altogether.
i had a similar experience working for a telephone based fundraising business (not incredibly similar), where i was payed partially on commission for raising money for republican interest groups and the nra. it was a great job... just not something that i would want to do for xx hours per week. the requirement for this position is 20hrs/wk, which was more than i could spare. my first day, i managed 25% of the income for the campaign i worked. ultimately, the hour requirements weren't my cup of coffee, so i left.
maybe it's just me, but wouldn't it make sense to bend over backwards to [i]keep[/i] your best staff? why not dispose of some of the obscenely overpaid suits?
i do hope that this expansion adds a new early history development aspect with a leader or civilization that puts the alphabet ahead of some other techs. perhaps leaders that play go for bronze-working while building the oracle (to achieve free metal casting!). perhaps a roman leader that tries to conquer the world with the almost overpowered praetorians?
i'm excited to see this, especially since i'll be out of college and have much more time to devote to ruling the world...
i tend to agree that the more intelligent among us do gravitate towards "heavy" music. personally, out of all the very smart people that i have known through my teenage years, the majority were metalheads. i'm not talking just metallica type stuff... these guys love stuff like reveille (sp?), creatures of habit (omaha band), slipknot, korn (never could understand that one), slayer, venom, propain, type-o negative, fear factory, the list goes on and on...
the things that most of the really intelligent ones had in common was that they would not just listen to this stuff, they also picked up instruments, the smartest played more than one (especially one guy that was two years below me in high school, piano, tuba, guitar, something else *remarkable*).
the worst part about these guys/gals is that music isn't enough to make the world bearable, they often drift into crowds with other much dumber children and try to fit in... which doesn't work until liquor and other drugs are added to the picture. thus... many of the greatest minds are damaged beyond repair through their associating with below-average brains in an attempt to feel a personal connection that they can't seem to find anywhere else. what's even worse? the educational system making them feel like they aren't supposed to be intelligent; many of these people don't fully utilize their abilities. eventually, they lose touch with themselves, start feeling useless, develop depression, etc... there are so many connections to be made, it's nowhere close to funny.
maybe i'll get around to putting together an essay on this topic...
are you suggesting that it would have been better for me to focus on the concept of people getting more things to distract them from driving?
Huh? are you arguing that rich people inherently understand technology better? are you arguing that i actually stated that? go back and reread what i posted; nowhere did i mention anything about the wealthy having a better understanding. i was referring to people that have a real interest in various pieces of technology, people that are willing to rtfm if need be... as opposed to most of america that can't even understand the manual and throw it away out of confusion.
i don't know about the rest of you, but i'm pretty proud of the fact that i've been using a portable mp3 player since i bought an iomega hipzip (1998?) in high school. i bought the first mp3-cd player that i found that was not unreasonably high-priced because my factory stereo wasn't a cd player and lacked some of the features that i prefer/ed.
maybe i should put together a full essay on why this new development bothers me so much; i feel that there are so many things with these latest products that i would rather not post it on slashdot where it may get brushed aside
these gadgets were left to the people that know how to use them well? most cars don't have cd players that read mp3 discs (when last i checked) because most people aren't capable of organizing their things well enough... let alone can they operate anything electronic effectively. how many people do you know that change a cd more than once every month? now how many of these people have cd changers carrying the same 6 discs they loaded up when the product was new?
as for the "nerd factor," i remember back when i was the only person anyone knew with an 1/8" stereo input on the face of my cd/mp3-cd capable deck. now every joe and his grandma will have them, even though most won't use them. what a waste, focus on things that make the cars easier to drive (or make them drive themselves) first
the overly religious and protective parents keep their noses out of math and sciences will this proposition stand a chance.
you want good science education? it's not going to agree with your religious superstitions.
you want good math education? you'd better be prepared to have children that come home in tears because they can't understand something the teacher talked about in school.
Slashdot Mirror
perhaps the only reason this is an issue is because the video-game ratings system isn't treated like movie ratings? even so, i can't count how many times i've seen 13 year olds in a rated R theater...
wouldn't the smart idea be to treat the eu the way most places treat wal-mart?
(big customer)=(yes, sir!)
if this sort of thing does go through in the eu's favor, might that get the us govt puppets thinking about sticking it to m$ in anti-trust matters?
http://www.halloren.de/marke/schokol adenzimmer.html
i was there in june, it is pretty remarkable. i believe i remember almost everything in that room (ja, nicht das ganzes Zimmer... es tut mir leid) is made of chocolate, but the chocolate used is pretty much the same recipe that is sold in a variety of the items they sell.
i don't remember about home (never had multiple users on my xp home machine), but i know pro offers a variety of security features that i have only started experimenting with recently.
i couldn't find the page with the data, i'll look a bit more later on, but i saw a comparison between the 4mb 6600 underclocked to 2.13ghz and the stock 2mb 6400... i think the results were 5-10% better for the 6600? marginal increases that mean little to nothing in real world use (that is, without the higher clock that the 6600 boasts, but that's another matter).
if you will look at the benchmarks for an amd64 3500+ and compare them to another 3500+ with a larger cache, you'll notice almost no change; in fact, when compared, you'll see that the venice core outperforms the larger clawhammer, most of the time.
does that put a nice wrench in your wagon-wheel?
you're making a mistake similar to what a lot of people do, judging the cpu by its cache and clock rather than real-world benchmarks and first-hand experience. i believe one can find a p4 with a 2mb cache (for a single core) and compare it to a 512k cache on an amd64 chip... and the amd64 will outperform. chill out. buy yourself a x1950xt or x1900xt, then take advantage of the lower priced x2's and play stalker (or wow, or whatever your preferred title may be) until amd's next big release.
and if you comment that you can't upgrade to an x2 because you have a 754 board and your gpu is agp instead of pci-e... well, we've found your problem, haven't we? ;-)
vista = "new coke"
i don't even want to count the number of times i've reinstalled xp (or on how many machines), but eventually i learned that putting all of my goodies on a single partition was making my life much harder. with knoppix, (a couple of differents forms of) gentoo and ubuntu (which i stick with because it is the easiest to get new users into, so i must know it) i have done so many reinstalls and have learned a lot about each os through the random changes i have made and the various problems that arose due to stuff that i didn't realize i had done.
best advice ever: keep your important data safe and secure somewhere. once you've done that... play. the odds are almost zero that what you do wrong will be irrepairable. my favorite thing to tell everyone that asks me to teach them how to handle something better: "i can only show you what i do, what i know works and doesn't; i can't teach you to be reckless, random, cautious and experimental."
i couldn't resist the chance at an M$ joke and movie quote all rolled into one!
unless i've been left somewhere dark for too long, the last time i checked, robots were limited to their instructions...
"-instruction-" means "-instruction-", regardless of what that target is or what sort of damage it may cause
will it work with linux?
will it enforce drm?
my best recommendation is to jump onto the c2d bandwagon; personally, i think the best boards are ones that will let you undervolt a lot. i'm using a gigabyte ds3, iirc (single pci-e 16x), and @ 2.33ghz my voltage is only 1.075. this translates into the temp never going above 50C while it sits under my desk churning away at seti 24/7 (stock cpu cooler)
when i first saw this come out, i saw people with 8800's whining about framerate and choppiness... once i played it, i immediately decided that these claims were hogwash. am i to believe that everyone with a step below the cream of the crop hardware (and complaining about jerky game-play) is running above 1600x1200? have you people with issues made sure that there isn't a host of other crud running in the background and that all drivers are up-to-date? with a $200 gpu, your game should look excellent and play well. my housemate has a 3800+, 2gb ram and a 7800gt... he doesn't play anything at less than 1600x1200 and says his game runs excellently. in my opinion, this is one of the best times to be playing computer games; gpu's are at great prices for superb performance and cpu's keep going down in cost.
for reference, i have a c2d 6300 @ 2.33, 2gb ram and run xp pro
wow, this top 10 list is great for someone that hasn't explored the options that firefox offers; now i know just what extensions to acquire to make my web-life easier. thanks computerworld, for spawning this discussion about firefox utilities that i hadn't actually tinkered with or heard about yet.
think about it, the quality of what's being released has been going down, way down, and people are still "buying it." regardless of the cruddy quality, they're "listening" to it, not just because so few of us are audiophiles. people (general, blanket statement) don't seem to care about music anymore, they just want some sort of background noise with words that they can focus on. there isn't enough time to pay attention to music, to sit down and appreciate it, but (too many) people still want it to drown out the world (which is where the ipod comes in to play - pun intended).
now that i devote more attention to it, the general populous doesn't seem to be interested in quality music (maybe they never were?); however, the advent of all of the digital media has made it much easier to get all of the soma that joe public can handle, but for free.
interesting and confusing is the idea that the push for quality in films seems to be grabbing the public's interest... why not do this for audio products as well? this could open up a stronger revenue stream from something that was pretty weak, quality stereo components. forget the LOUD stuff, find something that sounds good, then worry about high volume (as most of us know, that means spending more than just buying loud/quality).
this is an excellent point, google seems to be operating in the same "gray" area that allofmp3.com is: they're perfectly legal in their own country and under those laws, which is all that matters to them (and all that should matter?)
i downloaded several iso's last year and the year before via ftp (3-5gb at a sitting) and no complaints, life went on. cableone's biggest concern seems to be maintaining a network that everyone can use, but in a libertarian fashion, so no one gets kicked unless they do something stupid (which i haven't seen).
i had a similar experience working for a telephone based fundraising business (not incredibly similar), where i was payed partially on commission for raising money for republican interest groups and the nra. it was a great job... just not something that i would want to do for xx hours per week. the requirement for this position is 20hrs/wk, which was more than i could spare. my first day, i managed 25% of the income for the campaign i worked. ultimately, the hour requirements weren't my cup of coffee, so i left.
maybe it's just me, but wouldn't it make sense to bend over backwards to [i]keep[/i] your best staff? why not dispose of some of the obscenely overpaid suits?
i'm excited to see this, especially since i'll be out of college and have much more time to devote to ruling the world...
except that iirc wmp isn't included on most of the windows copies offered in the eu
the things that most of the really intelligent ones had in common was that they would not just listen to this stuff, they also picked up instruments, the smartest played more than one (especially one guy that was two years below me in high school, piano, tuba, guitar, something else *remarkable*).
the worst part about these guys/gals is that music isn't enough to make the world bearable, they often drift into crowds with other much dumber children and try to fit in... which doesn't work until liquor and other drugs are added to the picture. thus... many of the greatest minds are damaged beyond repair through their associating with below-average brains in an attempt to feel a personal connection that they can't seem to find anywhere else. what's even worse? the educational system making them feel like they aren't supposed to be intelligent; many of these people don't fully utilize their abilities. eventually, they lose touch with themselves, start feeling useless, develop depression, etc... there are so many connections to be made, it's nowhere close to funny.
maybe i'll get around to putting together an essay on this topic...
i don't know about the rest of you, but i'm pretty proud of the fact that i've been using a portable mp3 player since i bought an iomega hipzip (1998?) in high school. i bought the first mp3-cd player that i found that was not unreasonably high-priced because my factory stereo wasn't a cd player and lacked some of the features that i prefer/ed.
maybe i should put together a full essay on why this new development bothers me so much; i feel that there are so many things with these latest products that i would rather not post it on slashdot where it may get brushed aside
as for the "nerd factor," i remember back when i was the only person anyone knew with an 1/8" stereo input on the face of my cd/mp3-cd capable deck. now every joe and his grandma will have them, even though most won't use them. what a waste, focus on things that make the cars easier to drive (or make them drive themselves) first
you want good science education? it's not going to agree with your religious superstitions.
you want good math education? you'd better be prepared to have children that come home in tears because they can't understand something the teacher talked about in school.
i honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious
right, i'll believe that when winged primates fly out of my rectum... access time is one thing, but actual read/write speed is another.m l= 33&model1=676&model2=676&chart=34
http://www.moka5.com/reviews/2006/11/usbstick4.ht
(ignore the selected drives)
http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx
right, i'm going to kill a flashdrive just so my windows will run more swiftly.
(i know this is more of the same, but i can't resist) way to go microsoft; for your next trick, are you going to shoot your other foot?