It's beginning to resemble a bad joke at this point... WTF are they doing? More than 70% of Windows users are running XP - it's eight years old. Many customers were ready for a new Windows, upgraded their computers, hated Vista and refused to use it. They reverted to XP which MS continued to support well past the expected lifetime, and simultaneously computers quit getting faster at exponential rates.
So now we have lots of modern computers that are content with an eight year old Windows release that's mostly up to date, and will have no reason to upgrade for years. New computers still sell with XP more than Vista, and for all we know Win7 could be another year out. Customers have a newfound appreciation for how stable and refined XP is (or can be).
But even in 2001, XP was slow to take - it took about four years to overtake Win2k in the corporate space. Windows 7 will meet an utterly awful economy with the damning news that computer hardware no longer obsoletes itself each year - Microsoft's planned obsolescence product model has kicked its own ass.
So what I don't understand is what they think being rabid about Windows piracy stands to gain them today? They need the market share more than they need the extra 0.1% of pirated copies that would actually translate into sales. When they turn off XP support, shit will hit fans... unless Windows 7 can get you free coffee and cheap drugs, Windows XP support will have to be switched off at a time when it still retains the largest userbase of any other OS.
They're hunting for their users' last straw, which seems like a bad sign to me; this is only a matter of time before they trip over themselves and fall off the tower. PC vendors abound waiting to market and sell you preconfigured, secure, compatible and supported desktops running Linux. When software developers catch on, checkmate.
Oh, and the aliens in Crysis, aside from all looking like the same model, looked like they came straight out of Duke Nukem 3D, except they weren't billboards... even with lots of texture filters you could see huge, ugly, disgusting texture pixels, unless it was the other 7/8 of the alien which was jet black and was more of a silhouette than a model... so if you saw any of that, that wasn't your hardware.;)
So you toned all of the graphics settings down, for both your drivers and in the game, and with a 2.0GHz dual core and your other specs, you had FPS drops in the DEMO?
Something else is wrong. Either the demo had some glitch when you tried it or your system is goofed, because I have the real game and ran it on an Athlon 3000+ w/ the same amount of RAM and a whopping Radeon 9800, and after toning the resolution and settings down, it played just fine. Didn't look bad either - I don't recall having to bottom out every setting or anything.
You have plenty of hardware to play games and make them look pretty good... but the newest games will always try to support the latest hardware features if not a little more than that if you turn all the settings up. If you want gazillions of subdivisions in your curved meshes and a ton of custom shaders, all at 1600x1200 - you're going to need to buy the hardware that can do those things.
What we don't want is for game makers to require such settings for it to be fun and playable (which was not the case with Crysis). For me, to this day, a handful of NES games are still worth playing occasionally; high performance graphics and fun are entirely independent axes of each other, for most anyway.
I now have a 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad with 2GB of RAM and a GeForce 8600GTS, and IMO BioShock looked a lot more polished and creative than Crysis - I was very happy with the graphics/performance quality I got out of both games considering my hardware. Still - I'm guessing even with twin 8800 monsters, you're going to hit some slow spots if you turn every last setting as high as it goes.
As for Crysis, the game... it was really well done, and a lot of fun to play until you get about 1/3 of the way through it, then a glitch shows up for which you end up on Google looking for a sloution - only to find out that you weren't 1/3 of the way through it, but rather that glitch that prevented you from blowing up the big guy was the very last thing to do in the game.
It was just too short! And the bug at the end COMPLETELY ruined it since (last I checked) they weren't acknowledging it and hadn't made a patch, and the only workaround was to keep reloading and trying not to solve everything the same way until (seemingly at random) it would work.
I still have no idea what the ending was - I was too pissed off to come back to it for a while, and by then I was into another game.
Better efficiency would involve the second number being lower than the first.
No. Better efficiency would involve the second number being lower and also having equal clock speeds. The former is multiples faster as it has more than double the clock rate and is a dual core.
So if you start your number crunching computer program and push "Start" and it takes 15 minutes on the first CPU and over 40 on the second, presuming you were to turn your computer off when the program finished, you'd have used the first one for less than half the time.
With the same battery I'll be able to use my laptop for 20% less time (say 2.5 hours instead of 3). If it does more faster, how come I get 30 minutes less time to use it before my battery craps out?
Not really; most laptops and many desktops can scale their speed. If you want to accomplish 15 minutes of work in 40 minutes, you can either throttle the newer CPU's speed (presumably using much less than the full power rating) or replace it with an older processor which is not as efficient (and therefore equally as fast, but likely to use more power).
If you scaled your new one down to less than the speed of your old one, you'd get more time out of it. So if you're watching a DVD and not really accomplishing a lot of "work", that's what you'd do to get more time than the old laptop but still have more processing power.
Remember, 3GHz refers to CPU clock cycles per second - an old thunderbird gets less done in a cycle than a new Athlon64 X2. So even a 1.4GHz single core Athlon64 is faster than a 1.4GHz Thunderbird. So you can slow the new one down from 1.4GHz and still get the same work out of it. A DVD might be choppy at 500MHz on a really old machine, but a brand new state of the art processor might be able to deal with it just fine at 500MHz, even if both machines have similar bus and memory speeds and come with the same MPEG decoding video card.
What would be better is a CPU that can use up to 89W when it needs it, then falls back to much lower - say 10W - when it idle and waiting for me to type a clever response into Slashdot.
Actually, this is a characteristic of both transistors and vacuum tubes, and therefore literally all CPUs do this. The amount of voltage supplied to the CPU is supposed to be constant - but the more transistors you use, the more amperes are drawn (volts * amps = watts). Relative to peak power usage, the difference between two idle CPUs is likely negligible, even for older models.
Find a computer with a variable speed CPU fan, and listen for it to shut off when you're idling. Less heat means less power.
The problem is you're working with infinitesimal values.
Light does not travel at infinite speed.
Relativity is a theory, not a proof or a guarantee - humans have never traveled at the speed of light, nor willfully accelerated any matter to the speed of light. Again - how would we know or prove that it in fact did reach the speed of light, or surpass it? We can't. We can suppose that it didn't happen - we cannot prove it.
The point is, "the speed of light" is a measurable scalar just like any other speed or velocity - something that travels at the speed of light is only moving slightly faster than something that travels at infinitely close to, but always less than, the speed of light.
Again - there's no reason that it wasn't indicated that the matter was moving equal to or faster than the speed of light due to margin of error; we simply suppose that it couldn't have possibly done this because these implications you mention were false/did not occur, to our knowledge.
What's not useful in Physics - margin of error? Don't go anywhere, I've got a mechanical schematic and a corresponding manufactured widget to sell you!
The difference between 0.001% of the speed of light and the speed of light may indeed be astronomical, but number wise, it's true. If the method used to estimate the speed of the matter isn't perfect (I'm presuming it's not), then they might as well call it the speed of light.
Relevant quote from TFA (emphasis mine):
...precisely measure the expansion speed of matter in these explosion to more than 99.999% the speed of light...the expanding matter initially produces gamma rays, but when it starts colliding with surrounding gas, it creates afterglows in visible and infrared light. The amount of time it takes for this afterglow to reach its peak brightness can be used to calculate how fast material in the jets is moving.
The researchers used a robotic infrared telescope called Rapid Eye Mount (REM), based in La Silla, Chile, which quickly points at gamma ray bursts detected by NASA's Swift satellite.
I think what you meant to say was that their tools and methods of estimating speed may well show that it was traversing at or even faster than the speed of light... but since it didn't take on any of the eccentric properties of matter which is traveling at light speed, they "know" that it wasn't "quite" the speed of light - and therefore must be really close. May as well have infinite repeating 9's in the decimal, like you said.
Do the researchers think they would know if the afterglow had reached its peak brightness before the matter began expanding? How could you really prove such a thing? What would it look like?
OP is correct, and margin of error is important in all of science because of imperfect humans.
I'd pop open a system monitor to be sure. Incessant disk activity is rarely provoked by simply having numerous windows open unless you're out of RAM. Maybe your Windows... has amnesia?
I downloaded 7.04 about a week ago when it was still tagged as Beta. Does anyone know if anything has changed since then or do I have an up-to-date version?
Did you keep the ISO? Check its MD5 Sum in a Linux console:
I think everything in your list could be said about Vista as well - upgrading existing hardware, having too many options, having a suitable solution already (I personally thought XP Pro was a more important upgrade than Vista is, given that it's still supported), and while DRM might not be important for everyone, whoever it is important too will probably have issues with both new high-def video formats as well as Vista. In both cases, DRM can make the regular user experience more inconvenient as well as expensive, so that might catch the attention of other poorly-informed adopters.
To both you and the cranky GP - three of the RIAA "big four" (Warner, Sony and Universal) are also of the MPAA "big six". Additionally, two others of the MPAA "big six" are RIAA members (Fox and DreamWorks).
It's not like they're some different breed of animal or something. Same suits & lawyers. More relevantly, what pisses off one of the **AA's will, by simple association, piss off the other.
Actually, I've discovered that if you post an anonymous post in a story, you can still moderate other comments in that story (except for your comment). Of course this doesn't work with logged-in posts.
Now if you moderate a comment in a story FIRST, and THEN post in that story, either as AC or while logged in, your moderations are voided and you don't get your mod points back.
Now just in case, I do NOT guarantee this! I figured it was a bug when I discovered it... I posted an AC comment one time, and noticed that the moderation drop-downs never disappeared; so I tried moderating someone, and it worked. But, if YOU try it and end up screwing yourself out of mod points somehow, it's not my fault... just posting what I observed.:-)
Also, I think you can log off and post anonymously regardless; certainly you can if you switch to a new IP address (or even better, a new IP subnet).
Sort of. May I offer a different analogy in the form of a very long-winded rant?
I bought a coffee maker one time that came without coffee... I had to buy my own coffee. Then it worked great. But eventually, I got tired of that coffee, so I bought more. Then I didn't drink coffee for a while, and the coffee I had purchased most recently went stale. Again, I had to buy more. Then it worked great again.
I built a computer one time that came with no OS... I had to buy my own OS. Then it worked great. But eventually, I got tired of that OS, so I downloaded another one. Then I didn't use it for a while, and the OS I had installed most recently went stale - it didn't run the software I needed. Again, I had to get another one. Then it worked great again.
Two points: first of all, my coffee maker worked great, even though it came without coffee. Likewise, my computer worked great, even though it came without an OS.
Second of all, if I made a coffee maker which was sold exclusively with Folgers coffees, particularly one with Folgers stickers all over it, it would be illegal to sell in France. Likewise, if I made a computer which was sold exclusively with Microsoft OS', particularly one with Microsoft stickers all over it, it would be illegal to sell in France.
Folgers may offer me a huge discount on coffee as long as it's an exclusive thing; but that's my problem, not France's or their citizens'.
Microsoft may offer HP a huge discount on operating systems as long as it's an exclusive thing; but that's HP's problem, not France's or their citizens'.
A coffee-maker works without coffee - when you put a filter, water and ground coffee beans in it, it makes coffee. Of course you can't make coffee out of thin air... but that's not the coffee maker's fault. It's job and function, specifically, is to make coffee.
Similarly, a personal computer works without an OS - when you put an OS and software in it, it computes (personally!). Of course you can't compute (personally) without software... but that's not the personal computer's fault. It's job and function, specifically, is to compute.
A personal computer without software "works" without bundling things to compute as well as a coffee maker "works" without bundling coffee, or a toaster "works" without bundling bread to toast, or a lawn mower "works" without bundling a lawn to mow, or a car "works" without bundling someplace to drive it to.
In HP's legal logic, their computer doesn't work unless it provides a competent solution to every software problem out there; my computer doesn't ACTUALLY work for me without a 3D modeler and an audio studio package... does it come with that? It wouldn't work for Wall Street unless it came with stock trading software... does it come with that? It wouldn't work for my father unless it came with the Bureau of Land Management's database software... does it come with that?
Oh, I hear you. You need some OS to facilitate that software, I see. Well... I use some Linux specific software - my computer doesn't work for me unless it has that software... but if all it included was Windows, it STILL wouldn't work, so saying that Windows is a necessary component for all software to run doesn't really work either.
Parts inside the computer make it do its job. Maybe HP only uses Hitachi hard drives - but not only does it not work without a hard drive (Knoppix aside), the end user can't tell the difference either way until they get niche specific, beyond that which is a personal computer (must read this many bytes per second, etc.).
Likewise, maybe Sunbeam only uses GE heating elements in them - but it doesn't work without a heating element (blowtorch aside), and the end user can't tell the difference either way until they get niche specific, beyond that which is simply a coffee-maker (must heat up to temperature in a particular time, etc.)
There are different flavors of coffee because the end user can absolutely tell the difference. The same applies
I built one of those (with a partner) in 5th grade... it actually managed to fly about 12 miles East of my school (in South Denver, CO) to Aurora CO. It wasn't quite as complex; IIRC, it was basically tissue paper streamers connected at the top and connected to a construction-paper cylinder at the bottom. I think there was some other tissue paper structure near the top, but it's just been too long now... I'm pretty sure we just followed the instructions, as I don't seem to know anything about building hot air balloons or parachutes or anything today.:)
The balloons had the school address with a small note written on the outside of the construction paper in case they were found; sure enough, some guy actually sent it back to our school.
I felt proud at the time, as many of them went up in flames on lift-off and/or fell apart shortly after. We were the only team who actually got a letter back.
You should be looking at this more objectively, not the GP.
First of all, has Mac's market share gone down any time recently? There's a trend to look at, not snapshot figures.
Another example - is the Linux/BSD desktop getting worse, is it losing more users than it's gaining? Where was it five years ago? Or ten years ago? How could you really tell for that matter - what counts as FOSS "market share"? Ubuntu CD download counts? Come on, market share is a fallacious argument when discussing MS' competition, not so much with regards to Mac admittedly. Newegg alone sells $millions in computer hardware daily; is all of that system hardware being counted against MS' totals? Or the people who buy a legit OEM XP to run games (like me) and use Linux for 97% of my other tasks?
I know that neither of my folks were using Linux even two years ago, but they are now... given no support, I can't possibly imagine how the three of us together would count in any market share statistics - but together we make up five computers which run Linux as a desktop OS.
I also see a very surprising number of laptops with Linux on them at school - apparently a lot of students have discovered the giant multiple-DVD-sized heap of free software that you get with most FOSS OS'; things like circuit simulators, databases, publishing packages, music composition software, development tools, a gazillion little addictive games for the not-so-hardcore gamers (parents love those too btw), etc.
Now all that said, do you think MS will deliver an even better Windows any time sooner than 5 years? How long will it take them to get all these "features" working together that were supposed to be in Vista 3 years ago? They've hyped Vista through the stars, they can't exactly come out in a year with a new Windows... they could make a very drastic service pack and charge people for it, which is actually the most likely case from what I've heard.
Windows really does have a lot of competitive pressure on it.
I'm not sure if Doom qualifies as a derivative of Wolf3D, or if Quake qualifies as a derivative of Doom. But I'm pretty sure whatever the best multiplayer game is, it was either made by id Software, or got the concept from a game by id Software. The only other game I've had as much fun with would have to be Streetfighter 2, but that was in the list in the summary. I suppose Tetris would have to be in there somewhere; it can be entertaining with the right people in the right state of "fun". But not "hours and hours on end" type fun.
I've had little more fun than wasting my boss on the LAN at the office in Quake and/or Duke Nukem 3D (I don't think Duke3D could take its multiplayer credit without mentioning id Software). The nice thing about Duke3D was of course Build; it was a piece of cake to make a cool looking fortress that resembled your office (or whatever) to play around in.
Can I ask for some recommendations? Little late at this point, but it would still be useful info.:-)
The one that died was an Antec 430W; it came with my case and was manufactured in 2002 (although when I built it I put a 480W in there which I fried two years ago and switched back to the stock one; this was incredibly stupid of me. I blamed myself both times since I was running 6 hard drives, 5 case fans, an All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro and a Creative Live Drive, on top of the usual CPU cooler, CD-ROM, floppy, etc.)
I believe RAID is a little more stressful on the power supply than standalone drives because they all read/write at exactly the same times.
I replaced it with a 550W Antec (the repair guy that I took the PS to for testing recommended not switching brands but getting an Active-PFC supply and more watts); additionally I broke my RAID array apart and only have 4 HDD's in there now. Everybody I've ever talked to recommends Antec; most of the user reviews on sites like Newegg are good for Antec products, and I seem to see an excess of "no-name" brands in the power supply department... not a lot of brands I really know except for the same ones that make fans & whatnot.
But, if this PS dies, I'm never buying Antec again.
Incidentally, this one cost me $130 + tax at Microcenter, while there were others with nearly identical specs for $60. I would have bought from Newegg, but paid more for the "I need it right now" factor.
I entirely agree with everything you said, except this (minor nitpick, if nothing else):
So backup often, or use RAID. Replace the HDDs when they break.
There's really no replacement for backing up your files.
RAID 5 (or mirrored RAID, if that's your favorite flavor) protects against a single hard drive dying. But if the RAID card dies, you lose everything, especially if it's a proprietary card that's hard to find (more likely on a personal server); I've tried interchanging 3ware controllers and Highpoint controllers, and they couldn't read each other. Additionally, if more than one drive dies, you lose everything. Or, if there's some other problem (you know, the one you didn't think about before you setup the RAID) and the array gets corrupted somehow... well, you lose everything.
RAID can be a good supplement in addition to regular backups, but it's not a complete replacement.
The only drive I've had die before I retired it myself from sheer obsolescence was an IBM 20GB "DeskStar" model; this happened about five years ago, IIRC. The drive made noise and froze the system when I would read particular files; to my frustration, it occurred when I read some of the files that were important to me (documents, programming projects, one folder of MP3s, etc.)
My solution was to put the drive in the freezer for a few hours; UNBELIEVABLY, it worked - I would have about ten minutes to copy as much as I could off the drive before it would start making noise again. I got most of what I needed off of it.
Incidentally, IBM was very good about the whole thing; they sent me a new drive the day I called them. Too bad they sold their HD division to Hitachi...
Anyway, I've had FAR worse luck with power supplies; I usually go through one of those every other year. Recently, ALL of the drives in my RAID 5 array (4x 120GB Seagate drives) as well as a fifth one (an identical Seagate 120GB that's standalone) started making noise at around the same time; of course I assumed there was some defect with this particular drive model.
But thankfully, it turned out only to be my power supply (the +5V line would deliver +4.4V ~ +4.6V, while the +12V line would fluctuate between +11V and +13V). I can only conclude that Seagate drives are less tolerant than IBM/Hitachi's of power supply fluctuations, since I also have an old 80GB IBM/Hitachi Deskstar and a much newer 250GB SATA IBM/Hitachi drive, and neither batted an eye.
Likewise, the system showed no other symptoms that pointed at the power supply; so a week or so ago, this post would have looked very different, with a few "F-You Seagate"'s thrown in there.:)
Maybe I'm missing something, but should the headline "Tarantula Venom and Chili Peppers Share Receptor" not actually read "Tarantula Venom and Chili Peppers Target Same Receptor"?
It would be truly shocking if they actually shared the same receptor... has that ever happened? A plant growing an animal cell? Just curious...
Incidentally, the article doesn't really say if the same proteins are used by the pepper and the arachnid to provoke this receptor. Somehow I doubt it, since TFA says that just simple heat from the sun, as well as "peppery food, mustard oil and other compounds" also target it. Seems more coincidental than anything; a porcupine and a cactus would be another example of a plant and an animal developing a similar defense mechanism, no? Plant or animal, we do all seem to share the same world here...
This is great indeed for PS2 fans who never got into the franchise. I own Vice City for both PS2 and for PC, and in fact I have GTA III and San Andreas for PC as well.
If you have a competent gaming PC (certainly not state of the art... but not a barebones w/ business graphics), it would be worth the extra couple bucks to buy the three of them for PC instead. I don't think it would cost an awful lot more.
Differences: 1. The graphics are better (and more adjustable). 2. You can modify the game in various ways if you ever wish to do so (yes there's the X-rated mod for San Andreas, but there are others). 3. The load times are almost nonexistant (i.e. when hopping from island to island). Really, when you're going 140 and everything just stops dead for 10 seconds or so while it loads the other island, it can get frustrating. 4. It's easier to back up saved games on PC, since they're just files in your My Documents folder; none of that memory pack crap. This also makes it easy to save games with cheat codes enabled (seriously hysterical things are possible with the cheat codes, but they prevent you from achieving 100% game completion if you save with them).
There are other little perks here & there.
In case you're wondering, there are plenty of gamepads available for PC with essentially the same buttons that the PS2 controller has... my Logitech has nice software that lets you map gamepad buttons to particular keys and/or other input actions, and can be set up to play EXACTLY like the PS2 version. I never liked the default control setup for PC, so this was important to me.
Finally, if you get on eBay and grab a copy of the first San Andreas release, you can use the "hot coffee" mod, if you are so inclined (the previously mentioned X-rated mod which sparked so much controversy when it became known). The latter releases aren't capable of this, as far as I know.
Of course it's still cool that, for PS2-only gamers, you can get them all so cheap! You save at least $100 off their combined initial release prices.
Conclusion: If you're going for all three of them at once, the PC versions are (IMHO) worth the extra money if your PC can deal with it. I have an Athlon XP 3000+ (32-bit) w/ 1GB RAM and a Radeon 9800 Pro, and 5.1 sound... it's far superior to the PS2 versions... even works great on my laptop (a ThinkPad T42 w/ fairly similar specs).
We'd have Presidents elected with 25-30% of the popular vote. How does that make our government more representative?
I don't see the point in having 30% want one guy, 30% want the other guy, while 40% are forced to vote when there's no candidate that floats their boat, vs. that 40% getting to vote for someone they actually see more eye-to-eye with.
I mean, the 2004 presidential election was painful. I have to pick between John Kerry and Georgie Poo? To me, it was like deciding whether to have a glass of chlorine or embalming fluid with dinner...
Having a broader selection can't do more harm than it helps. If a 30% majority wins, perhaps the other 60% or 70% of the populus that didn't even bother to vote would think a little harder about being passive next time. Having more choices means your decision counts more. As for the 70% of the voters that got stuck with someone they don't like, well... cough a better candidate up next time.
This is America - competition works well for people here.
I'm a registered Republican, although I'm mostly middle-minded and do not like the current Republican party (GWB or otherwise). I suppose that's what you call a Libertarian. I couldn't be more thrilled that we have a Democratic House; when there's a nice mix of the two parties in the White House and Congress, it forces them to work together and do things the people want (because if you can't execute your prepaid agenda, at least you can work for votes). If nothing else, it keeps either party from screwing things up too much.
I do not claim to be a political expert by any means... but I think having more than two parties would be a good thing. If it were possible, at least having multiple Republican and Democratic candidates would help, if we didn't treat politics like football where you either cheer for one team or you cheer for the other team. Some people, like me, don't believe that every issue across the board clearly lends itself to a conservative or a liberal solution.
Oh come on, everone knows the oil ran out in 2000, wait 2003, wait 2005, wait 2012, it's absolutely 2012.
I just love this "logic."
Paraphrased: "Some people have been wrong at some things, so nobody can ever be right!"
That's not what he was saying at all. From the summary:
"According to a study by a scientist in Halifax, Nova Scotia and assisted by research from all around the world, the world's oceans will be emptied of large lifeforms by 2048."
Clearly he was taking a shot at the article and/or its summary, which doesn't seem to leave room for doubt. The message wasn't that nobody's ever right, it's simply that they aren't always right. There's nothing wrong with the parent's "logic." This rings true to me.
Essentially, that sums TFA up in two words. When something's drummed into your brain on a regular basis, your brain begins to classify it as being real or genuine; it's a more "available" scenario or assertion to you. While in this particular case it proves cause for a lot of fallacies about terrorism, and the media/politicians take advantage of it regularly, it's actually something you do as a way of survival (think Darwin); it allows your brain to "fill in" where you are lacking in actual facts and information.
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It's beginning to resemble a bad joke at this point... WTF are they doing? More than 70% of Windows users are running XP - it's eight years old. Many customers were ready for a new Windows, upgraded their computers, hated Vista and refused to use it. They reverted to XP which MS continued to support well past the expected lifetime, and simultaneously computers quit getting faster at exponential rates.
So now we have lots of modern computers that are content with an eight year old Windows release that's mostly up to date, and will have no reason to upgrade for years. New computers still sell with XP more than Vista, and for all we know Win7 could be another year out. Customers have a newfound appreciation for how stable and refined XP is (or can be).
But even in 2001, XP was slow to take - it took about four years to overtake Win2k in the corporate space. Windows 7 will meet an utterly awful economy with the damning news that computer hardware no longer obsoletes itself each year - Microsoft's planned obsolescence product model has kicked its own ass.
So what I don't understand is what they think being rabid about Windows piracy stands to gain them today? They need the market share more than they need the extra 0.1% of pirated copies that would actually translate into sales. When they turn off XP support, shit will hit fans... unless Windows 7 can get you free coffee and cheap drugs, Windows XP support will have to be switched off at a time when it still retains the largest userbase of any other OS.
They're hunting for their users' last straw, which seems like a bad sign to me; this is only a matter of time before they trip over themselves and fall off the tower. PC vendors abound waiting to market and sell you preconfigured, secure, compatible and supported desktops running Linux. When software developers catch on, checkmate.
Oh, and the aliens in Crysis, aside from all looking like the same model, looked like they came straight out of Duke Nukem 3D, except they weren't billboards... even with lots of texture filters you could see huge, ugly, disgusting texture pixels, unless it was the other 7/8 of the alien which was jet black and was more of a silhouette than a model... so if you saw any of that, that wasn't your hardware. ;)
So you toned all of the graphics settings down, for both your drivers and in the game, and with a 2.0GHz dual core and your other specs, you had FPS drops in the DEMO?
Something else is wrong. Either the demo had some glitch when you tried it or your system is goofed, because I have the real game and ran it on an Athlon 3000+ w/ the same amount of RAM and a whopping Radeon 9800, and after toning the resolution and settings down, it played just fine. Didn't look bad either - I don't recall having to bottom out every setting or anything.
You have plenty of hardware to play games and make them look pretty good... but the newest games will always try to support the latest hardware features if not a little more than that if you turn all the settings up. If you want gazillions of subdivisions in your curved meshes and a ton of custom shaders, all at 1600x1200 - you're going to need to buy the hardware that can do those things.
What we don't want is for game makers to require such settings for it to be fun and playable (which was not the case with Crysis). For me, to this day, a handful of NES games are still worth playing occasionally; high performance graphics and fun are entirely independent axes of each other, for most anyway.
I now have a 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad with 2GB of RAM and a GeForce 8600GTS, and IMO BioShock looked a lot more polished and creative than Crysis - I was very happy with the graphics/performance quality I got out of both games considering my hardware. Still - I'm guessing even with twin 8800 monsters, you're going to hit some slow spots if you turn every last setting as high as it goes.
As for Crysis, the game... it was really well done, and a lot of fun to play until you get about 1/3 of the way through it, then a glitch shows up for which you end up on Google looking for a sloution - only to find out that you weren't 1/3 of the way through it, but rather that glitch that prevented you from blowing up the big guy was the very last thing to do in the game.
It was just too short! And the bug at the end COMPLETELY ruined it since (last I checked) they weren't acknowledging it and hadn't made a patch, and the only workaround was to keep reloading and trying not to solve everything the same way until (seemingly at random) it would work.
I still have no idea what the ending was - I was too pissed off to come back to it for a while, and by then I was into another game.
So if you start your number crunching computer program and push "Start" and it takes 15 minutes on the first CPU and over 40 on the second, presuming you were to turn your computer off when the program finished, you'd have used the first one for less than half the time.Not really; most laptops and many desktops can scale their speed. If you want to accomplish 15 minutes of work in 40 minutes, you can either throttle the newer CPU's speed (presumably using much less than the full power rating) or replace it with an older processor which is not as efficient (and therefore equally as fast, but likely to use more power).
If you scaled your new one down to less than the speed of your old one, you'd get more time out of it. So if you're watching a DVD and not really accomplishing a lot of "work", that's what you'd do to get more time than the old laptop but still have more processing power.
Remember, 3GHz refers to CPU clock cycles per second - an old thunderbird gets less done in a cycle than a new Athlon64 X2. So even a 1.4GHz single core Athlon64 is faster than a 1.4GHz Thunderbird. So you can slow the new one down from 1.4GHz and still get the same work out of it. A DVD might be choppy at 500MHz on a really old machine, but a brand new state of the art processor might be able to deal with it just fine at 500MHz, even if both machines have similar bus and memory speeds and come with the same MPEG decoding video card.Actually, this is a characteristic of both transistors and vacuum tubes, and therefore literally all CPUs do this. The amount of voltage supplied to the CPU is supposed to be constant - but the more transistors you use, the more amperes are drawn (volts * amps = watts). Relative to peak power usage, the difference between two idle CPUs is likely negligible, even for older models.
Find a computer with a variable speed CPU fan, and listen for it to shut off when you're idling. Less heat means less power.
Relativity is a theory, not a proof or a guarantee - humans have never traveled at the speed of light, nor willfully accelerated any matter to the speed of light. Again - how would we know or prove that it in fact did reach the speed of light, or surpass it? We can't. We can suppose that it didn't happen - we cannot prove it.
The point is, "the speed of light" is a measurable scalar just like any other speed or velocity - something that travels at the speed of light is only moving slightly faster than something that travels at infinitely close to, but always less than, the speed of light.
Again - there's no reason that it wasn't indicated that the matter was moving equal to or faster than the speed of light due to margin of error; we simply suppose that it couldn't have possibly done this because these implications you mention were false/did not occur, to our knowledge.
The difference between 0.001% of the speed of light and the speed of light may indeed be astronomical, but number wise, it's true. If the method used to estimate the speed of the matter isn't perfect (I'm presuming it's not), then they might as well call it the speed of light.
Relevant quote from TFA (emphasis mine):
I think what you meant to say was that their tools and methods of estimating speed may well show that it was traversing at or even faster than the speed of light... but since it didn't take on any of the eccentric properties of matter which is traveling at light speed, they "know" that it wasn't "quite" the speed of light - and therefore must be really close. May as well have infinite repeating 9's in the decimal, like you said.
Do the researchers think they would know if the afterglow had reached its peak brightness before the matter began expanding? How could you really prove such a thing? What would it look like?
OP is correct, and margin of error is important in all of science because of imperfect humans.
I'd pop open a system monitor to be sure. Incessant disk activity is rarely provoked by simply having numerous windows open unless you're out of RAM. Maybe your Windows... has amnesia?
Then compare with the one listed on any public mirror, such as here:
ftp://us.releases.ubuntu.com/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/7
I think everything in your list could be said about Vista as well - upgrading existing hardware, having too many options, having a suitable solution already (I personally thought XP Pro was a more important upgrade than Vista is, given that it's still supported), and while DRM might not be important for everyone, whoever it is important too will probably have issues with both new high-def video formats as well as Vista. In both cases, DRM can make the regular user experience more inconvenient as well as expensive, so that might catch the attention of other poorly-informed adopters.
To both you and the cranky GP - three of the RIAA "big four" (Warner, Sony and Universal) are also of the MPAA "big six". Additionally, two others of the MPAA "big six" are RIAA members (Fox and DreamWorks).
It's not like they're some different breed of animal or something. Same suits & lawyers. More relevantly, what pisses off one of the **AA's will, by simple association, piss off the other.
Actually, I've discovered that if you post an anonymous post in a story, you can still moderate other comments in that story (except for your comment). Of course this doesn't work with logged-in posts.
:-)
Now if you moderate a comment in a story FIRST, and THEN post in that story, either as AC or while logged in, your moderations are voided and you don't get your mod points back.
Now just in case, I do NOT guarantee this! I figured it was a bug when I discovered it... I posted an AC comment one time, and noticed that the moderation drop-downs never disappeared; so I tried moderating someone, and it worked. But, if YOU try it and end up screwing yourself out of mod points somehow, it's not my fault... just posting what I observed.
Also, I think you can log off and post anonymously regardless; certainly you can if you switch to a new IP address (or even better, a new IP subnet).
Sort of. May I offer a different analogy in the form of a very long-winded rant?
I bought a coffee maker one time that came without coffee... I had to buy my own coffee. Then it worked great. But eventually, I got tired of that coffee, so I bought more. Then I didn't drink coffee for a while, and the coffee I had purchased most recently went stale. Again, I had to buy more. Then it worked great again.
I built a computer one time that came with no OS... I had to buy my own OS. Then it worked great. But eventually, I got tired of that OS, so I downloaded another one. Then I didn't use it for a while, and the OS I had installed most recently went stale - it didn't run the software I needed. Again, I had to get another one. Then it worked great again.
Two points: first of all, my coffee maker worked great, even though it came without coffee. Likewise, my computer worked great, even though it came without an OS.
Second of all, if I made a coffee maker which was sold exclusively with Folgers coffees, particularly one with Folgers stickers all over it, it would be illegal to sell in France. Likewise, if I made a computer which was sold exclusively with Microsoft OS', particularly one with Microsoft stickers all over it, it would be illegal to sell in France.
Folgers may offer me a huge discount on coffee as long as it's an exclusive thing; but that's my problem, not France's or their citizens'.
Microsoft may offer HP a huge discount on operating systems as long as it's an exclusive thing; but that's HP's problem, not France's or their citizens'.
A coffee-maker works without coffee - when you put a filter, water and ground coffee beans in it, it makes coffee. Of course you can't make coffee out of thin air... but that's not the coffee maker's fault. It's job and function, specifically, is to make coffee.
Similarly, a personal computer works without an OS - when you put an OS and software in it, it computes (personally!). Of course you can't compute (personally) without software... but that's not the personal computer's fault. It's job and function, specifically, is to compute.
A personal computer without software "works" without bundling things to compute as well as a coffee maker "works" without bundling coffee, or a toaster "works" without bundling bread to toast, or a lawn mower "works" without bundling a lawn to mow, or a car "works" without bundling someplace to drive it to.
In HP's legal logic, their computer doesn't work unless it provides a competent solution to every software problem out there; my computer doesn't ACTUALLY work for me without a 3D modeler and an audio studio package... does it come with that? It wouldn't work for Wall Street unless it came with stock trading software... does it come with that? It wouldn't work for my father unless it came with the Bureau of Land Management's database software... does it come with that?
Oh, I hear you. You need some OS to facilitate that software, I see. Well... I use some Linux specific software - my computer doesn't work for me unless it has that software... but if all it included was Windows, it STILL wouldn't work, so saying that Windows is a necessary component for all software to run doesn't really work either.
Parts inside the computer make it do its job. Maybe HP only uses Hitachi hard drives - but not only does it not work without a hard drive (Knoppix aside), the end user can't tell the difference either way until they get niche specific, beyond that which is a personal computer (must read this many bytes per second, etc.).
Likewise, maybe Sunbeam only uses GE heating elements in them - but it doesn't work without a heating element (blowtorch aside), and the end user can't tell the difference either way until they get niche specific, beyond that which is simply a coffee-maker (must heat up to temperature in a particular time, etc.)
There are different flavors of coffee because the end user can absolutely tell the difference. The same applies
Slashdotters threw down their pitchforks and torches in like 1999. It's Microsoft! And we're Slashdot.
Half of us have flamethrowers and high energy lasers equipped at all times, while the rest either own MS stock or work there.
I built one of those (with a partner) in 5th grade... it actually managed to fly about 12 miles East of my school (in South Denver, CO) to Aurora CO. It wasn't quite as complex; IIRC, it was basically tissue paper streamers connected at the top and connected to a construction-paper cylinder at the bottom. I think there was some other tissue paper structure near the top, but it's just been too long now... I'm pretty sure we just followed the instructions, as I don't seem to know anything about building hot air balloons or parachutes or anything today. :)
The balloons had the school address with a small note written on the outside of the construction paper in case they were found; sure enough, some guy actually sent it back to our school.
I felt proud at the time, as many of them went up in flames on lift-off and/or fell apart shortly after. We were the only team who actually got a letter back.
You should be looking at this more objectively, not the GP.
First of all, has Mac's market share gone down any time recently? There's a trend to look at, not snapshot figures.
Another example - is the Linux/BSD desktop getting worse, is it losing more users than it's gaining? Where was it five years ago? Or ten years ago? How could you really tell for that matter - what counts as FOSS "market share"? Ubuntu CD download counts? Come on, market share is a fallacious argument when discussing MS' competition, not so much with regards to Mac admittedly. Newegg alone sells $millions in computer hardware daily; is all of that system hardware being counted against MS' totals? Or the people who buy a legit OEM XP to run games (like me) and use Linux for 97% of my other tasks?
I know that neither of my folks were using Linux even two years ago, but they are now... given no support, I can't possibly imagine how the three of us together would count in any market share statistics - but together we make up five computers which run Linux as a desktop OS.
I also see a very surprising number of laptops with Linux on them at school - apparently a lot of students have discovered the giant multiple-DVD-sized heap of free software that you get with most FOSS OS'; things like circuit simulators, databases, publishing packages, music composition software, development tools, a gazillion little addictive games for the not-so-hardcore gamers (parents love those too btw), etc.
Now all that said, do you think MS will deliver an even better Windows any time sooner than 5 years? How long will it take them to get all these "features" working together that were supposed to be in Vista 3 years ago? They've hyped Vista through the stars, they can't exactly come out in a year with a new Windows... they could make a very drastic service pack and charge people for it, which is actually the most likely case from what I've heard.
Windows really does have a lot of competitive pressure on it.
I'm not sure if Doom qualifies as a derivative of Wolf3D, or if Quake qualifies as a derivative of Doom. But I'm pretty sure whatever the best multiplayer game is, it was either made by id Software, or got the concept from a game by id Software. The only other game I've had as much fun with would have to be Streetfighter 2, but that was in the list in the summary. I suppose Tetris would have to be in there somewhere; it can be entertaining with the right people in the right state of "fun". But not "hours and hours on end" type fun.
I've had little more fun than wasting my boss on the LAN at the office in Quake and/or Duke Nukem 3D (I don't think Duke3D could take its multiplayer credit without mentioning id Software). The nice thing about Duke3D was of course Build; it was a piece of cake to make a cool looking fortress that resembled your office (or whatever) to play around in.
Note: I don't play MMORPG's.
Can I ask for some recommendations? Little late at this point, but it would still be useful info. :-)
The one that died was an Antec 430W; it came with my case and was manufactured in 2002 (although when I built it I put a 480W in there which I fried two years ago and switched back to the stock one; this was incredibly stupid of me. I blamed myself both times since I was running 6 hard drives, 5 case fans, an All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro and a Creative Live Drive, on top of the usual CPU cooler, CD-ROM, floppy, etc.)
I believe RAID is a little more stressful on the power supply than standalone drives because they all read/write at exactly the same times.
I replaced it with a 550W Antec (the repair guy that I took the PS to for testing recommended not switching brands but getting an Active-PFC supply and more watts); additionally I broke my RAID array apart and only have 4 HDD's in there now. Everybody I've ever talked to recommends Antec; most of the user reviews on sites like Newegg are good for Antec products, and I seem to see an excess of "no-name" brands in the power supply department... not a lot of brands I really know except for the same ones that make fans & whatnot.
But, if this PS dies, I'm never buying Antec again.
Incidentally, this one cost me $130 + tax at Microcenter, while there were others with nearly identical specs for $60. I would have bought from Newegg, but paid more for the "I need it right now" factor.
There's really no replacement for backing up your files.
RAID 5 (or mirrored RAID, if that's your favorite flavor) protects against a single hard drive dying. But if the RAID card dies, you lose everything, especially if it's a proprietary card that's hard to find (more likely on a personal server); I've tried interchanging 3ware controllers and Highpoint controllers, and they couldn't read each other. Additionally, if more than one drive dies, you lose everything. Or, if there's some other problem (you know, the one you didn't think about before you setup the RAID) and the array gets corrupted somehow... well, you lose everything.
RAID can be a good supplement in addition to regular backups, but it's not a complete replacement.
I started building computers twelve years ago.
:)
The only drive I've had die before I retired it myself from sheer obsolescence was an IBM 20GB "DeskStar" model; this happened about five years ago, IIRC. The drive made noise and froze the system when I would read particular files; to my frustration, it occurred when I read some of the files that were important to me (documents, programming projects, one folder of MP3s, etc.)
My solution was to put the drive in the freezer for a few hours; UNBELIEVABLY, it worked - I would have about ten minutes to copy as much as I could off the drive before it would start making noise again. I got most of what I needed off of it.
Incidentally, IBM was very good about the whole thing; they sent me a new drive the day I called them. Too bad they sold their HD division to Hitachi...
Anyway, I've had FAR worse luck with power supplies; I usually go through one of those every other year. Recently, ALL of the drives in my RAID 5 array (4x 120GB Seagate drives) as well as a fifth one (an identical Seagate 120GB that's standalone) started making noise at around the same time; of course I assumed there was some defect with this particular drive model.
But thankfully, it turned out only to be my power supply (the +5V line would deliver +4.4V ~ +4.6V, while the +12V line would fluctuate between +11V and +13V). I can only conclude that Seagate drives are less tolerant than IBM/Hitachi's of power supply fluctuations, since I also have an old 80GB IBM/Hitachi Deskstar and a much newer 250GB SATA IBM/Hitachi drive, and neither batted an eye.
Likewise, the system showed no other symptoms that pointed at the power supply; so a week or so ago, this post would have looked very different, with a few "F-You Seagate"'s thrown in there.
Maybe I'm missing something, but should the headline "Tarantula Venom and Chili Peppers Share Receptor" not actually read "Tarantula Venom and Chili Peppers Target Same Receptor"?
:)
It would be truly shocking if they actually shared the same receptor... has that ever happened? A plant growing an animal cell? Just curious...
Incidentally, the article doesn't really say if the same proteins are used by the pepper and the arachnid to provoke this receptor. Somehow I doubt it, since TFA says that just simple heat from the sun, as well as "peppery food, mustard oil and other compounds" also target it. Seems more coincidental than anything; a porcupine and a cactus would be another example of a plant and an animal developing a similar defense mechanism, no? Plant or animal, we do all seem to share the same world here...
In case anyone's interested, this particular species of tarantula, Psalmopoeus cambridgei, is quite cool looking... not quite as cool as, say, Avicularia versicolor or Haplopelma lividum, but cooler than I expected.
This is great indeed for PS2 fans who never got into the franchise. I own Vice City for both PS2 and for PC, and in fact I have GTA III and San Andreas for PC as well.
If you have a competent gaming PC (certainly not state of the art... but not a barebones w/ business graphics), it would be worth the extra couple bucks to buy the three of them for PC instead. I don't think it would cost an awful lot more.
Differences:
1. The graphics are better (and more adjustable).
2. You can modify the game in various ways if you ever wish to do so (yes there's the X-rated mod for San Andreas, but there are others).
3. The load times are almost nonexistant (i.e. when hopping from island to island). Really, when you're going 140 and everything just stops dead for 10 seconds or so while it loads the other island, it can get frustrating.
4. It's easier to back up saved games on PC, since they're just files in your My Documents folder; none of that memory pack crap. This also makes it easy to save games with cheat codes enabled (seriously hysterical things are possible with the cheat codes, but they prevent you from achieving 100% game completion if you save with them).
There are other little perks here & there.
In case you're wondering, there are plenty of gamepads available for PC with essentially the same buttons that the PS2 controller has... my Logitech has nice software that lets you map gamepad buttons to particular keys and/or other input actions, and can be set up to play EXACTLY like the PS2 version. I never liked the default control setup for PC, so this was important to me.
Finally, if you get on eBay and grab a copy of the first San Andreas release, you can use the "hot coffee" mod, if you are so inclined (the previously mentioned X-rated mod which sparked so much controversy when it became known). The latter releases aren't capable of this, as far as I know.
Of course it's still cool that, for PS2-only gamers, you can get them all so cheap! You save at least $100 off their combined initial release prices.
Conclusion: If you're going for all three of them at once, the PC versions are (IMHO) worth the extra money if your PC can deal with it. I have an Athlon XP 3000+ (32-bit) w/ 1GB RAM and a Radeon 9800 Pro, and 5.1 sound... it's far superior to the PS2 versions... even works great on my laptop (a ThinkPad T42 w/ fairly similar specs).
I don't see the point in having 30% want one guy, 30% want the other guy, while 40% are forced to vote when there's no candidate that floats their boat, vs. that 40% getting to vote for someone they actually see more eye-to-eye with.
I mean, the 2004 presidential election was painful. I have to pick between John Kerry and Georgie Poo? To me, it was like deciding whether to have a glass of chlorine or embalming fluid with dinner...
Having a broader selection can't do more harm than it helps. If a 30% majority wins, perhaps the other 60% or 70% of the populus that didn't even bother to vote would think a little harder about being passive next time. Having more choices means your decision counts more. As for the 70% of the voters that got stuck with someone they don't like, well... cough a better candidate up next time.
This is America - competition works well for people here.
I'm a registered Republican, although I'm mostly middle-minded and do not like the current Republican party (GWB or otherwise). I suppose that's what you call a Libertarian. I couldn't be more thrilled that we have a Democratic House; when there's a nice mix of the two parties in the White House and Congress, it forces them to work together and do things the people want (because if you can't execute your prepaid agenda, at least you can work for votes). If nothing else, it keeps either party from screwing things up too much.
I do not claim to be a political expert by any means... but I think having more than two parties would be a good thing. If it were possible, at least having multiple Republican and Democratic candidates would help, if we didn't treat politics like football where you either cheer for one team or you cheer for the other team. Some people, like me, don't believe that every issue across the board clearly lends itself to a conservative or a liberal solution.
No, just EVERY OTHER DOLPHIN EVERYWHERE you insensitive clod!!!
That's not what he was saying at all. From the summary:
"According to a study by a scientist in Halifax, Nova Scotia and assisted by research from all around the world, the world's oceans will be emptied of large lifeforms by 2048."
Clearly he was taking a shot at the article and/or its summary, which doesn't seem to leave room for doubt. The message wasn't that nobody's ever right, it's simply that they aren't always right. There's nothing wrong with the parent's "logic." This rings true to me.
I applaud Mr. Schneier for bringing to light the availability heuristic.
Essentially, that sums TFA up in two words. When something's drummed into your brain on a regular basis, your brain begins to classify it as being real or genuine; it's a more "available" scenario or assertion to you. While in this particular case it proves cause for a lot of fallacies about terrorism, and the media/politicians take advantage of it regularly, it's actually something you do as a way of survival (think Darwin); it allows your brain to "fill in" where you are lacking in actual facts and information.