Should I keep the wireless router or go wired? chat & forums.

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chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 32 (view)

Should I keep the wireless router or go wired? Posted: 8/31/2009 12:11:22 PM
How about other sources that can interfere. Having your PC near a high energy device like a fridge or AC can have adverse affects on wireless and wired alike.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 11 (view)

Windows at 64 GB memory vesus 4 GB - licensing ???? Posted: 8/28/2009 1:06:25 AM
There seems to be a misconception that 32bit OS can't use more than 3GB of memory. It's more along the lines of a 32bit application can't use more than 3GB of memory. It's a difference that makes a bit impact on the applications running, a 32bit application can actually gain 3GB more of memory use by launching a second application in the same domain (the domain association allows them to share resources by giving access to the pointers into those resources). So you could very well have 6GB of memory on a 32bit OS with one application launching a slave application to allow using the full 6GB. However you'd be hard pressed to find applications on the market which employ such tricks, I've only seen a couple that do it and those aren't the type of thing anyone would be using on a desktop computer. I have to question why anyone would need more than 2GB of memory though on a home PC. The only application I've ever seen fill up 2GB of memory has to be Everquest, and that's due to really bad resource management (they keep a lot of crap in memory that is very rarely used, and don't dispose of unused stuff until absolutely needed). I have 4GB on my machine and well the only thing it's benefited me with is my bad habit of not closing applications when I know I'll use them later (sometimes as much as 4 or more hours later).

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 4 (view)

AMD's next generation architecture to feature multi-threading Posted: 8/28/2009 12:59:53 AM
Well steel, most of the .Net threading API doesn't discriminate between a logical or physical thread unless explicitly configured to do so. I think Intel::Blocks is the same way. Those cover most of the multi-threaded applications being produced these days. There's also the case with Vista and Windows 7 where the OS will schedule single thread applications onto their own threads with little regard for the thread being logical or physical. Claiming HT compatibility is just a trick to sell more products in all but a handful of cases.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 10 (view)

Hardware Issue (Hard Drive) Posted: 8/28/2009 12:53:20 AM
Check the pins on the back of the drive, when it's plugged into the second connector they must be attached in the configuration on the label which denotes Slave or Cable Select, also make sure your primary drive is set for Master or Cable Select as well. If both are set for Master or Slave then it will just use the first one on the ribbon in majority case while the other would go undetected.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 33 (view)

Traveling at light speed. Does time reall stop? Posted: 8/28/2009 12:46:26 AM
I have to question the significance of time stopping for any observer. You wouldn't be capable of noticing it because your perceptions are entirely influenced by the progression of time. The only observer that would notice would be an outside observer. It's also not significant because well to have motion of any kind you need time in the equation, so all the instrumentation in the world would not be capable of detecting that time has stopped since to their perspective it's flowing at the same pace as always.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 167 (view)

Pseudoscience - knowledge which masquerades as science Posted: 8/28/2009 12:44:05 AM
I always enjoy reading some pseudoscience, there are varying degrees of it, some incoherent ramblings, while others are more difficult to distinguish from real science because well the people spew it out seem to have some small understand of what they are talking about. But well when you spend the time to gain an understanding of real science things get a lot more interesting even though they usually aren't so flashy sounding/looking. It is aggravating though when trying to discuss real science having people chime in with pseudoscience that seems related but only at surface level. However there are some science arise from pseudoscience, but that's exceedingly rare.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 39 (view)

Twinkle twinkle little black hole Posted: 8/26/2009 11:09:46 PM
almost, but not quite. You are refering to special relativity. But this principle only appies when a body is not accelerating. If you are in the midst of a huge gravitational force, then you are accelerating. Which means you would feel the force. You wouldnt be able to scratch your feet. I suggest you read Brian Greene. He is a very informative astrophysicist. I'm not so sure if that would be the case. If gravity is just an effect of mass distorting space-time, the electrical impulses in the observers muscles would have to travel that distorted path along the same relatively undistorted path those impulses travel here on Earth while airborne. I think the only way you would know you were falling into a black hole is if you could visually see motion while falling into the black hole (even being able to see stars are so far away it'd be difficult to tell).

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 6 (view)

Older Dual Cores processors now bottleneck even mainstream graphics cards Posted: 8/23/2009 2:41:27 AM
then it's going to end up bottlnecking the pci-e versions even further. How in the world did you come to that conclusion? Even on a PCI-E 1.0 which are roughly equivalent to AGP, there's two way data transactions opposed to AGP's one way. If you want to talk about mainstream graphic cards, then you'll most likely be talking about putting them on PCI-E 2.0 boards which are double the transfer rate. Given such conditions it will take different issues to cause a bottleneck on PCI-E vs an AGP bus.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 2 (view)

Older Dual Cores processors now bottleneck even mainstream graphics cards Posted: 8/21/2009 2:17:34 PM
Well when it comes to AGP is a one way transfer, even at 8x AGP rate you still have to wait for the upstream to finish before opening a downstream, factor in the CPU processing what's going in and out and you have every small state/parameter change creeping up to bite you in the butt. Honestly it's not to fair to compare newer and older GPU-CPU mixes without considering the state changes going on, some of them require a significant amount of CPU time to calculate the deltas that get sent to the GPU.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 121 (view)

Video games. Oh you play them too. Posted: 8/21/2009 2:05:12 PM
Recently started to play Tales of Vesperia and I'm a bit less than impressed. It's leaps better than the last major game of the series published in the US Tales of Legendia, but still lacking that touch that makes Tales of games what they are. Graphically it's amazing outside of the night time areas looking a tad bit to dark; there's also the text, only one of the 3 fonts looks even halfway decent on a SD tv, can't wait to find the cable to hook it up to my monitor as I'm sure it'll look much better on an HD display. The battle system of the game leaves much to be desired when your playing alone however, the AI isn't nearly as smart as it was in Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Symphonia, but if you play with at least 1 or 2 other people it gets to be loads better once you crank up the difficulty. I've been glancing at my bro playing Star Ocean 4, very odd for that series, they seem to have strayed away from the cartoon look of the series and moved toward realism, which isn't bad as it looks great (after all it is an artist oriented game engine). I'm putting off playing it until I finish Vesperia though.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 16 (view)

Twinkle twinkle little black hole Posted: 8/21/2009 1:53:35 PM
I see the misconception that a black hole has infinite mass. Considering they draw their mass from the objects they absorb their mass is obviously finite. What is arguably infinite however is their density, but well there's a few theories on spatial compression that suggest inside the singularity space expands to accommodate the matter being injected while on the outside it remains a constant unimaginably small size.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 5 (view)

Geographical distances Posted: 8/15/2009 6:58:18 PM
That distance system sure is buggy, or not being applied to the things it should be. I have mine set for the lowest distance for awhile now but consistently get matches from well outside of that range. Majority of the matches come up in the right distance though, so it's not failing completely, just failing enough to be noticed every set of matches.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 18 (view)

What laptop do YOU recommend? Posted: 8/15/2009 6:53:36 PM
I would really recommended staying away from HP laptops. If you get one from HP that doesn't work properly, you'll get a hell of a lot of run around bout just getting it repaired. If you try to go after the refund policy like I did, you get even worse runaround. If your wondering the refund policy is only valid after 30 days when they breach the terms of the warranty, which they did four times in the 3 year warranty period but it was just twice when I went to go after it (around 8 months in), I even have a recording on the phone with two of their techs that agree the warranty was breached by them. When I tried to get the help of a business authority to go after them, they were telling me they first need a couple thousand cases to convince their higher ups to take the case, at the time when I talked with them they had roughly 1500 cases revolving around the same experience I had with them. The authority did however help me get them to fill the part of the warranty about getting a new model when enough problems arise to prove the model I bought was defective, however now I have a slightly better model that has the exact same problem. Can't use Windows on it because the chipset on the board that handles storage transactions causes serious corruption, have to use Linux for the active file repair which slows it down big time.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 25 (view)

NASA Unlikely to Send Astronaut to Moon by 2020 Posted: 8/15/2009 6:38:44 PM
Whoever said Jesus comes to save the people of Earth. While I don't subscribe to Christian beliefs I still leave it as one possibility in my mind even though it is a bit absurd. The bible talks of him returning to the WORLD, they didn't use the word planet, or anything else that means planet, but world. World holds a broad definition when it comes to talking about the creations of someone else, I know when I talk world of my stories I write it's meant to reflect all of the places those within the stories inhabit, otherwise planet or a similar word works much better. This isn't meant to flame you or anything, just to point out the word choice might hold much more meaning then you give it credit for. -- It is kind of sad they are having such difficulty returning humans to the moon, but at the same time I'm on the bandwagon for unmanned exploration because well then we have longer to collect data. I do think their money they keep putting up for manned missions would be better spent on new robotic technology that can explore a wider range. At least then people could stop complaining of their slow returns on society as such robotics would be very helpful in saving people from places where it's to risky to send in humans, I'm sure we all know those researchers that already work on such things need a lot more help to get their ideas up and running, what better help than from a space authority that could use those things to explore other planets in our system to find potentially helpful resources.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 8 (view)

Digital/usb tablets? Posted: 8/14/2009 11:32:59 PM
Another option is what I did, empty a pen of it's contents, stick a led in the end of it, screw on the cap to hold the led in place, then attach a couple hearing aid batteries for power. Then you take a box, cover it with printer paper, cut a hole in the bottom, stick a webcam in that hole. The next part is the difficult part for most people, go to a coding site and find a tutorial or paper that helps explain motion recognition (I used a paper that was aimed at FTIR devices but adapted it) set up the software to gauge the distance the light from the pen on the paper has moved via the webcam to view it, then add that distance to the mouse cursor making a call into the windows api to move to the cursor (which is perhaps the easier part of the software). Works awesomely, I can even adjust the speed with a slider the adds on a multiplier. Those USB tablets however are really good, I had a Pablo Pad a long time ago. The only problem I have with tablets are they are expensive to get one of any significant size, which for me is important as I made a lot of wide strokes in my artwork.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 26 (view)

Where would the planes go Posted: 8/14/2009 11:26:23 PM
Oort "cloud" is a term that must not be taken in our everyday literal sense. If you could go there and have a look, you wouldn't see hardly anything at all! (The "particles/objects" that make up that "cloud" are so sparse that you'd have to travel many many many miles to just go from one to another.) That I understand, but that thing is massive not just in radial area but also in depth. Sure the objects are spread pretty far from each other, but there's just so many of them I imagine it's hard to dodge without a person or collision avoidance system. The sun's gravity is something I hadn't considered though, it wouldn't be much but given the time to travel to just mars at normal flight speed I could see them getting pulled back into it. Sure space is full of all kinds of really cool stuff, just not the kind of cool stuff that holds the average persons interest (which is what star trek does, makes up stuff that can hold the average persons interest).

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 48 (view)

how long till we destroy our planet Posted: 8/14/2009 11:10:37 PM
I think mona is a perfect example of how religion and not the consumerism mentality has caused the problems we face to become entirely possible. Religion shifts the blame out of scope with a potential savior in one form or another. It fits well with the mentality that you can not do anything, that a higher authority (be it government or god) will step in and do something. Some people mention automobiles, but seriously how often have you driven less than 2 miles to a store only to buy something that would fit easily into a backpack or on a wagon. I know my households entire food supply for a week could fit comfortably on one of those deep red rider wagons. I find it aggravating I can't convince the people that I shop with (we all prepare food together so need them present to help pick out the meals) to do such a thing, especially considering the stores we purchase our food from are all within 10 minutes walking distance with sidewalks all the way. But when it comes to myself, I rarely ever drive anymore, mostly toss on a pair of skates or drag my bike up from the basement and use that, it's cheaper, helps keep me healthy, and helps a little bit with our environmental problems. I think if more people did the same we'd also see the side effect of fuel decreasing in price due to having more supply available to fill the demand, and in turn goods in the stores being slightly cheaper with the added budget lower fuel prices would give us.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 17 (view)

Where would the planes go Posted: 8/13/2009 8:35:33 AM
I imagine without the Earth's gravity to curves the planes perspective of a straight line, and without gravity (or atmosphere) to provide a counter-force to acceleration. The plane would gain significant amounts of speed up until the point the oxygen in the engines is exhausted. In all likely hood a few of the planes would travel until they hit the Oort cloud, at which point they would most get smashed to pieces.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 5 (view)

Start of the Universe via white hole? Posted: 8/13/2009 8:10:58 AM
I think there is much less evidence, theoretical or observed, that supports white holes even exist than there is to support the big bang. The one thing I have a hard time with when people mention white holes is their proposed link to a black hole. As I understand physics in order to have gravity you must first have mass. A black hole works because the singularity at it's core has gained enough mass to exert massive amounts of gravity over objects within it's range. If there was a white hole linked up with a black hole that would remove mass, the black hole would not be capable of extending it's area of effective gravity. Like many other things people accept as established science, it sounds good in science fiction, but has a lot of really basic holes.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 12 (view)

AGP still lives on? Posted: 8/11/2009 12:18:12 PM
Developers are skipping 6-8 core cpus and planning to release 12 core chips in 2010. solely for the purpose of super servers not gaming or entertainment. There are already super servers around that have 256 logical cores (spread across multiple cpus I'd imagine). http://www.geeks3d.com/public/jegx/200901/task-mgr-displays-256-cores-big.jpg - image of a windows server running 256 cores. ---- AGP 8x is still pretty good for bandwidth, I always test my game engine on my old AGP 8x system after major changes to the graphical stuff just to make sure I'm not pushing it to far and it's pretty rare that I wind up having to optimize any differently than I normally do on my PCI-E 16x system. The multithread argument is a moot point imo, you simply can't access the GPU from multiple threads at once in Direct3D9 due to limitations of the API; however with Direct3D10 on up you can but in a limited fashion. How many games out there today actually use Direct3D10 without legacy support for Direct3D9? I can only think of 3 off the top of my head.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 14 (view)

POLL: How many of you have DISABLED Microsoft Updates? Posted: 8/11/2009 12:01:53 PM
I don't see why windows update would cause wear and tear on the hard drive, it downloads the updates, installs them, then leaves it be. The average user gets more data copied into their PC by a web browser (just surfing the net as usual) than with the windows updater. My net traffic yesterday is logged as 532mb after removing an online game's traffic from it; 70% of that 532mb is just images that were used on websites, however small they are with how many of them there are they add up quickly; I imagine people that visit myspace get a lot higher traffic than that from the music folks post on their pages there. The anti-virus and spybot will put more use on your hard drive than windows update will, of that I am certain. My preference however is to only let it auto-install security updates, there is nothing I hate more than being in the middle of working on some project just to have "Your computer will restart in 5 minutes to finish installing updates." pop up and distract me. I usually check windows update (via the tool built into control panel) manually once a month and grab any of the ones I really need.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 12 (view)

Morphic Fields do they exist ? Posted: 8/11/2009 11:47:37 AM
Sounds like a load of crap to me. The lab rat test mentioned doesn't make any sense because you can have one rate that is just good at pattern recognition, another that has diminished eyesight making it more difficult to see, simply to many factors can influence it for a single test to prove/disprove it. I really think the originator of that idea probably had a community in mind, after all the more people there are that understand a given subject the more opinions and views there are available to students of that subject. My guess would be the incarnation of the idea posted comes about from the tendency of humans not wanting to learn something but still be capable of understanding it, trying to give justification to throwing away the manual then asking questions on how it work.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 15 (view)

Should Mythology be completely ignored ? Posted: 8/10/2009 10:41:16 AM
Well tall2012 I think the information about mythological characters is passed around really well throughout history. It's beyond coincidence when you look at all the similarities between mythological characters from different cultures, even down to the stories of their relation to other mythological characters. Probably the most largely recycled are "son of god" (this one takes the cake at roughly 500 replications), Gilgamesh, and the pantheon of gods.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 10 (view)

What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature? Posted: 8/9/2009 1:47:07 AM
The most amazing property I've ever seen is in ferrofluids, they function on the very simple attract-repel rules of magnetism, but due to the size of the individual magnetic particles that comprise the fluid create such wicked patterns from even simple magnetic influence. One of the cooler experiments I seen with them was an animated display that not only showed motion but also depth to a small degree.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 43 (view)

How did you escape from the monster in your dreams ? Posted: 8/6/2009 9:42:51 PM
I don't ever remember escaping from a single monster in my dreams, they always catch up eventually, perhaps it's the source of my lack of control on sleep schedule. The monsters of my dreams ranges from little fluffy black soot creatures hiding large fangs to disturbed children performing tragedies. I wouldn't mind a more traditional monster like a giant slimy beast at this point, it's a bit disconcerting the normally innocent things my mind can turn into frightening monsters. Most recent was a little girl around 12 that has crazy psychokinetic abilities, she was nearly catatonic after having witnessed much torture, but trying to reach out to others; every attempt she's made in the couple dreams I remember her appearing in has resulted in tragedy. Only one dream has she affected me, I wasn't aware I was dreaming and was very frightened when I found my body moving but I couldn't so much as speak, all the while I could still feel, smell, see, and hear everything.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 42 (view)

UNDERGROUND BASES ? Posted: 8/6/2009 7:02:26 AM
Chronos 1985 where did all the dirt go As I said the Hoover Dam has a tail race which can sweep away all the excavation material. I didn't ask where it went, I provided a perfectly logical place after putting the question up so it'd be clear what exactly I was talking about. Guess I failed on clarity.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 46 (view)

How accurate can carbon dating truly be? Posted: 8/4/2009 6:48:12 PM
How do you know that it has a half-life of 100, 000 years when we haven't even been studying them for more than a 100? The exact same way we can measure how long it will take you to travel 50 miles along a straight line if you were traveling at a rate of 5 miles per hour. Just take a sample, the longer it's taken the better, and measure the decay, from there you can apply very simple math to determine how long it'll take for half of it to decay or it's half life.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 77 (view)

Why do guys love porn so much??? Posted: 8/2/2009 8:45:46 PM
I find it absolutely hysterical how many people claim to be against porn but will rush to the theaters for that next even bloodier horror movie. There's something seriously wrong with folks that will watch someone get disemboweled on a monster sized projected screen but go bonkers over something like porn. I also find it ridiculous for someone to turn away their partner for porn, I'm wondering what porn it is they are watching though, that's gotta be some good stuff.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 25 (view)

What would happen on the Earth if Humans became Extinct ? Posted: 8/1/2009 11:42:53 PM
With how tightly we've wound ourselves into the world, there would be long lasting effects if humans were no longer present. I do believe eventually the world will recover, but not after a lot of really bad stuff happens that completely alters the climate and various ecosystems due to resources we tend to hoard into one place that are extremely dangerous when regular upkeep isn't performed.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 9 (view)

Do you believe that our world here in North America is too free? Posted: 8/1/2009 11:36:44 PM
I think we are far from free in North America, and pretty much the entire world for that matter. Voluntary slavery to the monetary system (which loses voluntary status the minute you decide to no longer take part in it), it's rare that people actually get into a job they enjoy, and it's frightening how many live day to day working their butt off to end up skipping a bill or two just so that they can afford a tiny bit of luxury. Nearly forced style and fashion, if you don't subscribe to the popular images (which there are plenty to choose from at least) then you are shunned and treated like you do not belong in society effectively limiting where you can go and when you can go there. Bearing arms to protect yourself, yeah right, the second you use it your facing a life of running or jail time even if the victim truly deserved it and was threatening your life. Say something the wrong way and you'll face a number of character assault, some of which lead again to jail time. For each rule or law you abide by, you are accepting a loss of freedom, it's not a complaint or flame, it's simply a fact.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 41 (view)

Calculation Posted: 8/1/2009 10:53:36 AM
It would grow with some proportionality to 2^n and would make for even steeper differences at its far end. There's a simple bitwise mechanic to generate those called a left shift: 1<<0=2, 1 <<1=4, 1<<2=8, etc. It probably wouldn't be fun to play though unless the experience given by opponents worked on a similar mechanic.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 40 (view)

Calculation Posted: 8/1/2009 10:43:13 AM
As someone who is currently building an RPG code and all I can tell you right now a formula wont be of much use in the final product. During play testing you'll find levels commonly called hell-levels in gaming terms, where you need to tweak the amount for just that level or a small range of them. You could use a sin graph to start with, then keep the output around for tweaking later. Using sin you would specify the coordinate as (pi / 2) / (level / max level). It should give you an even spread from 0.0 to 1.0, from there you can use a array of adjustment values to multiply them by. This way your levels 0 through 50 will be a small slope then hike upward big time for 50 to 99, which is what most of these commercial RPGs tend to do.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 11 (view)

Is it Time to Scrap Public Education? Posted: 8/1/2009 10:35:21 AM
I don't see why the private sector wouldn't get involved. Let's say you have a gifted young student who's going to go on to university and get a degree in medicine, physics, engineering, what have you. Much like the military, said youngster could trade say a guarenteed 4 years of service for said company in order to have their education paid for. Indentured slavery? Why am I not surprised to see a rightwinger support slavery? I don't see it as indentured slavery as long as a contract is laid out defining full well the terms both parties must uphold, perhaps even an escape clause that the person accepting the contract would be billed for the remaining unpaid amount. I would gladly trade 4 years of labor to a company that's in the field I attend school for in order to have that schooling paid for. Especially considering the companies that are capable of footing the bill are usually the ones the students would like a shot at joining.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 13 (view)

Braille on drive-up ATMS and other foolishness Posted: 7/31/2009 10:53:56 AM
There is a blind guy near where I used to live that gets a ride to the atm, they usually pull up passenger side to the atm (it's not in a one way drive way). I imagine there's similar scenarios all around the world. But for the most part AwP nailed it, it would cost a bit more to keep making molds for two sets of buttons than it would for just one.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 3 (view)

My computer's CD player..... Posted: 7/31/2009 1:18:31 AM
Another option is a cd-cleaner, don't both with the liquids they come with, instead just use the disc that has a brush glued to it. Don't use a cheap one either, 90% of the time those cheap cd-cleaner disc have plastic bristles that make tiny scratches on the lens that cause your computer to work much more to read data accurately.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 25 (view)

I have a question about reflections. Posted: 7/31/2009 1:10:11 AM
Well you have to consider two things in that scenario (ignoring the absorbent of the mirror surface). The speed of light is unbelievably fast, the speed at which our brains process images is significantly slower, on a factor of 16 milliseconds to process your full field of vision. A lot of the motion we perceive is nothing more than your brain filling in the gaps with all the available information your senses provide for you, similar to how an online game with a lot of lag will show characters running one way then another way because they turned while it predicted they were going straight, it just happens so fast in our brains that we don't get artifacts like that except in very extreme conditions. There's also the angle of incidence. Your body is not flat, as such it's reflecting light at odd angles, to further distort those angles light scatters under the skin and leaves at counter intuitive angles when considering the angle of entry. The surface of the mirror isn't completely smooth either, at microscopic level there are grooves in the mirror's surface, even micro fractures that allow light to pass straight through it. There's also the crystalline structures in the glass causing light to bounce around inside the glass before it leaves, again changing the angle of exit. When you consider all the trigonometry involved with reflectance it's nothing short of a miracle that mirrors even work at such high detail.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 5 (view)

just a third person perspective on thingsmm Posted: 7/31/2009 1:01:52 AM
It's really going to take some huge changes which I believe a lot of us will see in our life times to straighten it all out. We have the resources and knowledge to solve a lot of the large problems today, but due to hoarding and retardation (greed just doesn't cover how stupid it is) those resources are held in the hands of the fortunate few. The biggest hurdle is obviously humans, it's pretty obvious when you look at history that no matter how great a leader may be, they only consider themselves and their domain.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 10 (view)

Windows 7 RTM already cracked using an OEM master key. Posted: 7/30/2009 10:03:12 PM
This reminds me of the multimillion dollar security Sony put into the client for Everquest a few years back. It was out for not even a day before hackers found a way around it, now it's routinely cracked after each major update.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 5 (view)

Could ARM lure Microsoft away from Intel ? Posted: 7/30/2009 10:00:35 PM
When it comes to CPU choice for an OS, feature set is what's most important. X86 and PPC processors are really the only ones that offer the range of features you can anticipate in a home system. My programmable router has an ARM processor (not sure which model), I find it frustrating some of the missing instructions I'm used to on a PC, ends up with code that perform much better in some areas, but incredibly more complex in others. It also has a significantly higher cost to failed if's, on par with what you encounter in commercial GPUs; that alone has a huge impact seeing as in modern software you have a lot of if and switch conditionals that rely upon a quick recovery from failure to continue smooth execution.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 21 (view)

**_____Daily maintenance-- DISK Defragmentors____** Posted: 7/30/2009 9:54:34 PM
I realize VT testing for software & patches in a production environment when you can duplicate the real thing usually works fine, the problem with testing client software in my VM is that I can't duplicate all of my client's hardware/software environments, so I try to make it as real as I can on a real machine (when I used to do a lot of repairs, I would sometimes test software on a an HP w/OEM software & on a Dell w/OEM software & had an extra 'test drive' HDD for both machines.) That's exactly the boat I'm stuck in with testing my game engine. Can't depend on VMs to pull it off because the extra abstraction ruins Direct3D and OpenGL routines, it also ruins the scheduling for threads making it next to impossible to test performance under the desired situation. It does however emphasize the CPU bottlenecks.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 24 (view)

Instant Manifestation = I don't understand my man Posted: 7/30/2009 6:07:21 PM
On some level it is true. We are after all composed of the very things that are around us. However there is an extreme in believe "I am the universe" where it breaks away from the abstract concept that we are the universe and the universe is us, and becomes narcissism. As I like to think of it, we are an extension of the universe which is only temporary, in order for it to know and understand itself we manifest to provide the problem solving. I view even the useless seeming animals in the same way, in some form they are trying to understand the world around them at the same time the world around them is learning to understand itself in a new way. It's a difficult concept to explain as it's full of abstracts.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 58 (view)

Thought experiment... Posted: 7/30/2009 6:03:01 PM
If an animal is programmed with an innate will to survive, wouldn't that also include protecting its environment? Aren't humans the only breed that do not follow this behavior? Well I don't think it's that we lack the innate will to maintain our environment. I think it's our darker behavior, specifically the ability to rationalize just about anything that leads to use destroying our environment. We also have the follow the leader behavior that allows us to follow the flawed people just because they are issuing commands with an authoritative tone. Unfortunately the will to survive is easily subdued when you consider all the other forms of wills we posses.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 3 (view)

Tech News Posted: 7/30/2009 1:04:43 PM
What do you think....is closed source/proprietary software more secure? Open or closed source makes no difference when it comes to security. The only thing it protects is the ego of a developer that falsely believes their way of doing things is so advanced compared to others that it can't be leaked. There are of course a couple cases where that is true, but for 99% of the software you encounter that is "closed for security" it is massively untrue. Case in point would be encryption algorithms, most commonly used encryption algorithms are published and explained in great detail in free media, yet there are a handful of those widely published algorithms that are regarded as unbreakable due to the amount of time it would take to break through the encryption without a sizable portion of the original key. Microsoft has weird choices however in what to hide and what not to, take a look at the .Net Framework using a reflection program. You find the strangest things secured (as in it looks like total unreadable garbage due to security measures), but yet other things that could be used for malicious programs left wide open for all to see.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 17 (view)

**_____Daily maintenance-- DISK Defragmentors____** Posted: 7/30/2009 12:50:08 PM
Oh my, I sure hope you don't defragment daily. That would only put unnecessary wear and tear on your disc drives. Once a month is plenty for the average PC user, maybe once a week if you add/remove data a whole lot. Background defragmentation is only really necessary if your serving files to a network of some sort, otherwise it's on par with daily defragments and will cause further wear and tear. It can be the difference between having a drive last several years and having it only last a few months.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 41 (view)

Thought experiment... Posted: 7/30/2009 12:38:36 PM
random, light-blocking earthquakes. I think there is a massive dose of philosophy in that, so much that I find it hard to stop laughing. --- My first order of business would be to determine if the ant's even have the concept of greeting. I would monitor with every type of instrument I could possibly use without injuring them while they interacted with each other to determine if there is a pattern that would indicate a greeting system. If they do turn out to have a greeting the process of figuring that out would most likely reveal what it is and perhaps even how to use it properly.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 47 (view)

What do you believe about creation before man? Posted: 7/30/2009 12:30:11 PM
If we were such superior beings before life on Earth, why didn't we bring the technology with us when we found Earth to be inhabitable and traveled here? That's not the context of my opinion, I was simply pointing out the impermanence of commonly used materials in comparison to the oldest 'human' remains found. I will back down from that question though as the scenarios I imagine currently involve to many assumptions about what these hypothetical pre-Earth humans would be like.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 29 (view)

What do you believe about creation before man? Posted: 7/30/2009 4:46:17 AM
How would we have left no trace on another planet that not only could it have sustained human life, but that it did? I believe it is a possibility we started on a different planet, say Mars for argument sake. So with that in mind I choose to answer your question. Take a look at Detroit Michigan, videos or pictures will suffice. You'll notice a huge part of the city that is a complete disaster, looks like the setting for a post apocalyptic world. Now imagine what it will look like in 50 more years, then 100 more after that, and 1000 more after that. Point being it didn't take long for that part of the city to get so run down and decrepit, it took simply a lack of human's performing upkeep. Look at the pyramids of Egypt, those things are only a few thousand years old but slowly by wind alone are being demolished, in 50,000 years they probably wont be there regardless of our efforts to preserve them. Keeping in mind just how impermanent the building materials we use are. The oldest bones of our ancestors are around 195,000 years old. So that suggest humans in one form or another would have to have migrated here at least 195,000 years ago in such a scenario. That's plenty of time for say the hypothetical ruins on Mars to become nothing more than dust blowing over the surface, even if they used strong building materials that are rarely used for construction today.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 26 (view)

The Big/little bang,,,are we being decieved??? Posted: 7/27/2009 12:40:48 AM
So don't let them bamboosle you with science Science exist in text books and journals in order for you to evaluate it for yourself. If you fail to understand something it does not make it wrong, nor does a good explanation make it right. However insulting a theory that had as many intellectual contributors as big bang theory is petty at best. It seems more like your having trouble accepting the creation theory/story that you currently subscribe to and want to pick apart others just to validate your own, that's not how science works.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 2 (view)

Ageia Physx Card Posted: 7/26/2009 6:17:54 PM
I never bought one because I had a feeling nVidia or ATI would integrate something similar, they still hold advantage over using a second graphics card as a Physx card though. The Physx card's don's suffer from the 32-bit accuracy limitation of graphic cards, sure most graphic cards these days can use 64 and even 128-bit targets for their storage, but the math is still done in 32-bit floats. Physx as I understand it does all of it's math in 128-bit structures, along with a lot of optimizations that dwarf the optimizations put onto a graphics card.

chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004

Msg: 7 (view)

An Intel Socket 478 motherboard with DDR2 and PCI-Ex? Posted: 7/26/2009 6:08:06 PM
Prob for the ones that can't bare to part ways with their Socket 478 Pentium 4 HT EE. Exactly what I was thinking, I have a P4 HT that is in the PC I let my mother use, it holds up pretty well against a core 2 duo in benchmarking. The version I have is 3.2ghz (easily overclocks to 4ghz when extra power is needed), most of these newer pentium chips are between 2 and 3ghz, so it's got the raw power to make up for the missing features. Never knew I could get a PCI-E board for them, currently it's on an AGP board with a Geforce 7800. Yeah even the Celeron 1500 Dual Core will now beat any Pentuim 4 processor that was ever made on the market, which is baiscly a crippled Core 2 Duo E64xx. I have yet to find a celeron that keeps up with my old P4 HT. Maybe if the P4 HT was on a board with a bad chipset, but on an equal footing they easily outperform the celeron series. The best test I've found are Source engine games, those games tend to use more CPU power than GPU, I can still crank the graphics to full on the P4 HT machine and get 50 to 60fps during normal play, heavy scene drop it down to 30 but that's still playable. Every celeron system I've ran a Source engine game across is lucky to get above 30fps on medium detail.

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