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BTW, there's a saying in Norway: Better shut up and let people think you're an idiot than open your mouth and prove it.
Well dagsverre, I completely agree with you and although there are no sayings that I know of in Malaysia that say the same thing, I have my favourite quote:-
"Never ever prove your own Ignorance without being asked."
The area of a rectangle?
Let me see....
This is a rectangle 
code:[/quote]
<-length->|========| ^
| | |Height
| | |
|========| |This rectangle is enclosed so we can say the area has area.
Since it is enclosed, it should have a finite amount of area.Was this what you were trying to say, Fice?
No matter how small we divide the units of measurement(for the length or the height), the area for the rectangle stays finite.
Well, let me illustrate my idea further.Let's assume we take the example of an apple.
And we assume that the apple is the only form of mass in the universe
We again assume that the apple is of x mass.
Now, let's say 1 second later, I decide to smash the apple.
The apple is disfigured now
Now, after making some calculations, the smashed apple is still of x mass
After that, the smashed apple decides to travel back to the past.
When it travels back to 1 second ago before it was smashed, there will be now a total mass of 2x at that second of time thus upsetting the whole mass of the universe at that time.
You see, the apple was only one second away from the smashed apple.
What if we divided a second into miliseconds?
Then we would have even more duplication of mass that "could" upset the balance of mass even more.
Now, back to the idea of unlimited "subdivision" of time (infinitely small units).
With such a division, there would be an infinite amount of mass, wouldn't it?
As you can see, at any moment of time, there can only be a finite amount of mass (the mass of one apple)
Since only a finite amount of mass "should" exist an any point of time, time travel would be illogical.
Do you follow me now?[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited April 17, 2001).]
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if you were to assume that there is no smallest unit in time, you will find that there is an unlimited amount of mass in the whole timeline. That shouldn't be the case, should it? I was also trying to put forward Terence's idea that the universe doesn't have any memory. If the universe doesn't have any memory, it doesn't keep any of the mass,matter or energy of the past. If the amount of mass, matter of energy is supposed to be constant, then the whole universe would be destroying itself and rebuilding itself in a whole analogous cycle. (Notice I don't use for the smallest unit of time since I'm gonna be corrected again)
Await my return
Assuming that there "isn't" a smallest unit in time, many physics laws would be broken.
Even if there isn't a smallest unit in time, it still does not prove my explaination wrong! If there isn't a smallest unit in time, time can only exist in two conditions; one that has infinite number of units and the other with no units at all making it one whole object by itself.
If time were to be indivisible and be a single object, then time would be indistinguishable between one second and the next. That would bring us to a condition that would be even worse;that the whole universe destroys and rebuilds mass and matter in an analogous cycle so there is no way time travel (back to the past) will be possible since there is no past to travel to in the first place.
If it were to be divisible into an infinite number of time frames, we would be getting a lot of zeros no matter what equation we make since anything divided by infinity is zero
Simply said, time travel would again be not possible in this condition either.
[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited April 15, 2001).]
Then, for every smallest unit of time that exists, there would be a copy of your self, wouldn't it? (something like a frame from an animation)
Using out assumption that time travel is possible, then it would be possible for every single "frame" of yourself in the entire existance of yourself to appear at specific time. Now consider every "copy" of yourself to have considerable mass. Wouldn't you have introduced new "mass" and upset the whole rule that an equilbrium in mass, matter and energy? Not only have you upset the equilibrium in your that "specific" time frame, other time frames would be affected too since they have loss the "mass" that was formerly you at that particular "time frame".
Even if the above-mentioned problem didn't occur, what if I decided to kill let's say myself? Would it affect my existance? It really depends on how we view time. If we see time as continuous loop, then killing myself would destroy the loop. A paradox would occur if I were to go back in time to kill myself since if I'm dead how would I kill myself? If we consider that every single "existance" of me in every time frame to be independant, then it "would" be possible to kill myself. That would mean that I'm assuming that time is an indefinite figure and it never goes through a loop. This would also mean that when I kill myself at let's say 10.00am (correct down to the smallest unit of time), i would create 2 possible futures for myself, one with me dead and one with me alive. That would make it possible for me to make an infinite number of futures for myself at that time. Should that be so, even if I could travel through time, how would I decide which future I would end up in?
If you ask me, travelling back to the past is not a likely thing to happen since you will upset most of Einstein's theory of Relativity and a whole lot of idea's in Physics. It is already a known fact that travelling in an object at a faster speed makes time progress at a slower rate, thus time appears to slow down for people within the object. Time passes as usual for people outside the object. Should we accelerate as near as possible to the speed of light, we would reach a stage where time passes at an extremely low rate. What we have to remember is that the speed of light is the speed limit of the universe so nothing "theoratically" can be faster than it. Let's assume we do somehow manage to break that rule and travel at the speed of light. That way, time completely stops within the object that is travelling. Your object would then be completely useless since no one within it can control it since time has stopped anyway. should you then decide that you would control the object externally so you can stop it, we still have a problem; we have not gone back in time, we have only made time not pass for us. What if we go faster than the speed of light then? It is assumed by many that if we go faster than the speed of light, we will move back in time. Note that this travelling back in time would only occur within the moving object and thus would be completely useless within the object. Should time travel backwards, wouldn't we be in trouble? Every object within the object was formally something else before that and should going into the past make them "really" go back to the past, then the objects would not exist in the first place would they? Looks like the only kind of thing that we're gonna get from this method of travelling through time would be "disaging" old objects into new ones?
Honestly, with the currect laws of physics time travel is nowhere near possible. I would elaborate longer with formulas and examples(though Qhimm's formula is a good one) but my exam is tomorrow 
Uhm, Threesixty, the only reason you see choppyness in Tech-TV is because the those videocam's that record it run at a different frequency compared to the TV which displays the PS2 graphics. In more detail, two different light sources have do not share the same wavelength start cycle and thus do not have coherence. This causes the picture to appear choppy. Simply said, both of the light sources (the TV and the vidcam) take and display pic's at a different rate thus making it appear choppy. Human eyes are different cause the picture's are retained in the brain so it is easier for our eyes to be tricked to see an animation. The vidcam on the other hand is not tricked and only displays what it records or actually sees. Just as a sidenote, PAL games on the PSX use a frame rate of 50 FPS while NTSC games uss a frame rate of 60 FPS. The PSX2 DOES NOT run at less than 30 FPS! 30FPS is only used for video display I believe.
Aaaah!!!
You still don't get it do you?
When the author actually said
"THIS INCREASES THE SIZE OF THE FILE BUT IMPROVES SPEED OF EXECUTION"
The part "THIS INCREASES THE SIZE OF THE FILE " means that the size of the file does increase.
The other part "BUT IMPROVES SPEED OF EXECUTION" means that the overall speed already includes the factors such as L1 and L2 cache. In other words, the latter is faster ON THE WHOLE.
If the 2nd part said "BUT IMPROVES SPEED OF COMPUTATION", it would mean that it only increases the speed of processing but the L1 and L2 cache factors have not been included thus it WILL be possible that the it may be faster.
cHiBiMaRuKo, what is the problem with you and the bandwidth problem? Don't you see? With only 64MB of DDR RAM for both the system and the video and main system bus, the system would not be efficient at all. Firstly, you will definately not flush all of the main systems bus info into the hard disk or it will just make the whole system SUPER SLOW. The idea of unified memory is exactly what the whole AGP idea revolves on. The AGP bus has sufficient bandwidth to access the system RAM but why doesn't it do it straight away and alleviate the problem of putting RAM chips onto the video card itself? This is because the RAM chips on the video card are usually faster and owned SOLELY by the video card. Let's assume that the Geforce 3 will have 64MB of onboard RAM minimum so wouldn't that already mean an advantage over the X-box?
Now lets look at the 2nd part, where you say swapping on the hard-disk works fast because of the advantage it has on the system bus. Please note that PC hard drives nowadays have access to what is called UDMA100 technology. The only reason you would require such technolgy or speed transfer is If your hard drive spins with at least 7200 rpm. Note also that the bus speed is not the limiting factor here. The hard drives only manage to reach the 100MB/s transfer limit when the acheive a BURST speed. Therefore even if you have a 2 million MB/s bus speed for hard-drives on the X-Box, it will not be of any use. Should you say Microsoft could easily put a 10000rpm hard drive into the X-box, think about it, if Microsoft were to that, how much do you think the X-box would cost? If Microsoft were to do that and still be able to make it cost less that $300, a lot of people would go out and buy it straight away but not for the console but just to salvage all the parts in the X-box. Please also remember that a hard drive is a physical read device that requires a motor and will never ever manage to match RAM. Swapping between RAM and the Hard Disk is a BAD IDEA cause RAM is at least 10 times faster than your hard disk. Swapping to the hard disk defeats the complete purpose of the fast processing speed doesn't it?
I'm running out of time again so I'll talk about the textures tomorrow if I can find the time.
About textures http://www.bleem.com/help/support/video/hardtext.html" TARGET=_blank>differences between the PC and the PSX
Ahaha, good, but as you have said above, and also the author want to point out, THIS INCREASES THE SIZE OF THE FILE BUT IMPROVES SPEED OF EXECUTION. By larger file size, more memory
would be needed for operation. Chances are high that, that L1 and L2 cache won't be able to hold all the data needed for execution, thus cache miss rate will be higher. Cache miss cost CPU cycles, I think you know that, and RISC speed advantage that it should have is gone anyway.
Note that the author stated "THIS INCREASES THE SIZE OF THE FILE BUT IMPROVES SPEED OF EXECUTION". Execution describes the whole process thus it includes factors such as L1 and L2 cache. If he said COMPUTATION instead of EXECUTION, the factors of L1 and L2 should be considered.
Here's some info you guys should read before actually arguing any further. All the info below has been picked from http://www.gamespot.com" TARGET=_blank>www.gamespot.com
What kind of CPU will it have?
Early rumors indicated that the X-Box would be powered by an AMD Athlon running at either 600 or 650MHz. However, in an eleventh-hour decision made by Microsoft, AMD was dropped in favor of Intel due to pricing and availability concerns. Microsoft has committed to an Intel Pentium III processor, but hasn't decided on a clock speed yet. At the very least, the X-Box will have a P3-600 at its heart.
What kinds of graphics chip will it have?
In another last minute decision, Microsoft dropped start-up GigaPixel in favor of Nvidia, which is a much more established graphics-chip manufacturer. The prototype unit showed by Microsoft during Gates' presentation was running an Nvidia NV15 chipset, but the final design will feature an even more powerful NV25.
How much system memory will the X-Box have?
The X-Box will have a unified memory architecture wherein the console will share 64 megabytes of DDR RAM for the video and main system bus. While this might seem a bit unorthodox, the X-Box's unified architecture will let developers fill nearly all 64MB with memory-hungry textures, eliminating the need for texture caching, which can tax the hard drive and system bus.
What about the OS?
The X-Box will run off a Windows 2000 variant in conjunction with DirectX 8. Microsoft's Seamus Blackley told GameSpot that the current Win2K kernel "is the size of a fly burp," and it will top out no larger than 500kb.
Will PC games be able to run on the X-Box?
Unfortunately, no. The X-Box is a standalone console and not a PC-in-a-box. As such, Microsoft will be setting up a licensing and quality-assurance business model like the ones currently in place at Sega, Nintendo, and Sony. However, because of the X-Box's x86 architecture and familiar OS and API, developers should be able to port over PC games to the X-Box (or vice versa) in a matter of weeks.
On the RISC and CISC topic, you might want to read this:-
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/content/14/18/tu1418.001.html" TARGET=_blank>RISC vs. CISC
I'm too lazy or rather I'm too buzy too type anymore, so that's all for now.
[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited March 09, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited March 09, 2001).]
quote from http://www.g256.com" TARGET=_blank>www.g256.com today
_________________________________________
MS to lose $2bn on Xbox
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Icenum Thursday March 8, 2001 3:04 AM Your Time
The Register has some darn interesting insight on MS and the XBox, good for consumers and bad for MS..Awwwww:
Merrill Lynch has come to the shock conclusion that Microsoft is going to lose a lot of money on Xbox. The console could drain up to $2 billion from the Beast of Redmond's coffers before break-even.
As the world+dog knows, consoles are sold at a loss in the early days, as manufacturers subsidise the low price points needed to drive sales of the machine.
Microsoft has yet to announce Xbox pricing, but most observers put it at around $250. Merrill Lynch reckons each console will cost around $375 to produce - simple maths tells you Microsoft is flushing $125 down the pan. The figure might be higher or lower depending on what Microsoft ultimatly asks punters to pay. The Xbox price tag isn't expected to be much higher than the $299 Sony currently charges for the PlayStation 2.
_________________________________________
[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited March 08, 2001).]
The main graphics chipset for the X-Box is joint developed by Nvidia and Microsoft. What's stopping Nvidia for doing the same thing for the PC?
Go to nvidia.com and readup, the geforce 3 is supposed to surpass or equal the xbox in everyway. If you're talking bout the RAM it uses, the GEFORCE 3 will not be using DDR RAM or RDRAM, it will be using something new.
The PS2 also is released "now" and that makes a difference. Besides, when Sony actually manages to provide enough PS2's for the market, the "latent" buyers will flood the market and with such a vast market the PS2 will surely win the X-Box
I remember someone saying that the programmers are lazy, right? Although the PC platform has a wide range of games and fantastic graphics, a lot of people still stick to the pixelated PS platform. Why? Ease of use and no such thing as big bugs. When programming the X-box, the same problem and attitude will apply thus causing the X-box to be failure. You might say the only reason PC programmes have big bugs is because PC's have many different hardware configs. True, but when Microsoft is in charge they will surely bring in all their stupid stuff like "DirectX 9.0 for X-box!" updates and programmers have to update their software and knowledge while X-box users have to make update to their bios of firmware. If that is the case, will the programmers ever master anything???
Look at it this way....
Eventhough Microsoft is a giant in the PC software industry, Sony itself is a giant in the gaming and electronics industry. So lets say money goes into marketing, who do you think will win? The X-box is made of components that are done by multiple companies so not much of the profit goes to Microsoft. For Sony, most but not all of the components are done by Sony themselves so most of the revenue goes to Sony. This also makes them become less dependant on suppliers.
So, what's the final verdict?
The PS2 will be a sure winner but only time will tell the fate of the X-Box. The X-Box has a chance of winning over the PS2 only if Microsoft plays its cards properly. But looking at Microsoft's performance lately, it really looks unlikely.
***EDIT***
Hey, I made it to the 9th page!!!
[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited February 19, 2001).]
http://pwp.maxis.net.my/zhenjock/images/wallb.jpg" TARGET=_blank>Full Size
http://pwp.maxis.net.my/zhenjock/images/walls.jpg" TARGET=_blank>50% Size
Neat eh?
Usually, my start taskbar is hidden, but if I didn't show it to you guys then it would look just like wallpaper. Look closely at the bottom left corner of my desktop. The transparent My Computer Icon is there.
I'll post my Win2K desktop later.
BTW, i started a new thread, (you might have noticed) but try not to post in it till Qhimm closes this one.
