"Of course, this comparison is also patently unfair -- Windows 7 was written in the 2000s, X11 was written in the 1980s. Expecting them to be comparable in terms of security is pretty ridiculous."

Which could be a good argument for replacing X. It is rather old technology, perhaps it is time to update it to something newer, rather than clinging to it and claiming it is all one needs.

Consumers are fine. The only benchmark that matters to a normal consumer is "How fast does it run my games?" and the answer for the 970 is "Extremely damn fast." It offers performance quite near the 980, for most games so fast that your monitor's refresh rate is the limit, and does so at half the cost. It is an extremely good buy, and I say this as someone who bought a 980 (because I always want the highest end toy).

Some people on forums are trying to make hay about this because they like to whine, but if you STFU and load up a game the thing is just great. While I agree companies need to keep their specs correct, the idea that this is some massive consumer issue is silly. The spec heads on forums are being outraged because they like to do that, regular consumers are playing their games happily, amazed at how much power $340 gets you these days.

They support two prior versions of OS-X and that's it. So OS-X 10.7, released 3 years ago, is unsupported as of October 2014. I guess that works if you have the attitude of just always updating to the latest OS, but it can be an issue for various enterprise setups that prefer to version freeze for longer times, or for 3rd party software/hardware that doesn't get updated. Also can screw you over if Apple decides to change hardware like with the PPC to Intel change.

Between a bit better language design and superior support and tools, CUDA is way easier to do your work in. We've 4 labs that use CUDA in one fashion or another, none that use OpenCL. A number have tried it (also tried lines like the Cell cards that IBM sold for awhile) but settled on CUDA as being the easiest in terms of development. Open standards are nice and all but they've got shit to do and never enough time to do it, so whatever works the easiest is a win for them.

On a different side of things, I've seen less issues out of nVidia on CUDA than AMD on OpenCL for video editing. Sony Vegas supports both for accelerating video effects and encoding. When I had an AMD card, it was crashes all the time with acceleration on. Sony had to disable acceleration on a number of effects with it. I had to turn it off to have a usable setup. With nVidia, I find problems are very infrequent.

Obviously this is one one data point and I don't know the details of development. However it is one of the few examples I know of a product that supports both APIs.

NTSC stuff is so bad when viewed on a large TV. It is amazing how blurry things look when you flip back and forth between the HD and SD channels. That is part of what lead to the rise of big screen TVs was actually having content for them. With NTSC, a large TV just meant a big blurry image. With ATSC it can mean a nice large image.

Why shouldn't they continually improve their products? Even with NTSC sets this was done. New ones would be larger, have better focus, more clearly resolve the signal, have better phosphors, and so on. Why shouldn't this continue? They should keep trying to improve their products as technology allows.

None of that means you need to buy a new toy all the time though. You can stick with what you have until it breaks, or until the new stuff is a big enough leap that you wish to own it.

I think a lot of the whining from people comes down to simple jealousy. They'd like to own the new stuff, but cannot afford it, or do not wish to. So they try and hate on it and act like a luddite. You see it practically any time Slashdot has a story on new technology. People complain about it like it is somehow a bad thing that there might be something new.

Most panels in higher end screens are actually real 120fps panels. However that is just used for 3D and for reduced motion blur. The only set I know that advertises support for 120fps input is Vizio. Others could do it, if they wanted to, however.

As you say, the issue with higher refresh rates isn't in the display technology.

Part of it is just getting people used to the idea I think. We've seen shitty, jerky, frame rates in moves for so long people start to associate that with being "cinematic". People need to get used to the idea that's bullshit and maybe they'll start to like it more.

Hopefully sports and such will get shot at 60fps some day and that may help.

You know, when something says that we are so close to destruction for over half a century... well you have to wonder why anyone would put any stock in it. It is a bit hard to reconcile with being on the edge of destruction, and yet everything continuing to not be destroyed.

Thing thing is if you go and look at benchmarks of the cards in actual games, you find out the 970 wrecks shit, particularly given its price point. The 980 is an overpriced luxury (I say this as a 980 owner) because the 970 gets nearly the same performance for like half the price. The difference with its memory controller just doesn't seem to matter in actual games out there on the market.

And that's the real thing here the the spec head forget: You buy these to run actual software. If it does well on all actual software, then who gives a shit about the details?

He may well have been as smart as he thought (I'm not saying that is the case for sure, mind) but turns out others were smart enough, and more knowledgeable in the ways that mattered.

Hans Reiser is a good example. Man is unquestionably very smart. However, he had the geek hubris that I call SMFU, Smartest Motherfucker in the Universe syndrome. He figured he was so much smarter than everyone else, he could easily get away with his crime. Turns out that the police have some smart people too, and those people know a lot more about criminal investigation than he did.

Right in that yes, they already have a lot of evidence, and are just working to seal the deal. They like to have everything in a row and an overwhelming amount of evidence before going to trial.

Wrong about the contempt thing. If you look it up in the US you find out that the courts have decided the 5th amendment applies to passwords. So you can keep your mouth shut and they can't compel you to hand over a password. If it is locked with something physical like a key fob or fingerprint, that you have to hand over. Basically if something is solely in your mind, they can't compel you to hand that over if it can be used against you.

The FBI may not be all up to date on the latest technologies and they aren't great at dealing with things purely in the digital world. However they are one of, if not the best investigative organizations in the world. They have a lot of experience investigating crimes of all kinds, often committed by experienced criminal organizations that are quite clever.

So there's a good chance if they are interested in getting you, they will. They are quite literally professionals at it, and they institutionally learn from their experience. You very well may know a lot more about computers than they do, but they almost certainly know way more about criminal investigations than you do.

What I am presuming the GP is going for as an analogy is that there was a real Saint Nicholas, but that there is also a false legend surrounding the real man that is far grander and more common.

Not perhaps the best analogy.

"I believe that the Earth is getting warmer, however I do not find sufficient evidence to show that this will be a net bad thing for humanity. Further I do not believe that the proposed measures are the wisest course of action, and we should be investigating alternatives such as geoengineering. In any case we should not act yet, as we do not have a solid enough model of what will happen and the net impact on humanity."

They can easily find a way to say "I support science, but think that this issue isn't clear cut."

Goes double if the people who are doing the vote try and make it a black and white issue. If they try to make it an issue where you either have to support everything they say, or you are an evil denier of all science, it'll be much easier for people to abstain and have a good argument.

Science is just a process for knowing about the natural universe. It never gives us guidance on what we should do, it only tells us what is, and lets us predict what will be. What to do is always policy and politics. You can have a matter in which there is complete agreement on facts and theory, yet a disagreement on what we should do about it. While a solid scientific theory backed by good facts could tell us what is likely to happen if we take a certain action (or if we do not take an action) we then have to judge that result and how we value it. We have to look at the benefits and costs (everything has costs) and decide if we believe it is the best course of action, and on that point people may disagree.

That is, I think, a flaw many people make in talking about the AGW argument. They believe that since the facts (things like temperature and CO2 measurements) and the theory (the causal explanation of the relation of the facts) is solid in their estimation, that the course of action they believe should be taken is therefore scientific. That because there is a scientific theory at the core of what is happening, that means the conclusion they have reached is also scientific.

That's just not the case. Policy and politics aren't science. They can, and should, use science heavily to have good information as to the policy that is decided upon, but that policy is always a human construction, always a value judgement.