And yet another, which goes somewhat higher than that chart

http://twitpic.com/49mm4l

Adding one more level of abstraction always hurts performance. So the answer to your question "Does the game run?" is usually no. Not in a playable form anyway.

Thank you for dividing the world into two types of people: casual gamers and losers (/sarcasm)

What's wrong with enjoying the latest games? Nothing....your sad attempt to turn anyone who plays a game that is newer than 7 years old into some kind of waste of life is pathetic and offensive.

So are they implying that they'd rather develop a game for a very specific set of hardware? Seems like an awful business model to me. Two of the reasons console games look good with lower specs on their hardware is because they are designed solely for gaming, and their specs do not change throughout the life cycle of the device so there is no need to develop for a broad base of hardware types. On the other hand, PC hardware is constantly evolving and multitasking is always going on. Scrap the API and develop directly for hardware, and see what it gets you. A lot of angry customers once they upgrade their card and it doesn't work anymore.

Hmmm because nuclear plants *never* have to worry about something like RISK......I would think that a risk manager would be the one to evaluate the procedures used to contain a crisis, which is what he is describing.

It takes a little more power to push water into a high pressure container than to power a hot dog stand......

I applaud this explanation, though I would like add a slight detail. Another huge complication at Chernobyl was the presence of graphite, which is flammable and sent radioactive smoke into the upper atmosphere. Now, no reactors use graphite as a moderator anymore. It is certainly not present at Fukushima.

It doesn't actually state what he does. It says he is a "research scientist." Maybe he is researching nuclear energy, or perhaps he consulted his father? Those seems like reasonable possibilities.

I have trouble trusting this article at all. For one thing, it says it cannot be confirmed if any of the reactors use MOX fuel. Um....they've been saying that reactor 3 uses MOX fuel for days now. Where has the Times been? Other than that it is generally vague about a timeline or any evidence that it "could last for months."

Hmmmm could it perhaps have something to do with the fact that the entire area lies in god-forsaken ruin?

Yes, there is rationing, though it was largely avoided today due to conserving efforts by train operators and large companies. 7 prefectures have been divided into 5 groups, which rotate among 3 hour power outages as needed. Today only group number 5 (5 - 7 pm) was needed. They are planning it again tomorrow, though. Since the trains are set to expand a bit, I assume that they will need to implement more of those outages.

Yes, this article is about the 2nd explosion at reactor number 3. So far there have been explosions at reactors 1 and 3. Reactor 2's building is still intact.

According to this Japanese article, TEPCO (the power company that runs the reactor) reports that at about 3:30 pm local time (1 hour 40 minutes ago) an explosion was heard and white smoke could be seen coming from the number 1 reactor. A few workers have been reported to be injured. :( http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110312/t10014627881000.html