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Keyrock

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Everything posted by Keyrock

  1. Apropos nothing, but the bitter irony of the two systems on extreme ends of the spectrum, communism and laissez faire capitalism, is that they both inevitably end up in the same exact spot, that spot being an oligarchy. The difference is that they take differing amounts of time to get there. Communism becomes an oligarchy immediately. The reason for this is that communism goes against a fundamental nature of humanity itself (competition) and the only way to enforce it is to have a highly centralized government with absolute power. Laissez faire capitalism will also eventually wind up in an oligarchy as those that succeed in the free market will, by virtue of their success, gain advantages, which in turn will allow them to succeed even more. Plus, as they gain wealth and power, they will inevitably bend the system to further their advantage even more, because power corrupts. So eventually you wind up with a small group of individuals (or corporations) that have amassed an overwhelming amount of wealth and power, it just doesn't happen immediately like with communism. So when far leftists say that capitalism is evil and the far rightists say that capitalism is the best choice, they're both kinda right. Until someone comes up with a better alternative (I've yet to hear one), the best choice seems to be capitalism that is regulated and a progressive tax. Ideally regulations are there to eliminate corruption, but realistically all we can hope for is to reduce corruption as much as possible. The progressive tax is there, as unfair as it is, in some respects, to slow the process of the ultra rich from getting even richer as much as possible. This one is a rather delicate subject because you don't want to tax the ultra rich too high and discourage striving for wealth too highly, because innovation is a very beneficial byproduct of striving for wealth. All of this is in an effort to maximize the time it takes capitalism to devolve into oligarchy at which point you reach overwhelming oppression and eventual bloody revolution. What I'm trying to say is that the system we have in place in the US currently is the correct system, or the best system we (humanity) have come up with so far, it's just that corruption has reached near critical levels.
  2. Are Mexicans Orks then? Nancy Pelosi is Tzeentch. Warhammer 40K - Shockingly true to life
  3. So if Trump is the God Emperor and far right conservatives are Space Marines does that mean that far left liberals are Tyranids? I mean, a group set on devouring all life controlled by a hive mind that cannot be reasoned with sounds shockingly accurate.
  4. I'll just wait and hope they make a full remake. As great as Code Veronica is, I won't be able to stomach tank controls.
  5. Does the Code Veronica remaster still have tank controls? That's my main reason for wanting a real remake, I don't care about nicer graphics that much (though I would welcome a graphical upgrade), I just can't see myself playing the game with tank controls again. I'm not going to put myself through that PITA again.
  6. I'm not going to take Qualcomm's performance claims at face value, I never trust benchmarks from the manufacturer itself, but if the Snapdragon 8cx is anywhere close to what Qualcomm claims it is then it could really shake up the ultrabook market.
  7. I guess I'll just have to play on the hardest difficulty then.
  8. AMD had already started working on ARM processors, though the AMD K12 that was initially slated for 2017 has yet to surface. I think AMD is still working on ARM chips but I'm not sure if the K12 will ever actually release or something else will release in its stead. The change of x86 dominated markets to ARM won't happen overnight, but I'm very confident it will happen eventually. The profit margins with ARM chips are sufficiently higher than that of x86 to drive this forward. As for older software, that will be a growing pain for a while, but eventually I think we'll reach a point where emulated versions of those older programs that may never get native ARM versions will perform well enough to be used in the interim before they get replaced with newer native software.
  9. The potential of ARM chips replacing x86 has long been theorized and speculated upon, but I believe we're on the verge of it happening now. Qualcomm's upcoming 8cx (The Verge link) is spearheading ARM's move into the laptop segment. Initially, it's going to be ultra thin, low power laptops, but eventually ARM will invade more powerful laptop sectors and even desktops. ARM is already making a lot of headway in the server market and that trend will likely only continue. The biggest hurdle to ARM getting into traditionally x86 dominated markets has long been native software support. If you look at benchmarks over the last few years of software running on x86 and ARM chips, the x86 often shows a massive performance advantage, but that is largely down to the ARM chip running an emulated version. When you compare a x86 chip and comparable ARM chip both running native versions *poof* the performance advantage largely (completely in some cases) disappears. Apple already has native ARM versions of most of its software, as they have begun their switch to ARM and now Microsoft is letting developers create native 64-bit ARM code for Windows apps as well as working on ARM versions of Microsoft Office. Adobe Photoshop and a host of other major productivity software makers are in the process of making native ARM versions of their programs or have already done so, and once the ball gets rolling others will follow, and quickly (they'll have no choice in the matter). So what's driving this move toward ARM? There are 2 major factors at play: power consumption and profit margins. It's no secret that ARM chips run at a much lower power envelope than x86, it's largely why ARM dominates the mobile market. Famously, when testing the first ARM chip made in the 80s for power draw, they forgot to hook up the chip to the power supply AND IT STILL RAN simply off the electricity from the signal connection. Intel has spent years trying their hardest to push x86 chips into lower power envelopes in a desperate attempt to push into the lucrative mobile market and have largely been unsuccessful. The problem is the architecture itself and the bloated AF instruction set that forces x86 chips into extremely high amounts of transistor switching to achieve greater performance, which in turn requires a lot of power, plus x86 just doesn't scale nearly as well into higher core counts as ARM does (AMD has taken steps to allow their own x86 chips to scale better, in that regard they are way ahead of Intel, though still far behind ARM manufacturers). The other, and likely more important, factor is that ARM chips are easier and cheaper to manufacture, largely because ARM is a simpler chip design than x86. This is why ARM chips regularly beat x86 to every node shrink. Every OEM loves components that are cheaper to manufacture because it allows them to either pass the savings onto the customer or (more likely) increase profits for themselves.This is why so many companies are pushing ARM adoption, it means greater profits for them. The days may be numbered for x86.
  10. All the buzz about the Resi 2 remake has me salivating at the possibility of a Code Veronica remake.
  11. I will make it my mission to make as flawed a character as possible.
  12. Though her choice of black panties under tight white scrubs might be... questionable... That sounds like a PHENOMENAL choice.
  13. The resemblance is uncanny.
  14. Don't hate us, hate the AAA publishers who keep making disappointing Warframe knockoffs.
  15. Can't forget what you don't know about. This looks really neat, thanks for the tip. If you've ever played any of the old Commandos or Desperados games, it plays like that (the developer, Mimimi are making the upcoming Desperados 3). It's an isometric, real-time, stealth game and it is very hard and unforgiving.
  16. 6 is more entertaining than 5, but in a holy **** I can't stop laughing at how utterly terrible this game is way. Luckily, I have a video handy to explain! Speaking of which, I still need to play Revelations 2. I thoroughly enjoyed the first Revelations. Before Resi 7 came out, Revelations was the last bastion of hope for fans of the series' survival horror roots. It was a case of a spinoff becoming more like the main series than latter games in said main series, sort of how Bravely Default is more Final Fantasy than Final Fantasy is these days, if that makes any sense. [tangent] As an aside, I've grown to appreciate the setup Squeenix has with their big jRPGs. Squeenix has 2 big, famous, long running RPG series: Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The former they have reinvented again and again and again and again, for better or worse. The latter, while there have been some refinements, has been largely unchanged over the decades. For the people that want a more action oriented, western style RPG, Final Fantasy has been going in that direction. For grognards, like myself, that just want their beloved jRPG series left the hell alone, we still have Dragon Quest. [/tangent]
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