Vista won't be worth buying until after the first 500MB service pack

It's not exactly the german government that is considering this, but some states interior ministers.

At the moment Günter Beckstein of Bavaria and Uwe Scheunemann of Lower Saxony are playing a populist championship who can make more stupid suggestions. I guess every country has some politicians like this. They should preferably only tell about things they know about, but they don't (when it comes to electronics they should consider telegraphs).

It's clear to these happy members of shooting clubs that virtual killing is dangerous. It's still quite amusing to watch them showing off that they have no idea what they are talking about. Maybe they come to their senses and let this theme pass (hopefully latest when the press doesn't give them the opportunity anymore to show their ugly faces in tv).

Pikeman

Subject: GT/s

Good day there,

GT/s means GigaTransfers per second, which isn't the same as Gb/s for (at least) two reasons: first, for every 8 bits of useful data 10 bits are transferred (for electrical reasons, more specifically for (stable) clock recovery, see 8b/10b on wiki).

Second, there's some more overhead on a higher level, mostly because all data is transferred in packets, though it's not as bad as with TCP/IP. But I guess somebody else has already beaten me to the explanation :).

Either way, keep up the great work.

Best regards,
Merlin

Subject: Graphics Conspiracy

Umm.. Is it me or are mad powergamers angry because they are no longer willing to pay 600 bucks for the high end card? Because, all the rest of us who are smarter pay 150 bucks for a speedy budget card and pay that much every generation or so. It cuts down on graphics performance but all you really need these days is moderate looks.

World of Warcraft is not really a DX9 game and it looks far prettier than most games out there probably because they make nice use of the DX8 technology. Basic flashy colors, snazzy designing, and raw appeal goes a long way against shader and mapping techniques. Oh, and Blizzard makes 100 million dollars a month for World of Warcraft because some brilliant team designed a GAMEPLAY formula for a game that kicks so much ass.

The Dude

Subject: 45nm Post

M8, as much as I think AMD have slipped behind for a short while, Intel are in no way ahead with 45nm. You said that intel are already testing 45nm, but to be fair, so are IBM (on behalf of AMD effectively) whilst I'm sure AMD would if they had enough fabs.

ali

Subject: Microsoft patches its WindOS again

Hi Staff! ;)

Is this new message the same as the message for Windows 95/98 on 199?, as the MS-Billy starting her patching game? :)

After MS-Billy makes me nervous for a couple of month, i went many years ago to Netscape Commander, Ontrack PowerDesk, StarOffice for DOS and Windows) and so on and to other better written software more!

By the way, the MS-Kernel is not bad and you can buy really good Software for it, but if you want to buy VISTA, please wait for the first ServicePack! ;)

How big would this first SP1 for VISTA be, 500MB?? ;)

Nice time for christmas!

Frank-J. Bebber, Germany

Subject: The real Moron

" Your "article" is nothing more than a thinly-veiled knock against MS/the XBox 360, and a Sony/PS2 love letter.

"Hey dipshit, here's one for ya: everyone that lives in *real* countries that actually matter, you know, where people have money and jobs and things like that, learned long ago that backwater countries are always at least a technological generation behind. Also, no one in your country can afford an XBox 360, so no wonder no one bothered to play the demo unit(s).

irrelevant "

Looks like this moron is from a third world mental hospital, that's why he has a XBoX 360, which is nothing more than a box. ;)

And looks like ED touched his nerves....

vanakkuty

Subject: GT/s

Giga-transfers per second, i.e. ~2.6 giga transfers in each direction (5.2 total) :))

P.S. doooooooooooooooooh :p

sphynxus

Subject: HP DAT 72 troubles

Hi!

I've read the letter Brazilian user Éric Fleming Bonilha sent to you regarding storage problems with the HP DAT 72 tape device (http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/dat72usb/index.html).

It's painfully obvious that the drive as such is mislabled. It will only hold upto 36GB cartridges. The 72GB are achieved by compression, and if and only if 2:1 compression can be achieved. This is usually rarely the case, and mostly just accomplishable by compressing data such as ASCII text.

Data such as zipped files, most image formats etc. usually cannot be compressed any further.

What ticks me off about this is the apparent lack of even the tiniest inkling of knowledge as to how tape drives and compression works on behalf of the HP employee sent to "fix" the problem. The problem simply is unfixable and they should just come clean and say that.

Best regards,
Marc-Berco Fuhr

Subject: Intel goes in for viral marketing

booooooring

sascha

Subject: German games censorship

Well, looking on the bright side of all this. In a few years time, if all these bills make it through to law, we'll have a definitive answer as to whether games have a negative effect on people's minds moreso than any other media input by being able to compare the national averages of homicidal maniacs ;)

Kind regards,
James.