[Argyris]

Rambus is a tremendously controversial topic. On the one hand, the industry did engage in price fixing in order to undercut them and push them out of the market. On the other hand, they have in many people's minds burned through any goodwill that might have generated for them with their subsequent patent trolling.
 
I try to stay out of Rambus discussions, since I still don't know what to think about them. Every time I get to hating them, I come across somebody passionately defending them who probably isn't employed by them, and I have to wonder then if maybe I'm missing something.
 
At any rate, back in the P4 days Rambus was extremely expensive, which is part of the reason the P4 faltered out of the gate. That and the fact that its long pipeline required higher clockspeeds than were feasible at the time in order to stretch its performance legs, the upshot being that the highest end PIII of the time could usually beat anything up to a 2.0 GHz P4 (unless the software was compiled with support for the then-new SSE2 instruction set, which wasn't present in the PIII).

 

[Makiah S]

  Rambus is a tremendously controversial topic. On the one hand, the industry did engage in price fixing in order to undercut them and push them out of the market. On the other hand, they have in many people's minds burned through any goodwill that might have generated for them with their subsequent patent trolling.
 
I try to stay out of Rambus discussions, since I still don't know what to think about them. Every time I get to hating them, I come across somebody passionately defending them who probably isn't employed by them, and I have to wonder then if maybe I'm missing something.
 
At any rate, back in the P4 days Rambus was extremely expensive, which is part of the reason the P4 faltered out of the gate. That and the fact that its long pipeline required higher clockspeeds than were feasible at the time in order to stretch its performance legs, the upshot being that the highest end PIII of the time could usually beat anything up to a 2.0 GHz P4 (unless the software was compiled with support for the then-new SSE2 instruction set, which wasn't present in the PIII).

 
WHOA man I don't love Rambus. I got into pc's well at P4 and we were a DDR Ram house hold due to price. In just learning about ram types and It makes my curious, and yea I read over something about stupid patents or something of that matter. So I'm not looking to defend or back EITHER one, Just curious, on a funny note though, the very same class I'm taking stated  and I quote
 
"Two modern types of Graphics bus ports are PCIe and AGP"
 
I almost ROLLED out of my chair... LAWL I remember AGP and it was GREAT like what 10 years ago... what a joke to call it modern. Granted it's more modern ISA and VLB 

 

[vwinter]

This is coming my way, in about... now...

Please stay safe, Tom. We had Hurricane Sandy hit here, not even full strength and if you are anywhere near the water, try to go stay with friends more inland if possible or at least move your car (if you have one) inland. The streets here were 6 feet deep in water in half an hour. Then the power went out all around and that lasted for over 2 weeks for some people.

In general, I try to take my time before judging / excluding. However here I am having a hard time coming to a conclusion as I cannot get past the language and thus do not really understand what is said.

I can't really understand what you said lol.

 

[Argyris]

   
WHOA man I don't love Rambus. I got into pc's well at P4 and we were a DDR Ram house hold due to price. In just learning about ram types and It makes my curious, and yea I read over something about stupid patents or something of that matter. So I'm not looking to defend or back EITHER one, Just curious, on a funny note though, the very same class I'm taking stated  and I quote
 
"Two modern types of Graphics bus ports are PCIe and AGP"
 
I almost ROLLED out of my chair... LAWL I remember AGP and it was GREAT like what 10 years ago... what a joke to call it modern. Granted it's more modern ISA and VLB 

 
I wasn't implying that you were. 

 I was just offering the sum total of everything I know about the subject, and my experience with how discussions about it usually end up going. I didn't actually follow the company or the eventual standardization on DDR when it was happening. I didn't get into computers until about seven years ago, well after any of that happened. Everything I know about the early- to mid-2000s era I learned by reading old Tom's Hardware and Anandtech articles, back when it was easy to access everything all the way back to the late 1990s. When I got into it, the C2D had just come out and turned the tables for Intel.
 
I agree about AGP. I would expect any text that calls it "modern" to be quite a few years out of date by now. I seem to remember reading articles on either Tom's or Anandtech back in 2007 or so where they compared the AGP versions of mid-end graphics cards to the PCIe versions to show how much of a performance penalty you took by going with the (already by then) crusty older interface. I seem to remember it was close to 20%, and that was back when PCIe 2.0 was just starting to roll out, I believe. I was surprised it was that close, or that they even made AGP versions.

 

[Makiah S]

Please stay safe, Tom. We had Hurricane Sandy hit here, not even full strength and if you are anywhere near the water, try to go stay with friends more inland if possible or at least move your car (if you have one) inland. The streets here were 6 feet deep in water in half an hour.

Agreed, basically please move as far inland as possible as soon as possible! I live on the US South East Border about 15 miles from the ocean  front... I've weather smaller storms and it was terrible. I HIGHLY recommend you head inland. 
 
So BE safe, drive safe, and take some dangerous pictures ;3 just kidding ofc] 

 

[Mimouille]

I can't really understand what you said lol.

Me no like judge quick but me no can judge at all because me no really comprendo what the guy said. So me just shut up on the matter

 

[tomscy2000]

  Please stay safe, Tom. We had Hurricane Sandy hit here, not even full strength and if you are anywhere near the water, try to go stay with friends more inland if possible or at least move your car (if you have one) inland. The streets here were 6 feet deep in water in half an hour. Then the power went out all around and that lasted for over 2 weeks for some people.
I can't really understand what you said lol.

  Agreed, basically please move as far inland as possible as soon as possible! I live on the US South East Border about 15 miles from the ocean  front... I've weather smaller storms and it was terrible. I HIGHLY recommend you head inland. 
 
So BE safe, drive safe, and take some dangerous pictures ;3 just kidding ofc] 

 
Thanks for the tips; Taiwan gets hit by multiple typhoons every summer/fall, so the buildings and infrastructure here are designed with that in mind (which might be why the architecture is pretty much terrible here) and after being here for a few years, this won't be my first rodeo. Still, this is the largest storm in many years, so you never know what will happen. Luckily, it's barely grazing us. Unluckily, I'm currently in the south of the island, so we're going to be hit with a lot of rain. A few years back, after another typhoon (not nearly as big, but came all the way inland), our street flooded two and a half feet.
 

  I wasn't implying that you were. 

 I was just offering the sum total of everything I know about the subject, and my experience with how discussions about it usually end up going. I didn't actually follow the company or the eventual standardization on DDR when it was happening. I didn't get into computers until about seven years ago, well after any of that happened. Everything I know about the early- to mid-2000s era I learned by reading old Tom's Hardware and Anandtech articles, back when it was easy to access everything all the way back to the late 1990s. When I got into it, the C2D had just come out and turned the tables for Intel.  
I agree about AGP. I would expect any text that calls it "modern" to be quite a few years out of date by now. I seem to remember reading articles on either Tom's or Anandtech back in 2007 or so where they compared the AGP versions of mid-end graphics cards to the PCIe versions to show how much of a performance penalty you took by going with the (already by then) crusty older interface. I seem to remember it was close to 20%, and that was back when PCIe 2.0 was just starting to roll out, I believe. I was surprised it was that close, or that they even made AGP versions.

 
Me too; I also came upon a tech "gossip column", theInquirer.net (sounds like a tabloid, I know), which was amazing about getting the inside scoop on rumors of chip processes moving on to different size wafers or node sizes, in addition to good predictions of product roadmaps, etc.

 

[lee730]

   
Yea figured I'd just put the barrel to my head, and wait for Muppet to pull the trigger, instead of trying to b sneaky with what I said
 
Also, I'm eactually enjoying my PC online class, leaning how to visually tell different Ram apart, I kinda knew but it's nice to get a refreshment 
 
and Rambouls Ram... seems we missed out on what might have been great technology... oh well DDR3 works super so nothing gained nothing lost it seems 

 
It was their proprietary nature that ultimately destroyed them. As well as the price gouging. Apple anyone? .

 

[a_recording]

On a broader note I was wondering, what kind of voices do people tend to like in their singers anyway?
 
For some reason I tend to gravitate towards vocals that are unusual or somehow flawed in some way. I sometimes get a cathartic thrill listening to a singer actually push their voice to the limit and then *fail*, like Amanda Palmer so often seems to do. I think it takes a lot of guts to put your vulnerability as a singer on the line.
 
I especially have a thing for unusual female vocalists - Bjork, Karin Dreijer Andersson, Grimes etc. I don't know why, but that particularly abrasive keening tone of the voices really grabs me. In the case of something like Grimes and Karin I love it when vocals are chopped and manipulated to the point that they sound like synthetic instruments.
 
I think my preference for these kinds of voices definitely puts me at odds with a whole camp of people who seem to like collecting amazingly talented and natural female vocalists. I like 'good' voices as well, but when I listen to a whole CD of them I find them a little boring honestly. I'm not sure why.
 
------
 
Hope everything is okay Tom. Might have to call to check in with relatives in HK myself.
 
------
 
In other news, on a brief note iOS7 and the new higher pricing for the 5S is making me more or less certain to pull the trigger on an Xperia Z1, at least for a trial run.

 

[MrEleventy]

a_rec : I tend to gravitate to female vocals and really, quirky ones. I like the raspy, gravelly, smokers' voice when it comes to singing. Shiina Ringo would be my best example and low bassy ones too like Fiona Apple (I think I have something about apples.) Nicole Atkins is another who sings in the lower octave. But then I like the "boring" as well like adele, Norah Jones (Who just did a great track with her sister, Traces of You.) and the like. I like them but I do get bored by them quicker and go back for more quirky.

 

[veyrongatti]

Stay Safe Tom ^^ (Unless the storm passed and I'm a bit late......)
 
Anyways I've just finished the first heist in GTAV and it was absolutely brilliant......... Actually the only complaint I have of GTAV is the ridiculously fast stopping speed (And somehow I lost a car, not in the police impound........) 
 
 

Spoiler: Don't read unless you've finished the first heist and don't want any spoilers.....

I chose the smart way, but I got the useless hacker who dosen't  use ad block............ So many regrets...........  

 

[Mimouille]

At the top of male vocalist to me sits Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons...nobody touches him. However is he a male vocalist? His relationship to gender is complex to say the least.
Another voice I really like is Julian Casablancas from the Strokes...there is a sort of careless suffering transpiring in his tone that I find hypnotic.
James Blake of course is an awesome male vocalist.
I cannot forget Jacques Brel, the greatest singer of suffering....his Ne Me Quittes Pas is certainly the only song I can systematically cry on.

But overall I am more often touched by female vocalists such as Laura Marling, a genius, Alela Diane, Fiona Apple, Rhye, St Vincent. In the classics I cannot fail to mention Nina Simone...her Jazz in Montreux live performance is a monument.

 

[a_recording]

At the top of male vocalist to me sits Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons...nobody touches him. However is he a male vocalist? His relationship to gender is complex to say the least.
Another voice I really like is Julian Casablancas from the Strokes...there is a sort of careless suffering transpiring in his tone that I find hypnotic.

 
I wholeheartedly agree! Antony has a voice that sends shivers down my spine.
 
And I love the sheer apathy of the delivery in the Strokes.
 
Another band that kind of epitomises that quality for me is Titus Andronicus:
 

 
"You will always be a loser" x30 is the best feelgood anthem / chant ever!

 

[Mimouille]

I wholeheartedly agree! Antony has a voice that sends shivers down my spine.

And I love the sheer apathy of the delivery in the Strokes.

Another band that kind of epitomises that quality for me is Titus Andronicus:




"You will always be a loser" x30 is the best feelgood anthem / chant ever!

I have to check this out when I come out of the current boring meeting I am im then

 

[C.C.S.]

I agree with a_rec that sometimes listening to singers who are already very skilled/talented is not always as fun as listening to singers who are not as good. Early in her career, Hikaru Utada had a very difficult time with her upper register and would frequently sing out of key at the top of her vocal range. In albums such as First Love, Distance and Deep River, she would sound strained during peak moments. As she became more experienced, she got more comfortable singing these. Though some of her songs still have a ton of emotion behind them, such as her most recent single, some of them almost sound sterile/clinical now. When she puts forth a great amount of effort, she sounds even more convincing than before, but it feels like she has to try harder than she used to in order to achieve that effect now.