*fail

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kznxde/hawaii-ballistic-missile-warning-no-testing-system

Yeah, I gathered that. Which makes it all the more funny that a $2000 Apple Mac has such a piece of shit quality motherboard and is 3x under-powered compared to a $2000 PC.

You're pretty much paying the idiot tax buying an Apple

They tested it on 3 macs and one pc. Mac motherboards are nothing special because you don't build you own macs, but a built pc might have a quality motherboard with all those hard caps and voltage spike protection. My guess is that is what saved it. a cheap pc motherboard would die, too.

Hmmm. Well, I have a "low end" pc, and I've tried to play games on it, and was not impressed. Perhaps I should have done more investigation before I bought it, but I wasn't thinking 'game machine' when I did. Also, I have no controllers for it, and playing with the keyboard sucks ass! ;-)
Keep in mind, this setup on the video has over $4K in graphics cards alone, and is probably a $6-7K computer without the 3 TV's. With all that, it doesn't look better to me than last gen 3 screen games. (they should have chosen a different game IMO, I'm sure it does look way better when there's detail to display)

It's good that they're making them easier to set up, but it is still WAY more difficult than a console, which is plug and play. I still haven't gotten my PC to display properly on my TV without a cable across the room, and that's crappy.
I'm also disappointed that they tried to make the new consoles "media players" (crappy PCs). I wish they stuck with games and put it all into display features, but they didn't. I don't use the media features of my ps4 at all (except for Netflix, which my TV would do by itself if I set it up), they're a total waste.

Perhaps I'm stuck in a mid 90's mindset. That's the last time I built my own PC as a game rig. I had the full $250 thrustmaster setup, joystick and throttle with over 20 programmable buttons, and it was GREAT for descent and quake...but I recall being disappointed at how fast it was obsolete. Within 2 years I couldn't play newer games on it without stuttering....so I gave up on that. I can't afford to upgrade my memory and graphics card every 2 years, and motherboard and chip every 3.

I do recall a few games even on ps3 that could do the multiple display thing even at 1080i...I think motorstorm 1&2 (my favorite ps3 games) would do it, but you needed 3 ps3s to make it work. Today, you could probably do that for fairly cheap! What does a ps3 cost these days anyway? I must say, I didn't see anything that made 4K seem better. Motion blur looks the same at 1080 as 4K.

Then I point you to somewhere which requires reading:

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/now-just-001-percent-of-climate-scientists-reject-global-warming

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2014/01/10/about-that-consensus-on-global-warming-9136-agree-one-disagrees/

http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/only-1-of-9136-recent-peer-reviewed-authors-rejects-global-warming,6094

I could go all day. But, of course, this study isn't without it's detractors, who honestly do have a claim, if substantiated. (I've read the math on it, and the 97% is indeed an accurate sum, however, it is misleading in the sense that it only accounts for papers that state a stance and don't outright deny climate change is solely anthropogenic.)

Perhaps you found your info on Forbes.com, a decidedly unbiased site whose solely interested in getting to the bottom of the facts, regardless of political ideology. (sarcasm)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/22/after-oklahoma-city-tragedy-shameless-politicians-unsheath-global-warming-card/

Or we could try a different route and try a group dedicated to statistics:

http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html

"Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure."

Now, we should work on your use of the word "some".

"some
səm/Submit
determiner
1.
an unspecified amount or number of.
"I made some money running errands"
2.
used to refer to someone or something that is unknown or unspecified.
"she married some newspaper magnate twice her age"
pronoun
1.
an unspecified number or amount of people or things.
"here are some of our suggestions"
2.
at least a small amount or number of people or things.
"surely some have noticed"
adverbNORTH AMERICANinformal
1.
to some extent; somewhat.
"when you get to the majors, the rules change some""

Don't worry, none of those came from a .gov link.

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/now-just-001-percent-of-climate-scientists-reject-global-warming

That thing is running 4 Titans and 64GB of RAM?

damn.

Of course that's the other absurd end of the spectrum. As much as I love the PC platform for how it's so upgradable.

I will never understand the need to show off the capabilities of a rig that extreme if it's not even close to what what your typical person will experience.

The typical person will never have a titan...much less 4 of them. The typical person doesn't max out the memory capability of their motherboard unless it's really old.

and what's a setup like that cost? at least 5 grand?

I can't say too much though, I think I'm going to build an obscene rig for when Star Citizen comes out...but it still won't even touch this.

So, for all three platforms (Lenovo, Macbook Air, Android phone), it did indeed appear to need some or all of the following actions:
1) You had to not update the OS's
2) You had to go to "bad" websites, at least one connected to Sochi duping
3) You had to click on things and do deeply unwise stuff once you were on the site.

That makes me feel better.
A little.

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-nbcs-russian-hack-actually-happened-according-to-the-security-expert-who-set-it-up

The thing is though, the way it's described in this video. Unless I am totally off in LaLa land concerning electronics and how they hook together. There's just no way his power grid section is going to work with 4 connectors. Let's assume 4 connectors is all anything needs, then how do you swap out pieces and re-arrange them to your desire and still have the connections end up to where they hook up properly to others without replacing the grid backing?

So if you need a grid backing for each arrangement, you're not helping your cause.

He's basically saying the grid back is your motherboard, which needs a bare minimum of things to function and it designed for them to hook up in certain ways with a myriad of different pin configurations. And you think of how many things in the PC market aren't QUITE compatible, like they do hokey things even though standards wise they should be compatible....so you have to look at the MFG sites to see if they have tested it with XYZ....

I mean hell anything PC is kind of throwaway as it is now, they cycle in new standards so fast. The only main difference is you can build it like you want it, so you're less likely to replace it soon....and if most things break you can replace them to keep from throwing everything else out...within some period of time usually 5-6 years would be a good "hope" for things like motherboards, cpu if you're right on the cutting edge. 1-3 if you buy them later in their life cycle.

So, maybe instead of a blok style phone, they need a design where shops could essentially build you a phone around a core module for each phone carrier. Then you wouldn't have 8 bazillion phones being manufactured each year and being tossed. You'd have 20 bazillion parts that could be used as needed within a few years to fit someone's needs/wants.

But, it won't happen. And they'll say it's because they are keeping costs down by doing it how they do it now....you know...not because it helps maintain bigger profit margins or anything.........never.

What they're proposing is essentially similar to how desktop PCs work.

You have a central motherboard and then you swap in and out components.

But there are several problems with this:

First, a technical challenge: You can't simply rearrange the blocks like that. The connections between the cpu and the ram and storage and power are all different and for good reasons.

Next, upgradability: later this year, I will upgrade my primary work/gaming PC. What it really needs is a new CPU. But a new CPU means a new motherboard and probably new RAM. So I don't see this being as upgradeable as they think.

That said.. those are solvable problems compared to the main issue. Economics.

What is the incentive for Apple, Samsung, HTC, etc to produce one of these, or even parts for one? They would essentially commodify their own products and reduce any point of differentiation.

@chingalera I live about 300ft or less from a cell tower and have had it pull lightning in twice. The sound was simply astounding. Both times it blew up electronics in the house, motherboards, routers, a video card. One thing I noticed is that within a couple seconds after the burst both times ALL my dogs were suddenly in the room with me. They were like DOES NOT COMPUTE, HUMAN TAKE CHARGE.

Sometimes you feel like a nut....and sometimes you die.
(I was not sitting on the toilet typing this comment into an iphone but I think my motherboard was made by Foxconn so I'm still guilty.)

>> ^jonny:

You're gonna look real funny trying to use that computer without a power supply, keyboard, mouse, cables, fans, heat sink(s), software, etc. It is a fact that Macs used to be quite a bit more expensive (and not just because of the name, but because of parts choices), but it's just not true anymore, at least to the extent you are claiming. No doubt you could spec out a roughly equivalent computer and install Linux and whatever other free software you want for probably about 20% less. Part of the premium is the convenience of not having to shop for all the difference parts and put it together yourself (and hope you don't short out your motherboard in the process). I'm fairly sure most PC sellers charge a "premium" for delivering it in one piece with software installed.
Also, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you picked the low end of the Mac Pro line for ease of comparison, but it also happens to be the worst choice by far in terms price/performance.
>> ^jmzero:
Or you could buy good PCs and see the price is pretty much the same.
Lol @budzos. Mac people have always said this, and it has always been funny. They used to have some magic wiggle room because so many parts were different (different processor, especially) - but that's mostly gone now. OK, so here you can get a quad core Mac Pro for $2499. Let's see what those parts it lists are worth:
Processor: $316 (here's the specific model)
Graphics Card: $109 (here's actually a slightly better model)
6GB of RAM: $100 (good RAM for that premium)
1TB hard disk: $100 (decent hard disk for that)
Motherboard: $250 (let's get a nice one)
Case: $250 (let's get a nice one)
Optical drive: $100
So far we're at $1225. Maybe they've got some Apple magic (whoo! Superdrive!) to make up a couple hundred more dollars - but it's going to take a lot to spend another $1275 (ie. more than double). If you prefer a Mac, go ahead and get one - but pretending they're the same price is silly.
To be clear, I don't hate Apple and some of their products are reasonably priced now. A Macbook Air, for example, has been a good deal for a while and is still much nicer than its competitors. But their hardware has historically been way more expensive, and lots of it still has a significant premium attached.



omg - seriously guys?

Lol @ me? I'm a PC user, but not a fanboy either way. I have never used Apple because (in the past few years) I find their marketing obnoxious and I like to tinker with my PC. I do have an iPad and an iPhone.

I was gonna list my PC specs and their costs and then realized what a waste of time that is. Just for one example my case cost $400+, not $250. It's a big giant black hunk of brushed aluminum. It's bad-ass. Never have I looked at an Apple product and thought "bad-ass."


>> ^jmzero:

Or you could buy good PCs and see the price is pretty much the same.

Lol @budzos. Mac people have always said this, and it has always been funny. They used to have some magic wiggle room because so many parts were different (different processor, especially) - but that's mostly gone now. OK, so here you can get a quad core Mac Pro for $2499. Let's see what those parts it lists are worth:
Processor: $316 (here's the specific model)
Graphics Card: $109 (here's actually a slightly better model)
6GB of RAM: $100 (good RAM for that premium)
1TB hard disk: $100 (decent hard disk for that)
Motherboard: $250 (let's get a nice one)
Case: $250 (let's get a nice one)
Optical drive: $100
So far we're at $1225. Maybe they've got some Apple magic (whoo! Superdrive!) to make up a couple hundred more dollars - but it's going to take a lot to spend another $1275 (ie. more than double). If you prefer a Mac, go ahead and get one - but pretending they're the same price is silly.
To be clear, I don't hate Apple and some of their products are reasonably priced now. A Macbook Air, for example, has been a good deal for a while and is still much nicer than its competitors. But their hardware has historically been way more expensive, and lots of it still has a significant premium attached.

>> ^jmzero:

Or you could buy good PCs and see the price is pretty much the same.

Lol @budzos. Mac people have always said this, and it has always been funny. They used to have some magic wiggle room because so many parts were different (different processor, especially) - but that's mostly gone now. OK, so here you can get a quad core Mac Pro for $2499. Let's see what those parts it lists are worth:
Processor: $316 (here's the specific model)
Graphics Card: $109 (here's actually a slightly better model)
6GB of RAM: $100 (good RAM for that premium)
1TB hard disk: $100 (decent hard disk for that)
Motherboard: $250 (let's get a nice one)
Case: $250 (let's get a nice one)
Optical drive: $100
So far we're at $1225. Maybe they've got some Apple magic (whoo! Superdrive!) to make up a couple hundred more dollars - but it's going to take a lot to spend another $1275 (ie. more than double). If you prefer a Mac, go ahead and get one - but pretending they're the same price is silly.
To be clear, I don't hate Apple and some of their products are reasonably priced now. A Macbook Air, for example, has been a good deal for a while and is still much nicer than its competitors. But their hardware has historically been way more expensive, and lots of it still has a significant premium attached.


Oh please - stop it with the DIY PC vs. Mac Pro comparisons, they are just ridiculous.
A HP Z8x0 or a Dell Precision for example - those are the machines you should compare to.
You'll find that they are in the same ballpark.

Price is definitely not something I'd hold against the Mac Pro, that would be stuff like:
- weak expandability (1 PCIe16+2 PCIe4, 4 drive bays, max 64GB RAM),
- lacking features (eg. no SAS or SATA 6G, no USB3.0, weak selection of graphics/GPGPU cards)
- weak support options (no onsite support available at all?! I'm running a business here - do you really expect me to haul my workstation to the Genius Bar when a deadline is imminent?)