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Navigate today's cutting-edge technology with the gurus from HowStuffWorks.
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Recent Postings by Category
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Jonathan Strickland
- Oh, definitely, definitely, because you’re talking about, you know, off-the-shelf components versus sometimes very specific, unique parts.
Chris Pollette
Um-hum, um-hum.
Jonathan Strickland
I mean, some of these supercomputers are running on chips that, you know, they essentially come out of the lab and go into a supercomputer. So, they’re not even at the mass production phase necessarily for some of these chips.
Chris Pollette
Um-hum.
Jonathan Strickland
Whereas with the PS3, you just go to Best Buy, or you know, something, and just pick one of the shelf, and go, and you buy it, and you’re done. You have to go back and, you know, you have to of course install the operating system and attach it to your cluster, and make it part of the cluster.
Chris Pollette
- Um-hum, um-hum.
Jonathan Strickland
It’s not like it’s just plug and play, but it’s a lot easier than if you suddenly had your supercomputer go "oopsey" on you.
Chris Pollette
Yeah, not that I’ve ever heard of a PlayStation 3 having that kinda a problem.
Jonathan Strickland
No, that’s more of an Xbox 360 kinda thing.
Chris Pollette
Oh, ow.
Jonathan Strickland
So, now people are gonna write to me and say that I hate the Xbox 360, despite the fact that I am an avid Xbox fan, but come on, guys – that red ring of death? Seriously, yo.
Chris Pollette
You know, I wouldn’t mind having – I don’t own either one, and I would like a PlayStation 3 and an Xbox 360.
Jonathan Strickland
So would I.
Chris Pollette
But I don’t have time to play games.
Jonathan Strickland
- I put it on my Amazon wish list and no one has picked it up yet. I keep checking.
Chris Pollette
Well, you know, look in your stocking. We’ll see what we can do.
Jonathan Strickland
I have been gaining a lot of weight. My stocking has been getting larger. Leon’s getting larger.
Chris Pollette
So -
Jonathan Strickland
- Well, I guess that’s a good discussion about the PS3-supercomputer connection. That was a great question, Tim.
Chris Pollette
Yeah, excellent.
Jonathan Strickland
He actually – although I said it was a listener text message, he sent his request via phone, which a lot of you have been doing, and it just shows that our listeners are super cool smartphone users -
Chris Pollette
- Yep.
Jonathan Strickland
- which is awesome. Well, I guess that wraps up that discussion, but it does lead us to a little listener mail. This listener mail comes from Emmanuel and Emmanuel says, "Hey there – imitating Jonathan because you guys are awesome." Thank you. "You guys mentioned that Natal uses only gestures and it is unsure of whether it will be too much of a leap in technology; however, one thing you forgot to mention is that Natal can actually scan physical objects, which then allows you to use real world objects in your games. This can range from skateboards, to tennis rackets, to an air soft gun for first-person shooters, etc. In my humble opinion, the developers are really in control of whether or not their game will implement some sorta physical object. The only way to find out is to wait until the release date. We shall see. I’m Emmanuel from Bermuda, and this is my -" okay, now, this was a request from Emmanuel. So, anyone who gets annoyed by me yelling into the microphone, this is your opportunity. Turn down the volume now. Okay, I’m gonna count to three, and after that I’m gonna fulfill Emmanuel’s request. Remember, this is Emmanuel asking for this. So, please turn down your volume. 1, 2, 3: Listener mail! "In the tone that you used to use because it always managed to make me laugh." Thanks, Emmanuel. I hope you guys were able to turn your volume down in time. Don’t send me iTunes reviews and say that you hated it. I gave you plenty of opportunity that time, guys.