Slashdot Mirror

But in this case, the consumer has all the pricing information right at their fingertips. You can track almost any product's price history with CamelCamelCamel. Too much work to click a button? Use Wikibuy instead, which will pester you with a pop-up whenever you browse an item with a lower price elsewhere. In 2017, do I really need to mention PriceGrabber or NexTag? Hell, even Google links you to their own price comparison service nearly every time you search.

Most of us gave up on tape for most of our backup needs long ago. ITs just so much cheaper to backup to TB hard disks. Especially if you exchange them with a family member for offsite storage. They are just too cheap today, to bother with tape, would be cost prohibative.

Also lets you avoid additional monthly costs for internet based backup storage and the associated additional bandwidths costs that must happen if the Cable industry is allowed to deny FTTH and consolidate any further. Cable providers are already throttling bandwidth to get people and companies to pay more for bandwidth. That can only get worse without FTTH.

Besides the last time I went down the tape/cartridge route, the Sydos tape units stopped being made and when mine broke the writing was on the wall to find a better home / Small Office Home Office (SOHO) solution. Hard drives attached to a LInux box was the best solution.

An LTO-6 drive costs about $2500, and it stores 2.5TB of data on a $50 tape. That is about half the price of a comparable hard drive. If you have more than 100TB of data to store then tape becomes cheaper (that is, the savings for the tapes exceeds the cost of the drive). Tape is also a bit less fragile during transport/etc, and likely more reliable than optical media unless you buy the expensive stuff (which certainly isn't any cheaper than tape).

Your comment got me to thinking, how much might one of these cost? Granted the article mentioned that there is not a price on the 8TB Seagate drive yet. So I checked on pricegrabber for 6TB drives...

I was surprised that you could get 20 of them for $11,742.61, or $587.23 per 6TB drive, if you were willing to buy them 20 at a time. Pretty cool. As the link shows the price varies from $600 to $1000 depending on who you buy one 6TB drive from.

A small storage case that will hold 4/6 drives can be got for $30 per case...so a easy home backup system using hard disks are easily within reach. Even better get an embedded linux system, the smaller the better, and hook that to it for the best Internet / Cable / TV / DVD - DVR recorder to watch movies and TV shows. Just erase them like we use to do with VHS tape when you are done. Pretty amazing...8TB, WOW.

Unless you're prepared to absolutely bleed money on every maxiPad sale, you're not going to soak up even a single percentage point of the iPad's market dominance.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 Tablet - Black 16GB, Android 3.0 OS, 10.1" LED Touchscreen, 1280x800, 9.5 Hours - MPN: TF101A1 See Product Details $386.00 - $449.00
http://electronics.pricegrabber.com/tablets-e-readers/Asus-Eee-Pad-Transformer-TF101-Black/m873405665.html

The Transformer is the strongest selling Android tablet by a reasonable margin, and Asus has set a goal of shipping 4-4.5 million tablets in the second half of the year, based on reported contract orders.

iPad 2 sales figures are in this second fiscal quarter are around 4.2 million.

I'd say Asus have worked out a way to take more than "a single percentage point of the iPad's market dominance".

But those are rare third party components

The only way a Windows-compatible USB gamepad is "rare" is that the maker of a popular Windows-compatible USB gamepad owns a video game development company called Rare Ltd.

a KB and mouse is ubiquitous and available on every PC.

And a single gamepad is ubiquitous and available on every console. So why aren't console games limited to a single gamepad in the same way that most PC games are limited to a single keyboard+mouse?

Given the nature of fighting games there should be no surprise that they dont sell on PC's, they really are designed for gamepads and machines with multiple input devices.

No console has come with two gamepads since the Super NES era.

So here's my question: For which platform should a microISV develop a game designed for multiple input devices?

Why the hell would I pay $1000+ for a HD tv

Well, you are aware that HD content can come from sources other than BluRay, right?

$300+ for a blu ray player

Um, BR players can be had for as little as $75. http://electronics.pricegrabber.com/blu-ray-players/p/2065/st=sort/sortby=priceA

Given the choice between a 256GB SSD and a 1.5TB HD, I'll go for capacity every time...

If you can afford this : http://computers.pricegrabber.com/hard-drives/OCZ-Technology-OCZ-OCZSSD2-1VTX250G-250GB-SATA/m714828834.html you probably can buy this : http://computers.pricegrabber.com/hard-drives/WD-Caviar-Green-1TB-Drive/m94740806.html in the same order and put both in your computer. Why choose ?

Given the choice between a 256GB SSD and a 1.5TB HD, I'll go for capacity every time...

If you can afford this : http://computers.pricegrabber.com/hard-drives/OCZ-Technology-OCZ-OCZSSD2-1VTX250G-250GB-SATA/m714828834.html you probably can buy this : http://computers.pricegrabber.com/hard-drives/WD-Caviar-Green-1TB-Drive/m94740806.html in the same order and put both in your computer. Why choose ?

Why botther at all? Better go straight to x64, I mean, even the lowliest of nvidia GPUs is already 64 bits, why bother with 32 bits technology?

They day an embedded system's CPU needs to address more than 4 gigs of memory (which is essentially why you would shift from a 32-bit to 64-bit CPU) is the day my shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet.

The iPhone packs 128 meg, as does the BlackBerry Bold. A modern smartphone packs as much ram as the average desktop did a little under a decade ago. SODIMMs (laptop ram) look to be just over $10 per gig. But hey, 640k is all anyone really needs, right?

You may notice some changes in the appearance and fragrance of your excrement in less than a decade.

Here or here or here if you want an older All-In-Wonder with S video. There are plenty of choices right now in the $15-$20 range and most have nice features like remotes and MP4 capture so you can take your time and get the features that interest you. I just checked and I'm afraid the place where I picked up a couple for $5 each has sold out, but the Sabrent and Kworld cards I have placed into customers computers in the past and they are quite happy with them. I myself picked up an "Easy TV FM" for $15 which I watch cable and listen to the radio with.

they are quite fun to play with and you can add Media Portal if you have XP to make a really cheap media center. Some prefer Xbox Media Center for Windows but I've had better luck with Media Portal. Anyway I hope this helps, and have fun!

Here or here or here if you want an older All-In-Wonder with S video. There are plenty of choices right now in the $15-$20 range and most have nice features like remotes and MP4 capture so you can take your time and get the features that interest you. I just checked and I'm afraid the place where I picked up a couple for $5 each has sold out, but the Sabrent and Kworld cards I have placed into customers computers in the past and they are quite happy with them. I myself picked up an "Easy TV FM" for $15 which I watch cable and listen to the radio with.

they are quite fun to play with and you can add Media Portal if you have XP to make a really cheap media center. Some prefer Xbox Media Center for Windows but I've had better luck with Media Portal. Anyway I hope this helps, and have fun!

Well, I got mine for $300 USD.. not sure what currency you wanted to use though. It's dropped even more since then apperently: http://software.pricegrabber.com/windows-operating-system/m/64918692/st=sort/qlty=n/sort_type=bottomline

WD My Book Essential Edition External 1TB Hard Drive - $166.99 (link), enough to store 80 hours of High-Definition video (Lord of the Rings "extended edition" should fit in one).

That's $16.70 each 100 GB - I bet that both: the player is more expensive that this external HD and each disk is more expensive that $16.70.

The only reason one cannot easily use an external HDs to store and play video content is because the mainstream Movie Industry won't sell their movies in a non-DRM-encumbered format (say, XVid in an AVI wrapper) - after all, how would they force people to buy the same movies again and again with each new format if they went with an open data format ...

That said, get a "Digital Media Player" with XVid/DivX support and HD capability and attach one of these external HDs. Then Rip and re-encode your movies (or don't re-encode - there's enough space for high-bitrate files in there) or get the HD version of the movie/tv-series from the Internet in a non-DRM-encumbered format (funny how the pirates provide a better product) and voila - days worth of movies and TV series at the touch of a button (with no pay-per-view charges).

PS: Yes, I am sour that the dream of having your personal movie library accessible from you remote without moving anything but a finger is being hindered by the big studios ...

Win2k8 is going to be cost prohibitive as a desktop os for the vast majority of people.

Is that so?

(Note: I posted this in another thread, but I'm reposting it here because it's relevant.)

You can apparently buy an HP OEM copy of Windows Web Server 2008 for U.S. $140.91, supposedly $157.76 after shipping (to California). I'd never heard of the seller, pcRUSH.com, but it looks pretty legit based on the Shopzilla customer rating page); this is the best price I could find, but it seems rather low so I'm somewhat skeptical.

Or you can buy Buy Windows Web Server 2008 for U.S. $362.49 with free shipping on Amazon.com; this is the second best price I could find, and looks a bit less fishy considering the price is closer to retail and the seller (Amazon) is well-known.

I searched shopzilla.com and pricegrabber.com and the prices above were the best that came up.

Anyway, these prices are not really that much higher than what Vista costs. Amazon lists Vista Home Premium for $94.99 and Ultimate for $277.49 (note that the latter is just $85 more than Amazon's price for Windows Web Server 2008). Assuming pcRUSH's price for Windows Web Server 2008 is accurate, you can actually get it cheaper than Vista Ultimate!

I'll provide links since you didn't. =)

Download Windows Web Server 2008 trial (or if you prefer, you can get a trial of a different version of Windows Server)

Buy Windows Web Server 2008 - apparently U.S. $140.91 ($157.76 after shipping according to shopzilla.com) from pcRUSH.com (I'd never heard of this company, but here's their Shopzilla customer rating page); this is the best price I could find, but it seems rather low so I'm somewhat skeptical.

Buy Windows Web Server 2008 - U.S. $362.49 with free shipping on Amazon.com; this is the second best price I could find, and looks a bit less fishy considering the price is closer to retail and the seller (Amazon) is well-known.

Feel free to search for better prices. I tried shopzilla.com and pricegrabber.com and the prices above were the best that came up.

In case you're wondering, the reason why I singled out Windows Web Server (as opposed to another edition of Windows Server) is that if you're not going to actually use the OS for the server features, it doesn't make sense to buy a more expensive edition. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

"Because the PS3 is (a) one of the cheapest BR players (the other standalones are more expensive) and (b) the only one that is currently upgradable"

That's completely wrong, both the BDP-300 and BDP-500 are upgradeable, and the LG BH-200 is also upgradeable.

As to "one of the cheapest" that's wrong too, there are many that beat it on price, and the price is dropping every day.

http://electronics.pricegrabber.com/blu-ray-hd-dvd-players/p/2065/form_keyword=blu+ray+player/rd=1/mode=g_us_e_s/skd=1/st=query/

I have yet to see a convincing argument that isn't based on misinformation.

A few hundred bucks can be a lot of money with a family.

Yes, and what I said was it if IS a lot of money for a family, the heads of household probably aren't managing their money very well. In that case, choice of OS to install on the family computer should probably be a very low priority. Instead of playing with the computer, the HoH should be figuring out how to make their money situtation less volatile.

I have seven computers and that few hundred dollars starts to add up when you multiply it by the number of computers in the home. I seriously doubt I am all that unique in the amount of computers I have running, the computer is becoming much like the television before it.

You're an edge case. Most people have one, maybe two computers. Certainly not seven. You might be normal in the future, not now.

As for switching, did you buy computers that came with Windows already installed? If so, you threw away some of the money you paid. If not, fine. I never said everyone had to run Windows, I'm just saying I feel it's worth the price. My main point being that if you're paying $400 for Vista Ultimate, you're a fool, because it's trival to find it for much less.

(my kids are home schooled)

Please tell me you've been certified somehow..

I only buy two computers every 2-3 years. The old systems get recycled into new uses.

You probably buy them with Windows pre-installed them I'm guessing, if you're buying the whole thing at once. So its included in the price. If you're building your own.. maybe you should see how much it is to buy a base system that comes with windows and price out some decent upgrades seperately.

If Microsoft would offer Vista for 250 bucks and up to 5 installs, I would be more then happy to buy it. Just a side note, I don't pirate windows either, each copy I use is bought and paid for.

Well, you have to ask yourself do you really need the Ultimate edition? If its for mainly home use, the Home Premium version can be had for $100. Do you need home premium if you're kids are just using the machines for education? Then you can find home basic for $60. That's pretty close to the price you want to pay per copy. And that's full retail version, which means if you get a newer computer you can remove the copy from the computer you're discarding and move it to the next one.

Enough of the $400 figure. Its a bit more than half that amount. That's after a few seconds of searching; I was able to find a Full version for $165. OEM versions can be had for even less.

So you didn't save as much, and good luck if you ever want to use wireless with that Ubuntu computer. Price isn't the only thing you should consider when buying an OS. Not saying you mad a bad choice or anything, but you used at least one bad point of information to make that decision, and for me I'd rather pay than spend time trying to for Linux to work with various hardware / software.

you waste a lot of money paying for battery replacement in your electronics don't you?

I need a new battery in my watch now, the light isn't very bright. The battery in it is about 8 years old. Not bad life I think. But it's a big one, CR2032, about the size of a nickel.

This watch is the replacement for one I damaged some years ago. That one fell over 3 stories down onto asphalt and broke the flex band (yes, really) into 5 pieces, busted the backlight, and silenced the alarm. Other than that it still kept time. Casio DW-5600, highly recommended. The new model has a "g-shock" guard on it to prevent exactly what busted my last one, so I think this one's indestructible? Mmmm they still sell them I guess... http://reviews.pricegrabber.com/watches/m/376230/ Mine doesn't have the blue backlight, it's got a bulb, soold school!

I think you mean $257. No need to inflate the price by 60%.

I have found one (and only one) item that fits the bill: Philips DVDR3575H/37. It has a 160GB drive as well as a DVD burner, and it seems to support all the disc formats. I like it because it also has Firewire and USB inputs (NOT outputs), as well as an ATSC tuner. Pricegrabber turns up a couple of vendors in addition to Philips itself.

That said, I haven't bought one yet. Reviews are mixed on the usability of the features. I'm hoping Philips, or anyone, comes out with an improved model this year. Echoing your last line, it seems like HDD-DVD units come and go without a clear purpose.

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon : Free as in speech, free as in beer comes with about 20000 apps (the number's pulled out of thin air, but there are a lot of apps available), of which most are probably quite simple or outright crap, but there's true quality stuff among them and the pre-selection by the installer is quite good in my book. Oh and I'm part of the Ubuntu community, too.

And I can't really buy games off the shelf, nor printers, or a lot of other hardware, and have it work. Oh, and Linux does have its own problems, weird things breaking, spending hours figuring out what exactly is wrong, and then diving into a text file to change some obsure setting. Most of those 20,000 apps are shit. Sorry.

OS/X : Hereround 155$. Probably nicest user interface, at least at Panther level very stable, rock solid foundation (BSD) a real shell and real scripting. Oh and it gives me fanboy privileges.

People knock Linux / Windows UIs; I find Macs to be infurating. Why exactly would you want to be a fanboy? Fanboy is just another word for zealot.

Vista Ultimate: ~700$. Nothing really to offer, exept maybe this floating waterfall background, which must eat a ton of resources. Requires activation, abuses 30% of my resources for Hollywoods satisfaction. Oh: And by default I'm a criminal software thieve pirate.

Surely you mean only ~$260? Not very computer savy if you can't find Vista at a good price.

I'd wager that if i really chose option three I must be a blistering idiot, too.

The other option is that you're a smart professional that just wants to get things done. Since I ditched my Linux desktop and server, I spent more time doing the things I want on the computer, instead of trying to figure out what text file I got wrong and then being told to RTM (which doesn't exist).

I love my Herman Miller Scooter. It may be overkill for you.

Buy the biggest table size you can find.

http://office.pricegrabber.com/tables/m/10389209/

Or as it was put from a digg story some time ago:

1 GB 20 years ago, vs 1 GB now

If you think about it, nowadays you buy 16 GB memory in a 43x36x5mm card whereas 10 years ago you could only get at most 1 GB in a bigfoot hard disk...

This technology does look promising!

I'm sorry, much cheaper? $20 difference isn't all that major difference.

Oh I'm sorry, that's for the Small Business Full version. Ultimate is more.

Except that if you go to price grabber, you can get Ultimate for the 339.

"It appears that, incredibly, Vista can run out of memory while copying files."

Most people don't spend $87 on Outlook but some $250 on Office 2007 Standard. Many will also get it (almost) free by BitTorrent, KaZaA, some neighbourhood geek or their workplace. In that case "it" will probably be the Enterprise or Professional Edition, not Standard.

http://cameras.pricegrabber.com/digital/p/48/form_keyword=dslr/rd=1/sortby=priceA
Hmm..

I see TWO DSLR cameras for less than the price of photoshop, one of them (the one that is 5$ less) comes with a lens.

The Couriers are good but the best modem USR offered is the 3Com/USR OfficeConnect 56k Business Modem (based on an updated Courier Firmware)

http://computers.pricegrabber.com/modems/m/141870/

- R

What crack are you smoking? Almost all of the applications that worked on XP work on Vista, the same selection of software is there that was there in XP. I did an inplace upgrade from XP to Ultimate, and there was nothing installed on system that didn't work properly afterwards (with the exception of VS2005, but that was a simple update to make work too).

In linux, you don't have MS money or Quicken as potential financial applications, MS Office is out for document editing, email, etc etc.

I've never had to pay for support from MS; I used them when Money wasn't connecting to my bank properly, and we were able to resolve the issue. The only other time times I've called support were work related. Otherwise, all of my "support" was via google. I've found it orders of magnitude easier to get solutions to problems on Windows this way than I ever did with RH Linux (or Mandriva).

I also don't know where you think you're saving that much money; Windows pre-installed is practically free, and $100 isn't a lot to spend. Considering that will likely be the only OS ever loaded onto that computer, that's quite a value. And with the link I specified, you can move your OS to your next computer, if you so choose.

> It has a resource intensive "shiny" interface.

FUD. Yes, the interface is "shiny", and does use resources, but the main resource intensiveness comes from the new features (like indexing) and the fact that it is a fully hardware accelerated desktop. If you actually disable these new features, Vista runs the same as or faster than XP.

> It has levels of DRM heretofore unseen in an operating system.

There's ONE new DRM thingie over XP. ONE. YOU WILL NEVER EVER SEE DRM IF YOU DO NOT USE DRM FILES. Vote with your wallet. I don't use DRM'd files either. I rip CD music. Vista WILL NOT ADD DRM TO NON-DRM FILES.

> It is claimed that it is secure, yet still has gaping security holes.

You use one .NET article from TWO THOUSAND FUCKING FIVE, one BY DESIGN article and one article from JULY TWO THOUSAND FUCKING SIX to say that Vista has "gaping" holes. If that's the best you can do, I think Vista has mostly succeeded. :)

The fact is that there has been one exploit (ANI) so far, and due to UAC and IE protected mode (sandboxing) that exploit couldn't work in Vista as well as it did in XP.

> It is claimed that it is safe, yet has to be made un-safe for users to be able to do anything with it.

FUD. FUD. FUD. UAC DOES NOT HAVE TO BE DISABLED FOR A VISTA COMPUTER TO BE USABLE. I haven't seen a UAC prompt in weeks now -- of course, it helps that I've updated all my apps for them to not require admin permissions.

Go look at the Wikipedia article to know what triggers UAC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control# Tasks_that_trigger_a_UAC_prompt This is a perfectly reasonable list. All the points on that list deserve to be there.

> It is expensive

Not when you factor inflation in. In any case, a deal with Ultimate (this is the full edition) is available for US $165. http://software.pricegrabber.com/windows-family-os /m/30710428/search=Vista%20Ultimate/qlty=o

Most will need a Home Premium upgrade, which starts from LESS THAN $100. http://software.pricegrabber.com/windows-family-os /m/31221707/

> clunky

WTF?

> space consuming

Not when you factor the new things in. If you remove speech recognition, C/J/K language support, Media Center, and a few other things (eg using vLite) an install of Vista comes to around 3.5 GB. Anyway, hard drives are big enough for it, it isn't too much of a factor now.

> privacy invading

Oh dear, more unsubstantiated FUD. Why am I not surprised?

> insecure

The FUD this time, for a change, is not from you, but from Symantec. The fact is that better companies like Eset have no problems programming for Vista. Symantec uses several KERNEL HOOKS which are disallowed in Vista x64, in favour of Microsoft APIs.

> unsafe, and is more interested in protecting the interests of major Hollywood distributors than its users.

I'm tired of this BS. Look above.

Get your facts straight first before starting your standard FUD.

> It has a resource intensive "shiny" interface.

FUD. Yes, the interface is "shiny", and does use resources, but the main resource intensiveness comes from the new features (like indexing) and the fact that it is a fully hardware accelerated desktop. If you actually disable these new features, Vista runs the same as or faster than XP.

> It has levels of DRM heretofore unseen in an operating system.

There's ONE new DRM thingie over XP. ONE. YOU WILL NEVER EVER SEE DRM IF YOU DO NOT USE DRM FILES. Vote with your wallet. I don't use DRM'd files either. I rip CD music. Vista WILL NOT ADD DRM TO NON-DRM FILES.

> It is claimed that it is secure, yet still has gaping security holes.

You use one .NET article from TWO THOUSAND FUCKING FIVE, one BY DESIGN article and one article from JULY TWO THOUSAND FUCKING SIX to say that Vista has "gaping" holes. If that's the best you can do, I think Vista has mostly succeeded. :)

The fact is that there has been one exploit (ANI) so far, and due to UAC and IE protected mode (sandboxing) that exploit couldn't work in Vista as well as it did in XP.

> It is claimed that it is safe, yet has to be made un-safe for users to be able to do anything with it.

FUD. FUD. FUD. UAC DOES NOT HAVE TO BE DISABLED FOR A VISTA COMPUTER TO BE USABLE. I haven't seen a UAC prompt in weeks now -- of course, it helps that I've updated all my apps for them to not require admin permissions.

Go look at the Wikipedia article to know what triggers UAC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control# Tasks_that_trigger_a_UAC_prompt This is a perfectly reasonable list. All the points on that list deserve to be there.

> It is expensive

Not when you factor inflation in. In any case, a deal with Ultimate (this is the full edition) is available for US $165. http://software.pricegrabber.com/windows-family-os /m/30710428/search=Vista%20Ultimate/qlty=o

Most will need a Home Premium upgrade, which starts from LESS THAN $100. http://software.pricegrabber.com/windows-family-os /m/31221707/

> clunky

WTF?

> space consuming

Not when you factor the new things in. If you remove speech recognition, C/J/K language support, Media Center, and a few other things (eg using vLite) an install of Vista comes to around 3.5 GB. Anyway, hard drives are big enough for it, it isn't too much of a factor now.

> privacy invading

Oh dear, more unsubstantiated FUD. Why am I not surprised?

> insecure

The FUD this time, for a change, is not from you, but from Symantec. The fact is that better companies like Eset have no problems programming for Vista. Symantec uses several KERNEL HOOKS which are disallowed in Vista x64, in favour of Microsoft APIs.

> unsafe, and is more interested in protecting the interests of major Hollywood distributors than its users.

I'm tired of this BS. Look above.

Get your facts straight first before starting your standard FUD.

I wonder if there's an Expresscard that can handle the requirements for a monitor or two.
belkin do an expresscard docking station that includes a graphics adaptor.

http://www.belkin.com/highspeeddock/howitworks/
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/docking-station/ m/28171911/

from a quick perusal of the manual ( http://www.belkin.com/support/dl/P75420_F5U273_doc king%20station_mnl.pdf ) it seems it uses the PCI-express part of expresscard for the video and the USB 2 part for everything else.

o That is only a SINGLE CHANNEL IDE card (2 drives max)

o It's a bit pricey compared to a Silicon Image IDE-133 RAID-capable card:

http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx? id=31
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/storage-device-c ontrollers/m/19271025

o IDE is $dying. SATA and other tech is the way to plan for $future, and believe me I am currently fairly heavily invested in IDE drives.

First off, HL2 is $30 USD on Steam

Oh yeah? here is an example (first one choosen from google search!!!) which proves you wrong.

Furthermore, the mere presence of online distribution eliminates the publishing middleman, allowing us cheaper prices without damaging developer profitability.

I did not have an ADSL connection until recently, and I don't plan having my computer switched on and my network connection occupied for 5 days in order to download a game.

If HL2 lasts 30 hours, how do you object to paying $1 per hour for entertainment?

It depends on the entertainment. Spending 30 euros for 30 movies (1 euro each, to rent from the local DVD store) is way much more fun than trying to beat monsters in HL2. Unless you want to support the fact that HL2's scenario, dialog, plot etc is better than the average movie...HL2 is nothing more than a glorified version of Galaga anyway.

First off, are you a game developer? Do you have *any* experience doing the things that we do? That statement reeks of ignorance and lack of knowledge of what it is that we do.

Oh yes. I was developing computer games from 1987 to 1995. For the local market. And my dream was the same as anyone's dream in the industry: to get rich quick. To buy a Porche.

Invest a LOT more in dev time to make sure things were done right

You meant "spend lots of time bullshitin' people that we work while we play games, spend our times in meetings and dreaming to be the next ID"...there...fixed it for you.

What evidence do you have to say that Valve's guys weren't doing their jobs and were goofing off this whole time, thus causing the infamous delay?

I am a professional programmer for lots of years. 90% of a time in a project is spent not working, but doing other things. We all know that, let's be honest for a change.

Then don't buy them. But of course, that rule comes with another one that says: if you don't buy it, then don't play it. It's a pretty simple rule to follow, no?

Here is another take: I pirate the game, play it, and if it was worth its money, I buy it.

If you find yourself pirating it, then clearly it's worth something to you, in which case you'd be a dirty liar for asserting that those games aren't worth even 1 EUR.

You don't understand. Most piracy exists because most products are crap and overpriced. I do get some play time value from the 7th billon version of Arkanoid or Pacman, it is just not worth paying you 10 bucks for 5 minutes of play.

See it this way: suppose your game costs $10 and I play it for 10 minutes. That's $1 for 1 minute, right? That's a freaking $43200 for a month of play time! (a month of 30 days has 43200 minutes). Don't tell me your game deserves that much...

Did I also mention the fact that you pay $10 to get into a movie? Regardless of DVD sales, the majority of a film's profits are made at the box office while the movie is still in theatres. Imagine the game industry on a similar model: pay $10 during the first 4 weeks of a game's release to play the game for 3 hours. Then when the game gets old and nobody wants to play it anymore, you can buy it for $15. Sound good to you?

Somehow you want to reach to the conclusion that movies equal games. I am sorry, but they don't. Even the crappiest 10 minute dialog has much more depth than the whole HL2 session, let alone other games that are really crap...

http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Kingston_2GB_PC2_64 00_800MHz_240_pin_Registered_ECC_Parity_Dual_Rank_ x8_CL5_DIMM_Kit,__29356668/pid=kingston/type=2

Kingston 2GB PC2-6400 800MHz 240-pin Registered ECC Parity Dual Rank x8 CL5 DIMM Kit

Price Range: $293.70 - $539.99 from 11 Sellers

• processor - $53
• RAM - $38.99
• Hard Drive - $55
• DVD-ROM - $24.99 (new)
• Chasis (with power supply) - $42.80
• Motherboard - $124 (new)
• USB mouse and keyboard - about $25

• processor - $53
• RAM - $38.99
• Hard Drive - $55
• DVD-ROM - $24.99 (new)
• Chasis (with power supply) - $42.80
• Motherboard - $124 (new)
• USB mouse and keyboard - about $25

• processor - $53
• RAM - $38.99
• Hard Drive - $55
• DVD-ROM - $24.99 (new)
• Chasis (with power supply) - $42.80
• Motherboard - $124 (new)
• USB mouse and keyboard - about $25

• processor - $53
• RAM - $38.99
• Hard Drive - $55
• DVD-ROM - $24.99 (new)
• Chasis (with power supply) - $42.80
• Motherboard - $124 (new)
• USB mouse and keyboard - about $25

• processor - $53
• RAM - $38.99
• Hard Drive - $55
• DVD-ROM - $24.99 (new)
• Chasis (with power supply) - $42.80
• Motherboard - $124 (new)
• USB mouse and keyboard - about $25

• processor - $53
• RAM - $38.99
• Hard Drive - $55
• DVD-ROM - $24.99 (new)
• Chasis (with power supply) - $42.80
• Motherboard - $124 (new)
• USB mouse and keyboard - about $25

Yes, but it only has a single DVI out. The submitter is looking for dual dvi. I did a quick search and came up with this: http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page _id=5/popup6%5B%5D=10:594/popup2%5B%5D=1:596 There's a XFX GeForce for about $133, which isn't bad really, and that's not a bad card at all. I was playing CS:S with a 6800GT OC from BFG until just recently.

NONE of the decently priced LCD, Plasma, whatever support 1080p right now

Well, except for all of these. For a lot of people $1200 is not that much to spend on a large TV set because it's the center of most peoples entertainment time.

"True" HD sets are coming down in price rapidly because now there is real demand for them now that there is more content, demand which is only going to ramp up this year rapidly.

Your $600 video card does just as well, if not just a little better than, a $600 console. How much was your processor, memory, hard drive, dvd drive, motherboard, network card, and case? And before we forget, how much did your copy of Windows cost you?

HP LaserJet 1300

I think it's discontinued now but when i bought it about 3~4 years ago, I got it for around $300 new. it's fast - about 20ppm - and has worked flawlessly. we've got about 10 of those puppies at work. been working fine.

brother makes a similar type of printer. don't recall the model. but we bought about 2-3 of those for work at ~$200 apiece.

all of 'em have the postscript RIP(?).

But on the bright side, Sony provides media card reader slots! Woo hoo! Now I'm sure there are better deals from Dell, Compaq et al., however, when people argue that Macs are more expensive than equally configured PCs, this Sony is an equally configued PC (well, actually it is less configured, but that isn't Apple's fault now is it?). It seems that whenever Apple makes a nice product, like the new iMacs, the PC copycat version comes out $100-$200 less, but with lower specs, to preserve the illusion of PCs are cheaper. If I were to have dumb downed my iMac to the specs of this Sony, it would have been around $1500, and still would have a bigger monitor faster cpu and better video card.

I'm frankly sick of these old-ass arguments spewed by dweebs that still live in their mothers' basements waxing poetically about self-built PC towers with 18 expansion bays.

Prices vary wildly; this one is $180, and this one is $330. Non-retail, as you get from Dell or HP, is of course cheaper still.

The Westinghouse LVM-37W3 is hands down the best widescreen gaming monitor for less than $1000 available today. I have owned the previous model, a Westinghouse LVM-37w1, for a year now and it's fantastic for gaming. No pixel-lag or ghosting at all, vibrant colors, quick response time while playing shooters, lots and lots of screenspace for extra chat/UI windows while playing MMOGs, etc.

I use this monitor with my PC and it's the ideal screen-size for my viewing distance of 6'. I lean back on a reclining chair and put my feet up on my desk displacing my eyes about 6' from the center of the screen. Here's a good view distance calculator to determine the ideal screen size for your use case.

Notable Specs:

Contrast Ratio 1000:1
Response Time 8 ms

2 years ago specs like that were unheard of for a large LCD. When I bought mine last year the price was roughly $1,700...now you can get a superior model for $800! Amazing.

If you want HDTV, buy a separate and easily replaceable tuner. That way when the mafia...errr MPAA and FCC...finally implement HDCP it will be easier to circumvent.

More information here