I've purchased AMDs ever since I got rid of a Pentium 133 (aside from "donated" machines). But over my Thanksgiving break (took some vaca) I put together a Core2Duo; upgrading from an Athlon XP 2800+/Geforce 6600gt.
I put together 3 lists of items. A single core AMD 4000+ s939, a dual core 4800+ AM2 and an Intel e6600. Single core price was 1000$; both duals were just under 1300$ (with GeForce7950gtko)
I went with the Intel. From what I can tell, it's been a good buy; however, I'm kind of kicking myself for not buying a Raptor to go with it - I can tell that disk access is a majority of what holds back anything on this system... and upgrading the 2800+ just didn't make sense...
I would think that if you're actually "assisting" the car behind you, then your car will have more drag - you can't just draft and expect the car in front not to have to expend more, right?
In addition to your "showing off how much money" comment you made, me and my wife picked up a hell of a deal on an F150 - 2 wheel drive (it's flat here; winters are dealable) for MUCH less money than an SUV or brand new truck.
I'm getting to the age to where I just want things to work; my days of screwing around with computers just for the sake of getting something working on them doesn't thrill me as much as it used to. Hence, I have a computer there to play emulated games on etc; however, I don't want to rely on it for HD stuff.
I don't have a Tivo. It's a SageTV box (WinXP + Sage) - I haven't felt like spending the time to work with Myth, so I went the Windows route. I do run Linux for my home firewall and file server; but again, I get to the point where I feel like I'm beating my head against a rock sometimes (FC6 on an IBM T42 - no sound, no wireless; followed "how-tos" on the 'net, nada.) I don't like using my time to fix something when I could be doing more interesting things nowadays.
Athlon 2600+ (socket A) - Don't think that cuts the requirements, unfortunately:
Minimum processor recommended:
2.2 GHz P4 or 1.8 GHz Centrino or equivalent (minimum). 2.8 GHz processor for analog TV recording with MPEG-2 (minimum).
It would probably work; however, I still want an independant system. Even though I like using computers as PVRs (Have one doing the job currently) I want this to be simpler.
Something tells me Dolby S and HX-PRO won't even help:)
On a side note, does anyone even sell tape decks anymore? I remember reading all about Dolby S; it was always too expensive an option (and heck, car stereos didn't even have dolby C... not that it mattered too much)
I would LOVE to get OTA HDTV into my current theater set up - in fact, it's part of the reason I put together a new setup recently.
My problem is that the set top boxes are all 200$ +. And that's if I want to get one with a warranty. In addition, every review I've read of any available set-top box talks of difficulties changing channels etc...
I have a PC integrated into the theater, and I may just crumble and get an HD card for it; but I'd much much MUCH rather have a solid set-top box that doesn't have to rely on the PC being there. For similar reasons, I bought a DVD player for the set-up so I don't have to wait for the PC to power up etc.
DLP in my opinion (well, any front projection scheme) is the only way to get an inexpensive theater set-up running.
I've just "rebuilt" my set-up, with all new home theater equipment (sans speakers) and I've spent 1600$. This includes: 1. Harmon Kardon AVR-240 2. Infocus IN72 (yup, 480p, I only watch DVDs on it...) 3. Cables to hook everything up 4. DVD player 5. Custom built 76" screen 6. Audio Rack
And I'm waiting for my 300$ rebate from Infocus, which will take the total even lower.
Now, I know people will say "Well, it's not HD". There are projectors out there that could take your total to 2500$ for a FULL setup (720p), larger screen than any LCD or plasma available at reasonable cost. And yes, I have to keep the room light controlled, but in a movie situation, that doesn't irk me one bit.
I agree with it never being the primary market, because people want large screens for daily viewing. I just don't see the point right now in spending a whole lot of money for a TV, especially when HD really hasn't taken hold yet in the US for me yet.
Very bright LEDs still require some way to diffuse heat - I have several 1 watt, and a 3 watt Lumiled based flashlight(s). Each one of them has a heatsink attached to the LED in question - so I would guess if you have a bank of these, you'd still need some form of active cooling.
In addition, these LEDs don't give a uniform light output over the surface area of the chip, so there would have to be additional items in the light path to ensure uniformity over the area of light output. (I'm just guessing based on my experience with consumer-grade flashlights, BTw)
It sounds like you're referring to a projection LCD display, which is somewhat different from the displays people here are talking about; what with burn in conversations and all.
I'd imagine the smaller chips used in projection equipment don't have the same issues that a large flat LCD screen has.
From my experience, large companies will NOT just block a site because you've identified lack of productivity. You have to get HR involved to make any stance. In my current position, we will not do anything without HR involved - because there is too much risk of someone physically pointing the finger at someone in my group/organization and said finger-pointed-at-person getting canned.
I would imagine that if enough of a fuss was made, even at small companies just blocking a site could bring down some bad vibes - what if the owner of the company likes that site too?
You gotta see the forest before you can start cutting down trees, that's all I'm saying.
OR.. we could have interfaces that don't rely on physical movement,
You've hit it spot on. I'm curious about this happening within my lifetime for two different reasons:
1. There was an article here a few days ago - someone with increasing age/arthritis wanting a list of must-play games before he/she can't play anymore. This intrigues me for this reason since I know at some point I will probably have similar problems (I think anyone who grew up with computers at this point should expect things to "wear" a little quicker...) 2. "Levelling the playing field" - interfaces today can sometimes do so much to help you in your game - I play a lot of UT2k4, and while I'm probably just above average at best, I could see that a day would come where the interface (or lack of a good interface) wouldn't be the holdback - it would be all user skill.
All in all I think keeping fit (go and exercise - I know I do my best) and taking breaks are the best medicine for all that us information age people do; however, I would LOVE to have an input device that doesn't require physical movement.
As a follow up to your sound quality note, I wanted to state that I have tried to use several differnt PDAs as my all-in-one device. It makes perfect sense: They're powerful enough to operate as my calendar, inbox and mp3 player at work. However, with consumer level headsets (32 ohms or less) the noise coming out of the DACs on the two devices I used are horrible. (Palm TX and a Dell Axim X50V)
I would love to continue using one or the other; and I'm told I can "increase the resistance" by modifying a cord to my headphones - this will drop the noisy hiss, however will also decrease max volume.
Honestly, I'd rather just have a PDA with a nice DAC. (In addition, the Palm TX has the dreaded "screen whine" problem that Palm One will not fix..... they claim a 15khz buzz is not a problem. It is when you have tinnitus in one ear, man that buzz sets it off.)
At my stage in the game I would actually consider buying an Xbox brand new.
Why?
They're cheap! Well, at least cheaper than the new generation of consoles. To me that's a lot. In addition, the games (most of which I've not played) I could pay 20$ or less for! That's a win-win for me, especially for a brand new console w/warranty.
I have a PS2 I've probably played 20 or 30 games total on. And now, I can find games for 20$ or less that I salivated over about 2 years ago (I just bought GT4 and am hooked on that for now....)
I'm cheap in my gaming nowadays. Being 30+ I don't see dropping the money for a new PS3 as worthwhile as I probably used to.
These do an excellent job of just reducing the sound across the spectrum, so your 90db server room turns into 70db. In fact, I use these plugs while drumming to be able to hear properly (foam plugs kill the highs). An additional help with these plugs is that speech is still very clear.
I've also used some Sony in-ear headphones, and am thinking of ordering some of the Sennheiser phones. Now, these don't have active cancellation in them, but they do form a good fit (similar to the earplugs above) and can keep ambient noise to a comfortable level - but watch yourself; you may find youself still turning the music up too far to compensate for that little last bit, and cause more damage to your hearing.
I'd say earplugs would be 10x better; and with the earplugs above, you could play some music in the room and hear it properly... only problem there would be bugging others with your choice of music.
Dammit, now you just have me salivating thinking of getting XII.
Dream Theater owns. And apparently, so does the new Final Fantasy. To be honest, I didn't get into FFX-2 (it's probably been played all of 2 hours so far) so I was holding my breath on XII...
Slashdot Mirror
Amen.
I've purchased AMDs ever since I got rid of a Pentium 133 (aside from "donated" machines). But over my Thanksgiving break (took some vaca) I put together a Core2Duo; upgrading from an Athlon XP 2800+/Geforce 6600gt.
I put together 3 lists of items. A single core AMD 4000+ s939, a dual core 4800+ AM2 and an Intel e6600. Single core price was 1000$; both duals were just under 1300$ (with GeForce7950gtko)
I went with the Intel. From what I can tell, it's been a good buy; however, I'm kind of kicking myself for not buying a Raptor to go with it - I can tell that disk access is a majority of what holds back anything on this system... and upgrading the 2800+ just didn't make sense...
I would think that if you're actually "assisting" the car behind you, then your car will have more drag - you can't just draft and expect the car in front not to have to expend more, right?
So you "blame" the people that do their jobs? Spreading shit on a field is one way to keep it fertile!
Granted, might not be the most appealing to you... which again, has relevance back to Slashdot.
In addition to your "showing off how much money" comment you made, me and my wife picked up a hell of a deal on an F150 - 2 wheel drive (it's flat here; winters are dealable) for MUCH less money than an SUV or brand new truck.
Just keep your eyes open for deals....
Oh great. Now I'm lazy and confused. And here I thought I was just blissfully ignorant!
Agreed. I played this game off and on for nearly 6 months - and I leave the icon on my desk; a game only takes 5-10 minutes to complete.
That sounds like something that should be in a game.
A Penn & Teller game, perhaps a mini game where you get one point for getting through 3 weeks of medical simulation.
I'm getting to the age to where I just want things to work; my days of screwing around with computers just for the sake of getting something working on them doesn't thrill me as much as it used to. Hence, I have a computer there to play emulated games on etc; however, I don't want to rely on it for HD stuff.
I don't have a Tivo. It's a SageTV box (WinXP + Sage) - I haven't felt like spending the time to work with Myth, so I went the Windows route. I do run Linux for my home firewall and file server; but again, I get to the point where I feel like I'm beating my head against a rock sometimes (FC6 on an IBM T42 - no sound, no wireless; followed "how-tos" on the 'net, nada.) I don't like using my time to fix something when I could be doing more interesting things nowadays.
Athlon 2600+ (socket A) - Don't think that cuts the requirements, unfortunately:
Minimum processor recommended:
2.2 GHz P4 or 1.8 GHz Centrino or equivalent (minimum).
2.8 GHz processor for analog TV recording with MPEG-2 (minimum).
It would probably work; however, I still want an independant system. Even though I like using computers as PVRs (Have one doing the job currently) I want this to be simpler.
Something tells me Dolby S and HX-PRO won't even help :)
On a side note, does anyone even sell tape decks anymore? I remember reading all about Dolby S; it was always too expensive an option (and heck, car stereos didn't even have dolby C... not that it mattered too much)
I would LOVE to get OTA HDTV into my current theater set up - in fact, it's part of the reason I put together a new setup recently.
My problem is that the set top boxes are all 200$ +. And that's if I want to get one with a warranty. In addition, every review I've read of any available set-top box talks of difficulties changing channels etc...
I have a PC integrated into the theater, and I may just crumble and get an HD card for it; but I'd much much MUCH rather have a solid set-top box that doesn't have to rely on the PC being there. For similar reasons, I bought a DVD player for the set-up so I don't have to wait for the PC to power up etc.
Gets more out of the WAF, too....
DLP in my opinion (well, any front projection scheme) is the only way to get an inexpensive theater set-up running.
I've just "rebuilt" my set-up, with all new home theater equipment (sans speakers) and I've spent 1600$. This includes:
1. Harmon Kardon AVR-240
2. Infocus IN72 (yup, 480p, I only watch DVDs on it...)
3. Cables to hook everything up
4. DVD player
5. Custom built 76" screen
6. Audio Rack
And I'm waiting for my 300$ rebate from Infocus, which will take the total even lower.
Now, I know people will say "Well, it's not HD". There are projectors out there that could take your total to 2500$ for a FULL setup (720p), larger screen than any LCD or plasma available at reasonable cost. And yes, I have to keep the room light controlled, but in a movie situation, that doesn't irk me one bit.
I agree with it never being the primary market, because people want large screens for daily viewing. I just don't see the point right now in spending a whole lot of money for a TV, especially when HD really hasn't taken hold yet in the US for me yet.
Very bright LEDs still require some way to diffuse heat - I have several 1 watt, and a 3 watt Lumiled based flashlight(s). Each one of them has a heatsink attached to the LED in question - so I would guess if you have a bank of these, you'd still need some form of active cooling.
In addition, these LEDs don't give a uniform light output over the surface area of the chip, so there would have to be additional items in the light path to ensure uniformity over the area of light output. (I'm just guessing based on my experience with consumer-grade flashlights, BTw)
It sounds like you're referring to a projection LCD display, which is somewhat different from the displays people here are talking about; what with burn in conversations and all.
I'd imagine the smaller chips used in projection equipment don't have the same issues that a large flat LCD screen has.
From my experience, large companies will NOT just block a site because you've identified lack of productivity. You have to get HR involved to make any stance. In my current position, we will not do anything without HR involved - because there is too much risk of someone physically pointing the finger at someone in my group/organization and said finger-pointed-at-person getting canned.
I would imagine that if enough of a fuss was made, even at small companies just blocking a site could bring down some bad vibes - what if the owner of the company likes that site too?
You gotta see the forest before you can start cutting down trees, that's all I'm saying.
OR.. we could have interfaces that don't rely on physical movement,
You've hit it spot on. I'm curious about this happening within my lifetime for two different reasons:
1. There was an article here a few days ago - someone with increasing age/arthritis wanting a list of must-play games before he/she can't play anymore. This intrigues me for this reason since I know at some point I will probably have similar problems (I think anyone who grew up with computers at this point should expect things to "wear" a little quicker...)
2. "Levelling the playing field" - interfaces today can sometimes do so much to help you in your game - I play a lot of UT2k4, and while I'm probably just above average at best, I could see that a day would come where the interface (or lack of a good interface) wouldn't be the holdback - it would be all user skill.
All in all I think keeping fit (go and exercise - I know I do my best) and taking breaks are the best medicine for all that us information age people do; however, I would LOVE to have an input device that doesn't require physical movement.
The Xelibri reminds me of my wife's birth control pills' package....
3 17-8,00.htm
http://hardware.silicon.com/pdas/0,39024643,39164
As a follow up to your sound quality note, I wanted to state that I have tried to use several differnt PDAs as my all-in-one device. It makes perfect sense: They're powerful enough to operate as my calendar, inbox and mp3 player at work. However, with consumer level headsets (32 ohms or less) the noise coming out of the DACs on the two devices I used are horrible. (Palm TX and a Dell Axim X50V)
I would love to continue using one or the other; and I'm told I can "increase the resistance" by modifying a cord to my headphones - this will drop the noisy hiss, however will also decrease max volume.
Honestly, I'd rather just have a PDA with a nice DAC. (In addition, the Palm TX has the dreaded "screen whine" problem that Palm One will not fix..... they claim a 15khz buzz is not a problem. It is when you have tinnitus in one ear, man that buzz sets it off.)
Ever play Gradius or Paradius?
:)
There's whole teams of developers goin' to hell.
At my stage in the game I would actually consider buying an Xbox brand new.
Why?
They're cheap! Well, at least cheaper than the new generation of consoles. To me that's a lot. In addition, the games (most of which I've not played) I could pay 20$ or less for! That's a win-win for me, especially for a brand new console w/warranty.
I have a PS2 I've probably played 20 or 30 games total on. And now, I can find games for 20$ or less that I salivated over about 2 years ago (I just bought GT4 and am hooked on that for now....)
I'm cheap in my gaming nowadays. Being 30+ I don't see dropping the money for a new PS3 as worthwhile as I probably used to.
I'm pretty sure a few Slashdotters keep a 5.5-kilowatt home generator in
pssshhhhh. Lightweight.
Leaves three astronauts severely smelly and in lack of air.
If there's no air, are they still smelly?
First, to reduce the sound:
0 69679
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4
These do an excellent job of just reducing the sound across the spectrum, so your 90db server room turns into 70db. In fact, I use these plugs while drumming to be able to hear properly (foam plugs kill the highs). An additional help with these plugs is that speech is still very clear.
I've also used some Sony in-ear headphones, and am thinking of ordering some of the Sennheiser phones. Now, these don't have active cancellation in them, but they do form a good fit (similar to the earplugs above) and can keep ambient noise to a comfortable level - but watch yourself; you may find youself still turning the music up too far to compensate for that little last bit, and cause more damage to your hearing.
I'd say earplugs would be 10x better; and with the earplugs above, you could play some music in the room and hear it properly... only problem there would be bugging others with your choice of music.
Dammit, now you just have me salivating thinking of getting XII.
Dream Theater owns. And apparently, so does the new Final Fantasy. To be honest, I didn't get into FFX-2 (it's probably been played all of 2 hours so far) so I was holding my breath on XII...
Maybe I'm missing something, but if you have a DSLR, why are you shooting to JPEG?
Or do the producers take uncompressed and then convert?
Again, I could be missing something...