WOW is that a lot of FUD and very little (actually none) evidence. From your post, you sound like you're European. Let me edumacate' you:
1. While there are a lot of arguments on laws and policies in the US, it is hardly indicitive of our way of life changing. It's how our system of government is SUPPOSED to work. I get far more worried when there are *no* arguments.
2. "Unjust" laws end up being more "just" than you think. If it's unconstitutional, it does get struck down. It takes the courts a while, but things eventually work out.
3. Surprisingly, the Patriot Act hasn't been abused. Which isn't to say that we like the law (we don't), but there has been no opportunity to take it to the Supreme Court to have it overturned. I hate to say it (no, I really do), but it's almost as if the FBI is being responsible with their new-found powers. My only guess is that they know that moment they abuse the Act, it will be taken away from them.
4. The government isn't trying to "force" anything. The issue is FAR, FAR, more complex than ID vs. Evolution. In fact, the ID issue (which is at a State level, not a Federal level) is a backlash to the abusive teachings of Evolution in schools. The "science" that has been taught has been as good as junk science anyway. That's why people are pissed off.
5. Believe it or not, I'm as proud as ever to be an American. I much prefer my country to the UK, Europe, India, Russia, or China, thank you. We're just finally starting to get the thing put back together after a certain former President ignored all the major issues and allowed them to balloon into the mess we have now.
Sorry, no Roman Empires here. Better check the Catholic Roman Empire^W^W^W... err... I mean... European Union. (I kid, I kid!)
Does it say anywhere that the U.N. would shut down U.S. DNS operations and give it to someone else?
Actually, the article states that the U.N. wants to have the DNS computers turned over to them. Which is interesting considering that would be ceding private property to a government organization.
I think the idea is that the U.S. should not be able to do as they please in this situation without any need to respond to outside concerns.
The US is hardly "doing as it pleases". All the US does is provide root name services, as well as the more common domains like.com,.net, and.org. Obviously the root servers themselves contain a great deal of power (e.g. like the ability to turn off an entire top level domain), but that power has not been abused and is currently managed by an internation entity (ICANN). ICANN may have its own problems, but it has kept the lights on, which is more of a guarantee than I have with the UN.
See, changing the text that way makes it a lie not a different truth.
1. I did not stay up all night documenting US abuses. 2. The US has a very good system for arguing violation of laws. It may be slow, but it works. 3. The UN is not turning the DNS system over to the US. The UN want the US to give up private control to them. 4. The US does not filter the word "freedom" at any level. 5. The Constitution is so important to US Citizens that it is required memorization in school, and is constantly used in Supreme Court decisions to strike down unconstitutional laws. 6. The US people are not oppressed. If we were, we wouldn't be having conversations like this, would we?
The litmus test you're looking for is to replace the words and have it be just as true. Your post has failed to do so.
Thanks, I keep doing that. Something between the head and fingers on the keyboard gets the word messed up. Just keep pointing it out and I'll get it eventually.:-)
Simple. The US considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Anyone who does business with them inside the US borders for the purpose of funding terrorist operations WILL be tried and prosecuted. If Iraq (which was run at the time by a guy who gased his own people and pushed children out of helicopters) wanted its domain name, they shouldn't have been trying to illegally funnel money out of the US by stepping on our generous nature.
Iraq and the Hamas took a gamble to support terrorist opertions. They lost. Boo hoo.
You don't know what you're talking about. If you'd READ the article I linked to, you would have found this:
ICANN re-possessed the domain name in 2002 after the Texas-based company which was running it, InfoCom was involved in allegations of funnelling cash to the Islamic extremist group, Hamas.
No censoring was going on. The domain was seized because it was used as a cover for money laundering of terrorist organizations. Go ahead and prove how anything got censored because of this. If anything, it's more likely that the Hamas group was getting InfoCom to censor domains.
So the ICANN should judge the laws of the land they give domains to?
Who said anything about that? Oh, you made that up. Under ICANN, domains are domains, and anyone can have them. Iq was turned over to Iraq. Now Iraq imposes restrictions. No one has judged them on that, other than public opinion. What's your opinion? (If you actually have an informed one, that is.)
What is broken is the control over DNS and that is what this tries to correct.
No, that would be a new feature. A feature, that I might add, comes with significant risk. The US currently imposes no restrictions worth mentioning on domain names. Yet in comparison, countries like Iraq don't allow registrations by private citizens. And what if the UN fails to properly maintain the root servers?
Right now, the system works, and works well. I have seen no compelling reason to change it. If someone can actually point to a reasonable improvement that outweighs the risks, then I'll happily agree with ceding control. But right now, it's just political and nothing else.
Iraq doesn't have to go anywhere. They have their domain under their control. The REASON why ICANN was reluctant was because the domain was previously part of an elaborate terrorist funding affair. You'd be reluctant to turn it back too, if you previously had to sieze it because of terrorist funding.
Besides, so the Iraqis had to register through a foreign company. Big whoop. At least they could. Under current Iraqi regulations, private citizens are NOT allowed to have.Iq domains. Great freedom that is, eh?
I was just about to go attempt to register an Iq domain when I found this. No mention of Texas for the Iq domain, it all says "Bagdad". Not sure what that means, but I figured I'd throw it out there.
In any case, you can register an.Iq domain here. Since this particular site bundles trademarks with domain names, I imagine that there are probably quite a few other sites that allow you to register.Iq domains.
"If it aint broke dont fix it": Doesnt mean it cant be improved...
No, I'm pretty certain that's the very definition of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." i.e. The idea behind the "don't fix it" concept is that improvements always come with a risk. In this case, the risk is high that the Quailty of Service will drop considerably.
So we have to weigh on one hand the fact that the DNS system does everything that's needed today against allowing countries to control their own domain names and international funding/support of the DNS root computers on the other hand.
The problem is that the call for international support is not particularly compelling. The US is happily eating the costs of maintaining the Internet, is keeping standards high, and is generally doing a good job. (Despite the problems with ICANN.) What is so broken with the system that we need control to change hands? The answer is "nothing." So we come back to, "it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Now let me ask this: What does Iraq need with their domain name? What does any country need with their domain name?
There are hardly any horrible restrictions on registering a domain name. If you live in Iraq and need an Iraq domain name, go register it. If you need a UK domain name, go register it. There's nothing standing in the way.
Right now there are specific guarantees we have about the quality of service the DNS system provides. Doling it out to different countries without a good reason is a good way to destroy that quality, especially when a country lacks the proper resources to maintain the systems.
Hmm... I suppose that did come off kind of flame-baity, didn't it?
Let me put it this way, I just stayed up most of the night documenting in my blog how the Chinese government abuses its people and ignores the very laws it put in place to protect its people. Now first thing in the morning, I hear that the UN wants to turn over full control of the DNS heirarchy to countries like China. Countries to whom "freedom" is just a word to be filtered. Countries where a constitution is just words on some expensive paper. Countries that care little for anything except maintaining their own power.
If we turn even the slightest control over to these people, it's a surefire guarantee that they will abuse it. They would use the technology to further oppress their people (illegally, I might add) and attempt to extend their influence to elsewhere in the world.
So I will repeat, the Internet is not broken. Don't fix it.
calls on Thursday for a U.N. body to take over control of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet
Which is Europes way of saying, "gimme, gimme, gimme, my turn to play with the toys!"
Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly concerned about the U.S. control
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? What do developing countries have to do with jack? They're small and tend to have very poor Internet infrastructures. Does this mean that we're now supposed to turn over control to them so they can screw it up?
Cripes. The Internet works. If it's not broke, DON'T FIX IT.
I wish open source developers would stop copying the microsoft look-and-feel in the hope that users will find it familiar, since it seems microsoft responds to this by *gasp* making a new interface!
You missed the whole "Integrated Desktop" era of StarOffice, didn't you? It looked like this. The first job of the OOo team was to break the applications out of that interface. With each consecutive version, OOo/StarOffice has gotten closer to the MS Office interface. In the OOo 2.0 version, they've even gotten rid of the vertical toolbar.
Microsoft may not always be right, but in this case their basic style is the most efficient interface for users.
1. I don't like Via. (Maybe it's just prejudice from back in the day, but...)
2. I wanted it to be a fully featured board that users could count on for everything from TV to gaming to office work. Having capacity for 10 USB ports, 4 SATA-II drives, IDE, PCI Express, Hardware Firewall, and 8 Channel sound is definitely my idea of "fully featured". It's pretty hard to beat an nForce4 board in this area.:-)
3. I have experience with the particular board I recommended. That way I know I'm giving people a good recommendation and not just another "expert" opinion from someone who doesn't eat his own dog food.
Isn't there some length threshold for the DVI cable beyond which the picture starts to degrade?
DVI is digital, so you either have a signal lock or you don't. Which is to say, that the cable is still going to experience the same problems as any other cable, it's just that you're going to simply lose the signal instead of experiencing degradation. This link should help you pick a cable that meets your needs. Be warned, though, 10 meters is probably about the most you'll manage to get.
Otherwise, an inspiring article. I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on some of the XPS systems (such as the Kloss KL-i915A) in your Synergystic PC design.
I'm glad you liked the article.:-)
I'm afraid I'm not a big fan of small case designs, so I don't have much to say on the Kloss. I've always looked for a big case to provide plenty of space for airflow. Reducing the form factor reduces your ability to dissapate heat. Reducing your ability to dissapate heat means that you can't use the components to their fullest capacity OR you have to put up with a noisy fan. (You should hear my iBook's fan when I'm watching a movie with it on my lap. Sounds like someone's got a buzzsaw running in my room.)
Personally, I agree with you. But for some people, the fan noise is REALLY bothersome. Especially those who have tuned their ears to hear with precision. (i.e. The audiophile.)
That being said, I think the problem tends to be exasperated by poor cases. One of the primary points you have to look for when chosing a case is "does air flow well?" The case should be roomy enough to allow air to flow smoothly from the front of the case to the rear. Usually you'll have a fan in the rear of the case, but having mounts available for one in the front is usually not a bad idea either.
More fans can mean less RPM per fan for the same cooling. If it's slow enough, it should be practically impossible to hear. This concept is used heavily in the PowerMacs which have a boat-load of fans that spin at very low RPM.
If your case is too small or two crowded, what you'll see is a buildup of heat. This buildup will be noticed by the components such as the video card which will immediately spin the fan up to a higher RPM in an attempt to reduce the heat levels. And thus you end up with: a very noisy computer.
What's so bad about ASUS boards? I've usually found them to be pretty reliable, and currently recommend the A8N-[E/SLI] boards to people. Is there something wrong I should know about?
Then again, I usually wait for the early adopters to help companies work out the bugs before making a purchase. I've heard from several people that the ASUS boards can be buggy, but they always seem to be fine by the time I get to them.
But sometimes, you just want a little silence. For example, if you're building a home-theater PC, you'll want as quiet a system as possible.
Well, that would have been nice to be able to recommend when I wrote this article. I had also recommended an Asus GeForce 6600, albeit one that didn't cost quite as much. For myself (not being an audiophile), the cheaper card works fine as it rarely spins up to any noticable volume while I'm watching TV. I can understand, though, that for others the background noise can be very annoying.
As you can see, the card is actually designed to take advantage of a preexisting CPU cooling fan to blow air over the passive radiator. If you have a standard active cooling mount, then this is an innovative idea. But it does limit your choice of CPU coolers. For one thing, your processor heat sink can't be taller than the bottom of the card.
So what they're saying is that the ASUS Star Ice Jet Engine^W^W CPU Fan isn't going to work with this card? What a shocker.;-)
(No, I won't let go of it. I've still got mine sitting on my desk, just so I can get all the "What the hell is that?" comments. )
Nvidia's upcoming Release 80 drivers include a number of enhancements for HDTV, including the ability to minimize overscan problems, something which has plagued home-theater PCs for years.
This reminds me, has anyone had any experience with this or any other HDTV-compatible cards that don't cost an arm and a leg? I'm still avoiding HD for now, but it's likely to catch eventually. To date I haven't seen too many inexpensive HDTV tuner cards. Then again, maybe I'm not looking hard enough?
It gets a LOT better after that. If you haven't seen episodes like "Our Mrs. Reynolds" (Best ever!), "Out of Gas", or the original pilot, you have no idea what this show is about. "The Train Job" was a real hackjob, having to be written and filmed at the last minute because Fox thought that the pilot didn't have enough action. (Shades of Star Trek?) The only redeeming feature of this episode was when Reynolds kicked the guy into the engine.
The second episode "Bushwhacked", was probably also done as a hackjob. The original pilot had them outrunning Reavers, so this episode was obvious created or reworked to explain who the Reavers were.
One more episode, and I think you would have fallen in love with the series.:-)
How are they going to regroup and fight back? in episode 3 all the jedi were hunted down and killed. the army turned against the jedi.
It a good thing that revolutionaries tend to be a bit more inventive.;-)
We (the audience) *know* that Yoda, Organa, and Obi-Wan are all still alive, but that no other Jedi are. Baring any force tricks, Yoda doesn't know who is and isn't still alive. Until he's taken an inventory of his resources, how does he know which course of action to take? And even if we assume that he does know these things, most reasonable people would expect him to consider building a resistance on the order of the Rebel Alliance. Yet no one questioned his choice to go into exile!
If I were in Organa's place, I'd probably see it as Yoda running away from a fight. The fact that he just accepted it without question is just as unrealistic as Yoda's failure to take an inventory and consider his options.
Slashdot Mirror
WOW is that a lot of FUD and very little (actually none) evidence. From your post, you sound like you're European. Let me edumacate' you:
... err ... I mean... European Union. (I kid, I kid!)
1. While there are a lot of arguments on laws and policies in the US, it is hardly indicitive of our way of life changing. It's how our system of government is SUPPOSED to work. I get far more worried when there are *no* arguments.
2. "Unjust" laws end up being more "just" than you think. If it's unconstitutional, it does get struck down. It takes the courts a while, but things eventually work out.
3. Surprisingly, the Patriot Act hasn't been abused. Which isn't to say that we like the law (we don't), but there has been no opportunity to take it to the Supreme Court to have it overturned. I hate to say it (no, I really do), but it's almost as if the FBI is being responsible with their new-found powers. My only guess is that they know that moment they abuse the Act, it will be taken away from them.
4. The government isn't trying to "force" anything. The issue is FAR, FAR, more complex than ID vs. Evolution. In fact, the ID issue (which is at a State level, not a Federal level) is a backlash to the abusive teachings of Evolution in schools. The "science" that has been taught has been as good as junk science anyway. That's why people are pissed off.
5. Believe it or not, I'm as proud as ever to be an American. I much prefer my country to the UK, Europe, India, Russia, or China, thank you. We're just finally starting to get the thing put back together after a certain former President ignored all the major issues and allowed them to balloon into the mess we have now.
Sorry, no Roman Empires here. Better check the Catholic Roman Empire^W^W^W
Does it say anywhere that the U.N. would shut down U.S. DNS operations and give it to someone else?
.com, .net, and .org. Obviously the root servers themselves contain a great deal of power (e.g. like the ability to turn off an entire top level domain), but that power has not been abused and is currently managed by an internation entity (ICANN). ICANN may have its own problems, but it has kept the lights on, which is more of a guarantee than I have with the UN.
Actually, the article states that the U.N. wants to have the DNS computers turned over to them. Which is interesting considering that would be ceding private property to a government organization.
I think the idea is that the U.S. should not be able to do as they please in this situation without any need to respond to outside concerns.
The US is hardly "doing as it pleases". All the US does is provide root name services, as well as the more common domains like
If what you say is true, then you have a point. Sadly, you provided no evidence that such abuses are happening. Please do so, then we'll talk.
See, changing the text that way makes it a lie not a different truth.
1. I did not stay up all night documenting US abuses.
2. The US has a very good system for arguing violation of laws. It may be slow, but it works.
3. The UN is not turning the DNS system over to the US. The UN want the US to give up private control to them.
4. The US does not filter the word "freedom" at any level.
5. The Constitution is so important to US Citizens that it is required memorization in school, and is constantly used in Supreme Court decisions to strike down unconstitutional laws.
6. The US people are not oppressed. If we were, we wouldn't be having conversations like this, would we?
The litmus test you're looking for is to replace the words and have it be just as true. Your post has failed to do so.
Thanks, I keep doing that. Something between the head and fingers on the keyboard gets the word messed up. Just keep pointing it out and I'll get it eventually. :-)
Simple. The US considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Anyone who does business with them inside the US borders for the purpose of funding terrorist operations WILL be tried and prosecuted. If Iraq (which was run at the time by a guy who gased his own people and pushed children out of helicopters) wanted its domain name, they shouldn't have been trying to illegally funnel money out of the US by stepping on our generous nature.
Iraq and the Hamas took a gamble to support terrorist opertions. They lost. Boo hoo.
Illegally according to who?
The Constitution of the People's Republic of China, that's who. What do you think I sat up all night writing about, my cat?
You don't know what you're talking about. If you'd READ the article I linked to, you would have found this:
ICANN re-possessed the domain name in 2002 after the Texas-based company which was running it, InfoCom was involved in allegations of funnelling cash to the Islamic extremist group, Hamas.
No censoring was going on. The domain was seized because it was used as a cover for money laundering of terrorist organizations. Go ahead and prove how anything got censored because of this. If anything, it's more likely that the Hamas group was getting InfoCom to censor domains.
So the ICANN should judge the laws of the land they give domains to?
Who said anything about that? Oh, you made that up. Under ICANN, domains are domains, and anyone can have them. Iq was turned over to Iraq. Now Iraq imposes restrictions. No one has judged them on that, other than public opinion. What's your opinion? (If you actually have an informed one, that is.)
What is broken is the control over DNS and that is what this tries to correct.
No, that would be a new feature. A feature, that I might add, comes with significant risk. The US currently imposes no restrictions worth mentioning on domain names. Yet in comparison, countries like Iraq don't allow registrations by private citizens. And what if the UN fails to properly maintain the root servers?
Right now, the system works, and works well. I have seen no compelling reason to change it. If someone can actually point to a reasonable improvement that outweighs the risks, then I'll happily agree with ceding control. But right now, it's just political and nothing else.
Iraq doesn't have to go anywhere. They have their domain under their control. The REASON why ICANN was reluctant was because the domain was previously part of an elaborate terrorist funding affair. You'd be reluctant to turn it back too, if you previously had to sieze it because of terrorist funding.
.Iq domains. Great freedom that is, eh?
Besides, so the Iraqis had to register through a foreign company. Big whoop. At least they could. Under current Iraqi regulations, private citizens are NOT allowed to have
I was just about to go attempt to register an Iq domain when I found this. No mention of Texas for the Iq domain, it all says "Bagdad". Not sure what that means, but I figured I'd throw it out there.
.Iq domain here. Since this particular site bundles trademarks with domain names, I imagine that there are probably quite a few other sites that allow you to register .Iq domains.
In any case, you can register an
BTW, I just answered my own question.
"If it aint broke dont fix it": Doesnt mean it cant be improved...
No, I'm pretty certain that's the very definition of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." i.e. The idea behind the "don't fix it" concept is that improvements always come with a risk. In this case, the risk is high that the Quailty of Service will drop considerably.
So we have to weigh on one hand the fact that the DNS system does everything that's needed today against allowing countries to control their own domain names and international funding/support of the DNS root computers on the other hand.
The problem is that the call for international support is not particularly compelling. The US is happily eating the costs of maintaining the Internet, is keeping standards high, and is generally doing a good job. (Despite the problems with ICANN.) What is so broken with the system that we need control to change hands? The answer is "nothing." So we come back to, "it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Do yourself a favor and READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE.
I did, and I found it wanting in details. Basically, the UN wants control and no one has clearly documented WHY.
Internet is not broken,
I'm glad you agree. Let's leave it the frak alone, shall we?
Good post. :-)
Now let me ask this: What does Iraq need with their domain name? What does any country need with their domain name?
There are hardly any horrible restrictions on registering a domain name. If you live in Iraq and need an Iraq domain name, go register it. If you need a UK domain name, go register it. There's nothing standing in the way.
Right now there are specific guarantees we have about the quality of service the DNS system provides. Doling it out to different countries without a good reason is a good way to destroy that quality, especially when a country lacks the proper resources to maintain the systems.
Hmm... I suppose that did come off kind of flame-baity, didn't it?
Let me put it this way, I just stayed up most of the night documenting in my blog how the Chinese government abuses its people and ignores the very laws it put in place to protect its people. Now first thing in the morning, I hear that the UN wants to turn over full control of the DNS heirarchy to countries like China. Countries to whom "freedom" is just a word to be filtered. Countries where a constitution is just words on some expensive paper. Countries that care little for anything except maintaining their own power.
If we turn even the slightest control over to these people, it's a surefire guarantee that they will abuse it. They would use the technology to further oppress their people (illegally, I might add) and attempt to extend their influence to elsewhere in the world.
So I will repeat, the Internet is not broken. Don't fix it.
calls on Thursday for a U.N. body to take over control of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet
Which is Europes way of saying, "gimme, gimme, gimme, my turn to play with the toys!"
Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly concerned about the U.S. control
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? What do developing countries have to do with jack? They're small and tend to have very poor Internet infrastructures. Does this mean that we're now supposed to turn over control to them so they can screw it up?
Cripes. The Internet works. If it's not broke, DON'T FIX IT.
I wish open source developers would stop copying the microsoft look-and-feel in the hope that users will find it familiar, since it seems microsoft responds to this by *gasp* making a new interface!
You missed the whole "Integrated Desktop" era of StarOffice, didn't you? It looked like this. The first job of the OOo team was to break the applications out of that interface. With each consecutive version, OOo/StarOffice has gotten closer to the MS Office interface. In the OOo 2.0 version, they've even gotten rid of the vertical toolbar.
Microsoft may not always be right, but in this case their basic style is the most efficient interface for users.
1. I don't like Via. (Maybe it's just prejudice from back in the day, but...)
:-)
2. I wanted it to be a fully featured board that users could count on for everything from TV to gaming to office work. Having capacity for 10 USB ports, 4 SATA-II drives, IDE, PCI Express, Hardware Firewall, and 8 Channel sound is definitely my idea of "fully featured". It's pretty hard to beat an nForce4 board in this area.
3. I have experience with the particular board I recommended. That way I know I'm giving people a good recommendation and not just another "expert" opinion from someone who doesn't eat his own dog food.
Isn't there some length threshold for the DVI cable beyond which the picture starts to degrade?
:-)
DVI is digital, so you either have a signal lock or you don't. Which is to say, that the cable is still going to experience the same problems as any other cable, it's just that you're going to simply lose the signal instead of experiencing degradation. This link should help you pick a cable that meets your needs. Be warned, though, 10 meters is probably about the most you'll manage to get.
Otherwise, an inspiring article. I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on some of the XPS systems (such as the Kloss KL-i915A) in your Synergystic PC design.
I'm glad you liked the article.
I'm afraid I'm not a big fan of small case designs, so I don't have much to say on the Kloss. I've always looked for a big case to provide plenty of space for airflow. Reducing the form factor reduces your ability to dissapate heat. Reducing your ability to dissapate heat means that you can't use the components to their fullest capacity OR you have to put up with a noisy fan. (You should hear my iBook's fan when I'm watching a movie with it on my lap. Sounds like someone's got a buzzsaw running in my room.)
Personally, I agree with you. But for some people, the fan noise is REALLY bothersome. Especially those who have tuned their ears to hear with precision. (i.e. The audiophile.)
That being said, I think the problem tends to be exasperated by poor cases. One of the primary points you have to look for when chosing a case is "does air flow well?" The case should be roomy enough to allow air to flow smoothly from the front of the case to the rear. Usually you'll have a fan in the rear of the case, but having mounts available for one in the front is usually not a bad idea either.
More fans can mean less RPM per fan for the same cooling. If it's slow enough, it should be practically impossible to hear. This concept is used heavily in the PowerMacs which have a boat-load of fans that spin at very low RPM.
If your case is too small or two crowded, what you'll see is a buildup of heat. This buildup will be noticed by the components such as the video card which will immediately spin the fan up to a higher RPM in an attempt to reduce the heat levels. And thus you end up with: a very noisy computer.
What's so bad about ASUS boards? I've usually found them to be pretty reliable, and currently recommend the A8N-[E/SLI] boards to people. Is there something wrong I should know about?
Then again, I usually wait for the early adopters to help companies work out the bugs before making a purchase. I've heard from several people that the ASUS boards can be buggy, but they always seem to be fine by the time I get to them.
But sometimes, you just want a little silence. For example, if you're building a home-theater PC, you'll want as quiet a system as possible.
;-)
Well, that would have been nice to be able to recommend when I wrote this article. I had also recommended an Asus GeForce 6600, albeit one that didn't cost quite as much. For myself (not being an audiophile), the cheaper card works fine as it rarely spins up to any noticable volume while I'm watching TV. I can understand, though, that for others the background noise can be very annoying.
As you can see, the card is actually designed to take advantage of a preexisting CPU cooling fan to blow air over the passive radiator. If you have a standard active cooling mount, then this is an innovative idea. But it does limit your choice of CPU coolers. For one thing, your processor heat sink can't be taller than the bottom of the card.
So what they're saying is that the ASUS Star Ice Jet Engine^W^W CPU Fan isn't going to work with this card? What a shocker.
(No, I won't let go of it. I've still got mine sitting on my desk, just so I can get all the "What the hell is that?" comments. )
Nvidia's upcoming Release 80 drivers include a number of enhancements for HDTV, including the ability to minimize overscan problems, something which has plagued home-theater PCs for years.
This reminds me, has anyone had any experience with this or any other HDTV-compatible cards that don't cost an arm and a leg? I'm still avoiding HD for now, but it's likely to catch eventually. To date I haven't seen too many inexpensive HDTV tuner cards. Then again, maybe I'm not looking hard enough?
Some really cool inventions you may find handy:
1. DynDNS (Give your dial up/DSL computer a DNS address!)
2. SCP (Copy files securely to and from any computer!)
In case you're wondering, these significantly streamline the Internet option.
It gets a LOT better after that. If you haven't seen episodes like "Our Mrs. Reynolds" (Best ever!), "Out of Gas", or the original pilot, you have no idea what this show is about. "The Train Job" was a real hackjob, having to be written and filmed at the last minute because Fox thought that the pilot didn't have enough action. (Shades of Star Trek?) The only redeeming feature of this episode was when Reynolds kicked the guy into the engine.
:-)
The second episode "Bushwhacked", was probably also done as a hackjob. The original pilot had them outrunning Reavers, so this episode was obvious created or reworked to explain who the Reavers were.
One more episode, and I think you would have fallen in love with the series.
How are they going to regroup and fight back? in episode 3 all the jedi were hunted down and killed. the army turned against the jedi.
;-)
It a good thing that revolutionaries tend to be a bit more inventive.
We (the audience) *know* that Yoda, Organa, and Obi-Wan are all still alive, but that no other Jedi are. Baring any force tricks, Yoda doesn't know who is and isn't still alive. Until he's taken an inventory of his resources, how does he know which course of action to take? And even if we assume that he does know these things, most reasonable people would expect him to consider building a resistance on the order of the Rebel Alliance. Yet no one questioned his choice to go into exile!
If I were in Organa's place, I'd probably see it as Yoda running away from a fight. The fact that he just accepted it without question is just as unrealistic as Yoda's failure to take an inventory and consider his options.