Except that if they do it enough times, they'll find themselves involved in a SLAPP lawsuit. That's the real beauty. The RIAA gets one chance to win and maybe an appeal or two but after that, it will appear that they are appealling to bankrupt the defendant by continuous appeals (rather than appealling because there was a real error) and will be sued for SLAPP violations, which they will lose. And then the RIAA will be out real money and the woman will be very rich. That's why they won't appeal but once to each court they can. But you can bet that it'll be good.
*Gags* from your pseudo-logic. Try fully thinking things through before you post. First, minors are guaranteed rights under the Constitution. Ask any attorney. But more importantly, these laws do violate the game producers' first ammendment rights by having a chilling effect on the availability. You see, by making it illegal to sell games in the manner that these laws propose, they make it very difficult to sell any games to minors. (Take a good read at Michigan's law. It bans more than just M and AO games by virtue of its ridiculously vague language.) With this much difficulty in selling these games, many stores will simply drop games rather than deal with fines and regulations. Many more (read: most) will just drop M games, making them not profitable in the least. That's why nobody makes AO games; major stores won't carry them. This is a called a chilling effect. That's a legal term, and that's why these bans are unconstitutional. They have a chilling effect on peoples' rights to produce material intended for adults.
I can't believe I just did that. I accidentally modded the parent as "overrated" instead of "underrated". The modding of "troll" was just ridiculous and I couldn't let that stand. Now I have to post this message to undo my damage because./ doesn't offer a way fixing it.
I just did. I got about 1.6A. Thats with a Geforce 6800GT and P4-2.8GHz Prescott. Comparable everything else. With an Akasa 460W PSU. That doesn't surprise me in the least. I was more warning about quality anyway. A lot of those cheap "450W" PSUs can't handle more than 200W and when they're putting out that much, the power quality is ridiculous. Of course, I tested my home system as drawing 3.5A last year. I was burning two DVDs and four CDs at once. It was on an Athlon 3000+ with 1GB RAM, a Chaintech mobo, 4 CD-burners, two DVD-burners, 4 HDs, a GeForce 2 (I don't play games on that system, so a 2 is fine), a tape backup and a floppy drive. I power it with an Akasa 650W PSU. (I just happen to like Akasa. There are a buch of other good brands too) So, for most people, even 460W may be overkill, but for people like me who like using their outdated hardware just because they can, it may not even be enough.
The only reason I say don't spend less than $60 is that at lower prices, crappy PSUs will find their way into the mix at ridiculous prices. And they usually seem like good deals. But by $60, the crappy ones are pretty much weeded out. What's $20 anymore anyway, if it means you're getting something worthwhile?
Seriously, its your PSU. Shitty PSUs (ones that you get with computers taht are pre-built and nearly any PSU that cost you less than $60) get even shittier over time. Get yourself a good PSU and you'll notice a HUGE performance increase.
Second, buy compatible RAM. (The mobo determines what you need to buy.) Get at least 1GB. Always get your RAM such that you will have two (or four) identical DIMMs. Get the fastest RAM that your mobo can handle. Use the manufacturer's website to determine that. For most AMD systems, this will PC3200 DDR SDRAM. For most (new) Intel mobos, this will be some type of DDR2. DDR2 and DDR have nothing to do with dual-channel memory. That is about whether you have two (or four) identical DIMMs plugged into a dual-channel mobo, in the right slots (one of each color, on most mobos).
Third, grab a hard drive. Look for perfomance rather than just size. Go with 7200RPM at a minimum. SATA is a plus. Make sure the cahce is good and large. 8MB minimum, 16MB is better. If you get 10000RPM or higher, you'll need an HD cooler, though it's a good thing for the slower HDs as well. Don't buy the cooler with the HD, though; you'll find them cheaper elsewhere usually.
Forth, the CD/DVD drive. Get what you'll need. Go with Plextor or Yamaha if you want it good.
Fifth, the power supply(PSU). I only put this fifth because its such a no-brainer, not because it's not important. Get a GOOD PSU with a medium to high wattage. I recommend an Akasa 460W at a minimum and Akasa 650W if you want the best. DO NOT SPEND LESS THAN $60 ON A PSU. DO NOT USE A PSU WITH THAT CAME WITH A CASE. Seriously. Those cheap 450W PSUs you see out there for $20 suck balls. Even if they can handle the wattage your system requires (doubtful as most have inflated stats), they won't be able to handle it well. Bad power is worse than no power, much worse. Bad power WILL cause your system to be very unstable for no apparent reason. If you have that computer with every individual piece of hardware working fine but you still get random crashes and instabilities, its the PSU. Trust me, the PSU is the most important part of your system. If you cheap out, you will be making your system suck donkey for no good reason. Get a good a PSU. If in doubt about what's good, go to Hexus.net. They had a huge roundup of PSUs that they reviewed. Trust them if you don't trust me. But seriously, I can't stress this enough, the PSU is the absolute most important part of your computer purchase and you should NEVER even think of using a shitty, cheapass one. No matter what.
Sixth, the graphics card. This is important. Think about what you want to do and then decide what you want. Use reviews to get a good idea of what's good. Just make sure you get the AGP version if you bought an AGP mobo and the PCI-E version if you got a PCI-E mobo. One will always be more expensive than the other but which one is a crapshoot. For games, Geforce 6800GT or ATI Radeon X800 are minimums. 256MB graphics RAM is also a minimum.
Seventh, the least important aspect of the computer other than the monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers: the case. When you buy a case, you only need to worry about a few things. First, don't get one with a PSU built-in (unless you plan on throwing it away or selling it to someone less informed); those PSUs invariably suck. Second, make sure that it can handle full-ATX if you bought a full-ATX mobo. Otherwise, its all about looks.
Eighth, fans. Buy some fans to keep your system cool. You don't need to worry so much about the processor fan; the ones that come with them are usually fine. But you do need to get some case fans; probably 3 or 4, at least two. Just make sure that you have more (or the same as) fans pointing inside your case than fans pointing out. It helps keep dust down and keeps your system cooler. Be sure that the fans are placed so that air flows from the front to back; your PSU's fan will push air out of the back of your computer too.
Ninth, the rest. These are the least important. Get whatever monitor you can afford. Get the cheapest keyboard that your willing to have on your desk. Get an IR mouse (don't bother with ball mice; they aren't any cheaper). Speakers are a matter of preference. Games
Though I disagree with the premise that hatred and anger are compatible with Enlightment, I also agree with it. Hatred and anger do have a place. We need acknowledge them and find their source before we will be able to see the world for what it truly is (become Enlightened). But enough talk on that subject, time to rebut the claims of the parent.
You seem to have forgotten that Buddhism is a religion of inclusion. While his path may not be mine (or anyone else's), it is still his path. If it gets him closer to enlightenment and he considers it Buddhist, then it is Buddhist. Buddhists tend to consider any path to Enlightenment valid. We are not the members of most other religions; we do not critisize the ways that others practise, nor do hold that others will not become Enlightened if they do not practise as we do. No matter how strange that may seem, it is accurate.
Its not mandatory labeling and ID checks (at least in Michigan's case). Its much more insidious. It makes it a crime to distribute "ultra-violent" games to minors under 17 (not 18, FYI). The main problem here is not the ID check but what constitutes "ultra-violent". The definition in Michigan's law is somewhat vague and while it certainly includes rated-M games, it may also include many rated-T games and a load of unrateds. It could even be construed to include a number of rated-E and rated-E10 games, as well (we're talking games like Super Mario Bros.); its that vague. Furthermore, the law makes it a crime to allow minors under 17 to even see OTHER people play the games. It also doesn't provide for the rating system to be used as a defense and doesn't require games to be labeled. This law would have a chilling effect on the gaming industry by making it very difficult to sell games in a place where minors frequent. Places like Meijer, Walmart, Target, etc would probably stop carrying games altogether rather than try to figure out which games are "ultra-violent" and which aren't. That's why this law is a problem.
I didn't miss the "poor man's" part; you just missed one of points. 25V audio can be the cheapest stuff money can buy if you look in the right place. I picked up two 25W 25V amps and 16 speakers at auction last year for $100. Try getting audio distribution equipment of ANY kind for cheaper than that.
Re:s/Stranger /Moon Is a Harsh Mistress/
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No way dude. "Forever War" was so much better than "Starship Troopers". ("Forever War" was a response to "Starship Troopers".) I mean, it had unencumbered gay sex AND it followed the laws of physics. Especially because of the gay sex part.
I think that's exactly what happening. Jerk Thindickson wrote a lame book full of shit. People are calling him on it. They aren't saying, "Fucking remove that lame moron's book from the market so that no one may ever read it, thereby censoring him!" they are saying, "That fucking book sucks some balls and no one should dumb themselves to that level of stupidity by reading it." The former is unacceptable. The latter is free speech, along the same lines as Thompson's lame-ass book. Thompson's the asshole supporting censorship by asking that reveiws be removed because he doesn't like them. When he wrote that letter, there were only 33 negative reveiws on Amazon.com; he wanted all of them gone. If he would have read any of them, he would have noted that most of them of actual reveiws of the book's copy (or at least the first chapter), rather than personal flames. Only like eight should have been removed. If he didn't want negative reveiws, he should have written something that wasn't absolute shit.
People drink Pabst Blue Ribbon when they could actually have beer.
I've been saying that for years. That almost brought tears to my eyes reading it, I laughed so hard. PBR is probably the worst beer in existance other than Camo Lager. Strangely, though, I think the kiddies have all moved on to Milwaukee's Best (the Beast). Tastes pretty much the same. Screw that stuff though; give me an IPA anyday.
My thinking was that if he's in a home big enough that he's asking about how to do whole house wiring then his home must be big enough for standard levels to attenuate too much to be nice. That really isn't that far anyway. Maybe 50-100 feet. I suppose the average home isn't as large as I was imagining. Anyway, for normal sized homes you're right, 25V is overkill. Of course, if you do happen to find it at auction, the 25V stuff is usually cheaper than the standard 8 Ohm stuff. But that's usually because you can't find standard 8 Ohm stuff at auction and are forced to use retail.
Alright, the WAY TO GO for whole house audio is 25V systems. You just need a 25V audio amplifier (figure like 2W per speaker) and these special speakers which have transformers built into them. You could also go with 70V audio but its more expensive (although easier to find). Don't try to get this stuff new though; you'll pay way to much. Instead, go to business auctions (restaurant auctions are a good place for this) and going out of business sales. You'll get much better deals. Strangely, this stuff is somewhat hard to find on the internet.
Just so you know, the benefit of 25V (and 70V) audio over standard direct to speaker connections or 3.3V/5V/8V audio signals is less attenuation. 25V and 70V systems can transmit audio signals without degradation over very long distances, like what you would need to wire a whole house or building. The more usual types of audio transmission can only go a few feet.
The other benefit (perhaps more important) is that you can have as many speakers as you want on the same wires in parallel (as long as your amplifier can handle it). Under ordinary wiring schemes, you can only have one device per output channel. If you split it, either the signal will degrade or the amplifier will overload.
The only problem with this scheme is that you need completely separate amplifiers and wires for each channel (left and right) if you want stereo output instead of mono. This precludes the usual combining of grounds that most people use.
If you want to be able to control the volume of each speaker independently just toss a potentiometer between one wire and the transformer on the speaker. Like a 50 Ohm ought to be fine.
Now, just so every knows, this scheme is only cheap if you find the equipment used. Brand new, this stuff is quite expensive. BUT, this stuff is pretty easy to find used if you look for it.
If you have no patience, you could try any number of other schemes. I think one of my favorites (I have a friend how actually did this) is to buy a bunch of very crappy computers (think Pentium 200), take them out of the cases and embed them in the walls (he had fans to push the heat into his airducts). Then he attached them via ethernet and multicasted his audio signal to all his crappy machines. All ten of them (he has a HUGE house). The computers are hooked up to vintage stereos which he uses as amplifiers for each room. He controls all this with his laptop and SSH. He usually leaves the stereos on and turned up and turns the sound to each room on and off by sshing into the approriate machine. He recently told me that he's thinking of changing his setup to using one of those network audio protocols, (nas, I think) so that he can have different stuff playing in each room. He also said he was thinking of adding IrDA transcievers to his crap machines so that he can control them with his Palm.
"Or do you think its also OK for anyone to sell alcohol, cigarettes, firearms and porn to minors too?"
Yes. Seriously. I also think all drugs should be legal for much the same reason. It's not my place or the place of anyone else to tell you what you can and cannot do. Even for teenagers. I'm not saying it would be right to sell crack cocaine to 8-year olds but then what dumbass would do that? Even if it was legal? As far as teens buying cigs, porn, drugs and booze, why not? Where's the arbitrary line to be drawn? 18? 21? Why not 15? or 14? Especially for porn. Its not like 13 year old boys' dicks don't work. Or like 13 year old girls aren't horny. Why deny them that and make them feel that a natural function is evil? The real problem here is that parents are too lazy and ignorant to teach their kids responsibility.
Case in point: My parents allowed me freedom in these areas when I was a teen and, lo and behold, I'm not an alcoholic, I don't do drugs or smoke cigs (weed and porn are still things I enjoy, albeit resonsibly and occasionally). My cousins, OTOH, got less freedom and now I'm related to a 23yo mother of 5, a convicted murderer/rapist, and 3 people in and out of rehab (out of 12). Look at your friends and you'll see the same correlation. The more freedom and education, the less problems. The more restrictions, the less responsibility. Who woulda thunk it?
And another thing. What the hell is wrong with you people and your "anti-drug" ads? You attack a plant as if it the devil himself. Then you shove alcohol, a drug much, much worse, down everyone's throats. Alcohol's a drug too, morons. Weed never killed anyone; people die of alcohol poisoning everyday. People drive safer on weed (with nothing else) than when stone sober (that's not a joke); people drive like shit drunk. So again, what the hell is wrong with you people?
Now, back to responding to your post (after quite a lengthy segue).
"Funny, I was under the impression they were the ones pushing for the law. Or are you saying its the parents who don't care much about what their kids are doing who spent all the time and effort required to get this law on the books?"
Those parents don't really exist. The people fighting for this law and laws like are politicians who think it will help them get the soccer mom vote. And Jack Thompson. I'm serious, the only people who give a damn are those up for re-election. No one else really cares. If they do, its just lip service or passive agreement. It's like people who are against pop in schools. They may be against it, but I don't see them marching on Washington or donating boatloads of loot to the cause.
On a more personal note concerning you: If you ARE a parent, I really feel sorry for your kids. You must seriously suck at it if you think your kids will make the wrong decisions concerning these "vices". If they do make the wrong decisions consistantly (they WILL screw up a few times), then it is YOU who have failed, not the state or your child, as it is YOUR responsibility for ensuring that your kids get the proper education concerning vice, not everone's else.
Besides, if you are so concerned for your poorly educated children's access to games (The fact that you have this concern is indicative of your failure as a parent.), you could invoke your state granted powers of guardianship to get your child's entire paycheck (assuming they work) every week and only give them enough for what they need. It would be damn hard for them to buy a game if they don't have the loot to do it. This strategy has worked to cure my brother's coke habit (He, unlike me, had to deal with the stress of a divorce in his childhood. This screwed his world view and made him much more susceptible to drugs. Furthermore, he also had less parental education concerning drugs than I or my other brothers, in part, because of this divorce. And, during this time, my mother began using drugs again (she quit before I, her eldest child, was born), providing a negative influence in this area. If you don't want your kids to use, don't use yourself.).
I've been saying that for years. I don't think AMD's much better though. Everything's been Athlon until Sempron came out. Just look at Athlon 64; they're like four versions, at least. I got a stepping 4 Athlon 64 3000+. It's completely different from the Athlon 64 3000+. For starters it uses a different socket and has 120nm transistors instead of 90nm. Same name though.
BTW, Sexium doesn't make that much sense. Penta is from ancient Greek, as is hexa, so hexium makes sense. For sexium to work (and that would be sweet), pentiums would have had to have been called quintiums. (Unus, duo, trio, quattour, quintus, sex, septum, etc.). Personally, I think AMD should have called their 586 a quintium, and then called Athlon sexium. Man, the ad campaigns would have ROCKED! The funniest part about the whole pentium name is that while penta is Greek, the -ium ending is Latin, bastardized Latin at that. (the -um ending is certainly Latinesque, the 'i', however, is not. Words ending in -ium are called i-stem words and the 'i' is part of the base of the word, not the ending.). Intel's name people obviously had no background in dead languages, that's for sure.
If you have a terrible sweettooth and still want to ditch the sweeteners, be sure to try fruit flavored loose teas or scented teas. Flavored teas have bits and pieces of dried fruit that add a small amount of natural sugars and oils to the tea, just enough to make it much sweeter. Scented teas have essential oils that do the same. Just don't expect it to be sugary like pop and you'll be fine. If all else fails, add a touch of honey, it tastes better in most teas than white sugar. Real maple syrup goes well with Lapsang Souchong tea (a tea that was cured using pine smoke. very odd). Some teas also take milk well (black teas usually take it better than other kinds; the darker the infusion, the better it will take to milk). Don't use cream.
You can make real chai tea (its what that fake powdered crap is supposed to taste like) by brewing some good Assam tea (broken leaf is better than whole for this) with some different herbs and spices. Try cardommon, cloves, cinnamon, black/white pepper (trust me), vanilla, nutmeg, ginger, whatever. Put them in with the tea and pour on the boiling water. When it's done brewing (3-5 min), strain, and add warmed milk. About 25% of the resulting beverage should be milk. This is great for breakfast, or going to bed if you are immune to the effects of caffeine.
Even better, incorporate symbols and caps into your passwords and type the shift with the opposit hand as the key. This makes it very difficult to tell which keys are caps and which aren't. The symbols are the kicker since so few people use them, they're not expected. Be sure to repeat a character or two, which makes it harder to tell you long your password is. Then, just to make it difficult, use long passwords of like 13 characters and practice typing your passwords as fast as possible in private. Do all that and you make it practically impossible to watch over the shoulder for a password in only one pass. You would need several to get the caps and lowercase down, and a few more because the length would prevent you from picking it up entirely the first (out short term memories are only so large). Throw symbols in and people are screwed.
That's why you shouldn't use pictures of cute kittens. The best thing to use is porn. Everyone has giant porn collections, so having a boatload of porn pics won't raise any flags. Just be sure to change the format of the pics to something else so they can't test them against the originals. Like convert all your pron jpegs to pngs and steno on them. This way they won't know what the original png looked like to know that it was stenod because the originals on the internet were jpegs. And don't forget to encrypt your data really well before stenoing it.
If your data is really ridiculously sensitive, use a picture collection that would draw suspicion of and in itself. This will keep them from looking more closely for the data. And use a low-grade encryption on it so they break it and find suspicious collection first. For example, you could get a collection of non-nude, but suggestive pics of children and convert and steno your encrypted data into a few. Then encrypt those pics with something they'll break in a few days. When they break it, they'll think you were protecting your kiddie pics and not whatever you really were protecting. The trick is to make sure that all the kiddie pics are legal but just look bad. This way they can't actually get you and you get to keep your encrypted data that they don't know about because the pics weren't illegal and they thought they already found what you were hiding.
Actually, if you buy better tea, you won't need the sweetener and the caffeine will be as intense if not more so than coffee. Try out a few different loose single-estate teas. You can get them off the internet or from (maybe) your local coffee and tea store. I recommend trying a few Darjeeling teas for taste, they're usually quite flowery, which most people taste as a natural sweettartness (not like the candy); if in doubt about what flush to get, most people like Autumnal at first and love 1st flust after they get their tea pallette. Also try some Assam teas for caffeine. Assams are usually very potent, like good coffee and tend to be quite malty, a taste most people consider to be sweet like molasses without the sugar. The broken leaf Assams are much maltier than whole-leaf Assams.
And then, of course, there are green, oolong and white teas for those who like a change of pace. They're lower in caffeine and don't necessarily require boiling water. Some green and white teas can be brewed with water temps as low as 140F. Scented and flavored varieties are also quite delicious, and are natuarally flavored so that they don't usually need sweetening.
While there are some very good and high-quality teas in bags, they're few and far between. Loose tea is much more likely to be good and fresh and of a higher quality. Most cheap, everyday teabags use some of the lowest quality teas on the market, usually OPF or BOP so they can say Orange Pekoe. The only lower grade tea out there is PF, BP and P and is used to make bottled teas like Lipton Brisk and Nestea.
Sharks are not invertabrates. They are vertabrates with a full skeleton. That skeleton just happens to be a softer relative of bone called cartilage. That's why all fish are vertebrates and there's a class of vertebrates called cartilagenous fish.
Since when does it matter that there are a FEW counter-arguments. The man was saying that most atrocities in history were caused by religion. While a few of the more recent one abandon that outdated premise, most don't. Including most of whom you listed.
Hitler based his arguments on religion (though he himself was not). The whole "we're superior because we're Aryan" thing is based on the credos presented in the Old Testament, and the whole one "master race" that will be saved from Armageddon is from the New Testament side. You don't beleive me? Pick up a Bible and actually read it. There are a few quotes I absolutely love that you'll comletely gloss over if you do. Like the one where Jesus is tripping balls on Aminta mushrooms and offers his own piss to an old woman so that she may trip also. Or when Jesus has a last supper of mushrooms and his own piss with his disciples, and they trip balls and he predicts obvious shit (like Judah ratting him out). Great stuff, you should read it some time.
Mao Zedong also did his bidding in the name of religion, though completely backward. He wanted to stamp it out, essentially forcing his (albeit atheistic) religion on his fellow countrymen.
"The settlers who killed the Native Americans"? (who probably prefer to be called Indians (or American Indians when necessary for distinction), much like gay people don't like being called homosexual and blacks who generally hate the term "African American")??? How much rock did you smoke this morning? The Indians were killed because dumb-ass RELIGIOUS Americans thought their god gave them the right to the Indians' land and the right to force them off it, because the Indians weren't Christian. "The Indians are god-less fools who deserve neither land nor liberty..." is a famous quote which I think sums it up nicely.
While these more recent conquests may not be performed by an official arm of the church, to say that they aren't religiously motivated is just plain ignorant. (I don't know enough about Pol Pot to comment, but I beleive his situation was much the same as Chairman Mao's.)
"However, I feel I need to go further than merely agree with and justify the suggestion. I also want to express my dismay at the completely pathetic responses that the suggestion received, with not a shred of clear reasoning. Slashdot has truly gone downhill, when a technological solution is shouted down and the arbitrary actions of demagogues are supported instead, just because some idiotic clause in a T&C is breached and that is seen as more important than doing what it right. Sheesh. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves, but I know you aren't. Pathetic."
I completely agree. When I first used Slashdot years ago (I checked Slashdot daily way before moderators, YRO or even category icons. I even remember once going back to check all the articles ever posted prior to that day and having that only take a few hours.), the attitudes of the people on/. were completely different. Things that would have received lively debate and laughter now get me modded down as a troll or off-topic. Hell, even this will probably get modded down, just because people don't agree with it. I think the biggest problem is that non-geeks post in these forums more often and muddy up the waters quite a damn bit with their mainstream extremism. I have to say, you people are getting ridiculous.
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Except that if they do it enough times, they'll find themselves involved in a SLAPP lawsuit. That's the real beauty. The RIAA gets one chance to win and maybe an appeal or two but after that, it will appear that they are appealling to bankrupt the defendant by continuous appeals (rather than appealling because there was a real error) and will be sued for SLAPP violations, which they will lose. And then the RIAA will be out real money and the woman will be very rich. That's why they won't appeal but once to each court they can. But you can bet that it'll be good.
I believe you may be interested in a little program called xmove. It's like screen but for X-apps.
*Gags* from your pseudo-logic. Try fully thinking things through before you post. First, minors are guaranteed rights under the Constitution. Ask any attorney. But more importantly, these laws do violate the game producers' first ammendment rights by having a chilling effect on the availability. You see, by making it illegal to sell games in the manner that these laws propose, they make it very difficult to sell any games to minors. (Take a good read at Michigan's law. It bans more than just M and AO games by virtue of its ridiculously vague language.) With this much difficulty in selling these games, many stores will simply drop games rather than deal with fines and regulations. Many more (read: most) will just drop M games, making them not profitable in the least. That's why nobody makes AO games; major stores won't carry them. This is a called a chilling effect. That's a legal term, and that's why these bans are unconstitutional. They have a chilling effect on peoples' rights to produce material intended for adults.
I can't believe I just did that. I accidentally modded the parent as "overrated" instead of "underrated". The modding of "troll" was just ridiculous and I couldn't let that stand. Now I have to post this message to undo my damage because ./ doesn't offer a way fixing it.
I just did. I got about 1.6A. Thats with a Geforce 6800GT and P4-2.8GHz Prescott. Comparable everything else. With an Akasa 460W PSU. That doesn't surprise me in the least. I was more warning about quality anyway. A lot of those cheap "450W" PSUs can't handle more than 200W and when they're putting out that much, the power quality is ridiculous. Of course, I tested my home system as drawing 3.5A last year. I was burning two DVDs and four CDs at once. It was on an Athlon 3000+ with 1GB RAM, a Chaintech mobo, 4 CD-burners, two DVD-burners, 4 HDs, a GeForce 2 (I don't play games on that system, so a 2 is fine), a tape backup and a floppy drive. I power it with an Akasa 650W PSU. (I just happen to like Akasa. There are a buch of other good brands too) So, for most people, even 460W may be overkill, but for people like me who like using their outdated hardware just because they can, it may not even be enough.
The only reason I say don't spend less than $60 is that at lower prices, crappy PSUs will find their way into the mix at ridiculous prices. And they usually seem like good deals. But by $60, the crappy ones are pretty much weeded out. What's $20 anymore anyway, if it means you're getting something worthwhile?
Seriously, its your PSU. Shitty PSUs (ones that you get with computers taht are pre-built and nearly any PSU that cost you less than $60) get even shittier over time. Get yourself a good PSU and you'll notice a HUGE performance increase.
First, choose a mobo/cpu combo.
Second, buy compatible RAM. (The mobo determines what you need to buy.) Get at least 1GB. Always get your RAM such that you will have two (or four) identical DIMMs. Get the fastest RAM that your mobo can handle. Use the manufacturer's website to determine that. For most AMD systems, this will PC3200 DDR SDRAM. For most (new) Intel mobos, this will be some type of DDR2. DDR2 and DDR have nothing to do with dual-channel memory. That is about whether you have two (or four) identical DIMMs plugged into a dual-channel mobo, in the right slots (one of each color, on most mobos).
Third, grab a hard drive. Look for perfomance rather than just size. Go with 7200RPM at a minimum. SATA is a plus. Make sure the cahce is good and large. 8MB minimum, 16MB is better. If you get 10000RPM or higher, you'll need an HD cooler, though it's a good thing for the slower HDs as well. Don't buy the cooler with the HD, though; you'll find them cheaper elsewhere usually.
Forth, the CD/DVD drive. Get what you'll need. Go with Plextor or Yamaha if you want it good.
Fifth, the power supply(PSU). I only put this fifth because its such a no-brainer, not because it's not important. Get a GOOD PSU with a medium to high wattage. I recommend an Akasa 460W at a minimum and Akasa 650W if you want the best. DO NOT SPEND LESS THAN $60 ON A PSU. DO NOT USE A PSU WITH THAT CAME WITH A CASE. Seriously. Those cheap 450W PSUs you see out there for $20 suck balls. Even if they can handle the wattage your system requires (doubtful as most have inflated stats), they won't be able to handle it well. Bad power is worse than no power, much worse. Bad power WILL cause your system to be very unstable for no apparent reason. If you have that computer with every individual piece of hardware working fine but you still get random crashes and instabilities, its the PSU. Trust me, the PSU is the most important part of your system. If you cheap out, you will be making your system suck donkey for no good reason. Get a good a PSU. If in doubt about what's good, go to Hexus.net. They had a huge roundup of PSUs that they reviewed. Trust them if you don't trust me. But seriously, I can't stress this enough, the PSU is the absolute most important part of your computer purchase and you should NEVER even think of using a shitty, cheapass one. No matter what.
Sixth, the graphics card. This is important. Think about what you want to do and then decide what you want. Use reviews to get a good idea of what's good. Just make sure you get the AGP version if you bought an AGP mobo and the PCI-E version if you got a PCI-E mobo. One will always be more expensive than the other but which one is a crapshoot. For games, Geforce 6800GT or ATI Radeon X800 are minimums. 256MB graphics RAM is also a minimum.
Seventh, the least important aspect of the computer other than the monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers: the case. When you buy a case, you only need to worry about a few things. First, don't get one with a PSU built-in (unless you plan on throwing it away or selling it to someone less informed); those PSUs invariably suck. Second, make sure that it can handle full-ATX if you bought a full-ATX mobo. Otherwise, its all about looks.
Eighth, fans. Buy some fans to keep your system cool. You don't need to worry so much about the processor fan; the ones that come with them are usually fine. But you do need to get some case fans; probably 3 or 4, at least two. Just make sure that you have more (or the same as) fans pointing inside your case than fans pointing out. It helps keep dust down and keeps your system cooler. Be sure that the fans are placed so that air flows from the front to back; your PSU's fan will push air out of the back of your computer too.
Ninth, the rest. These are the least important. Get whatever monitor you can afford. Get the cheapest keyboard that your willing to have on your desk. Get an IR mouse (don't bother with ball mice; they aren't any cheaper). Speakers are a matter of preference. Games
Though I disagree with the premise that hatred and anger are compatible with Enlightment, I also agree with it. Hatred and anger do have a place. We need acknowledge them and find their source before we will be able to see the world for what it truly is (become Enlightened). But enough talk on that subject, time to rebut the claims of the parent.
You seem to have forgotten that Buddhism is a religion of inclusion. While his path may not be mine (or anyone else's), it is still his path. If it gets him closer to enlightenment and he considers it Buddhist, then it is Buddhist. Buddhists tend to consider any path to Enlightenment valid. We are not the members of most other religions; we do not critisize the ways that others practise, nor do hold that others will not become Enlightened if they do not practise as we do. No matter how strange that may seem, it is accurate.
Its not mandatory labeling and ID checks (at least in Michigan's case). Its much more insidious. It makes it a crime to distribute "ultra-violent" games to minors under 17 (not 18, FYI). The main problem here is not the ID check but what constitutes "ultra-violent". The definition in Michigan's law is somewhat vague and while it certainly includes rated-M games, it may also include many rated-T games and a load of unrateds. It could even be construed to include a number of rated-E and rated-E10 games, as well (we're talking games like Super Mario Bros.); its that vague. Furthermore, the law makes it a crime to allow minors under 17 to even see OTHER people play the games. It also doesn't provide for the rating system to be used as a defense and doesn't require games to be labeled. This law would have a chilling effect on the gaming industry by making it very difficult to sell games in a place where minors frequent. Places like Meijer, Walmart, Target, etc would probably stop carrying games altogether rather than try to figure out which games are "ultra-violent" and which aren't. That's why this law is a problem.
I didn't miss the "poor man's" part; you just missed one of points. 25V audio can be the cheapest stuff money can buy if you look in the right place. I picked up two 25W 25V amps and 16 speakers at auction last year for $100. Try getting audio distribution equipment of ANY kind for cheaper than that.
No way dude. "Forever War" was so much better than "Starship Troopers". ("Forever War" was a response to "Starship Troopers".) I mean, it had unencumbered gay sex AND it followed the laws of physics. Especially because of the gay sex part.
I think that's exactly what happening. Jerk Thindickson wrote a lame book full of shit. People are calling him on it. They aren't saying, "Fucking remove that lame moron's book from the market so that no one may ever read it, thereby censoring him!" they are saying, "That fucking book sucks some balls and no one should dumb themselves to that level of stupidity by reading it." The former is unacceptable. The latter is free speech, along the same lines as Thompson's lame-ass book. Thompson's the asshole supporting censorship by asking that reveiws be removed because he doesn't like them. When he wrote that letter, there were only 33 negative reveiws on Amazon.com; he wanted all of them gone. If he would have read any of them, he would have noted that most of them of actual reveiws of the book's copy (or at least the first chapter), rather than personal flames. Only like eight should have been removed. If he didn't want negative reveiws, he should have written something that wasn't absolute shit.
People drink Pabst Blue Ribbon when they could actually have beer.
I've been saying that for years. That almost brought tears to my eyes reading it, I laughed so hard. PBR is probably the worst beer in existance other than Camo Lager. Strangely, though, I think the kiddies have all moved on to Milwaukee's Best (the Beast). Tastes pretty much the same. Screw that stuff though; give me an IPA anyday.
My thinking was that if he's in a home big enough that he's asking about how to do whole house wiring then his home must be big enough for standard levels to attenuate too much to be nice. That really isn't that far anyway. Maybe 50-100 feet. I suppose the average home isn't as large as I was imagining. Anyway, for normal sized homes you're right, 25V is overkill. Of course, if you do happen to find it at auction, the 25V stuff is usually cheaper than the standard 8 Ohm stuff. But that's usually because you can't find standard 8 Ohm stuff at auction and are forced to use retail.
Alright, the WAY TO GO for whole house audio is 25V systems. You just need a 25V audio amplifier (figure like 2W per speaker) and these special speakers which have transformers built into them. You could also go with 70V audio but its more expensive (although easier to find). Don't try to get this stuff new though; you'll pay way to much. Instead, go to business auctions (restaurant auctions are a good place for this) and going out of business sales. You'll get much better deals. Strangely, this stuff is somewhat hard to find on the internet.
Just so you know, the benefit of 25V (and 70V) audio over standard direct to speaker connections or 3.3V/5V/8V audio signals is less attenuation. 25V and 70V systems can transmit audio signals without degradation over very long distances, like what you would need to wire a whole house or building. The more usual types of audio transmission can only go a few feet.
The other benefit (perhaps more important) is that you can have as many speakers as you want on the same wires in parallel (as long as your amplifier can handle it). Under ordinary wiring schemes, you can only have one device per output channel. If you split it, either the signal will degrade or the amplifier will overload.
The only problem with this scheme is that you need completely separate amplifiers and wires for each channel (left and right) if you want stereo output instead of mono. This precludes the usual combining of grounds that most people use.
If you want to be able to control the volume of each speaker independently just toss a potentiometer between one wire and the transformer on the speaker. Like a 50 Ohm ought to be fine.
Now, just so every knows, this scheme is only cheap if you find the equipment used. Brand new, this stuff is quite expensive. BUT, this stuff is pretty easy to find used if you look for it.
If you have no patience, you could try any number of other schemes. I think one of my favorites (I have a friend how actually did this) is to buy a bunch of very crappy computers (think Pentium 200), take them out of the cases and embed them in the walls (he had fans to push the heat into his airducts). Then he attached them via ethernet and multicasted his audio signal to all his crappy machines. All ten of them (he has a HUGE house). The computers are hooked up to vintage stereos which he uses as amplifiers for each room. He controls all this with his laptop and SSH. He usually leaves the stereos on and turned up and turns the sound to each room on and off by sshing into the approriate machine. He recently told me that he's thinking of changing his setup to using one of those network audio protocols, (nas, I think) so that he can have different stuff playing in each room. He also said he was thinking of adding IrDA transcievers to his crap machines so that he can control them with his Palm.
I forgot about Duron. And Opteron. But, even so, the Athlon/Pentium comparison still survives. Remember Celeron.
"Or do you think its also OK for anyone to sell alcohol, cigarettes, firearms and porn to minors too?"
Yes. Seriously. I also think all drugs should be legal for much the same reason. It's not my place or the place of anyone else to tell you what you can and cannot do. Even for teenagers. I'm not saying it would be right to sell crack cocaine to 8-year olds but then what dumbass would do that? Even if it was legal? As far as teens buying cigs, porn, drugs and booze, why not? Where's the arbitrary line to be drawn? 18? 21? Why not 15? or 14? Especially for porn. Its not like 13 year old boys' dicks don't work. Or like 13 year old girls aren't horny. Why deny them that and make them feel that a natural function is evil? The real problem here is that parents are too lazy and ignorant to teach their kids responsibility.
Case in point: My parents allowed me freedom in these areas when I was a teen and, lo and behold, I'm not an alcoholic, I don't do drugs or smoke cigs (weed and porn are still things I enjoy, albeit resonsibly and occasionally). My cousins, OTOH, got less freedom and now I'm related to a 23yo mother of 5, a convicted murderer/rapist, and 3 people in and out of rehab (out of 12). Look at your friends and you'll see the same correlation. The more freedom and education, the less problems. The more restrictions, the less responsibility. Who woulda thunk it?
And another thing. What the hell is wrong with you people and your "anti-drug" ads? You attack a plant as if it the devil himself. Then you shove alcohol, a drug much, much worse, down everyone's throats. Alcohol's a drug too, morons. Weed never killed anyone; people die of alcohol poisoning everyday. People drive safer on weed (with nothing else) than when stone sober (that's not a joke); people drive like shit drunk. So again, what the hell is wrong with you people?
Now, back to responding to your post (after quite a lengthy segue).
"Funny, I was under the impression they were the ones pushing for the law. Or are you saying its the parents who don't care much about what their kids are doing who spent all the time and effort required to get this law on the books?"
Those parents don't really exist. The people fighting for this law and laws like are politicians who think it will help them get the soccer mom vote. And Jack Thompson. I'm serious, the only people who give a damn are those up for re-election. No one else really cares. If they do, its just lip service or passive agreement. It's like people who are against pop in schools. They may be against it, but I don't see them marching on Washington or donating boatloads of loot to the cause.
On a more personal note concerning you: If you ARE a parent, I really feel sorry for your kids. You must seriously suck at it if you think your kids will make the wrong decisions concerning these "vices". If they do make the wrong decisions consistantly (they WILL screw up a few times), then it is YOU who have failed, not the state or your child, as it is YOUR responsibility for ensuring that your kids get the proper education concerning vice, not everone's else.
Besides, if you are so concerned for your poorly educated children's access to games (The fact that you have this concern is indicative of your failure as a parent.), you could invoke your state granted powers of guardianship to get your child's entire paycheck (assuming they work) every week and only give them enough for what they need. It would be damn hard for them to buy a game if they don't have the loot to do it. This strategy has worked to cure my brother's coke habit (He, unlike me, had to deal with the stress of a divorce in his childhood. This screwed his world view and made him much more susceptible to drugs. Furthermore, he also had less parental education concerning drugs than I or my other brothers, in part, because of this divorce. And, during this time, my mother began using drugs again (she quit before I, her eldest child, was born), providing a negative influence in this area. If you don't want your kids to use, don't use yourself.).
I've been saying that for years. I don't think AMD's much better though. Everything's been Athlon until Sempron came out. Just look at Athlon 64; they're like four versions, at least. I got a stepping 4 Athlon 64 3000+. It's completely different from the Athlon 64 3000+. For starters it uses a different socket and has 120nm transistors instead of 90nm. Same name though.
BTW, Sexium doesn't make that much sense. Penta is from ancient Greek, as is hexa, so hexium makes sense. For sexium to work (and that would be sweet), pentiums would have had to have been called quintiums. (Unus, duo, trio, quattour, quintus, sex, septum, etc.). Personally, I think AMD should have called their 586 a quintium, and then called Athlon sexium. Man, the ad campaigns would have ROCKED! The funniest part about the whole pentium name is that while penta is Greek, the -ium ending is Latin, bastardized Latin at that. (the -um ending is certainly Latinesque, the 'i', however, is not. Words ending in -ium are called i-stem words and the 'i' is part of the base of the word, not the ending.). Intel's name people obviously had no background in dead languages, that's for sure.
If you have a terrible sweettooth and still want to ditch the sweeteners, be sure to try fruit flavored loose teas or scented teas. Flavored teas have bits and pieces of dried fruit that add a small amount of natural sugars and oils to the tea, just enough to make it much sweeter. Scented teas have essential oils that do the same. Just don't expect it to be sugary like pop and you'll be fine. If all else fails, add a touch of honey, it tastes better in most teas than white sugar. Real maple syrup goes well with Lapsang Souchong tea (a tea that was cured using pine smoke. very odd). Some teas also take milk well (black teas usually take it better than other kinds; the darker the infusion, the better it will take to milk). Don't use cream.
:)
You can make real chai tea (its what that fake powdered crap is supposed to taste like) by brewing some good Assam tea (broken leaf is better than whole for this) with some different herbs and spices. Try cardommon, cloves, cinnamon, black/white pepper (trust me), vanilla, nutmeg, ginger, whatever. Put them in with the tea and pour on the boiling water. When it's done brewing (3-5 min), strain, and add warmed milk. About 25% of the resulting beverage should be milk. This is great for breakfast, or going to bed if you are immune to the effects of caffeine.
Man, I just can't shut up when it comes to tea.
Even better, incorporate symbols and caps into your passwords and type the shift with the opposit hand as the key. This makes it very difficult to tell which keys are caps and which aren't. The symbols are the kicker since so few people use them, they're not expected. Be sure to repeat a character or two, which makes it harder to tell you long your password is. Then, just to make it difficult, use long passwords of like 13 characters and practice typing your passwords as fast as possible in private. Do all that and you make it practically impossible to watch over the shoulder for a password in only one pass. You would need several to get the caps and lowercase down, and a few more because the length would prevent you from picking it up entirely the first (out short term memories are only so large). Throw symbols in and people are screwed.
That's why you shouldn't use pictures of cute kittens. The best thing to use is porn. Everyone has giant porn collections, so having a boatload of porn pics won't raise any flags. Just be sure to change the format of the pics to something else so they can't test them against the originals. Like convert all your pron jpegs to pngs and steno on them. This way they won't know what the original png looked like to know that it was stenod because the originals on the internet were jpegs. And don't forget to encrypt your data really well before stenoing it.
If your data is really ridiculously sensitive, use a picture collection that would draw suspicion of and in itself. This will keep them from looking more closely for the data. And use a low-grade encryption on it so they break it and find suspicious collection first. For example, you could get a collection of non-nude, but suggestive pics of children and convert and steno your encrypted data into a few. Then encrypt those pics with something they'll break in a few days. When they break it, they'll think you were protecting your kiddie pics and not whatever you really were protecting. The trick is to make sure that all the kiddie pics are legal but just look bad. This way they can't actually get you and you get to keep your encrypted data that they don't know about because the pics weren't illegal and they thought they already found what you were hiding.
Actually, if you buy better tea, you won't need the sweetener and the caffeine will be as intense if not more so than coffee. Try out a few different loose single-estate teas. You can get them off the internet or from (maybe) your local coffee and tea store. I recommend trying a few Darjeeling teas for taste, they're usually quite flowery, which most people taste as a natural sweettartness (not like the candy); if in doubt about what flush to get, most people like Autumnal at first and love 1st flust after they get their tea pallette. Also try some Assam teas for caffeine. Assams are usually very potent, like good coffee and tend to be quite malty, a taste most people consider to be sweet like molasses without the sugar. The broken leaf Assams are much maltier than whole-leaf Assams.
And then, of course, there are green, oolong and white teas for those who like a change of pace. They're lower in caffeine and don't necessarily require boiling water. Some green and white teas can be brewed with water temps as low as 140F. Scented and flavored varieties are also quite delicious, and are natuarally flavored so that they don't usually need sweetening.
While there are some very good and high-quality teas in bags, they're few and far between. Loose tea is much more likely to be good and fresh and of a higher quality. Most cheap, everyday teabags use some of the lowest quality teas on the market, usually OPF or BOP so they can say Orange Pekoe. The only lower grade tea out there is PF, BP and P and is used to make bottled teas like Lipton Brisk and Nestea.
Sharks are not invertabrates. They are vertabrates with a full skeleton. That skeleton just happens to be a softer relative of bone called cartilage. That's why all fish are vertebrates and there's a class of vertebrates called cartilagenous fish.
Since when does it matter that there are a FEW counter-arguments. The man was saying that most atrocities in history were caused by religion. While a few of the more recent one abandon that outdated premise, most don't. Including most of whom you listed.
Hitler based his arguments on religion (though he himself was not). The whole "we're superior because we're Aryan" thing is based on the credos presented in the Old Testament, and the whole one "master race" that will be saved from Armageddon is from the New Testament side. You don't beleive me? Pick up a Bible and actually read it. There are a few quotes I absolutely love that you'll comletely gloss over if you do. Like the one where Jesus is tripping balls on Aminta mushrooms and offers his own piss to an old woman so that she may trip also. Or when Jesus has a last supper of mushrooms and his own piss with his disciples, and they trip balls and he predicts obvious shit (like Judah ratting him out). Great stuff, you should read it some time.
Mao Zedong also did his bidding in the name of religion, though completely backward. He wanted to stamp it out, essentially forcing his (albeit atheistic) religion on his fellow countrymen.
"The settlers who killed the Native Americans"? (who probably prefer to be called Indians (or American Indians when necessary for distinction), much like gay people don't like being called homosexual and blacks who generally hate the term "African American")??? How much rock did you smoke this morning? The Indians were killed because dumb-ass RELIGIOUS Americans thought their god gave them the right to the Indians' land and the right to force them off it, because the Indians weren't Christian. "The Indians are god-less fools who deserve neither land nor liberty..." is a famous quote which I think sums it up nicely.
While these more recent conquests may not be performed by an official arm of the church, to say that they aren't religiously motivated is just plain ignorant. (I don't know enough about Pol Pot to comment, but I beleive his situation was much the same as Chairman Mao's.)
"However, I feel I need to go further than merely agree with and justify the suggestion. I also want to express my dismay at the completely pathetic responses that the suggestion received, with not a shred of clear reasoning. Slashdot has truly gone downhill, when a technological solution is shouted down and the arbitrary actions of demagogues are supported instead, just because some idiotic clause in a T&C is breached and that is seen as more important than doing what it right. Sheesh. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves, but I know you aren't. Pathetic."
/. were completely different. Things that would have received lively debate and laughter now get me modded down as a troll or off-topic. Hell, even this will probably get modded down, just because people don't agree with it. I think the biggest problem is that non-geeks post in these forums more often and muddy up the waters quite a damn bit with their mainstream extremism. I have to say, you people are getting ridiculous.
I completely agree. When I first used Slashdot years ago (I checked Slashdot daily way before moderators, YRO or even category icons. I even remember once going back to check all the articles ever posted prior to that day and having that only take a few hours.), the attitudes of the people on