Re:I bought the dvd the day it came out
on
Futurama Returns!
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· Score: 1
Whew. I thought I was going to be branded a heratic. It was okay, but not great. All in all, it was a fan service episode. They brought back every major and minor character. Heck, even Mom was in the spam popups. By the way, make sure you still frame through those, they are funny! " for the price of i", and "Watch Comedy Central" was the last one.
They cleared up a lot of questions, the plot wasn't that hard to follow, but there weren't as many intelligent jokes as I would have liked. Again, it was mostly references to previous episodes. (Hundreds of them!) Again, just fan service.
Farnsworth's "Equation of Time" is a real calculation, used to show the difference between what a sundial will read at different latitudes during the year, compared to actual time.
We will see about the next one. The estimate I heard was a new movie every 6 months. A little sparse, but better than nothing.
Re:Less than obvious solution?
on
Lap Desks
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· Score: 1
Then an amendment to the preceding. Get a RF or Radio Frequency keyboard and mouse. IR is a waste of time, (3-5ft) and bluetooth isn't much better. (Takes quite a while to connect, and sucks batteries like crazy.) RF is usually good for between 10-15 feet. If you are going farther than than, get a USB extension cord and plug the RF receiver into it and run it to somewhere closer. (USB runs are good for another 15 feet or so.) If you are farther than 30 feet away, you probably already have enough money to look for other solutions.
Logitech has some nice keyboards. I recommend the MX1000 laser mouse as well.
Heh. I liked the Uru article a lot more. As a staunch Myst fan and a D'ni (Pronounced Dunny) fanatic, I thought it was a great writeup. I've been playing Uru since the beta in 2003. I've got notebooks full of D'ni writings, translations and thoughts. It's a really in-depth game, and a hugely different MMORPG experience from WoW or Everquest.
If you like Math, Logic, languages and an extremely deep storyline, Uru might be for you. Just be aware that it's not a leveling game. Experience is measured by personal knowledge of in game culture and events, not time spent grinding.
I'm starting to enjoy the write-ups in the news and gamming journals, as well as the Penny-Arcade rants and comics. I can just imagine him, sitting in his volcano lair, stroking his white fluffy cat and yelling "I'll get you next time Gamers!"
You know, if he didn't act so serious and foam-at-the-mouth angry, I'd be tempted to think he was the greatest viral marketing for videogames ever invented. I bet he has sold more games than the entire marketing departments for Take 2 Games/Rockstar.
Woops! You used some faulty logic there. That isn't what a club agreement does. You can't sign away in-alienable rights like that. The same logic would be the used to be able to sign yourself into slavery.
What happens is that you agree to let them search your purchases in exchange for them allowing you to shop at their club. When you break the contract, which you or they are allowed to do at any time, you simply loose the contracted right to shop at their club.
I.E. "Can we search your bags?" "No" "Your refusal breaks our contract. I will have to take your membership card and inform you that you can't shop here anymore."
I've been a Gametap subscriber for about a year now. It's not a bad service, but it's not incredible either.
Now, if you had asked me a couple months ago when I was getting Sam and Max, I would have been over the roof. However, that is in hiatus, and I rarely log in more than once a month.
Gametap seems to hit the perfect balance between convenience and aggravation. Anytime I start thinking about cancelling my account, something like this pops up.
Honestly, It's a good service for the money. If you keep an eye out, you can subscribe at the normal price, and then change your subscription later when they do a special rate promo. I'm actually paying $59 a year.
There is the fact that you have to be online to play any games, though. I use it on my laptop a lot for playing quickies while waiting for something else to finish. It's fine as long as I have Wi-Fi, but if I sit down somewhere where I'm out of range, I can't play any of my downloaded games.
There is a lot of convenience in not having to search for old game boxes and manuals. There are also built in emulators for old console games, as well as a REALLY good DOS emulator. Old games that I haven't been able to get working on windows XP with DOSBox work fine. Old games mostly don't have copy protection cracked. They have the old manuals available for download.
Big Hit titles are few and far between, but there are some really good games that I probably wouldn't have tried if it hadn't been for Gametap. It's nice to be able to try a game and decide you don't like it after 10 minutes and not be out $20.
Oh, I can get the display drivers working. Both the initial drivers (Which I understand to be the same drivers as the x.org ones) and the Restricted Drivers work fine for desktop use. (After some xorg.conf tweaking) It's when I try to play games that I have problems. There is NO hardware acceleration. It's just like running software acceleration. In Unreal Tournament, for example, I get about 4 frames per second. This is true for all benchmarking software and includes Wine and Cedega.
Man, I hope this shows up. ATI Drivers for my x700 mobility in my laptop are one of the final problems I have with Linux. I use it at home a lot, but there just doesn't seem to be a reliable way of getting 3D graphics working with this chipset. So, I'm still dual-booting on my laptop. It's a pain, as honestly I'd rather go full linux.
For those wondering, I'm using Ubuntu on a Acer Travelmate 4400, and yes, I've one through EVERY walkthrough for 3d Graphics. Everything else works. Graphics, wireless internet, even my card reader. It's just 3D accelerated graphics.
You know, Sony screwed themselves over with their designs.
In a perfect world, they would have included a UMD slot on the PS3. Why didn't they? Because they were trying to sell Blue-ray. Fine, then. What would have been included was a program built into the PS3 that will downconvert a Blue-Ray disc to fit on a UMD. Add digital rights control so you can only copy the same movie onto one UMD at a time. Pop it in, pop in a movie, hit copy, go make a sandwich and come back to take it with you. The PS3 won't let you convert the same movie again until you pop in the UMD and erase it. Forget trying to sell UMD movies. Sell Blue-ray and blank UMD discs.
Heck, they could have expanded it and let you download movies over the PS3 network and take them with you on UMD's. I'd be much happier and spend a lot more money on Sony products that worked like that.
Hmm.. Here in Idaho, I was informed that we have to confiscate fake ID's, but I can't find any legislation to back that up. Nonetheless, I have a federal firearms dealers license and have confiscated several from underage kids trying to buy handguns. The bartender is completely correct. The easiest way to tell if an ID is fake or not is by feel. (Same with cash, by the way.) After you have felt thousands of ID's, it gets easier.
However, I also remember some reading back a couple of years ago that mentioned that the Patriot Act had bumped false ID's up from a misdemeanor to a felony. It's very likely that I'm remembering it as a law that applied to firearm sales only though rather than for less serious purposes.
I'm not sure about New York, but here, the offender can face pretty serious consequences, up to and including loosing their drivers license for a year.
Hmm.. I've always said that my chance of winning the lottery was 50/50. Either I win or I don't. Binary solution set. I've just had a string almost unbelievable bad luck and I've gotten the loosing side for the last ten years.
Err.. There was a story on the 8th of February about this.. http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/09/ 0429250 and I know I saw a news spot on CNN about it. It's just a real-life roleplaying game, similar to the "I Love Bees" campaign from Halo 2.
Why didn't you hear about this earlier? Maybe because it's based in England?
There are a lot of people saying that this is the direction where some games and ad campaigns are headed. It sounds like a lot of fun to me.
I'm actually really enjoying this game. I Love adventure games, and while it isn't a classical point and click adventure, it's REALLY well written and innovative.
It makes use of the DS capabilities really well. There is one puzzle where I rubbed dust on an object, and then reflexivly blew on my DS screen... and it worked! Turned out not to be the way to solve the puzzle, but I was dumbfounded that the programers included it.
Give this game a try. It's perfect for long trips.
The company that released this game also released another called Trace Memory that I haven't picked up yet.
One of my most memorable and frustrating game breaker in recent years was the infamous Myst IV Monkey puzzle.
It was fairly simple in concept. That is, you used a device to generate different tones and lengths of notes to command different monkeys to move to different locations. The problem, at least for me, was that it was almost impossible for me to spin the cursor at the right speed to generate the right notes.
I love Myst Games, and still, the only game that I haven't finished is Myst IV.
(Quote) We will also be shedding light on several lingering questions from the original run, including... Seymour the dog. (/Quote)
Oh Man, oh man, oh man! Jurassic Bark, the episode featuring Seymour the dog, has to be one of the best written pieces of television I've ever seen, as well as one of the saddest. Look, I'm a grown man, and every time I see that episode, I cry. Anything that can do that is good television.
Oh, yah. If you can't tell, I'm REALLY excited about the return of Futurama.
I've actually taken this a step farther. I've pieced together a RAID 1 array, using an old computer, stuffed with a high powered power supply and lots of 400 gig harddrives. (They are cheap. Yes, I know there are bigger drives, but I can afford $150 out of a paycheck easier than $400+.) I have about 2 terabytes so far, but I figure that with PCI expansion cards, I can get up to almost 3 terabytes, with fairly secure data, easily. If you want to ommit the redundency, you can hit 6 terrabytes+.
I've got it hooked up on my LAN, where all my computers in my house can access it. I've ripped about half of my 300+ DVD collection so far using Nero Recode. I've got subtitles, alternate language tracks, and extras.
Coupled with a couple of fairly simple little sub $300 computers hooked up to my televisions, I've got access to my entire colletion anywhere in the house.
I've done the same thing with much of my software and CD's. (Daemon tools is your best friend!)
What's nice about this system is that it's cheap and you can buy in installments. The computer I use is a VERY low end system. All it has to have is the ability to network share. I've got an old Pentium Celeron at 1.0 ghz. Buy one hard drive and you are in business. As you need space, buy more. Hard drives are getting cheaper and more spacious every month.
I'm going to upgrage systems again and turn my current computer into a second server. Maybe then I'll get the rest of my DVD's ripped.
You know, I once saw a co-worker who had purchased a really nice used, leather, powered seat out of a luxury vehicle. He mounted it on a sliding rail and hooked up all the switches and motors. What he ended up with was a chair that had been purposfully designed for very long periods of use, that he could arange at any angle, with lower back support, a neck brace, armrests and even a seat heater.
For comfort reasons, he added some angled foot rests under his desk, and angeled his keyboard. (He was talking about mounting a keyboard on him armrest, but I don't think he ever got around to it.)
The only drawback that he mentioned was that he couldn't swivel the chair, and couldn't think of a sturdy enough way of making it swivel.
Yah. Codemasters just let it sit and decay. One programer, who was busier trying to keep it running than providing new content. They stole all the programmers for Dragon Empires, which was going to use items, storylines and monsters from Realm, but it never did see the light of day.
Norseman had big plans, but they just never materialized. They got it a couple good patches, then nothing happened.. ever.. I think it's been over a year since the last major patch.
Man, I wasted most of 7 years on The Realm Online. (Started playing in 1996, finished my 120 step addiction counciling and shock therapy in 2003.) Even more addictive, for its day, than WoW.
By the way, The Realm Online is still running. Checkout www.realmserver.com for a 7 day free trial.
I received both games with my first IBM PS/2. It was the first game, after Solitare that I ever played on windows. I probably spent upwards of 100 hours playing through both games, and even have it loaded on my laptop right now.
Both games are now freeware and can be downloaded leagaly. (Drop the author, Rick Saada http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/ , an e-mail if you like it.)
Be careful of these websites. They appear to be a bit underpowered to handle the slashdot effect.
Err.. What? This thing has been out for a LONG time. I've actually got one. It's okay, but not fantastic. I've got the World of Warcraft keyset, which is okay, but I eventually went back to the default keyset. It's a cute gimic, but the execution dosen't make up for the convenience of having a normal keyboard. The Pad Lock is pretty cool. It changes your numpad to useful windows shortcut keys.
However, the keys are pretty mushy, it is way to quiet for gaming with surround sound, and the different keysets tend to take a LONG time to get seated correctly so that the keyboard sees them. It's not to bad for speed typing though. (The review says otherwise, but I don't have any problems.) The programable top set of keys is really nice though.
There are also 2 USB ports along the top. I've got my mouse attatched through there, meaning that I've got a longer reach and less cord clutter. I also plug my media card reader in there when I need it.
Ah, but the problem is, there is such a HUGE bredth of literature out there, and books have become so expensive, that it is easy to get stuck in one genre and never come out. I mean, if you buy a book and don't like it, you are out up to $20.00 for a hardback. A lot of people just stick to their known authors and series. They don't venture out until something shows up on the bestseller list or Oprah's book club.
Introducing someone to a wonderful new experience is going to be a much more memorable christmas than getting some of the same recycled formula crap that gets shoved at a lot of kids.
I still remember the family friend that loaned me his copy of "A Wizard of Earthsea." I still remember the first time I read "Starship Troopers". I loved the librarian that introduced me to Terry Pratchett.
Forget bland safe giftcards. They don't mean anything. And even if they throw the book on a shelf and don't even read it for 4 or 5 years, eventually they will pick it up and realize how thoughtfull you actually were. Just remember to sign inside the front cover so they know who to thank!
Slashdot Mirror
Whew. I thought I was going to be branded a heratic. It was okay, but not great. All in all, it was a fan service episode. They brought back every major and minor character. Heck, even Mom was in the spam popups. By the way, make sure you still frame through those, they are funny! " for the price of i", and "Watch Comedy Central" was the last one.
They cleared up a lot of questions, the plot wasn't that hard to follow, but there weren't as many intelligent jokes as I would have liked. Again, it was mostly references to previous episodes. (Hundreds of them!) Again, just fan service.
Farnsworth's "Equation of Time" is a real calculation, used to show the difference between what a sundial will read at different latitudes during the year, compared to actual time.
We will see about the next one. The estimate I heard was a new movie every 6 months. A little sparse, but better than nothing.
Then an amendment to the preceding. Get a RF or Radio Frequency keyboard and mouse. IR is a waste of time, (3-5ft) and bluetooth isn't much better. (Takes quite a while to connect, and sucks batteries like crazy.) RF is usually good for between 10-15 feet. If you are going farther than than, get a USB extension cord and plug the RF receiver into it and run it to somewhere closer. (USB runs are good for another 15 feet or so.) If you are farther than 30 feet away, you probably already have enough money to look for other solutions.
Logitech has some nice keyboards. I recommend the MX1000 laser mouse as well.
Heh. I liked the Uru article a lot more. As a staunch Myst fan and a D'ni (Pronounced Dunny) fanatic, I thought it was a great writeup. I've been playing Uru since the beta in 2003. I've got notebooks full of D'ni writings, translations and thoughts. It's a really in-depth game, and a hugely different MMORPG experience from WoW or Everquest.
If you like Math, Logic, languages and an extremely deep storyline, Uru might be for you. Just be aware that it's not a leveling game. Experience is measured by personal knowledge of in game culture and events, not time spent grinding.
Whew. I feared I was the only one.
I'm starting to enjoy the write-ups in the news and gamming journals, as well as the Penny-Arcade rants and comics. I can just imagine him, sitting in his volcano lair, stroking his white fluffy cat and yelling "I'll get you next time Gamers!"
You know, if he didn't act so serious and foam-at-the-mouth angry, I'd be tempted to think he was the greatest viral marketing for videogames ever invented. I bet he has sold more games than the entire marketing departments for Take 2 Games/Rockstar.
Woops! You used some faulty logic there. That isn't what a club agreement does. You can't sign away in-alienable rights like that. The same logic would be the used to be able to sign yourself into slavery.
What happens is that you agree to let them search your purchases in exchange for them allowing you to shop at their club. When you break the contract, which you or they are allowed to do at any time, you simply loose the contracted right to shop at their club.
I.E. "Can we search your bags?"
"No"
"Your refusal breaks our contract. I will have to take your membership card and inform you that you can't shop here anymore."
I've been a Gametap subscriber for about a year now. It's not a bad service, but it's not incredible either.
Now, if you had asked me a couple months ago when I was getting Sam and Max, I would have been over the roof. However, that is in hiatus, and I rarely log in more than once a month.
Gametap seems to hit the perfect balance between convenience and aggravation. Anytime I start thinking about cancelling my account, something like this pops up.
Honestly, It's a good service for the money. If you keep an eye out, you can subscribe at the normal price, and then change your subscription later when they do a special rate promo. I'm actually paying $59 a year.
There is the fact that you have to be online to play any games, though. I use it on my laptop a lot for playing quickies while waiting for something else to finish. It's fine as long as I have Wi-Fi, but if I sit down somewhere where I'm out of range, I can't play any of my downloaded games.
There is a lot of convenience in not having to search for old game boxes and manuals. There are also built in emulators for old console games, as well as a REALLY good DOS emulator. Old games that I haven't been able to get working on windows XP with DOSBox work fine. Old games mostly don't have copy protection cracked. They have the old manuals available for download.
Big Hit titles are few and far between, but there are some really good games that I probably wouldn't have tried if it hadn't been for Gametap. It's nice to be able to try a game and decide you don't like it after 10 minutes and not be out $20.
Oh, I can get the display drivers working. Both the initial drivers (Which I understand to be the same drivers as the x.org ones) and the Restricted Drivers work fine for desktop use. (After some xorg.conf tweaking) It's when I try to play games that I have problems. There is NO hardware acceleration. It's just like running software acceleration. In Unreal Tournament, for example, I get about 4 frames per second. This is true for all benchmarking software and includes Wine and Cedega.
I was wondering if some of this could be "Folding at Home" running.
Some more info on how these stats were gathered would be a lot more helpful.
Man, I hope this shows up. ATI Drivers for my x700 mobility in my laptop are one of the final problems I have with Linux. I use it at home a lot, but there just doesn't seem to be a reliable way of getting 3D graphics working with this chipset. So, I'm still dual-booting on my laptop. It's a pain, as honestly I'd rather go full linux.
For those wondering, I'm using Ubuntu on a Acer Travelmate 4400, and yes, I've one through EVERY walkthrough for 3d Graphics. Everything else works. Graphics, wireless internet, even my card reader. It's just 3D accelerated graphics.
You know, Sony screwed themselves over with their designs.
In a perfect world, they would have included a UMD slot on the PS3. Why didn't they? Because they were trying to sell Blue-ray. Fine, then. What would have been included was a program built into the PS3 that will downconvert a Blue-Ray disc to fit on a UMD. Add digital rights control so you can only copy the same movie onto one UMD at a time. Pop it in, pop in a movie, hit copy, go make a sandwich and come back to take it with you. The PS3 won't let you convert the same movie again until you pop in the UMD and erase it. Forget trying to sell UMD movies. Sell Blue-ray and blank UMD discs.
Heck, they could have expanded it and let you download movies over the PS3 network and take them with you on UMD's. I'd be much happier and spend a lot more money on Sony products that worked like that.
Hmm.. Here in Idaho, I was informed that we have to confiscate fake ID's, but I can't find any legislation to back that up. Nonetheless, I have a federal firearms dealers license and have confiscated several from underage kids trying to buy handguns. The bartender is completely correct. The easiest way to tell if an ID is fake or not is by feel. (Same with cash, by the way.) After you have felt thousands of ID's, it gets easier.
However, I also remember some reading back a couple of years ago that mentioned that the Patriot Act had bumped false ID's up from a misdemeanor to a felony. It's very likely that I'm remembering it as a law that applied to firearm sales only though rather than for less serious purposes.
I'm not sure about New York, but here, the offender can face pretty serious consequences, up to and including loosing their drivers license for a year.
Shhhh! Don't give the RIAA more ideas!
Seriously, I seem to remember them arguing exactly this point a year or so ago.
Hey, you have to finish the quote!
Fry: "What's the new name?"
Professor: "Urectum."
Hmm.. I've always said that my chance of winning the lottery was 50/50. Either I win or I don't. Binary solution set. I've just had a string almost unbelievable bad luck and I've gotten the loosing side for the last ten years.
Err.. There was a story on the 8th of February about this.. http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/09/ 0429250 and I know I saw a news spot on CNN about it. It's just a real-life roleplaying game, similar to the "I Love Bees" campaign from Halo 2.
Why didn't you hear about this earlier? Maybe because it's based in England?
There are a lot of people saying that this is the direction where some games and ad campaigns are headed. It sounds like a lot of fun to me.
I'm actually really enjoying this game. I Love adventure games, and while it isn't a classical point and click adventure, it's REALLY well written and innovative.
It makes use of the DS capabilities really well. There is one puzzle where I rubbed dust on an object, and then reflexivly blew on my DS screen... and it worked! Turned out not to be the way to solve the puzzle, but I was dumbfounded that the programers included it.
Give this game a try. It's perfect for long trips.
The company that released this game also released another called Trace Memory that I haven't picked up yet.
One of my most memorable and frustrating game breaker in recent years was the infamous Myst IV Monkey puzzle.
It was fairly simple in concept. That is, you used a device to generate different tones and lengths of notes to command different monkeys to move to different locations. The problem, at least for me, was that it was almost impossible for me to spin the cursor at the right speed to generate the right notes.
I love Myst Games, and still, the only game that I haven't finished is Myst IV.
(Quote) We will also be shedding light on several lingering questions from the original run, including ... Seymour the dog. (/Quote)
Oh Man, oh man, oh man! Jurassic Bark, the episode featuring Seymour the dog, has to be one of the best written pieces of television I've ever seen, as well as one of the saddest. Look, I'm a grown man, and every time I see that episode, I cry. Anything that can do that is good television.
Oh, yah. If you can't tell, I'm REALLY excited about the return of Futurama.
Regarding # 2
I've actually taken this a step farther. I've pieced together a RAID 1 array, using an old computer, stuffed with a high powered power supply and lots of 400 gig harddrives. (They are cheap. Yes, I know there are bigger drives, but I can afford $150 out of a paycheck easier than $400+.) I have about 2 terabytes so far, but I figure that with PCI expansion cards, I can get up to almost 3 terabytes, with fairly secure data, easily. If you want to ommit the redundency, you can hit 6 terrabytes+.
I've got it hooked up on my LAN, where all my computers in my house can access it. I've ripped about half of my 300+ DVD collection so far using Nero Recode. I've got subtitles, alternate language tracks, and extras.
Coupled with a couple of fairly simple little sub $300 computers hooked up to my televisions, I've got access to my entire colletion anywhere in the house.
I've done the same thing with much of my software and CD's. (Daemon tools is your best friend!)
What's nice about this system is that it's cheap and you can buy in installments. The computer I use is a VERY low end system. All it has to have is the ability to network share. I've got an old Pentium Celeron at 1.0 ghz. Buy one hard drive and you are in business. As you need space, buy more. Hard drives are getting cheaper and more spacious every month.
I'm going to upgrage systems again and turn my current computer into a second server. Maybe then I'll get the rest of my DVD's ripped.
You know, I once saw a co-worker who had purchased a really nice used, leather, powered seat out of a luxury vehicle. He mounted it on a sliding rail and hooked up all the switches and motors. What he ended up with was a chair that had been purposfully designed for very long periods of use, that he could arange at any angle, with lower back support, a neck brace, armrests and even a seat heater.
For comfort reasons, he added some angled foot rests under his desk, and angeled his keyboard. (He was talking about mounting a keyboard on him armrest, but I don't think he ever got around to it.)
The only drawback that he mentioned was that he couldn't swivel the chair, and couldn't think of a sturdy enough way of making it swivel.
Yah. Codemasters just let it sit and decay. One programer, who was busier trying to keep it running than providing new content. They stole all the programmers for Dragon Empires, which was going to use items, storylines and monsters from Realm, but it never did see the light of day.
Norseman had big plans, but they just never materialized. They got it a couple good patches, then nothing happened.. ever.. I think it's been over a year since the last major patch.
Man, I wasted most of 7 years on The Realm Online. (Started playing in 1996, finished my 120 step addiction counciling and shock therapy in 2003.) Even more addictive, for its day, than WoW.
By the way, The Realm Online is still running. Checkout www.realmserver.com for a 7 day free trial.
I originally had a Commodore 64, but the first actual PC game I can remember playing and being addicted by was Castle of the Winds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Winds
s .htm
I received both games with my first IBM PS/2. It was the first game, after Solitare that I ever played on windows. I probably spent upwards of 100 hours playing through both games, and even have it loaded on my laptop right now.
Both games are now freeware and can be downloaded leagaly. (Drop the author, Rick Saada http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/ , an e-mail if you like it.)
Be careful of these websites. They appear to be a bit underpowered to handle the slashdot effect.
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=4403
http://wind.prohosting.com/cotwrpg/download.html
http://digital-eel.com/files/castlewind.zip
http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/castl11a.zip
http://www.freewebs.com/castleofthewinds/Download
Err.. What? This thing has been out for a LONG time. I've actually got one. It's okay, but not fantastic. I've got the World of Warcraft keyset, which is okay, but I eventually went back to the default keyset. It's a cute gimic, but the execution dosen't make up for the convenience of having a normal keyboard. The Pad Lock is pretty cool. It changes your numpad to useful windows shortcut keys.
U SE1-X2PHS01 that is increadible! It has cut down my searching for shortcut keys by quite a few minutes.
Where it actually shines is in applications. I have a keyset for Photoshop http://webstore.ideazon.com/product.asp?pf_id=IW0
However, the keys are pretty mushy, it is way to quiet for gaming with surround sound, and the different keysets tend to take a LONG time to get seated correctly so that the keyboard sees them. It's not to bad for speed typing though. (The review says otherwise, but I don't have any problems.) The programable top set of keys is really nice though.
There are also 2 USB ports along the top. I've got my mouse attatched through there, meaning that I've got a longer reach and less cord clutter. I also plug my media card reader in there when I need it.
Ah, but the problem is, there is such a HUGE bredth of literature out there, and books have become so expensive, that it is easy to get stuck in one genre and never come out. I mean, if you buy a book and don't like it, you are out up to $20.00 for a hardback. A lot of people just stick to their known authors and series. They don't venture out until something shows up on the bestseller list or Oprah's book club.
Introducing someone to a wonderful new experience is going to be a much more memorable christmas than getting some of the same recycled formula crap that gets shoved at a lot of kids.
I still remember the family friend that loaned me his copy of "A Wizard of Earthsea." I still remember the first time I read "Starship Troopers". I loved the librarian that introduced me to Terry Pratchett.
Forget bland safe giftcards. They don't mean anything. And even if they throw the book on a shelf and don't even read it for 4 or 5 years, eventually they will pick it up and realize how thoughtfull you actually were. Just remember to sign inside the front cover so they know who to thank!