You hit the nail on the head with the cost problem.
I hardly ever go to the arcade, simply because i can't afford it. I love the atmosphere, it's tons of fun to play with friends, but nobody wants to blow $20 for playing for an hour or two.
The only game i am willing to pay $1.00/game on is F355 Challenge because it is such a great game. I love it. But i still have to limit how much i spend on it. And the initial investment in that machine is tremendous - i the machines are all well over $10,000 new. The arcade will probably never make that money back.
Shuttle (or any small form factor PC) + LCD
Much cheaper, more upgradable, and more tweakable (overclocking etc.). This laptop is for people with too much money and too little sense.
So... two kids, out of the millions in this country that play video games, shoot up their school. Tens of millions of kids play violent video games every day. Two have actually commited real violence. Sure seems like these video games cause problems! Let's just ignore the fact that these kids might have been really fucked in the head.
Furthermore, my college campus - a place with lots of "spoiled middle class kids" - is the safest campus in the country. 90% of the kids here play video games at least three or four hours a day. Where's all of our crime? If the middle class kids are the most dangerous, why am i not running for my life from crazed GTA players?
I purchased my physics book - "Physics" by Cutnell and Johnson for $30 off of half.com. Sure, it's paperback, and says "NOT FOR SALE IN NORTH AMERICA" on the cover, but hey - it's the exact same content, and i saved bank.
The student meal plans here at MTU are great. They cost about $1500 for each plan, give or take $100. Eating half as much saves you $100. You aren't allowed to remove food from the cafeteria area. Your meals don't carry over from week to week. And the best part is that you HAVE to have a meal plan if you live in the dorms.
I have not read the books.
I found myself reading your comments and saying "man, those are all of the parts that i either didn't like, or that felt out of place." I guess that's a testament to Tolkein's writing.
DDR is still a mostly aerobic workout. All cardiovascular.
30 minutes in the gym 3 times a week for a month will do more for your muscle mass than a year of DDR.
The painted faces were part of it, but it really got bad when LEGO totally dropped the cool, unique sets (anything from Pirates to Space Police to the Aquazone) in favor of the licensed ones that are 90% unique pieces.
Last semester, i had a very large paper due in an english class. I managed to grind out some useless junk - nothing above C material. Then i got sick, and took some Contac cold and flu. That stuff always has a huge downer effect on me.
About 10 minutes after i started to feel the effects, i was more focused than i had ever been in my life. The "noise" in my head and the constant distractions were gone. I completely rewrote my entire paper in a much more interesting and creative fashion in about an hour and a half. I recieved an A for said paper.
While i have never been officially diagnosed, i (and my parents and a psychologist i was seeing for a while for something completely unrelated) believe I'm at least mildly ADD. I agree - i have trouble paying attention for more than 5 minutes, i tend to daydream like crazy.
Also, there are no good, cool sets to buy anymore. It's all Bionicle or sets that are 90% "unique" pieces. Every time i go to the toy store i hope to find something along the lines of Space Police or Ice Station or any of the other good sets, and they just don't exist. Therefore, Lego doesn't get my money.
I'm the same way. When it comes to paying attention to the road, or paying attention to the phone, the road comes first. Often times i just stop talking and totally blank out on the conversation because i'm paying attention to traffic. I guess some people just don't understand that the fight they're having with their boyfriend/girlfriend over the cell phone is less important than the one-ton hunk of metal they're in control of.
For a fascinating read about LOD, MOD, and Phiber Optik, check out Masters of Deception. It's a fascinating read, even for someone young enough to have not been a geek when this all went on.
Most would say that paying $10 for a full album is pretty cheap. But that's not the full story behind the "Only $10 per album!" deal - most albums are not available as a full album, you have to buy each song individually. They're listed as "partial albums" even though all songs are for sale. It seems that this is the case if there is an explicit album, and a censored one - you can buy the censored album for $10, but you must pay for each song individually if it's explicit. Although with alot of albums you can't buy the full version for either one, even though all songs are available.
I would have purchased 3 or 4 CDs from ITMS already if it weren't for this bullshit.
We have four outlet plugs. Two near where the bed is for alarm clocks, two near our desks. Needless to say, with our fridge, gamecube, xbox, TV, two computers + monitors, cell phones, palm pilots, and other items, we have to string together a ton of power strips. I think i'm using 2 just for myself, and my roommate has two for him, and we 'share" one for our lamps and alarm clocks when reading.
Our "network" jack is actually a Cat 11; we had to spend $20 on a cable that'll go from Cat 11 to Cat 5. And we only have one jack, so we had to provide our own hub.
It's really bad, and the giant rennovations that are slated for my room will only address the network problem, which means i bought a $20 cable for 3 months of use.
I'm still waiting for broadcom to release their specifications so that KisMac will support Airport Extreme cards (yes, i know you can actively stumble with it now, but passive stumbling does not work).
I found an old one my father had from the 80s and decided to learn how to solve it. Then when i got to school this fall, a bunch of kids saw me playing with it and all went out and bought them.
I figure i'm the one responsible for this cube revival;)
I have this router, and indeed i did get the bullshit advertising.
THe worst part is that disabling it would NOT work under Safari in OS X, i had to use IE. In fact, the web interface to configure the router is completely useless unless you use IE.
What crap. I should ebay this thing and just throw a wireless card in an old tower.
At my school, there is a small student organization that will buy back your schoolbooks for almost twice what the college bookstore will, and sells them for only a $0.50 profit. I ended up getting all of my books for about $200, where as some of my friends bought the same books for about $900.
Slashdot Mirror
You hit the nail on the head with the cost problem.
I hardly ever go to the arcade, simply because i can't afford it. I love the atmosphere, it's tons of fun to play with friends, but nobody wants to blow $20 for playing for an hour or two.
The only game i am willing to pay $1.00/game on is F355 Challenge because it is such a great game. I love it. But i still have to limit how much i spend on it. And the initial investment in that machine is tremendous - i the machines are all well over $10,000 new. The arcade will probably never make that money back.
Shuttle (or any small form factor PC) + LCD Much cheaper, more upgradable, and more tweakable (overclocking etc.). This laptop is for people with too much money and too little sense.
So... two kids, out of the millions in this country that play video games, shoot up their school. Tens of millions of kids play violent video games every day. Two have actually commited real violence. Sure seems like these video games cause problems! Let's just ignore the fact that these kids might have been really fucked in the head.
Furthermore, my college campus - a place with lots of "spoiled middle class kids" - is the safest campus in the country. 90% of the kids here play video games at least three or four hours a day. Where's all of our crime? If the middle class kids are the most dangerous, why am i not running for my life from crazed GTA players?
I purchased my physics book - "Physics" by Cutnell and Johnson for $30 off of half.com. Sure, it's paperback, and says "NOT FOR SALE IN NORTH AMERICA" on the cover, but hey - it's the exact same content, and i saved bank.
I live in the US, by the way.
The student meal plans here at MTU are great. They cost about $1500 for each plan, give or take $100. Eating half as much saves you $100. You aren't allowed to remove food from the cafeteria area. Your meals don't carry over from week to week. And the best part is that you HAVE to have a meal plan if you live in the dorms.
I have not read the books. I found myself reading your comments and saying "man, those are all of the parts that i either didn't like, or that felt out of place." I guess that's a testament to Tolkein's writing.
What Jobs did was realize that Xerox had something special on their hands. Xerox had no plans to actually do anything with the idea.
The G5's fans run at a very low RPM. It has so many to keep airflow up, but they spin slowly to reduce noise. It is a very quiet machine.
DDR is still a mostly aerobic workout. All cardiovascular. 30 minutes in the gym 3 times a week for a month will do more for your muscle mass than a year of DDR.
The painted faces were part of it, but it really got bad when LEGO totally dropped the cool, unique sets (anything from Pirates to Space Police to the Aquazone) in favor of the licensed ones that are 90% unique pieces.
Last semester, i had a very large paper due in an english class. I managed to grind out some useless junk - nothing above C material. Then i got sick, and took some Contac cold and flu. That stuff always has a huge downer effect on me.
About 10 minutes after i started to feel the effects, i was more focused than i had ever been in my life. The "noise" in my head and the constant distractions were gone. I completely rewrote my entire paper in a much more interesting and creative fashion in about an hour and a half. I recieved an A for said paper.
While i have never been officially diagnosed, i (and my parents and a psychologist i was seeing for a while for something completely unrelated) believe I'm at least mildly ADD. I agree - i have trouble paying attention for more than 5 minutes, i tend to daydream like crazy.
Also, there are no good, cool sets to buy anymore. It's all Bionicle or sets that are 90% "unique" pieces. Every time i go to the toy store i hope to find something along the lines of Space Police or Ice Station or any of the other good sets, and they just don't exist. Therefore, Lego doesn't get my money.
I'm the same way. When it comes to paying attention to the road, or paying attention to the phone, the road comes first. Often times i just stop talking and totally blank out on the conversation because i'm paying attention to traffic. I guess some people just don't understand that the fight they're having with their boyfriend/girlfriend over the cell phone is less important than the one-ton hunk of metal they're in control of.
For a fascinating read about LOD, MOD, and Phiber Optik, check out Masters of Deception. It's a fascinating read, even for someone young enough to have not been a geek when this all went on.
Most would say that paying $10 for a full album is pretty cheap. But that's not the full story behind the "Only $10 per album!" deal - most albums are not available as a full album, you have to buy each song individually. They're listed as "partial albums" even though all songs are for sale. It seems that this is the case if there is an explicit album, and a censored one - you can buy the censored album for $10, but you must pay for each song individually if it's explicit. Although with alot of albums you can't buy the full version for either one, even though all songs are available.
I would have purchased 3 or 4 CDs from ITMS already if it weren't for this bullshit.
We have four outlet plugs. Two near where the bed is for alarm clocks, two near our desks. Needless to say, with our fridge, gamecube, xbox, TV, two computers + monitors, cell phones, palm pilots, and other items, we have to string together a ton of power strips. I think i'm using 2 just for myself, and my roommate has two for him, and we 'share" one for our lamps and alarm clocks when reading. Our "network" jack is actually a Cat 11; we had to spend $20 on a cable that'll go from Cat 11 to Cat 5. And we only have one jack, so we had to provide our own hub. It's really bad, and the giant rennovations that are slated for my room will only address the network problem, which means i bought a $20 cable for 3 months of use.
Funny, then, that you brits are infamous for your horrible teeth.
I'm still waiting for broadcom to release their specifications so that KisMac will support Airport Extreme cards (yes, i know you can actively stumble with it now, but passive stumbling does not work).
I'm wondering if i can use it in my 3 year old Sony Clie.
I found that once i figured out what he was trying to say, this guy's method was very intuitive - and it's the fastest :)
I found an old one my father had from the 80s and decided to learn how to solve it. Then when i got to school this fall, a bunch of kids saw me playing with it and all went out and bought them.
;)
I figure i'm the one responsible for this cube revival
I have this router, and indeed i did get the bullshit advertising.
THe worst part is that disabling it would NOT work under Safari in OS X, i had to use IE. In fact, the web interface to configure the router is completely useless unless you use IE.
What crap. I should ebay this thing and just throw a wireless card in an old tower.
I have a Belkin wireless router that does this. it's the 802.11b wireless router, no more specific part number available.
At my school, there is a small student organization that will buy back your schoolbooks for almost twice what the college bookstore will, and sells them for only a $0.50 profit. I ended up getting all of my books for about $200, where as some of my friends bought the same books for about $900.
My cell phone has the same area code as my landline, it's the 3 digits after the area code that are cell-phone company specific.