"I'd take a 1ghz Athlon64 with 128 cache for $200 less than a 2ghz Centrino."
I guess you haven't used a Pentium-M notebook, have you? I've got an IBM X31 1.6GHz P-M (Banias, older core) that weighs about three pounds, is *way* quicker than my desktop (Athlon XP 2000+) in everything but load time (4200 RPM HD on notebook vs 7200 RPM on desktop), operates without sound, runs extremely cool and has about 5 hours of battery life. Paid $1400 CAD this summer for it.
I *love* AMD for desktops, but after using a P-M there's no way I would use anything else for a notebook.
The first Elena story was interesting, moving and touching. Much of the comments on slashdot on the original story said much the same thing. There's something very powerful about a photoblog about a lone woman motorbiking through a deserted (sorta) post-apocalpytic town.
HOWEVER, once I found out it was faked, I was extremely upset. The original impact of the story was immediately gone, and I felt like I was cheated out of those emotions of awe and wonder. There's no way I'm going to go out on a limb again and trust anything that woman says.
There was a story here previously about the journalistic quality of blogs on the Internet and how they couldn't touch real journalism. I now understand what that's all about. IMHO,/. shouldn't be giving any credence to Elena after her previous scam was unearthed.
Let me get this straight: People download warezed copies of Half-Life 2, a single player game. They use a program in order to get around Steam. Valve finds out and prevents them from then on from using Steam. For a single-player game which people already have single-player access to. Isn't this kinda like closing the barn door after the cows have left?
Side note: it's depressing how much my idioms have changed after living in Saskatchewan for five years.
Vampire Bloodlines runs perfectly fine with Daemon Tools. If only my goddamn computer wouldn't keep on locking up, I wouldn't have to have a $50 box on my desk with a couple of pieces of plastic that I can't fricking use. and now the wife says that another $700 upgrade is unacceptable. Seriously, I've got way worse problems than steam - like what happens when she finds out i hocked her engagement ring.
What's your alternative, an Athlon notebook? My IBM X31 1.6GHz (Banias) notebook gets around 5 hours of battery life, 6 if I push it. It can do this running cold. Compare this with an AMD notebook that gets what, an hour and a half worth of battery life?
Rant and rave at Intel all you want - the Pentium-M is the best mobile processor ever made, full stop. Don't hate the hardware because you don't like the maker's policy towards OSS.
"Your argument is like saying that the advantage of moldy bread delivered to your door, over going to the store to buy fresh bread, is that you can just cut the mold off the moldy bread. Mmm, delicious."
What would you choose? A free loaf of bread with a little bit of mould, or a $600 loaf of bread, mould-free?
"Of course similar errors could exist with a conventional encyclopedia - but I would be interested in refutations of his point 3."
Similar errors *do* occur in conventional encyclopedias - but the difference is that, while the Wikipedia can be updated in a flash, your brand spanking new set of Encyclopedia Brittanica cannot, unless you get next year's edition ($600 US per year).
Scott Kurtz of PvP has made a bit of a buzz in the last few months about his desire to give away PvP for free in various newspapers across the US. Without necessarily directly commenting on his decision, how do you guys feel about web comics making the leap to print? More specifically, do you see this *ever* happening for PA?
I use three online banks, and opera works flawlessly with all of them. I keep IE around to use it every once in a while when a site comes up non-compliant; last time I ran it was a couple of months ago. Measured on this alone, opera is getting *much* better.
Don't see what the big deal is. Why is MS even bothering? Nobody's going to confuse "Turbo Excel" with "Microsoft Excel" - nobody that *uses* Office or Windows, anyway.
You're talking about text, right? First of all, if you're writing a book, you should probably get hardcopies of various drafts. Take 'em to office depot, pay $20 and get it all printed off for you.
Second, since we *are* just talking about text, it might be worth your while to use email. I've got a community network email account that I do this with - email them important info, they store up to 15 megs worth of data, where it will pretty much sit forever.
Third, little more expensive: last I checked, a 512MB USB disk drive costs about $70 CAD; you can buy a brand new low GB HD for about that much. Just run two HDs on your system, sync the data every night, and there you go. HDs don't tend to flake out as often as you think, and this way if one goes, you've still got an onsite copy. Then just buy another $70 HD and keep going.
Why is it so hard to believe that some people don't like Halo? I played it when it came out for the PC and for the life of me could not figure out why it was so popular. The enemies who would do sommersaults and talk like characters from Telletubbies were annoying. The weapons were boring. The plot was nothing original (no points taken off - very few sf games have an original plot).
The only thing good that came out of Halo was Red vs. Blue. I'm honestly not trying to troll; I just really don't understand why it made such a big impact in the gaming world, aside from the fact that it was a launch game for the XBox.
On the other hand... last time I bought a "big" ticket item ($105 CAD Linksys wireless router) from Future Shop (Canadian, affiliated with Best Buy) it had a $15 mail-in rebate. Now, I've gone the full gamut with many companies for mail-in rebates: my Logitech MX700 mouse, my Samsung 1710 printer, Viewsonic monitor... pretty much every single computer-related peripherial on my desk was purchased with a mail-in rebate.
But, get this: I send in the $15 rebate, they send me $30! So, I see it like this: sure, there are the lazy customers who don't want their money from a mail-in rebate, but sometimes there are lazy folks at the mail-in rebate centre who like to send out *more* money than the customer deserves;) I would agree with you that mail-in rebates are a scam - just wish I had to put in a little more effort to scam 'em! I feel like they're throwing the cash at me.
"I for example shop at Amazon a lot, even if their prices are higher. Why? Because I am happy and comfortable with their return policy among other things. Looking at my order history I notice I have been going their for seven years now, and my purchasing power has probably increased over that time."
I find this *extremely* interesting. First of all, I love Amazon (.ca,.com &.co.uk). Their prices (at least up here in Canada) are not only competitive, but typically much, MUCH cheaper than any other local or national store, online or not.
In regards to customer service, they are absolutely STELLAR. A few examples: ordered a book from the UK that was not available here in Canada/US. The book came in shoddy condition. I emailed & wanted to return the book, but they said don't worry about it, we'll just send you a new copy brand new expedited. It arrived a few days later. I was absolutely stunned.
Second example: ordered a book last year around March for an upcoming class in the fall. Fall arrived, and the prof changed his mind about the book. Amazon.ca says that their return policy is only 30 days, but they took the book back & credited me back the money within days.
There's absolutely no reason for me to shop anywhere else. Yes, it takes a bit for my orders to arrive, but that's just a bit of patience, s'all. I'm sure that their customer service towards me has to do with the fact that I spend at least a thousand bucks at Amazon (.ca &.com, usually) per year, but it's cyclical: I shop there pretty much exclusively because of their great service, and I get their great service because I shop there exclusively:)
"The pilot dealt with an old Soviet EM channeler that was implanted in the head of a sleeper Soviet agent who defected, never realizing that the bomb in his skull will eventually detonate as it decomposed in brain tissue."
Are you talking about *X-FILES* here? The pilot episode (01x01) was about a group of kids who were being abducted.
"The closest the series ever got to aliens..." was when hmm, let's see, one of them attacks Mulder in the X-Files movie? I'm only up to season 7, but I'm thinking that's pretty darn close.
Out of curiousity, what series are you talking about?
Looks like another Canadian who's sore that Bush won;) You wouldn't believe how many of my collagues up here are bitching about the election - and we don't even live in the US!
Ahem. You do know that the CRIA took a page from the RIAA's book when they took filesharers to court (or attempted to), right? What's to stop the movie industry from doing the same thing in a year or so?
I love my DVD collection. I would rather have films than music any day of the week. Having said that, the only films I download are ones that I a) can't get at blockbuster or b) haven't seen and am considering purchasing. For instance, about a year ago I downloaded Throne of Blood to check it out, seeing as how the DVD is up around $50 (criterion). Absolutely loved the film & am buying it as soon as I can find a retailer in Canada who will sell it to me. I download 'em, watch 'em once and more often than not delete them just before I go out and buy them. If this is wrong in any way, shape or form, well, sit me in front of a jury and let me explain myself to *them*.
"I have no problem with children learning about faith. In fact, I think it would be good for them to learn a little more about it. I have a problem with them being taught to believe something. Any seemingly innocuous intrusion of dogma into what is supposed to be science is harmful both to agnostics and to people whose religious beliefs differ..."
You know that neither evolution nor the big bang theory has been conclusively proven, right? I have a problem with kids being taught to believe something that hasn't 100% been proven to be correct. We're talking about kids here - you can put as many disclaimers on it as you want, but if you say "evolution is the best theory we've got and is probably what happened," they're going to come away with that thinking "evolution happened."
How about, for a compromise, we don't teach either evolution or creationism at the elementary or secondary level & leave that for Bio 100 at university?
"A lot of people think that this is BS, and you can just plug in a new XP box and it works fine, just like OS X. But again I call BS."
Ever since Windows XP has come out, I've been running it without any antivirus programs (I check twice a year) and, until this summer, without a firewall (just got a wireless router that has a built-in firewall). How many viruses have I had? None. How much malware? None. How much time do I spend patching? Well, I click a couple of boxes & let the machine patch for about five minutes every month or so. You have to understand that this myth of "turn on an unpatched computer & watch your comp get swarmed with virii!" is just that, a myth. I don't know anybody who has actually had this happen to them.
"And when you are done with the mac, you can sell it of course. My iBook is 20 months old now and on eBay it's still going for 40-45% of what I purchased it for. Can you sell an x86 box for 40-45% of its original purchase price after 20 months of use?"
Yes. Go to eBay & check out the prices on used IBM notebooks.
"although I am one, I don't see the difficulty in conceiving evolution as merely a tool of your creator."
Okay, from a *PURELY* Christian point of view (in other words, don't flame me because I'm not scientific enough):
Most Christians believe that the world was created in a perfect state, and that the original humans botched it up. Most fundamentalists (i.e. the Bible is completely literal) also would contend that, before the fall, there was no such thing as death. Now, if you try to overlay evolution onto this, you've got fully grown humans (creationist model) as evolved from whatever over the course of however many years (evolutionary model). In other words, in between the big bang and man, there was death. This clashes with the premise that the world was created in a perfect state, and is why, in essence, is why Christianity is opposed to evolution.
Now, I don't think that everything that happened in the early Hebrew Scriptures is 100% accurate (big discrepancy between Genesis 2 and 3 in terms of the order of things created), but then again nor do I believe in evolution. There are some people who spend their entire lives defending creation science (i.e. nearly every other male in my Baptist church), but personally I see it as a complete waste of time. I'm not going to take the time to argue it here, however.
You *did* mention the education question. Now, there's a huge number of protestants and roman catholics in the US. Why would it be so hard to have one unit on creation & one unit on evolution? I'm not American, so I really don't see the problem with this.
"Firstly, I don't agree with this point because the 'windows is cheaper' retort only works for the tiny fraction of the population that is composed of geeks. Only if your time is worth next to nothing or you are an extremely skilled geek can you afford to spend all the time necessary to buy parts, know what parts to buy, know how to put them together, build, install the os, patch, secure, update, and maintain a windows machine."
Forget the geek talk - cheapest desktop at Dell.ca is $480 CAD. Cheapest desktop at Apple.ca is $1049 CAD. So yes, "Windows" is cheaper.
As for your other points: "patch" requires a couple of clicks and waiting, "secure" is what happens when you "patch" and install SP2 (now standard), "update" is the same thing that you said above, and "maintain" is as simple as the (bloated) install that comes standard with a Dell.
You forget that the majority of the population buys pre-rolled computers, which as I have already pointed out are much cheaper than Apple.
So you're saying that Macs are superior because you've had anecdocal experience with one? Well, I've been running Windows XP for the last three years. Before this summer, I ran a free online virus checker & adaware twice a year & didn't use a firewall. I also happen to be using Outlook as an email client. Guess what? No viruses, no downtime, nothing.
"I happen to think that my time is kinda valuable and if by using a mac I can surf the web and not have to spend lots of my time cleaning off spyware etc every week/month then I say, its absolutely fucking 'superior'"
That's great for you. As I've already pointed out, I spend about two hours a year checking for viruses & malware. However, I find that my money is also valuable to me and would prefer to not have to pay twice as much to get the same thing. I recently bought a P-M 1.6GHz 512MB RAM notebook for $1400 CAD. Same system (i.e. powerbook) would have set me back somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3000 CAD.
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How's the FPS gaming performance? Get a chance to throw down in HL2 with it yet?
I guess you haven't used a Pentium-M notebook, have you? I've got an IBM X31 1.6GHz P-M (Banias, older core) that weighs about three pounds, is *way* quicker than my desktop (Athlon XP 2000+) in everything but load time (4200 RPM HD on notebook vs 7200 RPM on desktop), operates without sound, runs extremely cool and has about 5 hours of battery life. Paid $1400 CAD this summer for it.
I *love* AMD for desktops, but after using a P-M there's no way I would use anything else for a notebook.
HOWEVER, once I found out it was faked, I was extremely upset. The original impact of the story was immediately gone, and I felt like I was cheated out of those emotions of awe and wonder. There's no way I'm going to go out on a limb again and trust anything that woman says.
There was a story here previously about the journalistic quality of blogs on the Internet and how they couldn't touch real journalism. I now understand what that's all about. IMHO, /. shouldn't be giving any credence to Elena after her previous scam was unearthed.
Regina as well. I complain a lot about the province, but no other province carries ADSL as cheaply as Sasktel. Kewl ;)
Side note: it's depressing how much my idioms have changed after living in Saskatchewan for five years.
But hey, I'm fine.
Rant and rave at Intel all you want - the Pentium-M is the best mobile processor ever made, full stop. Don't hate the hardware because you don't like the maker's policy towards OSS.
What would you choose? A free loaf of bread with a little bit of mould, or a $600 loaf of bread, mould-free?
Similar errors *do* occur in conventional encyclopedias - but the difference is that, while the Wikipedia can be updated in a flash, your brand spanking new set of Encyclopedia Brittanica cannot, unless you get next year's edition ($600 US per year).
Scott Kurtz of PvP has made a bit of a buzz in the last few months about his desire to give away PvP for free in various newspapers across the US. Without necessarily directly commenting on his decision, how do you guys feel about web comics making the leap to print? More specifically, do you see this *ever* happening for PA?
I use three online banks, and opera works flawlessly with all of them. I keep IE around to use it every once in a while when a site comes up non-compliant; last time I ran it was a couple of months ago. Measured on this alone, opera is getting *much* better.
Hugh Hefner?!? Dude, didn't think you'd be posting anonymously! Share the wealth, man :)
Don't see what the big deal is. Why is MS even bothering? Nobody's going to confuse "Turbo Excel" with "Microsoft Excel" - nobody that *uses* Office or Windows, anyway.
THANKS! I've been using Easy2sync, which seems to only be available in German... I'll give it a shot!
Second, since we *are* just talking about text, it might be worth your while to use email. I've got a community network email account that I do this with - email them important info, they store up to 15 megs worth of data, where it will pretty much sit forever.
Third, little more expensive: last I checked, a 512MB USB disk drive costs about $70 CAD; you can buy a brand new low GB HD for about that much. Just run two HDs on your system, sync the data every night, and there you go. HDs don't tend to flake out as often as you think, and this way if one goes, you've still got an onsite copy. Then just buy another $70 HD and keep going.
The only thing good that came out of Halo was Red vs. Blue. I'm honestly not trying to troll; I just really don't understand why it made such a big impact in the gaming world, aside from the fact that it was a launch game for the XBox.
But, get this: I send in the $15 rebate, they send me $30! So, I see it like this: sure, there are the lazy customers who don't want their money from a mail-in rebate, but sometimes there are lazy folks at the mail-in rebate centre who like to send out *more* money than the customer deserves ;) I would agree with you that mail-in rebates are a scam - just wish I had to put in a little more effort to scam 'em! I feel like they're throwing the cash at me.
I find this *extremely* interesting. First of all, I love Amazon (.ca, .com & .co.uk). Their prices (at least up here in Canada) are not only competitive, but typically much, MUCH cheaper than any other local or national store, online or not.
In regards to customer service, they are absolutely STELLAR. A few examples: ordered a book from the UK that was not available here in Canada/US. The book came in shoddy condition. I emailed & wanted to return the book, but they said don't worry about it, we'll just send you a new copy brand new expedited. It arrived a few days later. I was absolutely stunned.
Second example: ordered a book last year around March for an upcoming class in the fall. Fall arrived, and the prof changed his mind about the book. Amazon.ca says that their return policy is only 30 days, but they took the book back & credited me back the money within days.
There's absolutely no reason for me to shop anywhere else. Yes, it takes a bit for my orders to arrive, but that's just a bit of patience, s'all. I'm sure that their customer service towards me has to do with the fact that I spend at least a thousand bucks at Amazon (.ca & .com, usually) per year, but it's cyclical: I shop there pretty much exclusively because of their great service, and I get their great service because I shop there exclusively :)
Are you talking about *X-FILES* here? The pilot episode (01x01) was about a group of kids who were being abducted.
"The closest the series ever got to aliens..." was when hmm, let's see, one of them attacks Mulder in the X-Files movie? I'm only up to season 7, but I'm thinking that's pretty darn close.
Out of curiousity, what series are you talking about?
Ahem. You do know that the CRIA took a page from the RIAA's book when they took filesharers to court (or attempted to), right? What's to stop the movie industry from doing the same thing in a year or so?
I love my DVD collection. I would rather have films than music any day of the week. Having said that, the only films I download are ones that I a) can't get at blockbuster or b) haven't seen and am considering purchasing. For instance, about a year ago I downloaded Throne of Blood to check it out, seeing as how the DVD is up around $50 (criterion). Absolutely loved the film & am buying it as soon as I can find a retailer in Canada who will sell it to me. I download 'em, watch 'em once and more often than not delete them just before I go out and buy them. If this is wrong in any way, shape or form, well, sit me in front of a jury and let me explain myself to *them*.
You know that neither evolution nor the big bang theory has been conclusively proven, right? I have a problem with kids being taught to believe something that hasn't 100% been proven to be correct. We're talking about kids here - you can put as many disclaimers on it as you want, but if you say "evolution is the best theory we've got and is probably what happened," they're going to come away with that thinking "evolution happened."
How about, for a compromise, we don't teach either evolution or creationism at the elementary or secondary level & leave that for Bio 100 at university?
Ever since Windows XP has come out, I've been running it without any antivirus programs (I check twice a year) and, until this summer, without a firewall (just got a wireless router that has a built-in firewall). How many viruses have I had? None. How much malware? None. How much time do I spend patching? Well, I click a couple of boxes & let the machine patch for about five minutes every month or so. You have to understand that this myth of "turn on an unpatched computer & watch your comp get swarmed with virii!" is just that, a myth. I don't know anybody who has actually had this happen to them.
"And when you are done with the mac, you can sell it of course. My iBook is 20 months old now and on eBay it's still going for 40-45% of what I purchased it for. Can you sell an x86 box for 40-45% of its original purchase price after 20 months of use?"
Yes. Go to eBay & check out the prices on used IBM notebooks.
Okay, from a *PURELY* Christian point of view (in other words, don't flame me because I'm not scientific enough):
Most Christians believe that the world was created in a perfect state, and that the original humans botched it up. Most fundamentalists (i.e. the Bible is completely literal) also would contend that, before the fall, there was no such thing as death. Now, if you try to overlay evolution onto this, you've got fully grown humans (creationist model) as evolved from whatever over the course of however many years (evolutionary model). In other words, in between the big bang and man, there was death. This clashes with the premise that the world was created in a perfect state, and is why, in essence, is why Christianity is opposed to evolution.
Now, I don't think that everything that happened in the early Hebrew Scriptures is 100% accurate (big discrepancy between Genesis 2 and 3 in terms of the order of things created), but then again nor do I believe in evolution. There are some people who spend their entire lives defending creation science (i.e. nearly every other male in my Baptist church), but personally I see it as a complete waste of time. I'm not going to take the time to argue it here, however.
You *did* mention the education question. Now, there's a huge number of protestants and roman catholics in the US. Why would it be so hard to have one unit on creation & one unit on evolution? I'm not American, so I really don't see the problem with this.
Forget the geek talk - cheapest desktop at Dell.ca is $480 CAD. Cheapest desktop at Apple.ca is $1049 CAD. So yes, "Windows" is cheaper.
As for your other points: "patch" requires a couple of clicks and waiting, "secure" is what happens when you "patch" and install SP2 (now standard), "update" is the same thing that you said above, and "maintain" is as simple as the (bloated) install that comes standard with a Dell.
You forget that the majority of the population buys pre-rolled computers, which as I have already pointed out are much cheaper than Apple.
"I happen to think that my time is kinda valuable and if by using a mac I can surf the web and not have to spend lots of my time cleaning off spyware etc every week/month then I say, its absolutely fucking 'superior'"
That's great for you. As I've already pointed out, I spend about two hours a year checking for viruses & malware. However, I find that my money is also valuable to me and would prefer to not have to pay twice as much to get the same thing. I recently bought a P-M 1.6GHz 512MB RAM notebook for $1400 CAD. Same system (i.e. powerbook) would have set me back somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3000 CAD.