same issue here... spend $22 for me and a friend just to SEE the movie.. (on top of $5 drink and $6 popcorn--assuming we share) that's $33...
I'll buy the movie for $15-20 and watch it at home, thanks... 5.1 surround sound 5-disc DVD players are under $350... plus i get the 'bathroom break' option of pause.. and the ability to watch it later... many satilite/cable companies also let you re-watch movies if you 'rent' it through their pay-per-view service...
I think the only way movie pirates really hurt the industry is that... they can say ahead of time, without influense of reader rating or money.. if a movie sucks or not...
I know two people who sometimes download movies (but dont re-distribute electronically or physically)... they both still go to the theaters with their girlfriends--in fact, they go more often then most the other people I know...
MPAA/RIAA is in such a fit looking for a scapegoat that they miss that a lot of music/movie lovers also buy things if they find they like it after downloading.. I myself used to buy 3-4 audio CD's a year in high school... Once i was introduced to Kazaa, I found more bands I liked as a whole (not just one-hit wonders they play on the radio)... I just dropped $120 in the last month on CD's.... thanks previewing my music first...
30+ dollars on a single ticket, drink and popcorn is a bit of an exaggeration, and there's still a pretty huge difference between seeing a movie on a widescreen TV vs. an actual theater screen which is however many feet tall and wide.
In Fairfax Virginia, most places sell tickets for $8-$12, depending on the theater. Popcorn is $5-7, and a drink $4-6 so it's easily nearing $20.. I just eat before hand, and usually share a drink, but it's still $12-16... and Gas is nearing $3/gallon...
Being the average joe full-time college student working part time... spending $30 to take a friend out to the movies feels like a waste... I save 'movie going' for more of special occasions... a good movie and a good friend wanting to go.. Other then that, I wait for the $10 dvd...
but man do i get pissed when i play a game and people comment i only play Character Y because she has a nice rack.. when I just like the character's play style..
Then again, I do the same thing.. I hate it when people are like "Character Z is amazing, look at that rack"..
I want a competition, not a drool-fest...
And guy's "Going afk" in MMO's as they move slightly to get a good view of some persons chest... god... Sure guys gotta do what they gotta do... but it still takes away from the game:-/ people pay more attention to Teamates chests then what they are doing...
People are just protesting because they need someone besides themselves to blame. If you kid is going behind your back to play a Mature game, take the power cord for the computer/video game console to work with you... I'm not saying carry it around with you at work.. I'm saying put it in your vehicle and do what you need to do... it takes -1- minute and you garuntee your kid wont be playing games without your consent for the day...
Rockstar is NOT to blame.. it's the Stores kids buy them at, or the parents whom are to blame (if not both, sometimes)
Rockstar clearly shows the warning ESRB tells it to place on it's game...
And stores are supposed to ID kids who buy "M" rated games....
Parents are supposed to buy most of Rockstar's games -- if it'll end up in the hands of minors... and therefore have been warned. Rockstar did it's part, It's free from any legal (or social, in my opinion) obligation to warn the public.
If my truck gets stolen, and they find out it's some GTA-psycho... I'm not blaming rockstar, I'm blaming the kid (or his parents).. I'm NOT going to go after Rockstar.. I'm going after the person (or the kids parents)...
Just my 2 cents.. Go ahead and attack me for speaking my mind, it's your right to do so... arn't you glad you have freedom to choose?
Well didn't wanna be childish and say i'll be 20 in 2 weeks.. but yeah...
got my permit at 15, no accidents until i was 17, and none were ever my fault, as i said..
not quiet 5 years, but close enough for rounding...
Blue book on my truck is $18,000... im a single 19 year old male, I pay ~$2,000/year for it... But I don't mind..
I was in an accident in my old S10, totalled it -- wasn't my fault.. but the insurance paid more for the accident then i ever paid insurance on it for... that's what it's good for:-P
Also, because it wasn't my fault, my rates didn't increase much at all.. 5 years driving i have 1 parking ticket (college campus), 1 no-fault accident ($4,000), and 1 comprehensive claim of $5,500(truck deemed totaled)... For the amount that I'm paying for insurance, I'm getting about the same money back...
Lol.. probably more of an 'audio guy' thing but:
"My alarm clock threw itself off the shelf" (used to have two subwoofers next to a shelf holding my 'good' alarm clock...)
I like it, it's a cute idea... if it costs ~$20, (as the article says).. or even $40, i'd probably uy it... but if i hear "Three easy payments" on some infomercial at 4am in the morning... Probably not:-P
You can look up your local police number in the phone book..
I personally keep the Emergency and Non-Emergency numbers for the two counties I spend most my time in on my Cell phone...
If you've ever had a road-side emergency you know the difficulty of calling 911 and getting the right location...
When I was on the interstate a month or two ago, There was a 10-foot ladder lying across the HOV, and part of the far left lane... being 10pm at night with poor lighting in the area... I'm sure people were very likely to hit it.. Simply pulled out my cell phone, punched in a few keys, and was on the phone with the police for the county I was in... no hassle of making sure you got forwarded to the right county... and I also had the non-emergency number for them in the phone so i don't have to call '911' if I still want to report non-life threatening hazards...
So anyway, it's not a state secret where 911 dials.. you can get the exact same thing if you look in the front of your local phone book
Monster cable's are good if you are going to deal with lots of EMI/RFI as well...
from what you've said, if you are -just- running the cables from your cable/sat. box to your TV... it doesn't really matter..
What makes 'Monster' cables great is their use in audio systems... I have a 1200W stereo system, connected to my Xbox, TV, and Computer.. I was worried about EMI and cross-talk with the dozen wires I have all next to each other whent hey connect to the reciever, so I went with Monster... Monster's speaker wire is also amazing...
But, as i said.. you only mentioned monster component video cables.. if that's all your HDTV setup is using.. and you don't have a home theater system... there isn't likely going to be issues with whatever brand you buy...
I've never seen major failures from a hard drive... Other then a RAID array dying, and one blowing from -maybe- a bad storm (back in like, 1992--and it was WD)...
Maxtor, WD, Seagate... All seem fine to me.. I have two maxtor EIDE drives, and two Seagate ATA drives in my system now.. All seem to run perfectly... and the Maxtor drives I've 'recycled' from up to 5 years ago for this particular machine...
*shrug* I just check benchmarks & price before I buy em, and I've never had issues with the drives I've ended up with... I still have a ~8GB Maxtor drive in a machine I gave to a family member, still running fine.. it's at least 8 or 9 years old...
And by the same token, have a 400MB WD drive lying around that worked too (last time I checked)
I don't see how people could blow so many HDD's... I leave my computer on 24/7, and used to game 50+ hours a week.. No hard drive failures? Are people 'fixing' their own computers with mallets to the side of the case--right next to the HDD's?
I'm suprised you have good service with Cox.. and yeah, you're within a few miles of me...
I know Cox does okay with WoW typically.. but things that are ping-sensative... like XBox Live games, or Counter-strike even.. you can notice the problem (at least in my area)..
I get disconnected from Halo 2 most nights, as does another friend of mine down the street, In about 6 years with cable I've had one outage for over a week, and I've recieved free HBO for a month half a dozen times as a "we're sorry for the inconvience".. on top of getting some credit for the downtime:-)
I find cable to be -very- relative to where you live.. I know some people think of cable as godly.... claiming 6+Mbps and being able to run web servers off them... but not when over 500 people are trying to cram down the same router in a cable network (I talked to a high level tech one day when it was particularly bad, and he mentioned how my 'node' had almost twice as many connections as they usually allow)
So yeah, for me it feels like a dial-up connection, but I know if i move 4 miles It'll be different.. but I'm not moving anytime soon:-/
and yeah, Verizon is screwing us... I've been trying for 4+ years to get DSL (Or FTTP/Fios)
My cable connction is like AOL (It's actually cox, but for comparison:)
-Random Disconnects
-Busy Signals(Dropped connection when under load for a few minutes -- such as gaming or downloads)
-Slow Speeds(You all can get 5mb? I'm lucky to download over 1Mb/sec or 125Kb/sec unless I'm downloading from half a dozen sources or a -MAJOR- network)
-Horrible ping times(Like I'm back on dial-up.. with my cable connection)
At least with dial-up, they don't claim to be all better then.. dial up... and end up being worse...
I live due west of DC, not even 10 miles from the beltway, no DSL service out here... its a DSL deadzone or something... There's a CO about 3 miles west, and 5 miles east... none north or south...
somehow in the ISP's 'attempt' to expand, they wanted to hit the farmland before they touched the very profitable high-population area's...
And nobody here likes Cable, it's soooo horrendous... but because it's the only option for anyone within a few miles of my area... we have horrendous bottleneck issues... I'm lucky to get ping times under 100ms even on the shortest hops outside the cable network.. and speeds over 3mb/sec....
Also, I sware the cable company has an 'anti-gaming' block on the service, I can't stay connected to an online game more then an hour to save my life... (On my Xbox, Ps2, or any of my 4 computers... and no, I only play one of them at a time, even if I run the line right to the computer/console I cant stay connected)...
All I can say is, before you move somewhere, make sure you can get DSL -AND- cable.. never gonna know which one will crap out:-/
Screw Women's boobs and such... by that I mean keep doing whatever they want with women models in games...
just don't make the male characters look absolutely HORRENDOUS while making women 'breathtaking'...
Guys care about fashion too, but apparently the only male fashion in most games is, at best, a trenchcoat... or some other generic crappy look... I dont mean make Male Dresses... but there's more to men's wardrobes then Jeans, t-shirts, and trenchcoats...
Hardest thing about playing RPG's nowadays is the designers probably spend 5-10 more hours on female models/clothing (EXCLUSING time where the computer 'idles' on these models for some reason) for every hour they spend on a male model's design or clothing...
Anyone remember the original EverQuest? Male human's? out of like 10 human male faces, only 2? maybe? Where actually 'appealing' to male players?
I'd take it just for convienence, I mean.. At home i use the laptop in only one place...
Also, some of those 'charing devices' are like pads, you jsut rest the object on the 'pad' (much like a mouse pad, of various sizes, i think up to a cutting-board size), and it charges...
Think of it like this, you come home.. you put your cell phone on the table next to/near the door, and it charges.. takes no time since it's just like putting your keys down, can keep moving by and loose no time plugging in the phone...
It's not practical for all things, but cell phones especially, I love the idea... even laptops--I have a spot i put the laptop every time, and i hate fishing out the charger, and crawling on the floor to plug the cord into an outlet...
My MP3 player has hundreds of albums on it...
it takes me up to 15-20 seconds to find a song that isn't on a playlist...
it only takes one second for road conditions to change... we... at least in Metropolitan areas... From my experiences in the DC area for so many years, there's alot of crazy stuff that happens here... like a 5-lane change/left turn in the middle of an intersection, cutting off an 18-wheeler (Sept. 2004), and another fool changing lanes in the middle of an intersection (Nov. 2004), if i wasn't looking directly at the car he would have side-swiped my front passenger side quarter panel... can tell you I'd much rather throw myself into a ditch then get forced into one uncontrollably... and voice-controlled commands would be a huge help on keeping eyes on the road....
Someone please tell me WHY someone can face jail time for pointing up at the sky ?
I mean, hell, unless you live on the incoming/outgoing path of an airport, chances are the plane is at least 5,000 feet up! Most likely closer to 30-40,000 feet... We, as citizens, should have a right to sit in our back yards--and with no intent of harm--point laser pointers at the sky. I mean, who's the guy that decided to put little white lights on the plane that makes it blend in with stars at night? We cant tell it's a plane, it's 20-40,000 feet away, it's rediculous that we can face penalties for it...
I think we are letting terrorism win by being afraid of this, people have been doing this for ages now, but since 9/11, and exagerated media reporting about it, it's now being blown outta proportion.. like the RIAA arresting a 12 year old girl for being some monsterous pirate of intellectual property... If it's really an issue, it's the responsibility of the 'operator' of the vehicle to make sure he can see.. it's not the responsability of someone 40,000 feet away to properly identify a small white blip in the sky as a plane, not a star...
I live just 15 miles from the DC beltway and the best DSL-like service I can get is ISDN at -maybe- 128kb shared up/down speeds...
so my only choice (above 56K-speeds) right now is cable, along with everyone else in my densely populated area...
Any other option is better then having only one option for everyone in the area...
(And yes, I excluded satilites, since most systems require dial-up connections to upload)
Linux is like a Condom, safer 99% of the time.. but that 1% can screw ya for months! (unless you can rollback to backup! Thank goodness for the morning after tapes!)
nStor 4700: ~$4-6,000, depending on specific model.. no idea how many drives it comes with..
at least, that's the only price I could find after looking arount the web for the last 20 minutes (since the parent thread first was posted)
I think the Topic was looking for a NON-$3,000 to $5,000 solution... which I must agree, I am too... 4 SATA 250GB HDD's costs less than $1,000.. a RAID 'card' & case shouldn't cost $4,000 for non-business use..
I have over 500GB in work already, but I can't really back up most of it (I try to compress and burn to CD a lot--most of the space is my TIFF/RAW digital photos, which compress well, but I edit them too much to leave them as such).. I'd rather spend $1,500 on an SATA RAID solution then on a tape drive & tapes...
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same issue here... spend $22 for me and a friend just to SEE the movie.. (on top of $5 drink and $6 popcorn--assuming we share) that's $33...
I'll buy the movie for $15-20 and watch it at home, thanks... 5.1 surround sound 5-disc DVD players are under $350... plus i get the 'bathroom break' option of pause.. and the ability to watch it later... many satilite/cable companies also let you re-watch movies if you 'rent' it through their pay-per-view service...
I think the only way movie pirates really hurt the industry is that... they can say ahead of time, without influense of reader rating or money.. if a movie sucks or not...
I know two people who sometimes download movies (but dont re-distribute electronically or physically)... they both still go to the theaters with their girlfriends--in fact, they go more often then most the other people I know...
MPAA/RIAA is in such a fit looking for a scapegoat that they miss that a lot of music/movie lovers also buy things if they find they like it after downloading.. I myself used to buy 3-4 audio CD's a year in high school... Once i was introduced to Kazaa, I found more bands I liked as a whole (not just one-hit wonders they play on the radio)... I just dropped $120 in the last month on CD's.... thanks previewing my music first...
30+ dollars on a single ticket, drink and popcorn is a bit of an exaggeration, and there's still a pretty huge difference between seeing a movie on a widescreen TV vs. an actual theater screen which is however many feet tall and wide.
In Fairfax Virginia, most places sell tickets for $8-$12, depending on the theater. Popcorn is $5-7, and a drink $4-6 so it's easily nearing $20.. I just eat before hand, and usually share a drink, but it's still $12-16... and Gas is nearing $3/gallon...
Being the average joe full-time college student working part time... spending $30 to take a friend out to the movies feels like a waste... I save 'movie going' for more of special occasions... a good movie and a good friend wanting to go.. Other then that, I wait for the $10 dvd...
It may be sad...
:-/ people pay more attention to Teamates chests then what they are doing...
but man do i get pissed when i play a game and people comment i only play Character Y because she has a nice rack.. when I just like the character's play style..
Then again, I do the same thing.. I hate it when people are like "Character Z is amazing, look at that rack"..
I want a competition, not a drool-fest...
And guy's "Going afk" in MMO's as they move slightly to get a good view of some persons chest... god... Sure guys gotta do what they gotta do... but it still takes away from the game
People are just protesting because they need someone besides themselves to blame. If you kid is going behind your back to play a Mature game, take the power cord for the computer/video game console to work with you... I'm not saying carry it around with you at work.. I'm saying put it in your vehicle and do what you need to do... it takes -1- minute and you garuntee your kid wont be playing games without your consent for the day... Rockstar is NOT to blame.. it's the Stores kids buy them at, or the parents whom are to blame (if not both, sometimes) Rockstar clearly shows the warning ESRB tells it to place on it's game... And stores are supposed to ID kids who buy "M" rated games.... Parents are supposed to buy most of Rockstar's games -- if it'll end up in the hands of minors... and therefore have been warned. Rockstar did it's part, It's free from any legal (or social, in my opinion) obligation to warn the public. If my truck gets stolen, and they find out it's some GTA-psycho... I'm not blaming rockstar, I'm blaming the kid (or his parents).. I'm NOT going to go after Rockstar.. I'm going after the person (or the kids parents)... Just my 2 cents.. Go ahead and attack me for speaking my mind, it's your right to do so... arn't you glad you have freedom to choose?
Well didn't wanna be childish and say i'll be 20 in 2 weeks.. but yeah... got my permit at 15, no accidents until i was 17, and none were ever my fault, as i said.. not quiet 5 years, but close enough for rounding...
Blue book on my truck is $18,000... im a single 19 year old male, I pay ~$2,000/year for it... But I don't mind.. I was in an accident in my old S10, totalled it -- wasn't my fault.. but the insurance paid more for the accident then i ever paid insurance on it for... that's what it's good for :-P
Also, because it wasn't my fault, my rates didn't increase much at all.. 5 years driving i have 1 parking ticket (college campus), 1 no-fault accident ($4,000), and 1 comprehensive claim of $5,500(truck deemed totaled)... For the amount that I'm paying for insurance, I'm getting about the same money back...
In this matter, the age of consent matters more.. and that's done at a state level... so each state's laws vary slightly...
but I still think she's underage for CA...
And I still think she's an idiot, much as I hate AOL
Lol.. probably more of an 'audio guy' thing but: "My alarm clock threw itself off the shelf" (used to have two subwoofers next to a shelf holding my 'good' alarm clock...) I like it, it's a cute idea... if it costs ~$20, (as the article says).. or even $40, i'd probably uy it... but if i hear "Three easy payments" on some infomercial at 4am in the morning... Probably not :-P
I agree... Anyone that picks on our (in a general sense) beloved search engine shouldn't be indexed...
Google makes our lives better... and does so legally (By US standards) and ethically... Darn French newspapers...
You can look up your local police number in the phone book.. I personally keep the Emergency and Non-Emergency numbers for the two counties I spend most my time in on my Cell phone... If you've ever had a road-side emergency you know the difficulty of calling 911 and getting the right location... When I was on the interstate a month or two ago, There was a 10-foot ladder lying across the HOV, and part of the far left lane... being 10pm at night with poor lighting in the area... I'm sure people were very likely to hit it.. Simply pulled out my cell phone, punched in a few keys, and was on the phone with the police for the county I was in... no hassle of making sure you got forwarded to the right county... and I also had the non-emergency number for them in the phone so i don't have to call '911' if I still want to report non-life threatening hazards... So anyway, it's not a state secret where 911 dials.. you can get the exact same thing if you look in the front of your local phone book
Monster cable's are good if you are going to deal with lots of EMI/RFI as well...
from what you've said, if you are -just- running the cables from your cable/sat. box to your TV... it doesn't really matter..
What makes 'Monster' cables great is their use in audio systems... I have a 1200W stereo system, connected to my Xbox, TV, and Computer.. I was worried about EMI and cross-talk with the dozen wires I have all next to each other whent hey connect to the reciever, so I went with Monster... Monster's speaker wire is also amazing...
But, as i said.. you only mentioned monster component video cables.. if that's all your HDTV setup is using.. and you don't have a home theater system... there isn't likely going to be issues with whatever brand you buy...
I have to agree...
I've never seen major failures from a hard drive... Other then a RAID array dying, and one blowing from -maybe- a bad storm (back in like, 1992--and it was WD)...
Maxtor, WD, Seagate... All seem fine to me.. I have two maxtor EIDE drives, and two Seagate ATA drives in my system now.. All seem to run perfectly... and the Maxtor drives I've 'recycled' from up to 5 years ago for this particular machine...
*shrug* I just check benchmarks & price before I buy em, and I've never had issues with the drives I've ended up with... I still have a ~8GB Maxtor drive in a machine I gave to a family member, still running fine.. it's at least 8 or 9 years old...
And by the same token, have a 400MB WD drive lying around that worked too (last time I checked)
I don't see how people could blow so many HDD's... I leave my computer on 24/7, and used to game 50+ hours a week.. No hard drive failures? Are people 'fixing' their own computers with mallets to the side of the case--right next to the HDD's?
No FIOS/FTTP either :-/ Been trying for ages...
I'm suprised you have good service with Cox.. and yeah, you're within a few miles of me...
:-)
:-/
I know Cox does okay with WoW typically.. but things that are ping-sensative... like XBox Live games, or Counter-strike even.. you can notice the problem (at least in my area)..
I get disconnected from Halo 2 most nights, as does another friend of mine down the street, In about 6 years with cable I've had one outage for over a week, and I've recieved free HBO for a month half a dozen times as a "we're sorry for the inconvience".. on top of getting some credit for the downtime
I find cable to be -very- relative to where you live.. I know some people think of cable as godly.... claiming 6+Mbps and being able to run web servers off them... but not when over 500 people are trying to cram down the same router in a cable network (I talked to a high level tech one day when it was particularly bad, and he mentioned how my 'node' had almost twice as many connections as they usually allow)
So yeah, for me it feels like a dial-up connection, but I know if i move 4 miles It'll be different.. but I'm not moving anytime soon
and yeah, Verizon is screwing us... I've been trying for 4+ years to get DSL (Or FTTP/Fios)
Oh wow.. just realized..
My cable connction is like AOL (It's actually cox, but for comparison:)
-Random Disconnects
-Busy Signals(Dropped connection when under load for a few minutes -- such as gaming or downloads)
-Slow Speeds(You all can get 5mb? I'm lucky to download over 1Mb/sec or 125Kb/sec unless I'm downloading from half a dozen sources or a -MAJOR- network)
-Horrible ping times(Like I'm back on dial-up.. with my cable connection)
At least with dial-up, they don't claim to be all better then.. dial up... and end up being worse...
Now, if only virginia had broadband... heh...
:-/
I live due west of DC, not even 10 miles from the beltway, no DSL service out here... its a DSL deadzone or something... There's a CO about 3 miles west, and 5 miles east... none north or south...
somehow in the ISP's 'attempt' to expand, they wanted to hit the farmland before they touched the very profitable high-population area's...
And nobody here likes Cable, it's soooo horrendous... but because it's the only option for anyone within a few miles of my area... we have horrendous bottleneck issues... I'm lucky to get ping times under 100ms even on the shortest hops outside the cable network.. and speeds over 3mb/sec....
Also, I sware the cable company has an 'anti-gaming' block on the service, I can't stay connected to an online game more then an hour to save my life... (On my Xbox, Ps2, or any of my 4 computers... and no, I only play one of them at a time, even if I run the line right to the computer/console I cant stay connected)...
All I can say is, before you move somewhere, make sure you can get DSL -AND- cable.. never gonna know which one will crap out
how does that display hold up in the cold?I seem to recall LCD's having problems with pixles freezing due to cold weather...
Screw Women's boobs and such... by that I mean keep doing whatever they want with women models in games... just don't make the male characters look absolutely HORRENDOUS while making women 'breathtaking'... Guys care about fashion too, but apparently the only male fashion in most games is, at best, a trenchcoat... or some other generic crappy look... I dont mean make Male Dresses... but there's more to men's wardrobes then Jeans, t-shirts, and trenchcoats... Hardest thing about playing RPG's nowadays is the designers probably spend 5-10 more hours on female models/clothing (EXCLUSING time where the computer 'idles' on these models for some reason) for every hour they spend on a male model's design or clothing... Anyone remember the original EverQuest? Male human's? out of like 10 human male faces, only 2? maybe? Where actually 'appealing' to male players?
I'd take it just for convienence, I mean.. At home i use the laptop in only one place...
Also, some of those 'charing devices' are like pads, you jsut rest the object on the 'pad' (much like a mouse pad, of various sizes, i think up to a cutting-board size), and it charges...
Think of it like this, you come home.. you put your cell phone on the table next to/near the door, and it charges.. takes no time since it's just like putting your keys down, can keep moving by and loose no time plugging in the phone...
It's not practical for all things, but cell phones especially, I love the idea... even laptops--I have a spot i put the laptop every time, and i hate fishing out the charger, and crawling on the floor to plug the cord into an outlet...
My MP3 player has hundreds of albums on it... it takes me up to 15-20 seconds to find a song that isn't on a playlist... it only takes one second for road conditions to change... we... at least in Metropolitan areas... From my experiences in the DC area for so many years, there's alot of crazy stuff that happens here... like a 5-lane change/left turn in the middle of an intersection, cutting off an 18-wheeler (Sept. 2004), and another fool changing lanes in the middle of an intersection (Nov. 2004), if i wasn't looking directly at the car he would have side-swiped my front passenger side quarter panel... can tell you I'd much rather throw myself into a ditch then get forced into one uncontrollably... and voice-controlled commands would be a huge help on keeping eyes on the road....
wish it would just break off, things like these laws just make me think 'ick' being attached to CA! And i'm off on the east coast :-P
Someone please tell me WHY someone can face jail time for pointing up at the sky ? I mean, hell, unless you live on the incoming/outgoing path of an airport, chances are the plane is at least 5,000 feet up! Most likely closer to 30-40,000 feet... We, as citizens, should have a right to sit in our back yards--and with no intent of harm--point laser pointers at the sky. I mean, who's the guy that decided to put little white lights on the plane that makes it blend in with stars at night? We cant tell it's a plane, it's 20-40,000 feet away, it's rediculous that we can face penalties for it... I think we are letting terrorism win by being afraid of this, people have been doing this for ages now, but since 9/11, and exagerated media reporting about it, it's now being blown outta proportion.. like the RIAA arresting a 12 year old girl for being some monsterous pirate of intellectual property... If it's really an issue, it's the responsibility of the 'operator' of the vehicle to make sure he can see.. it's not the responsability of someone 40,000 feet away to properly identify a small white blip in the sky as a plane, not a star...
I live just 15 miles from the DC beltway and the best DSL-like service I can get is ISDN at -maybe- 128kb shared up/down speeds... so my only choice (above 56K-speeds) right now is cable, along with everyone else in my densely populated area... Any other option is better then having only one option for everyone in the area... (And yes, I excluded satilites, since most systems require dial-up connections to upload)
Linux is like a Condom, safer 99% of the time.. but that 1% can screw ya for months! (unless you can rollback to backup! Thank goodness for the morning after tapes!)
nStor 4700: ~$4-6,000, depending on specific model.. no idea how many drives it comes with.. at least, that's the only price I could find after looking arount the web for the last 20 minutes (since the parent thread first was posted) I think the Topic was looking for a NON-$3,000 to $5,000 solution... which I must agree, I am too... 4 SATA 250GB HDD's costs less than $1,000.. a RAID 'card' & case shouldn't cost $4,000 for non-business use.. I have over 500GB in work already, but I can't really back up most of it (I try to compress and burn to CD a lot--most of the space is my TIFF/RAW digital photos, which compress well, but I edit them too much to leave them as such).. I'd rather spend $1,500 on an SATA RAID solution then on a tape drive & tapes...