Nooo...NOT false. If Sony sells them for just $0.01 over the cost of production they can legally claim they are not sold at a loss but I wouldn't call that a productive endeavor, would you? I haven't actually seen any site saying The PS3 makes profits on every sale! which you would think would be newsworthy. No my guess is just like the X360 it is so damned close to 0 profit it ain't even funny so they can then make up the money in the much more lucrative games market just EXACTLY as I said.
And let us not forget Sony isn't the only one making consoles. With MSFT more than willing to let their cash cows help the books they can and have be ruthless on pricing the X360. it is pretty common knowledge that several of the PS3 price cuts were NOT something Sony actually wanted, but instead were something they were forced to do to keep the PS3 from completely tanking, and even then they are STILL last place.
So don't buy some press release bullet point as the gospel. Unless you can show me hard data that says Sony is making enough strictly from the sales of PS3 hardware to afford to not only keep production going, but to deal with service returns, R&D for new gadgets like the Move AND keep sinking money into PS3 exclusive first party titles to make their console actually attractive to customers? Then I have to call BS. Who cares if Sony is no longer selling at a loss if the money they get isn't even enough to buy a Coke?
Riiiight. And every house my dad has ever built should have to pay money to me for utilizing his artistic expression. hey that is a GREAT idea! Where is my money bitch?
Or maybe, just maybe, they should have to get off their asses and work instead of getting checks for 150+ years because some song made the top 200 sometime somewhere.
The problem as it is now is that music "business" is nothing but a parasite on the ass of society. Think the "artists" are getting more than a pittance? Nope, it is the leeches, all these record companies that have bought the airwaves and hold them hostage, that are the REAL money makers.
Look up "Hollywood Accounting" and know that it is about 100 TIMES worse for musicians. I should know because I am just a skip away from Memphis and have actually held these contracts in my hands. The only way an artist makes shit is to either make it on the road or SURVIVE their first contract and hope to get a better deal on the second. Hell even with Metallica sucking the record execs they only get about $0.89 cents on a $22 CD. Anyone who thinks the money in music is being made by the artists needs their heads examined. It is nothing but leeches as far as the eye can see, and that is ALL this bunch is, leeches.
I'm not him but I'd have to agree and say it is NOT the business of the USA to be the world's policeman or decide what is and is not allowed. We have been down that road for a century and what has it gotten us? The CIA killing elected leaders to put in tyrant "pro US" dictators like the Shah, selling weapons to scum, and making a hell of a lot more enemies than friends in the world.
Maybe if we spent more time caring about our own people instead of trying to tell everyone else how to run the planet the world would be a better place. Considering our history of tyrants and clusterfucks it certainly wouldn't be any worse. Our economy is in shambles, the government is bankrupt and a corrupt mess, we have borders that leak so bad you could slip a dozen bombs through without anyone noticing, the business districts of most small towns look like something from "Escape from New York", abandoned houses everywhere, and waaaay too many good people living like animals simply because there is nothing left but "McJobs" that won't even give you enough to feed yourself without food stamps. Let's start paying attention to our OWN problems instead of trying to tell the world what to do, how about that?
Sigh...I really hate to have to point this out, because I personally hate Sony and actually rank them damned high on my list of "stupid evil companies" but there actually was a damned good reason to get rid of OtherOS, even if they totally botched the execution.
You see the consoles (with the exception of Nintendo who have always sold at a profit) operate on what is commonly know as the "razor and blades" business model, originally started by said razor companies but quickly being adopted by certain tech sectors, inkjet printers being a good example. Now please remember that at the time the PS3 was losing money on EVERY SINGLE UNIT sold and they were only making their money from games and peripheral licensing, the "blades" part of the equation.
Only problem for Sony was, unlike their competitor the X360, thousands and thousands of their units were being bought up by labs at everyplace from the local college to the USAF and not a single game or peripheral was being bought for those units causing every single last unit bought for those purposes to be a permanent red mark on the books of a company that was already in dire straits. And what allowed those colleges and other groups to use the PS3 as a cluster supercomputers? OtherOS, which without the access to meant it was just another game machine. So they pulled OtherOS, and rightly so.
Now personally the way they did it just proves to me they deserve the title of "stupid evil corp" because they not only pulled support from new units but they also fucked over previous users by making OtherOS and playing games an either/or proposition. And that was dumb, uncalled for, and there was a simple way to fix it AND generate good will. They could have simply said "Look, with all the expensive technology and R&D we have invested in PS3 we simply can't afford to have so many machines being bought up for non gaming uses. So for those that want to experiment with the Cell we'll be offering a "research edition" which omits the Blu Ray and has a MSRP of $800 a piece, or $600 in bulk. That way those that want the cell tech can use it, and those machine built for games will be used for games. For those that currently have the older units we will continue to support the OtherOS if you want it."
If they would have done that not only would Sony NOT have pissed off the hackers, but they would have been looked at as a "straight shooting" company that was trying to balance the users desires with their books.The PS3 would have even most likely increased their profits by colleges buying the research edition and just like how NV and ATI have the GP-GPU HPC models they could have even added a couple of tweaks to the platform like a bigger NIC or fiber connection and sold it for even MORE money to those that simply want the cell. Instead Sony pissed everyone off, screwed their customers, made enemies of the hackers, in short they done peed in their chili. Just shows why they rightly deserve the "stupid evil company" label IMHO.
Oh Dear Lord, don't EVEN get me started on the damned VB6 "apps" or the other customer paid for funky ass "one off" apps made by some guy named Bob which hasn't been there in a fricking decade! It is THIS, this right here, that I end up banging my head against a wall with when dealing with FOSSies. They seem to think the world runs on a DE, A Browser, and an Office Suite. Oh Lord, if that were to suddenly become true I swear I'd recreate the Julie Andrews song and dance number from "Sound of Music"!
So in that vein, dear sweet gentle but naive FOSSies, let this old greybeard clue you in on the horror (eeek!) that is the SMB (Small medium business for those that don't speak the lingo) and SOHO (small office/home office) markets, which is the bread and butter of MSFT. Here are a couple of examples: I recently had to construct a NOS (new, old stock) PC by scavenging the net and all the local supply houses. Why? Because I have a graphics designer that REQUIRES as in mission critical, a single app above ALL others...Macromedia Xres. With this app he is able to do in 1/6th the time what would be required to do the same transforms in PhotoShop for the jobs he is called on to do most, and that kind of time is SERIOUS money to a graphics designer. Now if you have never used it, let me tell you about the little hell beast. It will NOT run worth a fuck on...A VM, A CPU faster than 2GHz, RAM above 2GB, or a non PATA HDD. To say this bitch is picky is an understatement of the century. She was ONLY made from 97-99, and she don't really even care for XP. So I had to set up a KVM switch which connected a 1.8GHz Win2K box with a crossover cable to a separate NIC on his main box, all so he could run a single picky app. But he is able to get his most important jobs done in 1/6th the time, and he has a TON of custom macros for Xres, so he is happy, while I have a nice headache.
Here is another...Quickbooks. Oh Lord, how I do hate that damned evil bastard from hell! Their answer to ANY problem is "Buy the new version" which believe me folks AIN'T cheap by any means, but here QUICKBOOKS IS GOD and I can see why. It lets the construction companies and small businesses pretty much take care of ALL their billing, ordering, taxes, accounting, you name it, from that one single app. And damned near every one has tons of custom software that ties into that heifer. In the past two months I've had to set up dual boots, set up a spare box as a server for it, basically 90% of my headaches migrating these companies over to Windows 7 can be traced NOT to MSFT, but to the laziness and shitty coding of this ONE company. But good fucking luck getting them off it! The cost to migrate literally years, even a decade plus in some case, worth of data, retrain the "quickbooks girl" (for some reason it is ALWAYS a girl) who knows EVERY single macro and shortcut like she does her children, Oh Dear Lord, you don't even want to know what it would cost. And for the one that said "Just go Thin Client"? Yeah, because TRIPLING the cost (thin clients PLUS beefy server PLUS increased throughput and redundancy) all to get away from a single app? Yeah, I would be SOOO fired!
So you see my dear FOSSies, it is NEVER as simple as "Use Linux" in the real world. I haven't even told you about the place that has over a decades worth of data tied into a huge ass VB4 (that's right VB4, not 5, not 6) app with NO comments anywhere, or all the funky ass transcription, accounting, parts management, etc, most of which were made years ago by companies that wouldn't know how to fix or migrate that "one off" anymore than I would as the guy who wrote the thing hasn't worked there in ages, and that is if they even remember WHO in the fuck wrote it in the first place! Believe me FOSSies, I wish I lived in your world, where there were plenty of choices and switching an entire infrastructure was as simple as moving over to FF from IE, but that ain't real life, not by a long shot. It ain't Windows, it ain't the "evil M$" that has the world hooked on MSFT, it is those bazillion funky ass apps that are mission critical and would cause an entire company to grind to a halt without. When it is a choice of use it or go out of business, there really isn't much choice, is there?
Exactly. Unless all you care about is locking down with ultra security and are willing to shell out the bucks for that goal most businesses really won't see much if any savings from going thin client. I recently upgraded the PCs for the local print shop and with triple core AMD with 2GB of RAM, Windows Home Premium X64, and 500GB HDDs the grand total was $475 each including my costs. With triple cores they have plenty of power if they need it, C&Q keeps them from sucking power when they don't, they have plenty of room to grow, and they don't have to worry about latency or not being able to work when the net goes down.
So I'd say for most small and even medium businesses there really isn't a point to going thin. There are still too many "what ifs" that really haven't been solved yet, and frankly with the jobs most places do any bottom of the line dual or triple with a couple of GB of RAM can easily last them 7 years or more. The boxes I took out of that print shop were mostly 2GHz P4s bought around 04 and were just now starting to get slow enough users complained. Six years for hardware that cheap to buy? Seems like a bargain to me, and to my customer as well.
Why does EVERY FOSS guy think it is about Windows and Office? Hint: It is NEVER about Windows and Office, it is about all those funky ass "mission critical" apps that do not run on Linux full stop. From the charting and accounting software, to the payroll apps, damned near everything in most business will NOT run on Linux, and a good 80% of them I'd say have NO equivalent on Linux.
Just saying to a corporate customer "Just use Linux" is about like walking up to a graphic designer and saying "You don't need that pesky Photoshop, it isn't free as in freedom! here enjoy the Gimp". Try it and see how well it goes over. It is NEVER Windows or Office, those are easy. There are a bazillion other niche apps won't run on Linux, would cost a buttload of money to have a custom version made for Linux, and that is even if you can get the data out easily. Hint: Often you can't. Nearly every SMB and SOHO in my area relies on Quickbooks. What is there even close? GNUCash? It is about as close as Gimp is to Photoshop.
So in conclusion while I'm sure it'd be nice for Linux adoption if all people did at work was use a browser or make documents, but that is rarely the case. It is all those OTHER apps that are used every single day that bite you in the ass, NOT Windows and Office.
What amazes me is how many in this country now believe "free speech" means "only those things I agree with are allowed" and it is fine and dandy to get rid of anything else. It reminded me of watching TV with my grandfather when the Nazis were gonna march on Chicago. Now this was a man that spent four years fighting Nazis, that helped to liberate one of the Polish camps so he knew first hand what Nazism was really about, and who got to end the war by spending nearly two years in a full body cast thanks to a Werewulf unit dropping a wall on him along with his unit, two of whom died.
So if there was ANYBODY on this earth who had a legit reason to want to see them gone it was him, yet he made sure I knew he supported those Nazis 100% in their right to march. He said "THAT is what we were fighting for, and what made us different from them. Here we allow everyone to speak, to debate, to print their ideas, even if we don't agree with them". It is just a damned shame that so many have forgotten that, and day by day they take away that right by saying this or that is "offensive" and they just keep moving the line on what is offensive. I support Rush and Maddow, Beck and Stewart, hell I even support the "pro pedo" book guy who is currently rotting in jail for writing his thoughts on paper. We must ALWAYS support the right to speech we don't agree with, because tomorrow some politician or activist may decide YOU are the offensive element and shouldn't be allowed to speak. Which is why we have to stop the censors like Rockefeller at every turn. I may not agree with your words but like my grandfather before me I will damned well fight for your right to say them!
Ouch. We can say the same thing about Branson MO and anything sporty. There if it looks nice it'll go for $5k+ even if it is smoking and the drivetrain is shot. Just crazy, which is why most just come down here to shop. here the only thing expensive is what we call the "Doctor's rides" the Lincoln, new Caddys, Hummers. Everything else is dirt cheap.
Hell it ain't a bad drive between here and SD, I rode a truck up to that area a few times as a teen, nice country between here and there. If you want to save yourself what sounds like several thousand you ought to just hop a plane to LR airport and drive one home. We have what we call "Car Heaven" which is a straight freeway strip that goes almost 30 miles from the LR airport up through Cabot in a straight line with NOTHING but new and used car lots as far as the eye can see. Because they move so many rides the dealers aren't shady either, and will be happy to tell you what if anything is wrong with a ride in the hope you'll come back.
Like I said you can take your pick of dozens of small trucks and cars in the 2k-4k range, just depends on what year you want and how many extras it is sporting. Mine is electric everything with all the option packs and was just $2200. Full size will cost you an extra 1k, and classic sports cars and trucks can be had for less than $6k in great shape all day long. And the nice thing is because our drivers are nearly always "freeway commuters" you don't get the vehicles dogged out like in a lot of places, and since there is less than a week of snow a year no road salt damage either. Makes for great used vehicles with no rust! And vans are so cheap they practically give them away. A friend just sold a nice 98 mini van that purred like a kitten and looked sharp for $1500, they just ain't worth much here.
But if you ever decide to come on down, give me a holler and I'll be happy to give ya the cook's tour. I bet we wouldn't even have to leave the strip to find you a real sweetheart. With so many new lots side by side they get really aggressive on trade ins and then let them go for a loss to make room on their lots. And because it is a working man's town the Ranger and S10 is cheap and plentiful. Hell I think half the trucks in my apt building lot right now are Rangers, everybody has one because they are so cheap and abundant. The only thing you can't really find around here is Jap rides except for the little Toyota 4 door "wife cars", as everyone else drive American trucks. Say what you want about the south, but this here is truck country! Good Luck!
Uhhhh...it sounds like about half the stuff on your tablets does not work but "other than that" it runs pretty well? It is THIS, this "it is free so you should put up with it" attitude that keeps FLOSS from taking off on mainstream PC devices like netbook/nettops, laptops, desktops, etc.
Another perfect example: Remember how everyone was touting when Dell started selling Ubuntu on select netbooks? Ever look at one? Notice anything....funny...about them? Like the fact that Dell removes ALL Canonical repos and has to run their own? Why is that? Is it because Dell is pushing crapware on them like on the Windows boxes? Nope, it is due to the fact that even with such a limited amount of hardware to support Canonical can't be bothered to do actual QA before release and if you use the regular repos it breaks the Ethernet and sound! Oh joy, oh happy day!
Now damn it, I KNOW good quality FOSS software CAN be done. Hell Jobs took BSD and built an empire with it that has even surpassed MSFT in market cap so it CAN be done! But it will NOT ever be done with this "oh well, it kinda sorta works" attitude. If Apple pushed out an update that broke half the Macs don't you think people would have a fit? If MSFT broke half the new Dells out there? Hell yes, heads would roll! So why this "shit sandwich" attitude? It is like someone saying "Free meal!" and when you sit down they hand you a shit sandwich and say "hey it's free, you've no right to complain" well bullshit, we have EVERY right!
As a retailer I WANT to be able to sell Linux boxes, and not just "hey lets put it on the shitty hardware" boxes like what Walmart tried, but actual good quality machines! I WANT to have nice Ubuntu boxes right beside the Windows ones, and know that for at least 5 years after I sold it that it will keep running, even after updating! But right now frankly I can't. I can't because there is no hardware ABI, every damned upgrade which at 6 months is ridiculous, breaks two things while fixing one. I can't because I can't even expect it to go a full year without "update foo broke my driver" bullshit thanks to lousy QA, it is just a mess!
So while I wish these Chinese luck, I'll think they'll find out the same thing I and every other retailer I've talked to found out, that Linux ends up costing MORE money than Windows. How could that be? Simple figure in the returns when updates break crap, which by law then have to be sold as used, usually at a loss, figure in the amount of time required to fix all those breaks, and it quickly becomes MORE expensive than simply slapping an OEM Windows Home license and calling it a day. I'm sure I'll get hate for saying the emperor has no clothes, but he is wearing his birthday suit and his willie is waving in the breeze.
The average Joe, the ones you HAVE TO sell to to gain critical mass, ain't messing with CLI, ain't gonna deal with "update foo broke my drivers" or trawl forums for fixes. If a box leaves the store working it needs to STAY working as long as the user follows basic best practices. That simply isn't the case with Linux, as by following best practices the user will BREAK the machine by updating! So I have the choice of either pulling a Dell and repackaging everything and running my own repo (too expensive), turning off updates and leaving the machine vulnerable (unacceptable), fixing every update fuckup for life for free (too expensive) or just slapping a Windows License and an AV and AntiMal and calling it a day. Which do you think in the end I'm gonna choose?
So please don't settle for this "it kinda sorta works" shit sandwich mentality, demand real progress! Demand either a stable ABI, or if Linux guys hate those so much, even though Solaris, BSD, Windows, hell just about every OS other than Linux, has had them for over a decade? Fine, tell us of another way to INSURE that drivers continue working across releases and DO THAT. None of this "let the kernel devs" handle it BS, If a driver works now it should work five years from now AS IS PERIOD. Make it easy, make it reliable, and guys like me will be happy to sell your product and display it proudly on our shelves. Hell you think we spend all that extra money in Windows licenses because we LIKE to add that to our final cost?
Uhhh...because you get more than six reps in a room and they'll vote in lock step, no matter what, whereas a hundred democrats in a room won't even be able to agree where to have lunch? Lets face it, we really are pretty much a one party country now, as the Dems couldn't even agree on who would pick up the check at the titty bar. You got about a bazillion "factions" from the DINOs to the ultra libs, the pro this or anti that and the ONLY thing they have in common is they can't agree on shit.
Hell look at how the dems couldn't even muster enough support to keep the reps from ramming the tax break for those making a million plus, which with the current mood of the country should have been a slam dunk. Lets face it, we need a good three or four new parties, because what we got now is one party and a bunch of guys that just stand around and argue with each other.
They are beating Ford on price thanks to the UAW reaming them in the contracts. They should close the northern lines and move them south like the Japanese did. I have to agree with the 3rd generations, spot on there. My dad still has several for work trucks and they are built like tanks, easy to find parts for, even his fifteen year old F350 bucket truck still hums along 5 days a week and doesn't even smoke after carrying all that weight. Great trucks IMHO.
If you are strictly wanting a good hauling truck with great gas mileage get the Ranger 4cyl, my cousin has one and he gets about 26 MPG and its a good little truck. That said I'll happily take the shittier gas mileage for the Vulcan V6. I'd gladly put that motor in the same league as the old Dodge 318 or the classic Chevy 350, it is just a damned well built motor. Doesn't matter how cold or hot it gets here, she always is ready to go, never lugs even when loaded to capacity while climbing steep hills, it is one of the quietest and least fussy engines I've ever had the pleasure to own. If you run across one in good shape I wouldn't hesitate to buy it, talking to guys online going 300k on a Vulcan without a rebuild isn't even considered a big deal.
Its weird that you are finding Rangers expensive, must be the area. Here in AR we find really nice Rangers in the 2K range all day long. Mine I really couldn't turn down because it looked and run like the day it rolled off the floor, 99 Ranger complete with a really nice Sony MP3/CD, after market light kit and bed liner for only $2200. I would have liked to get one for my oldest who had just started college, but my dad ran into a sweetheart 2000 S10 in midnight blue with all the extras for just $1800. He just changed out the front ball joints and slapped a new set of tires all around and it looks and drives like it just rolled out the showroom. Hell we couldn't even find a scratch on the paint!
So I don't know where you're at but it might be cheaper to come down here and just drive it home. I have a couple of buddies that actually make a decent living doing that, classic cars and trucks are really cheap here for really nice rides, so they just turn around and sell them on the coasts. They said there a classic El Camino or tricked out Ranger can easily sell for $20k+, and here you can buy even classic 60s wheels for less than $5k. So it might be worth it just to make a mini vacation out of it, maybe see Branson and some of the other sights, and then just drive your new ride home. Hell I can name off a dozen classics, going back to a beautiful 51 Ford, and the most expensive is $7900 for a mint state. You just can't get cheaper rides. Good luck!
Just remember, they are out breeding you by about 10,000 to one, and that number is only INCREASING. All your greed will be worth exactly a bucket of warm spit when the economy collapses and there aren't anymore bread and circuses to keep the huge desperate masses opiated, in which case you will either do a really nice impression of the fall of Saigon, or will be lined up against the wall, your choice.
There is a GOOD reason why governments don't last, and the USA is living proof. The rich buy off the laws with treasonous bribes that they then take a tax deduction on, the merchant class would happily give your job to a six year old in Malaysia they would work to death to save paying a living wage, and the congress becomes nothing but a home for lobbyists and a revolving door to the cushy corporate sector after their bribe taking days are over.
The only problem with your brilliant master plan there chief is by wiping out the middle class you have given the poor NOTHING to shoot for, and nothing to achieve. More and more are seeing the American Dream for the sham it is, and they are outbreeding you by ever increasing numbers. Do you think when the shit hits the fan they'll just peaceably starve like the last depression? Not on your life pal. See what happened to the French. Give me twelve people in a room and they may not pick a president but they WILL pick someone to hate, and THEY HATE YOU. Remember someone with nothing to look forward to also has nothing to lose. Can you say the same?
The Tacoma is more of a mid size like the F150, whereas the Ranger is a compact truck, like the old S10. And frankly I never understood why everyone is supposed to always "change the line" all the time. if it ain't broke, why fix it? I had a 96 King Cab, and finding parts for that thing was a pain. With my Ranger being "Company White" if someone was to rear end my truck I could have a new bed in a day.
I think the problem with Ford is they simply haven't advertised the Ranger like they have the Explorer and the Mustang. If they would have hyped the Ranger and its Vulcan V6 there would probably be even more of them on the road, and what is REALLY stupid is according to Wikipedia the Ranger is STILL a decent seller, with it being quite popular as a fleet truck due to its good gas mileage and hauling capacity! Why would you want to get rid of a line that STILL sells after you have neglected it for over a decade?
I think it just shows what is wrong with the American auto industry as a whole. If it isn't flashy, look like something from the 60s, or have lots of bling they simply ignore or kill it, when all that is needed to keep making good money off of it is a little advertising and maybe change the body panel style a little. If they would push it as "The truck for the working man that is light on his wallet" they'd have NO problems gaining even more sales. As I said even after a decade of being ignored I still see more new and old Rangers on the road than anything else around here, especially with companies. And I have to agree with you on Toyota. My family went through a few of those before giving up, they looked cool, but they certainly wasn't as reliable as a Ford.
I'm just glad I had a wonderful woman come into my life at just the right time. We had met and fell in love online (sounds corny, but its true) but when she found out my sister was at the end she dropped everything and used all her sick and vacation days to come down and help. Sadly she and my sis never got to meet, but she was really there for us, especially the boys, and really helped us all through those dark days. I was really worried about her meeting the boys, what with the youngest being gay (and I know that offends some religious types, but he was pretty much living proof that "sometimes they are just born that way". We knew at 4 he was gonna be gay, of course nobody said anything, but everything about him just screamed GAY in capital letters) but not only did she go total "mama bear" and take him under her wing, but her whole family is good old country folk and welcomed them both with open arms. Her daughter just loves the far out of the youngest, always joking about "How nice it is to finally have SOMEONE in this family with good taste!"
As for the oldest, we couldn't be more proud. I mean how do you top a doctor in the family? It is a shame his mama didn't live long enough to see her boy start college, but he has really done her proud. Top of his class, Dean's List, and the school pastor came by just to tell us how proud he was that there were still decent young men being made in this world, how he goes out of his way to help those that are struggling and to organize study sessions for the ones falling behind.
But I figure you only go around once in this world, make the most of what time you have. What will all that wealth buy you? Not another minute of time, nor real friends or good memories from those around you. I'd much rather be the average Joe with people that would actually miss me when I'm gone rather than the rich man always looking for a way to make another buck. If I won the lotto tomorrow I'd probably give a good 90% away to those that were hurting. I have a good family, good friends, a great GF, I have all that I need. And like you I never had kids myself, raising two nephews was enough! Now you and yours have a Happy New Years, ya hear?
I wouldn't say they sucked in the 90s either, just on certain models (The Taurus from what I've been told really wasn't good) but their trucks were to use a slogan "Built Ford Tough". I have a 99 Ranger that even after 130,000 miles purrs just like the day it rolled off the line, those Vulcan V6s are some solid motors and there have been many reports of guys getting over 300,000 before needing a rebuild. while my dad prefers his 2011 F350 he still has his 95 F350 for hauls that might scratch the paint, and even after being loaded down with electrical equipment for nearly 15 years of 5 day a week work she still does her jobs quite well. Gas of course isn't the greatest, but what do you expect? It's a truck. My mom's 93 Focus still drives her around 3 to 4 times a week, never fails, makes a great "little old lady" car and gets good gas mileage.
So I'd have to say after having just about every make of vehicle out there the Fords I've owned always were the most trouble free. Now don't even get me started on Dodge of the 90s or the super craptastic Chevy of the 80s. The 90s Ram broke me of buying Dodge just like the 80s Camaro broke me of buying Chevy. I swear you needed to carry a net behind those suckers to catch all the crap falling off! But if I were to go out and purchase a new truck it would have to be Ford, they really do make damned good work vehicles. That is why I still can't believe they want to get rid of the Ranger, the 4cyl model in Company White is THE fleet vehicle for just about every business where they need a decent truck, from the local plumbers to Napa Auto Parts. For a work truck it just seems to be the perfect size for everyday jobs and is pretty much the ONLY small truck out there anymore!
Oh HELL NO! The only thing worse than dealing with Doug was dealing with that damned ambulance chasing lawyer that owned that building! You ever play GTA: Vice City? Know the scummy lawyer you had to deal with at the front? Yeah picture him 60 pounds heavier and you've got a good picture of the landlord of that mini-mall. And it certainly wasn't in a high enough traffic area to be worth dealing with his smarmy butt.
I just rented me a little office space on the bottom floor of the apt building i live in. It is just a couple of blocks from the dead center of town, has a bunch of other nice little shops like a laser engraver and a beauty parlor, the landlady is a sweet old gal, the handyman is always willing to run me some extra outlets when I need them and even brings me all the boxes the local police dept outgrow for free, it's nice. Like I said I'll never get rich doing this, but I don't have to deal with any bosses, I get enough work from referrals to keep me pretty busy, when I'm done for the day it is just a single flight of stairs to my apt, I've got just the sweetest little GF that gets along great with my family, I really have no complaints.
As far as "Do Unto Others" I've always looked at it THIS way: I've got several womenfolk in my family. How Would I feel if someone ripped them off just because they didn't know better? Nobody can be an expert on everything, and taking advantage of someone just because you know more than them is just sorry. I was raised better than that and am proud to say when my sister got ill and finally passed away I did my damnedest to teach those same values to her boys. The oldest just started pre-med and is getting straight As and Bs while helping out with the local church and their outreach for the elderly, and the youngest is deciding whether to go to a culinary school or go graphics design while he helps his grandma. You treat people right and they'll tell 3 others, you treat them like dirt they'll tell a dozen. Me personally I'd rather take pride in my work and the knowledge that what I build or fix STAYS built or fixed, rather than just make the quick buck at the cost of others. It is just a damned shame that too few in this country believe the same way.
Yeah I really don't see Putin as much of a "giver" or into sharing. As for TFA this is more likely a big Fuck You! to MSFT for giving oppressed non-profits free licenses in Russia. Before they did that one of the favorite ways to crack the whip on opposition in Russia was to say "Raid on Pirate software" and just take all their stuff. Now that MSFT took that trick away this is Putin's way of slapping them for not playing ball.
So the GNU guys can scream about "Evil M$!" all they want but giving away those licenses just cost them some serious $$$ in license fees from the Russian government, that is of course assuming the Russian government used legit software. Of course the irony now is the big bad government will be using the "free as in freedom!" OS, while the oppressed fighting them will be using the "evil" OS from Redmond.
Y'all better not be waving no boats and subs around, ya dang dirty Canucks! Y'all done pulled one act of war on the great US of Frickin A by letting that damned harpy Celine Dion loose like a fricking Nasgul, y'all pull anything else and we'll be liberating your asses! At least those dang Ruskies been keeping their bing bong racket to themselves after we kicked them damned Gorky Park triangle playing weirdos back to Moscow. So don't be actin' funny now, or we may have to liberate your asses! Them Hummers don't run on solar power ya know.
As for TFA, is there a possibility the speed up means we are getting ready for another Pole Flip? Because if so I think that would not be a good thing here. If the poles were to flip, what kind of damage are we talking? I know if we were to have another solar storm like we had in the mid 1800s we are talking pretty much all electrical grids possibly going poof, all the sats fried, basically a giant clusterfuck. How much of our tech depends on magnetic compasses? Are we talking minor fuck up, or worldwide disaster here? Because making THAT big a jump, from 15k to 55k just all of a sudden, does seem like there is something going on down in the core. So what are the odds of a worldwide bit flip, and how much of a mess would it cause?
Hi trollie! You know it is usually considered good form to at least make a sock puppet, posting AC to plug your own AC posts? Kinda sad. And for the 400th time Correlation != Causation. I can build an XP Sp2 machine with NO patches, NO AV, and change the desktop to a LOLCat. Now if I only use this machine to check my email and go to my bank I will NEVER get a bug, but I don't think it was my magical LOLCat protecting it, do you?
The simple fact is this: no matter how many times trollie says "1+1 = 3" the math simply proves him wrong. You have 190,000 to 340,000 infected websites at this very moment and that list will change by the thousands per minute as sites are cleaned, new sites are infected, new vulnerabilities found, etc. Now for his HOPES file to actually be a REAL protection and not just a woobie? It will have to dynamically scale and keep up with that ever changing list of infections. Now even if he had twenty fingers and subscribed to every security list on the planet his HOPES file will ALWAYS BE OUT OF DATE and behind the curve. Always.
Now if you have a mathematical proof that shows how a static.txt file dropped into system 32 can magically scale dynamically? Lets see it. Otherwise it is NOTHING much a magical LOLCat pic backed up by anecdotes. That is the nice thing about math, it doesn't lie or believe in anecdotes.
Actually I answer the "higher bin/lower bin" bit, as i said the odds that you will get a class A chip that has been binned as a class C is VERY low. I wish the site still existed or I had copypasta'd the conversation, because I had a real nice chat with a guy that actually worked the line at Intel on a forum when the whole Celeron 300a OC thing was big, and he explained it like this: Sure occasionally you'll get a class A chip with a yield much higher than expected and so you'll dump some as a lower spec to fill an order, but usually it is just the opposite. You end up with VERY few of the Class A really high clocking chips, a shitload of Class B "decent, but not great" chips, and a smattering of Class C barely pass at the low end chips.
So you are more likely to either get a Class B chip at a Class B price, or if they are really hurting on someone who orders a crapload of "Best Buy Specials" a Class B chip that has been dropped into the Class C bin. It is VERY rare for you to get a Class A binned at Class B, simply because they have a crapload of Class B already, and it is much less likely for a chip to clock high enough and be stable to get a Class A rating in the first place. But if you take a Class C chip, like say the new Sempron Sargas? Sure most of those are lower Class B Duals and Triples that they dumped simply because they had too many. But the odds that Athlon Triple is just a Phenom II X4 BE dropped into the lower bin with the L3 blown? Not bloody likely. More often you're just hot rodding the Class B to higher than it would pass muster at the factory. Will it work? As another said software is pretty tolerant and often won't shit itself if "1+1 = 1.999" but just because it doesn't crash and burn doesn't mean you've got a Class A, just that you haven't managed to hit whatever the error was that caused it to get the Class B label. After all how many IRL would hit the right conditions to cause the early Phenom TLB bug? I've sold quite a few of those to customers and they are quite happy at the much lower costs, and know if it does throw an error all they have to do is enable the workaround in BIOS. So far none has had to.
But I have to agree with you 100% that all this talk when it comes to the CPU is mostly moot anyway. The AMD chips are so cheap that frankly skimping just in the hopes of a core unlock is really kinda stupid, when the CPU is rarely the bottleneck and the 2.8-3.2GHz AMD chips are beyond cheap right now. I'm running the AMD Phenom X4 2.8GHz 925 quad and like you have found the HDD and GPU to be MUCH bigger bottlenecks than the CPU. The ONLY time I even tell my customers about the possibility of a core unlock anymore is if for some reason they HAVE to go dirt cheap, and even then I try to warn them away if it is a machine they are actually gonna do anything important on. It is just too big a risk for such a little gain, especially when they can get the full L3 cache (which of course you don't get even with unlocked cores) for so cheap nowadays. Like I said it ain't like the old days where the difference between the Class B Celeron and Class A Pentium was several hundred dollars here. With AMD the difference in price between the low end triples and duals and the mid to high Phenom IIs is something like $35-$60 depending on what is on sale. On a new build that is such a small price difference it really doesn't make sense to risk stability.
Hell I'd be willing to bet my last dollar he didn't even have to guess, she most likely had the browser remember the fricking password! I had a buddy that was handed a laptop by a wife who believed her husband had been looking at porn on her laptop. The only "hacking" he had to do was simply pick his icon at log in and load up his browser, because Mr Moron had set everything to auto log in. dumbass. That case was why I don't take those kinds of jobs anymore, because my bud had to spend a week halfway across the state testifying because it turned out NOT ONLY was Mr Moron banging his SIXTEEN year old stepdaughter he had also banged his FIFTEEN year year old ex stepdaughter, and damned if Mr Moron didn't not only save emails from both but he actually saved pics of them naked in his my pics folder no less! Wow, what a genius he was. Needless to say my buddy called the cops, the wife got everything and he got a trip to PMITA prison.
And it is illegal as you pointed out in most jurisdictions to know about a child in danger and do nothing about it. Then add in the fact that they were married and if they weren't currently separated at the time he damned sure DID have the right to know his wife was risking his life and safety by having an affair. Let us not forget that with AIDS, Hep C, and all the other nastier side effects one can get from unprotected sex he life was most definitely in danger. After all we are talking about a wife beater that doesn't even give a shit if the kid is in the room, who is to say he isn't a junkie or banging half the girls in the area? Yeah I don't think this guy will have ANY problems getting off, then I would sue that prosecutor for enough money that I wouldn't have to work ever again.
It sounds to me like a case of malicious prosecution, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if this female prosecutor tends to heavily favor females in cases. We had one of those a few years back where the cops would come out to a place and the guy could look like he had been beaten with a tire iron while the wife wasn't even scratched and she would ALWAYS charge the male, no matter what. Needless to say most of the guys in the area were damned glad to see her go.
I don't think it really has anything to do with silicon degrading as much as when you are OCing you are running way out of spec. Think of it THIS way: You buy a Chevy that was engineered to run smooth at 4k, redline at 6k. You "tweak" it to run at 6k, reline at 8k. Will it run? Yep, it'll run. Will it last? Not likely because you are pushing it harder than it was designed to run when you OC it!
And I already know what some are gonna say "These parts were built to run higher, binned as lower, yada yada yada" but IRL the odds of you running into a high binned part that was sold as a lower clock simply to fill an order is actually pretty damned tiny. What happens IRL is that all the parts are tested at high speed, which very few pass. Those are your high clocked black editions. Those left are tested at lower clocks and lower cores until it passes muster and THAT is what it'll be sold as. Will it run higher? Sure just like the Chevy. Will it last or continue to run low term? Just like the Chevy it is nothing but a crapshoot.
And lets be honest folks: It ain't like these AMD chips are high to begin with. Hell I bought my full cache 925 quad for a grand total of $135. I have a 7550 dual sitting in a drawer here waiting for me to get a chance to by a cheap core unlocking board which I paid a whole $60 for. If it unlocks and works? Well yippie skippy, if it don't? Well who bloody cares! It'll still make a damned good dirt cheap dual or triple or whatever it checks out at for a family member. But trusting an OCed chip on a machine you actually care about is just nuts. If you want a faster chip it isn't like the AMD chips are high in the first place, show your support and get a faster chip! If this 7550 was going in one of MY machines as opposed to a kid's gamer box I wouldn't even bother. Dealing with possible stability issues or corruption just isn't worth it when chips are this cheap. After all it ain't like the old days when the difference between that OCed Celeron and the Pentium was several hundred dollars you know. The difference between the low end duals and the top quads is...what? Something like $50?
Actually you can tell your friend I know EXACTLY how he feels, because even after the above incident I ended up having it out with Doug and quitting that job because I wouldn't fuck people over. You see Doug was of the "give them enough rope" school, in that if someone brought in a box to be fixed that was all he would do period. No patches, no updating software, hell not even a free AV. If they brought in an XP RTM and SP2 was out what you got back was XP RTM.
Now I personally thought that was sorry, as you were basically setting them up to fail. By not putting any patches or AV you basically had a machine that would be pwned almost from the minute it was turned on, especially if we were talking pre Firewall Default = ON setting on XP. Now I on the other hand had already bought software which let me whip off automated installer CDs, so I could make my own unattended software discs and not need to waste any time or worry about it. It finally got to the point where I said "Look, you do things your way for a week, and I'll do things mine. Then we'll see who does better the next week and that'll prove one way or another."
Sure enough Doug had a couple come back where his shitty setup bit them in the ass, but I had over a dozen walk in as referrals which listening in I thought I'd die laughing. Some cute little thing would come in and Doug would start with his spiel, only to get about 30 seconds in and get told "Uuummm...that's nice. I was told to bring it to the big hairy biker guy. My (insert cousin, mom, etc) had a machine done last week and can't stop talking about how nice he was and how good her machine works. Is he in?" Needless to say I laughed hard at how red their faces would turn when I would pop my head up and they would realize the "big hairy biker guy" could hear them. But I'd make a joke to set them at ease, and by the end of the second day my bench was overloaded while Doug had a grand total of two.
So was Doug ready to finally admit my way worked better? HELL NO! Instead he gets the bright idea to start charging them extra for my "services" effectively making it so nobody would get their machines back except Doug's way! I mean who in their right mind is gonna spend an extra $25 just to get some free patches and software like FF and OO.o? So after Doug's little brilliant idea my referrals dropped off again, along with the increased sales they brought, and I was back to making shit pay and twiddling my thumbs while Doug sat in his office blowing his bong and playing Internet chess. A couple of weeks of that and I said to hell with it and quit. Doug even offered to give me the place six months later so he could retire but the thoughts of still having to deal with Doug's "input" was enough to make me say no thanks. I may never be rich doing this but I sleep well at night and every box I fix works and stays working and I get more from referrals than Doug ever did from fucking people over.
So you tell your friend I know of which he speaks, because assholes bosses that can't see farther than their own nose are universal. If Doug wouldn't have acted like a giant asshole I would have happily took over for him instead of starting out on my own, and he would be getting a nice fat percentage now for the use of the building instead of it being closed down now. Short sighted thinking equals long term losses, and treating people right equals long term gains. It is amazing how many just don't get that.
The problem is this...the ISA controller card for the lathe. This things was made by a company that went out of business in 90, so good look finding even a PCI card that will interface with this thing, and we are talking $75,000+ to replace it. And this is a little family owned business, they ain't got 75k lying around! I told the kid to check the 233MHz periodically, and to be fair I always bought over engineered at that time after having an expensive 66MHz blow on me, so the 233MHz is built like a tank, as is the 100MHz. He also has my number and I have a guy that is a whiz at cap replacement.
When I ran into him he told me in March they are planning another upgrade of the offices that he will throw my way, and at that time I'll suggest picking up a couple of spares just in case, but it is that damned ISA slot that is the bitch. I really doubt with the timings you'll get more than a 300MHz to run that ISA card correctly, and the software that controls the card is all written around the ISA. I mean you ought to see this thing. It uses a TSA to launch itself at Boot up straight into the interface and uses the function keys kinda like VisiCalc. Yes we are talking THAT old!
So if you have any suggestions I'm all ears, but keep in mind the ISA card problem. They can't afford this machine to go down for too long, which means yanking the card and taking it to my bud to reverse engineer is probably out of the question, and considering he would have to reverse engineer BOTH the ISA card AND the software interface we'd be talking a good $5,000-$10,000 job there. So in the end I've gone with what I thought at the time was the best solution to a nasty problem, but any advice that would help them out would be most welcome.
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Nooo...NOT false. If Sony sells them for just $0.01 over the cost of production they can legally claim they are not sold at a loss but I wouldn't call that a productive endeavor, would you? I haven't actually seen any site saying The PS3 makes profits on every sale! which you would think would be newsworthy. No my guess is just like the X360 it is so damned close to 0 profit it ain't even funny so they can then make up the money in the much more lucrative games market just EXACTLY as I said.
And let us not forget Sony isn't the only one making consoles. With MSFT more than willing to let their cash cows help the books they can and have be ruthless on pricing the X360. it is pretty common knowledge that several of the PS3 price cuts were NOT something Sony actually wanted, but instead were something they were forced to do to keep the PS3 from completely tanking, and even then they are STILL last place.
So don't buy some press release bullet point as the gospel. Unless you can show me hard data that says Sony is making enough strictly from the sales of PS3 hardware to afford to not only keep production going, but to deal with service returns, R&D for new gadgets like the Move AND keep sinking money into PS3 exclusive first party titles to make their console actually attractive to customers? Then I have to call BS. Who cares if Sony is no longer selling at a loss if the money they get isn't even enough to buy a Coke?
Riiiight. And every house my dad has ever built should have to pay money to me for utilizing his artistic expression. hey that is a GREAT idea! Where is my money bitch?
Or maybe, just maybe, they should have to get off their asses and work instead of getting checks for 150+ years because some song made the top 200 sometime somewhere.
The problem as it is now is that music "business" is nothing but a parasite on the ass of society. Think the "artists" are getting more than a pittance? Nope, it is the leeches, all these record companies that have bought the airwaves and hold them hostage, that are the REAL money makers.
Look up "Hollywood Accounting" and know that it is about 100 TIMES worse for musicians. I should know because I am just a skip away from Memphis and have actually held these contracts in my hands. The only way an artist makes shit is to either make it on the road or SURVIVE their first contract and hope to get a better deal on the second. Hell even with Metallica sucking the record execs they only get about $0.89 cents on a $22 CD. Anyone who thinks the money in music is being made by the artists needs their heads examined. It is nothing but leeches as far as the eye can see, and that is ALL this bunch is, leeches.
I'm not him but I'd have to agree and say it is NOT the business of the USA to be the world's policeman or decide what is and is not allowed. We have been down that road for a century and what has it gotten us? The CIA killing elected leaders to put in tyrant "pro US" dictators like the Shah, selling weapons to scum, and making a hell of a lot more enemies than friends in the world.
Maybe if we spent more time caring about our own people instead of trying to tell everyone else how to run the planet the world would be a better place. Considering our history of tyrants and clusterfucks it certainly wouldn't be any worse. Our economy is in shambles, the government is bankrupt and a corrupt mess, we have borders that leak so bad you could slip a dozen bombs through without anyone noticing, the business districts of most small towns look like something from "Escape from New York", abandoned houses everywhere, and waaaay too many good people living like animals simply because there is nothing left but "McJobs" that won't even give you enough to feed yourself without food stamps. Let's start paying attention to our OWN problems instead of trying to tell the world what to do, how about that?
Sigh...I really hate to have to point this out, because I personally hate Sony and actually rank them damned high on my list of "stupid evil companies" but there actually was a damned good reason to get rid of OtherOS, even if they totally botched the execution.
You see the consoles (with the exception of Nintendo who have always sold at a profit) operate on what is commonly know as the "razor and blades" business model, originally started by said razor companies but quickly being adopted by certain tech sectors, inkjet printers being a good example. Now please remember that at the time the PS3 was losing money on EVERY SINGLE UNIT sold and they were only making their money from games and peripheral licensing, the "blades" part of the equation.
Only problem for Sony was, unlike their competitor the X360, thousands and thousands of their units were being bought up by labs at everyplace from the local college to the USAF and not a single game or peripheral was being bought for those units causing every single last unit bought for those purposes to be a permanent red mark on the books of a company that was already in dire straits. And what allowed those colleges and other groups to use the PS3 as a cluster supercomputers? OtherOS, which without the access to meant it was just another game machine. So they pulled OtherOS, and rightly so.
Now personally the way they did it just proves to me they deserve the title of "stupid evil corp" because they not only pulled support from new units but they also fucked over previous users by making OtherOS and playing games an either/or proposition. And that was dumb, uncalled for, and there was a simple way to fix it AND generate good will. They could have simply said "Look, with all the expensive technology and R&D we have invested in PS3 we simply can't afford to have so many machines being bought up for non gaming uses. So for those that want to experiment with the Cell we'll be offering a "research edition" which omits the Blu Ray and has a MSRP of $800 a piece, or $600 in bulk. That way those that want the cell tech can use it, and those machine built for games will be used for games. For those that currently have the older units we will continue to support the OtherOS if you want it."
If they would have done that not only would Sony NOT have pissed off the hackers, but they would have been looked at as a "straight shooting" company that was trying to balance the users desires with their books.The PS3 would have even most likely increased their profits by colleges buying the research edition and just like how NV and ATI have the GP-GPU HPC models they could have even added a couple of tweaks to the platform like a bigger NIC or fiber connection and sold it for even MORE money to those that simply want the cell. Instead Sony pissed everyone off, screwed their customers, made enemies of the hackers, in short they done peed in their chili. Just shows why they rightly deserve the "stupid evil company" label IMHO.
Oh Dear Lord, don't EVEN get me started on the damned VB6 "apps" or the other customer paid for funky ass "one off" apps made by some guy named Bob which hasn't been there in a fricking decade! It is THIS, this right here, that I end up banging my head against a wall with when dealing with FOSSies. They seem to think the world runs on a DE, A Browser, and an Office Suite. Oh Lord, if that were to suddenly become true I swear I'd recreate the Julie Andrews song and dance number from "Sound of Music"!
So in that vein, dear sweet gentle but naive FOSSies, let this old greybeard clue you in on the horror (eeek!) that is the SMB (Small medium business for those that don't speak the lingo) and SOHO (small office/home office) markets, which is the bread and butter of MSFT. Here are a couple of examples: I recently had to construct a NOS (new, old stock) PC by scavenging the net and all the local supply houses. Why? Because I have a graphics designer that REQUIRES as in mission critical, a single app above ALL others...Macromedia Xres. With this app he is able to do in 1/6th the time what would be required to do the same transforms in PhotoShop for the jobs he is called on to do most, and that kind of time is SERIOUS money to a graphics designer. Now if you have never used it, let me tell you about the little hell beast. It will NOT run worth a fuck on...A VM, A CPU faster than 2GHz, RAM above 2GB, or a non PATA HDD. To say this bitch is picky is an understatement of the century. She was ONLY made from 97-99, and she don't really even care for XP. So I had to set up a KVM switch which connected a 1.8GHz Win2K box with a crossover cable to a separate NIC on his main box, all so he could run a single picky app. But he is able to get his most important jobs done in 1/6th the time, and he has a TON of custom macros for Xres, so he is happy, while I have a nice headache.
Here is another...Quickbooks. Oh Lord, how I do hate that damned evil bastard from hell! Their answer to ANY problem is "Buy the new version" which believe me folks AIN'T cheap by any means, but here QUICKBOOKS IS GOD and I can see why. It lets the construction companies and small businesses pretty much take care of ALL their billing, ordering, taxes, accounting, you name it, from that one single app. And damned near every one has tons of custom software that ties into that heifer. In the past two months I've had to set up dual boots, set up a spare box as a server for it, basically 90% of my headaches migrating these companies over to Windows 7 can be traced NOT to MSFT, but to the laziness and shitty coding of this ONE company. But good fucking luck getting them off it! The cost to migrate literally years, even a decade plus in some case, worth of data, retrain the "quickbooks girl" (for some reason it is ALWAYS a girl) who knows EVERY single macro and shortcut like she does her children, Oh Dear Lord, you don't even want to know what it would cost. And for the one that said "Just go Thin Client"? Yeah, because TRIPLING the cost (thin clients PLUS beefy server PLUS increased throughput and redundancy) all to get away from a single app? Yeah, I would be SOOO fired!
So you see my dear FOSSies, it is NEVER as simple as "Use Linux" in the real world. I haven't even told you about the place that has over a decades worth of data tied into a huge ass VB4 (that's right VB4, not 5, not 6) app with NO comments anywhere, or all the funky ass transcription, accounting, parts management, etc, most of which were made years ago by companies that wouldn't know how to fix or migrate that "one off" anymore than I would as the guy who wrote the thing hasn't worked there in ages, and that is if they even remember WHO in the fuck wrote it in the first place! Believe me FOSSies, I wish I lived in your world, where there were plenty of choices and switching an entire infrastructure was as simple as moving over to FF from IE, but that ain't real life, not by a long shot. It ain't Windows, it ain't the "evil M$" that has the world hooked on MSFT, it is those bazillion funky ass apps that are mission critical and would cause an entire company to grind to a halt without. When it is a choice of use it or go out of business, there really isn't much choice, is there?
Exactly. Unless all you care about is locking down with ultra security and are willing to shell out the bucks for that goal most businesses really won't see much if any savings from going thin client. I recently upgraded the PCs for the local print shop and with triple core AMD with 2GB of RAM, Windows Home Premium X64, and 500GB HDDs the grand total was $475 each including my costs. With triple cores they have plenty of power if they need it, C&Q keeps them from sucking power when they don't, they have plenty of room to grow, and they don't have to worry about latency or not being able to work when the net goes down.
So I'd say for most small and even medium businesses there really isn't a point to going thin. There are still too many "what ifs" that really haven't been solved yet, and frankly with the jobs most places do any bottom of the line dual or triple with a couple of GB of RAM can easily last them 7 years or more. The boxes I took out of that print shop were mostly 2GHz P4s bought around 04 and were just now starting to get slow enough users complained. Six years for hardware that cheap to buy? Seems like a bargain to me, and to my customer as well.
Why does EVERY FOSS guy think it is about Windows and Office? Hint: It is NEVER about Windows and Office, it is about all those funky ass "mission critical" apps that do not run on Linux full stop. From the charting and accounting software, to the payroll apps, damned near everything in most business will NOT run on Linux, and a good 80% of them I'd say have NO equivalent on Linux.
Just saying to a corporate customer "Just use Linux" is about like walking up to a graphic designer and saying "You don't need that pesky Photoshop, it isn't free as in freedom! here enjoy the Gimp". Try it and see how well it goes over. It is NEVER Windows or Office, those are easy. There are a bazillion other niche apps won't run on Linux, would cost a buttload of money to have a custom version made for Linux, and that is even if you can get the data out easily. Hint: Often you can't. Nearly every SMB and SOHO in my area relies on Quickbooks. What is there even close? GNUCash? It is about as close as Gimp is to Photoshop.
So in conclusion while I'm sure it'd be nice for Linux adoption if all people did at work was use a browser or make documents, but that is rarely the case. It is all those OTHER apps that are used every single day that bite you in the ass, NOT Windows and Office.
What amazes me is how many in this country now believe "free speech" means "only those things I agree with are allowed" and it is fine and dandy to get rid of anything else. It reminded me of watching TV with my grandfather when the Nazis were gonna march on Chicago. Now this was a man that spent four years fighting Nazis, that helped to liberate one of the Polish camps so he knew first hand what Nazism was really about, and who got to end the war by spending nearly two years in a full body cast thanks to a Werewulf unit dropping a wall on him along with his unit, two of whom died.
So if there was ANYBODY on this earth who had a legit reason to want to see them gone it was him, yet he made sure I knew he supported those Nazis 100% in their right to march. He said "THAT is what we were fighting for, and what made us different from them. Here we allow everyone to speak, to debate, to print their ideas, even if we don't agree with them". It is just a damned shame that so many have forgotten that, and day by day they take away that right by saying this or that is "offensive" and they just keep moving the line on what is offensive. I support Rush and Maddow, Beck and Stewart, hell I even support the "pro pedo" book guy who is currently rotting in jail for writing his thoughts on paper. We must ALWAYS support the right to speech we don't agree with, because tomorrow some politician or activist may decide YOU are the offensive element and shouldn't be allowed to speak. Which is why we have to stop the censors like Rockefeller at every turn. I may not agree with your words but like my grandfather before me I will damned well fight for your right to say them!
Ouch. We can say the same thing about Branson MO and anything sporty. There if it looks nice it'll go for $5k+ even if it is smoking and the drivetrain is shot. Just crazy, which is why most just come down here to shop. here the only thing expensive is what we call the "Doctor's rides" the Lincoln, new Caddys, Hummers. Everything else is dirt cheap.
Hell it ain't a bad drive between here and SD, I rode a truck up to that area a few times as a teen, nice country between here and there. If you want to save yourself what sounds like several thousand you ought to just hop a plane to LR airport and drive one home. We have what we call "Car Heaven" which is a straight freeway strip that goes almost 30 miles from the LR airport up through Cabot in a straight line with NOTHING but new and used car lots as far as the eye can see. Because they move so many rides the dealers aren't shady either, and will be happy to tell you what if anything is wrong with a ride in the hope you'll come back.
Like I said you can take your pick of dozens of small trucks and cars in the 2k-4k range, just depends on what year you want and how many extras it is sporting. Mine is electric everything with all the option packs and was just $2200. Full size will cost you an extra 1k, and classic sports cars and trucks can be had for less than $6k in great shape all day long. And the nice thing is because our drivers are nearly always "freeway commuters" you don't get the vehicles dogged out like in a lot of places, and since there is less than a week of snow a year no road salt damage either. Makes for great used vehicles with no rust! And vans are so cheap they practically give them away. A friend just sold a nice 98 mini van that purred like a kitten and looked sharp for $1500, they just ain't worth much here.
But if you ever decide to come on down, give me a holler and I'll be happy to give ya the cook's tour. I bet we wouldn't even have to leave the strip to find you a real sweetheart. With so many new lots side by side they get really aggressive on trade ins and then let them go for a loss to make room on their lots. And because it is a working man's town the Ranger and S10 is cheap and plentiful. Hell I think half the trucks in my apt building lot right now are Rangers, everybody has one because they are so cheap and abundant. The only thing you can't really find around here is Jap rides except for the little Toyota 4 door "wife cars", as everyone else drive American trucks. Say what you want about the south, but this here is truck country! Good Luck!
Uhhhh...it sounds like about half the stuff on your tablets does not work but "other than that" it runs pretty well? It is THIS, this "it is free so you should put up with it" attitude that keeps FLOSS from taking off on mainstream PC devices like netbook/nettops, laptops, desktops, etc.
Another perfect example: Remember how everyone was touting when Dell started selling Ubuntu on select netbooks? Ever look at one? Notice anything....funny...about them? Like the fact that Dell removes ALL Canonical repos and has to run their own? Why is that? Is it because Dell is pushing crapware on them like on the Windows boxes? Nope, it is due to the fact that even with such a limited amount of hardware to support Canonical can't be bothered to do actual QA before release and if you use the regular repos it breaks the Ethernet and sound! Oh joy, oh happy day!
Now damn it, I KNOW good quality FOSS software CAN be done. Hell Jobs took BSD and built an empire with it that has even surpassed MSFT in market cap so it CAN be done! But it will NOT ever be done with this "oh well, it kinda sorta works" attitude. If Apple pushed out an update that broke half the Macs don't you think people would have a fit? If MSFT broke half the new Dells out there? Hell yes, heads would roll! So why this "shit sandwich" attitude? It is like someone saying "Free meal!" and when you sit down they hand you a shit sandwich and say "hey it's free, you've no right to complain" well bullshit, we have EVERY right!
As a retailer I WANT to be able to sell Linux boxes, and not just "hey lets put it on the shitty hardware" boxes like what Walmart tried, but actual good quality machines! I WANT to have nice Ubuntu boxes right beside the Windows ones, and know that for at least 5 years after I sold it that it will keep running, even after updating! But right now frankly I can't. I can't because there is no hardware ABI, every damned upgrade which at 6 months is ridiculous, breaks two things while fixing one. I can't because I can't even expect it to go a full year without "update foo broke my driver" bullshit thanks to lousy QA, it is just a mess!
So while I wish these Chinese luck, I'll think they'll find out the same thing I and every other retailer I've talked to found out, that Linux ends up costing MORE money than Windows. How could that be? Simple figure in the returns when updates break crap, which by law then have to be sold as used, usually at a loss, figure in the amount of time required to fix all those breaks, and it quickly becomes MORE expensive than simply slapping an OEM Windows Home license and calling it a day. I'm sure I'll get hate for saying the emperor has no clothes, but he is wearing his birthday suit and his willie is waving in the breeze.
The average Joe, the ones you HAVE TO sell to to gain critical mass, ain't messing with CLI, ain't gonna deal with "update foo broke my drivers" or trawl forums for fixes. If a box leaves the store working it needs to STAY working as long as the user follows basic best practices. That simply isn't the case with Linux, as by following best practices the user will BREAK the machine by updating! So I have the choice of either pulling a Dell and repackaging everything and running my own repo (too expensive), turning off updates and leaving the machine vulnerable (unacceptable), fixing every update fuckup for life for free (too expensive) or just slapping a Windows License and an AV and AntiMal and calling it a day. Which do you think in the end I'm gonna choose?
So please don't settle for this "it kinda sorta works" shit sandwich mentality, demand real progress! Demand either a stable ABI, or if Linux guys hate those so much, even though Solaris, BSD, Windows, hell just about every OS other than Linux, has had them for over a decade? Fine, tell us of another way to INSURE that drivers continue working across releases and DO THAT. None of this "let the kernel devs" handle it BS, If a driver works now it should work five years from now AS IS PERIOD. Make it easy, make it reliable, and guys like me will be happy to sell your product and display it proudly on our shelves. Hell you think we spend all that extra money in Windows licenses because we LIKE to add that to our final cost?
Uhhh...because you get more than six reps in a room and they'll vote in lock step, no matter what, whereas a hundred democrats in a room won't even be able to agree where to have lunch? Lets face it, we really are pretty much a one party country now, as the Dems couldn't even agree on who would pick up the check at the titty bar. You got about a bazillion "factions" from the DINOs to the ultra libs, the pro this or anti that and the ONLY thing they have in common is they can't agree on shit.
Hell look at how the dems couldn't even muster enough support to keep the reps from ramming the tax break for those making a million plus, which with the current mood of the country should have been a slam dunk. Lets face it, we need a good three or four new parties, because what we got now is one party and a bunch of guys that just stand around and argue with each other.
They are beating Ford on price thanks to the UAW reaming them in the contracts. They should close the northern lines and move them south like the Japanese did. I have to agree with the 3rd generations, spot on there. My dad still has several for work trucks and they are built like tanks, easy to find parts for, even his fifteen year old F350 bucket truck still hums along 5 days a week and doesn't even smoke after carrying all that weight. Great trucks IMHO.
If you are strictly wanting a good hauling truck with great gas mileage get the Ranger 4cyl, my cousin has one and he gets about 26 MPG and its a good little truck. That said I'll happily take the shittier gas mileage for the Vulcan V6. I'd gladly put that motor in the same league as the old Dodge 318 or the classic Chevy 350, it is just a damned well built motor. Doesn't matter how cold or hot it gets here, she always is ready to go, never lugs even when loaded to capacity while climbing steep hills, it is one of the quietest and least fussy engines I've ever had the pleasure to own. If you run across one in good shape I wouldn't hesitate to buy it, talking to guys online going 300k on a Vulcan without a rebuild isn't even considered a big deal.
Its weird that you are finding Rangers expensive, must be the area. Here in AR we find really nice Rangers in the 2K range all day long. Mine I really couldn't turn down because it looked and run like the day it rolled off the floor, 99 Ranger complete with a really nice Sony MP3/CD, after market light kit and bed liner for only $2200. I would have liked to get one for my oldest who had just started college, but my dad ran into a sweetheart 2000 S10 in midnight blue with all the extras for just $1800. He just changed out the front ball joints and slapped a new set of tires all around and it looks and drives like it just rolled out the showroom. Hell we couldn't even find a scratch on the paint!
So I don't know where you're at but it might be cheaper to come down here and just drive it home. I have a couple of buddies that actually make a decent living doing that, classic cars and trucks are really cheap here for really nice rides, so they just turn around and sell them on the coasts. They said there a classic El Camino or tricked out Ranger can easily sell for $20k+, and here you can buy even classic 60s wheels for less than $5k. So it might be worth it just to make a mini vacation out of it, maybe see Branson and some of the other sights, and then just drive your new ride home. Hell I can name off a dozen classics, going back to a beautiful 51 Ford, and the most expensive is $7900 for a mint state. You just can't get cheaper rides. Good luck!
Just remember, they are out breeding you by about 10,000 to one, and that number is only INCREASING. All your greed will be worth exactly a bucket of warm spit when the economy collapses and there aren't anymore bread and circuses to keep the huge desperate masses opiated, in which case you will either do a really nice impression of the fall of Saigon, or will be lined up against the wall, your choice.
There is a GOOD reason why governments don't last, and the USA is living proof. The rich buy off the laws with treasonous bribes that they then take a tax deduction on, the merchant class would happily give your job to a six year old in Malaysia they would work to death to save paying a living wage, and the congress becomes nothing but a home for lobbyists and a revolving door to the cushy corporate sector after their bribe taking days are over.
The only problem with your brilliant master plan there chief is by wiping out the middle class you have given the poor NOTHING to shoot for, and nothing to achieve. More and more are seeing the American Dream for the sham it is, and they are outbreeding you by ever increasing numbers. Do you think when the shit hits the fan they'll just peaceably starve like the last depression? Not on your life pal. See what happened to the French. Give me twelve people in a room and they may not pick a president but they WILL pick someone to hate, and THEY HATE YOU. Remember someone with nothing to look forward to also has nothing to lose. Can you say the same?
The Tacoma is more of a mid size like the F150, whereas the Ranger is a compact truck, like the old S10. And frankly I never understood why everyone is supposed to always "change the line" all the time. if it ain't broke, why fix it? I had a 96 King Cab, and finding parts for that thing was a pain. With my Ranger being "Company White" if someone was to rear end my truck I could have a new bed in a day.
I think the problem with Ford is they simply haven't advertised the Ranger like they have the Explorer and the Mustang. If they would have hyped the Ranger and its Vulcan V6 there would probably be even more of them on the road, and what is REALLY stupid is according to Wikipedia the Ranger is STILL a decent seller, with it being quite popular as a fleet truck due to its good gas mileage and hauling capacity! Why would you want to get rid of a line that STILL sells after you have neglected it for over a decade?
I think it just shows what is wrong with the American auto industry as a whole. If it isn't flashy, look like something from the 60s, or have lots of bling they simply ignore or kill it, when all that is needed to keep making good money off of it is a little advertising and maybe change the body panel style a little. If they would push it as "The truck for the working man that is light on his wallet" they'd have NO problems gaining even more sales. As I said even after a decade of being ignored I still see more new and old Rangers on the road than anything else around here, especially with companies. And I have to agree with you on Toyota. My family went through a few of those before giving up, they looked cool, but they certainly wasn't as reliable as a Ford.
I'm just glad I had a wonderful woman come into my life at just the right time. We had met and fell in love online (sounds corny, but its true) but when she found out my sister was at the end she dropped everything and used all her sick and vacation days to come down and help. Sadly she and my sis never got to meet, but she was really there for us, especially the boys, and really helped us all through those dark days. I was really worried about her meeting the boys, what with the youngest being gay (and I know that offends some religious types, but he was pretty much living proof that "sometimes they are just born that way". We knew at 4 he was gonna be gay, of course nobody said anything, but everything about him just screamed GAY in capital letters) but not only did she go total "mama bear" and take him under her wing, but her whole family is good old country folk and welcomed them both with open arms. Her daughter just loves the far out of the youngest, always joking about "How nice it is to finally have SOMEONE in this family with good taste!"
As for the oldest, we couldn't be more proud. I mean how do you top a doctor in the family? It is a shame his mama didn't live long enough to see her boy start college, but he has really done her proud. Top of his class, Dean's List, and the school pastor came by just to tell us how proud he was that there were still decent young men being made in this world, how he goes out of his way to help those that are struggling and to organize study sessions for the ones falling behind.
But I figure you only go around once in this world, make the most of what time you have. What will all that wealth buy you? Not another minute of time, nor real friends or good memories from those around you. I'd much rather be the average Joe with people that would actually miss me when I'm gone rather than the rich man always looking for a way to make another buck. If I won the lotto tomorrow I'd probably give a good 90% away to those that were hurting. I have a good family, good friends, a great GF, I have all that I need. And like you I never had kids myself, raising two nephews was enough! Now you and yours have a Happy New Years, ya hear?
I wouldn't say they sucked in the 90s either, just on certain models (The Taurus from what I've been told really wasn't good) but their trucks were to use a slogan "Built Ford Tough". I have a 99 Ranger that even after 130,000 miles purrs just like the day it rolled off the line, those Vulcan V6s are some solid motors and there have been many reports of guys getting over 300,000 before needing a rebuild. while my dad prefers his 2011 F350 he still has his 95 F350 for hauls that might scratch the paint, and even after being loaded down with electrical equipment for nearly 15 years of 5 day a week work she still does her jobs quite well. Gas of course isn't the greatest, but what do you expect? It's a truck. My mom's 93 Focus still drives her around 3 to 4 times a week, never fails, makes a great "little old lady" car and gets good gas mileage.
So I'd have to say after having just about every make of vehicle out there the Fords I've owned always were the most trouble free. Now don't even get me started on Dodge of the 90s or the super craptastic Chevy of the 80s. The 90s Ram broke me of buying Dodge just like the 80s Camaro broke me of buying Chevy. I swear you needed to carry a net behind those suckers to catch all the crap falling off! But if I were to go out and purchase a new truck it would have to be Ford, they really do make damned good work vehicles. That is why I still can't believe they want to get rid of the Ranger, the 4cyl model in Company White is THE fleet vehicle for just about every business where they need a decent truck, from the local plumbers to Napa Auto Parts. For a work truck it just seems to be the perfect size for everyday jobs and is pretty much the ONLY small truck out there anymore!
Oh HELL NO! The only thing worse than dealing with Doug was dealing with that damned ambulance chasing lawyer that owned that building! You ever play GTA: Vice City? Know the scummy lawyer you had to deal with at the front? Yeah picture him 60 pounds heavier and you've got a good picture of the landlord of that mini-mall. And it certainly wasn't in a high enough traffic area to be worth dealing with his smarmy butt.
I just rented me a little office space on the bottom floor of the apt building i live in. It is just a couple of blocks from the dead center of town, has a bunch of other nice little shops like a laser engraver and a beauty parlor, the landlady is a sweet old gal, the handyman is always willing to run me some extra outlets when I need them and even brings me all the boxes the local police dept outgrow for free, it's nice. Like I said I'll never get rich doing this, but I don't have to deal with any bosses, I get enough work from referrals to keep me pretty busy, when I'm done for the day it is just a single flight of stairs to my apt, I've got just the sweetest little GF that gets along great with my family, I really have no complaints.
As far as "Do Unto Others" I've always looked at it THIS way: I've got several womenfolk in my family. How Would I feel if someone ripped them off just because they didn't know better? Nobody can be an expert on everything, and taking advantage of someone just because you know more than them is just sorry. I was raised better than that and am proud to say when my sister got ill and finally passed away I did my damnedest to teach those same values to her boys. The oldest just started pre-med and is getting straight As and Bs while helping out with the local church and their outreach for the elderly, and the youngest is deciding whether to go to a culinary school or go graphics design while he helps his grandma. You treat people right and they'll tell 3 others, you treat them like dirt they'll tell a dozen. Me personally I'd rather take pride in my work and the knowledge that what I build or fix STAYS built or fixed, rather than just make the quick buck at the cost of others. It is just a damned shame that too few in this country believe the same way.
Yeah I really don't see Putin as much of a "giver" or into sharing. As for TFA this is more likely a big Fuck You! to MSFT for giving oppressed non-profits free licenses in Russia. Before they did that one of the favorite ways to crack the whip on opposition in Russia was to say "Raid on Pirate software" and just take all their stuff. Now that MSFT took that trick away this is Putin's way of slapping them for not playing ball.
So the GNU guys can scream about "Evil M$!" all they want but giving away those licenses just cost them some serious $$$ in license fees from the Russian government, that is of course assuming the Russian government used legit software. Of course the irony now is the big bad government will be using the "free as in freedom!" OS, while the oppressed fighting them will be using the "evil" OS from Redmond.
Y'all better not be waving no boats and subs around, ya dang dirty Canucks! Y'all done pulled one act of war on the great US of Frickin A by letting that damned harpy Celine Dion loose like a fricking Nasgul, y'all pull anything else and we'll be liberating your asses! At least those dang Ruskies been keeping their bing bong racket to themselves after we kicked them damned Gorky Park triangle playing weirdos back to Moscow. So don't be actin' funny now, or we may have to liberate your asses! Them Hummers don't run on solar power ya know.
As for TFA, is there a possibility the speed up means we are getting ready for another Pole Flip? Because if so I think that would not be a good thing here. If the poles were to flip, what kind of damage are we talking? I know if we were to have another solar storm like we had in the mid 1800s we are talking pretty much all electrical grids possibly going poof, all the sats fried, basically a giant clusterfuck. How much of our tech depends on magnetic compasses? Are we talking minor fuck up, or worldwide disaster here? Because making THAT big a jump, from 15k to 55k just all of a sudden, does seem like there is something going on down in the core. So what are the odds of a worldwide bit flip, and how much of a mess would it cause?
Hi trollie! You know it is usually considered good form to at least make a sock puppet, posting AC to plug your own AC posts? Kinda sad. And for the 400th time Correlation != Causation. I can build an XP Sp2 machine with NO patches, NO AV, and change the desktop to a LOLCat. Now if I only use this machine to check my email and go to my bank I will NEVER get a bug, but I don't think it was my magical LOLCat protecting it, do you?
The simple fact is this: no matter how many times trollie says "1+1 = 3" the math simply proves him wrong. You have 190,000 to 340,000 infected websites at this very moment and that list will change by the thousands per minute as sites are cleaned, new sites are infected, new vulnerabilities found, etc. Now for his HOPES file to actually be a REAL protection and not just a woobie? It will have to dynamically scale and keep up with that ever changing list of infections. Now even if he had twenty fingers and subscribed to every security list on the planet his HOPES file will ALWAYS BE OUT OF DATE and behind the curve. Always.
Now if you have a mathematical proof that shows how a static .txt file dropped into system 32 can magically scale dynamically? Lets see it. Otherwise it is NOTHING much a magical LOLCat pic backed up by anecdotes. That is the nice thing about math, it doesn't lie or believe in anecdotes.
Actually I answer the "higher bin/lower bin" bit, as i said the odds that you will get a class A chip that has been binned as a class C is VERY low. I wish the site still existed or I had copypasta'd the conversation, because I had a real nice chat with a guy that actually worked the line at Intel on a forum when the whole Celeron 300a OC thing was big, and he explained it like this: Sure occasionally you'll get a class A chip with a yield much higher than expected and so you'll dump some as a lower spec to fill an order, but usually it is just the opposite. You end up with VERY few of the Class A really high clocking chips, a shitload of Class B "decent, but not great" chips, and a smattering of Class C barely pass at the low end chips.
So you are more likely to either get a Class B chip at a Class B price, or if they are really hurting on someone who orders a crapload of "Best Buy Specials" a Class B chip that has been dropped into the Class C bin. It is VERY rare for you to get a Class A binned at Class B, simply because they have a crapload of Class B already, and it is much less likely for a chip to clock high enough and be stable to get a Class A rating in the first place. But if you take a Class C chip, like say the new Sempron Sargas? Sure most of those are lower Class B Duals and Triples that they dumped simply because they had too many. But the odds that Athlon Triple is just a Phenom II X4 BE dropped into the lower bin with the L3 blown? Not bloody likely. More often you're just hot rodding the Class B to higher than it would pass muster at the factory. Will it work? As another said software is pretty tolerant and often won't shit itself if "1+1 = 1.999" but just because it doesn't crash and burn doesn't mean you've got a Class A, just that you haven't managed to hit whatever the error was that caused it to get the Class B label. After all how many IRL would hit the right conditions to cause the early Phenom TLB bug? I've sold quite a few of those to customers and they are quite happy at the much lower costs, and know if it does throw an error all they have to do is enable the workaround in BIOS. So far none has had to.
But I have to agree with you 100% that all this talk when it comes to the CPU is mostly moot anyway. The AMD chips are so cheap that frankly skimping just in the hopes of a core unlock is really kinda stupid, when the CPU is rarely the bottleneck and the 2.8-3.2GHz AMD chips are beyond cheap right now. I'm running the AMD Phenom X4 2.8GHz 925 quad and like you have found the HDD and GPU to be MUCH bigger bottlenecks than the CPU. The ONLY time I even tell my customers about the possibility of a core unlock anymore is if for some reason they HAVE to go dirt cheap, and even then I try to warn them away if it is a machine they are actually gonna do anything important on. It is just too big a risk for such a little gain, especially when they can get the full L3 cache (which of course you don't get even with unlocked cores) for so cheap nowadays. Like I said it ain't like the old days where the difference between the Class B Celeron and Class A Pentium was several hundred dollars here. With AMD the difference in price between the low end triples and duals and the mid to high Phenom IIs is something like $35-$60 depending on what is on sale. On a new build that is such a small price difference it really doesn't make sense to risk stability.
Hell I'd be willing to bet my last dollar he didn't even have to guess, she most likely had the browser remember the fricking password! I had a buddy that was handed a laptop by a wife who believed her husband had been looking at porn on her laptop. The only "hacking" he had to do was simply pick his icon at log in and load up his browser, because Mr Moron had set everything to auto log in. dumbass. That case was why I don't take those kinds of jobs anymore, because my bud had to spend a week halfway across the state testifying because it turned out NOT ONLY was Mr Moron banging his SIXTEEN year old stepdaughter he had also banged his FIFTEEN year year old ex stepdaughter, and damned if Mr Moron didn't not only save emails from both but he actually saved pics of them naked in his my pics folder no less! Wow, what a genius he was. Needless to say my buddy called the cops, the wife got everything and he got a trip to PMITA prison.
And it is illegal as you pointed out in most jurisdictions to know about a child in danger and do nothing about it. Then add in the fact that they were married and if they weren't currently separated at the time he damned sure DID have the right to know his wife was risking his life and safety by having an affair. Let us not forget that with AIDS, Hep C, and all the other nastier side effects one can get from unprotected sex he life was most definitely in danger. After all we are talking about a wife beater that doesn't even give a shit if the kid is in the room, who is to say he isn't a junkie or banging half the girls in the area? Yeah I don't think this guy will have ANY problems getting off, then I would sue that prosecutor for enough money that I wouldn't have to work ever again.
It sounds to me like a case of malicious prosecution, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if this female prosecutor tends to heavily favor females in cases. We had one of those a few years back where the cops would come out to a place and the guy could look like he had been beaten with a tire iron while the wife wasn't even scratched and she would ALWAYS charge the male, no matter what. Needless to say most of the guys in the area were damned glad to see her go.
I don't think it really has anything to do with silicon degrading as much as when you are OCing you are running way out of spec. Think of it THIS way: You buy a Chevy that was engineered to run smooth at 4k, redline at 6k. You "tweak" it to run at 6k, reline at 8k. Will it run? Yep, it'll run. Will it last? Not likely because you are pushing it harder than it was designed to run when you OC it!
And I already know what some are gonna say "These parts were built to run higher, binned as lower, yada yada yada" but IRL the odds of you running into a high binned part that was sold as a lower clock simply to fill an order is actually pretty damned tiny. What happens IRL is that all the parts are tested at high speed, which very few pass. Those are your high clocked black editions. Those left are tested at lower clocks and lower cores until it passes muster and THAT is what it'll be sold as. Will it run higher? Sure just like the Chevy. Will it last or continue to run low term? Just like the Chevy it is nothing but a crapshoot.
And lets be honest folks: It ain't like these AMD chips are high to begin with. Hell I bought my full cache 925 quad for a grand total of $135. I have a 7550 dual sitting in a drawer here waiting for me to get a chance to by a cheap core unlocking board which I paid a whole $60 for. If it unlocks and works? Well yippie skippy, if it don't? Well who bloody cares! It'll still make a damned good dirt cheap dual or triple or whatever it checks out at for a family member. But trusting an OCed chip on a machine you actually care about is just nuts. If you want a faster chip it isn't like the AMD chips are high in the first place, show your support and get a faster chip! If this 7550 was going in one of MY machines as opposed to a kid's gamer box I wouldn't even bother. Dealing with possible stability issues or corruption just isn't worth it when chips are this cheap. After all it ain't like the old days when the difference between that OCed Celeron and the Pentium was several hundred dollars you know. The difference between the low end duals and the top quads is...what? Something like $50?
Actually you can tell your friend I know EXACTLY how he feels, because even after the above incident I ended up having it out with Doug and quitting that job because I wouldn't fuck people over. You see Doug was of the "give them enough rope" school, in that if someone brought in a box to be fixed that was all he would do period. No patches, no updating software, hell not even a free AV. If they brought in an XP RTM and SP2 was out what you got back was XP RTM.
Now I personally thought that was sorry, as you were basically setting them up to fail. By not putting any patches or AV you basically had a machine that would be pwned almost from the minute it was turned on, especially if we were talking pre Firewall Default = ON setting on XP. Now I on the other hand had already bought software which let me whip off automated installer CDs, so I could make my own unattended software discs and not need to waste any time or worry about it. It finally got to the point where I said "Look, you do things your way for a week, and I'll do things mine. Then we'll see who does better the next week and that'll prove one way or another."
Sure enough Doug had a couple come back where his shitty setup bit them in the ass, but I had over a dozen walk in as referrals which listening in I thought I'd die laughing. Some cute little thing would come in and Doug would start with his spiel, only to get about 30 seconds in and get told "Uuummm...that's nice. I was told to bring it to the big hairy biker guy. My (insert cousin, mom, etc) had a machine done last week and can't stop talking about how nice he was and how good her machine works. Is he in?" Needless to say I laughed hard at how red their faces would turn when I would pop my head up and they would realize the "big hairy biker guy" could hear them. But I'd make a joke to set them at ease, and by the end of the second day my bench was overloaded while Doug had a grand total of two.
So was Doug ready to finally admit my way worked better? HELL NO! Instead he gets the bright idea to start charging them extra for my "services" effectively making it so nobody would get their machines back except Doug's way! I mean who in their right mind is gonna spend an extra $25 just to get some free patches and software like FF and OO.o? So after Doug's little brilliant idea my referrals dropped off again, along with the increased sales they brought, and I was back to making shit pay and twiddling my thumbs while Doug sat in his office blowing his bong and playing Internet chess. A couple of weeks of that and I said to hell with it and quit. Doug even offered to give me the place six months later so he could retire but the thoughts of still having to deal with Doug's "input" was enough to make me say no thanks. I may never be rich doing this but I sleep well at night and every box I fix works and stays working and I get more from referrals than Doug ever did from fucking people over.
So you tell your friend I know of which he speaks, because assholes bosses that can't see farther than their own nose are universal. If Doug wouldn't have acted like a giant asshole I would have happily took over for him instead of starting out on my own, and he would be getting a nice fat percentage now for the use of the building instead of it being closed down now. Short sighted thinking equals long term losses, and treating people right equals long term gains. It is amazing how many just don't get that.
The problem is this...the ISA controller card for the lathe. This things was made by a company that went out of business in 90, so good look finding even a PCI card that will interface with this thing, and we are talking $75,000+ to replace it. And this is a little family owned business, they ain't got 75k lying around! I told the kid to check the 233MHz periodically, and to be fair I always bought over engineered at that time after having an expensive 66MHz blow on me, so the 233MHz is built like a tank, as is the 100MHz. He also has my number and I have a guy that is a whiz at cap replacement.
When I ran into him he told me in March they are planning another upgrade of the offices that he will throw my way, and at that time I'll suggest picking up a couple of spares just in case, but it is that damned ISA slot that is the bitch. I really doubt with the timings you'll get more than a 300MHz to run that ISA card correctly, and the software that controls the card is all written around the ISA. I mean you ought to see this thing. It uses a TSA to launch itself at Boot up straight into the interface and uses the function keys kinda like VisiCalc. Yes we are talking THAT old!
So if you have any suggestions I'm all ears, but keep in mind the ISA card problem. They can't afford this machine to go down for too long, which means yanking the card and taking it to my bud to reverse engineer is probably out of the question, and considering he would have to reverse engineer BOTH the ISA card AND the software interface we'd be talking a good $5,000-$10,000 job there. So in the end I've gone with what I thought at the time was the best solution to a nasty problem, but any advice that would help them out would be most welcome.