Crysis, 1 & 2, and futures....
COD, entire series
Ghost Recon, and series
Far Cry 1/2/3
Battlefield
just for starters. If these had LINUX version with support for SLI/Crossfire configurations as well, it would be a no-brainer to buy and build such a machine.
I moved TO Europe from the US. I filled a full super-container, just over 40 foot, with all household goods, 2 motorcycles, and a car. The computers were packed in soft material, and I filled the inside of the desktop machines with styrofoam corals to help stabilize all contents. Silica gel used also. In the end, the container ended up arriving pretty much in tact, but got a large ding in the loading process and this tore a small 1 foot hole in the top. Rain and sea water got in, ruined a nice oriental rug, and a piece of antique furniture, but everything else did fine. The best investment of the entire move WAS THE INSURANCE. Don't leave home without it! Insure it CORRECTLY, and insure it SUFFICIENTLY to protect the assets. The comments about taking the data with you, for example, on your laptop, are correct, and leave a copy with someone else, just in case. I regularly go back and forth between US and EU and my laptop is usually left alone. Too many business people travel with one and they cannot just decide to harass the world's business community to see how many Netflix movies you are carrying. One item we did have to deal with was paying to get the container out of "storage". Strange because we were not alerted to the fact it had already arrived 10 days earlier, and was sitting in paid storage. How convenient for the "union" that arranges such things. Be a pest, ask questions, but be a NICE pest. Its your stuff, only you care. No one else does. It should all work out....really!
You may be right. Check out this basic YouTube video about the experience one person had with lights, costs, and expected regulations. Makes you go: Hmmm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gjvOOlHmsU
Actually, maybe Edison was no so off target. The truth about CFL bulbs and the eco-bulb movement is perhaps being covered up by the right lobby. Just check out this YouTube video to see what some real-life testing shows about bulbs and where your money is going. Could we be the victims of yet another corporate push?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gjvOOlHmsU
Make's one say: Hmmmmmmm.........
It seems that Kentucky's legislators who were surprised by the inclusion of evolution in the ACT tests are unaware of the irony in this. Darwin's theories clearly describe that species adapt and others are left behind (to eventual extinction). The objections to the scientific certainty of evolution (yes, we use the word theory to describe it, just like Pythagoras' theorem) are proof that even in the halls of power in Kentucky there are those well on the way to extinction, protests notwithstanding. QED.
....I moved to NL in 2005, from the US, and was troubled by the poor choices for TV here. I ended up subscribing to the UK's SKY+ service, as a foreigner, and it has all the GOOD stuff from America and NONE of the bad stuff. It has ON DEMAND, it has episodes missed, it comes with a TIVO like player (1TB, 2 tuners), and it has apps for the iPhone and other devices. With the advent in the last couple of years in NL of uitzendinggemiste.nl and veamer.nl one can now see just about any material online, after the fact, whenever you want. It has gotten to the point that I don't miss ANYTHING from the US TV experience now, which includes the ridiculous amount of drug advertising on TV. With an iTunes account in the US, and the download sites in NL, I feel comfortable that most of what I would want to see is available to me for little to no effort and cost (other than the original SKY+ installation.)
I strongly encourage you to use the www.dpreview.com website for a quick review of the cameras that fit in your range, along with usable examples of the photos taken by the cameras so you have a sense of how much quality to expect. The website contains a broad range of brands, levels, and types of cameras, and you would most likely find useful information on pricing and sources of cameras there for your choice.
My personal recommendation would be a Canon G-series. They are portable enough, very high quality, offer beginners some automation and allow for growth, and take outstanding quality photos. As a starter camera it might be more than you expected to pay, but if you save a few extra pennies it might just be a super photo companion for those early photo adventures. I see others have recommended the smaller models, the S95/100 models, and they are also excellent, less expensive choices. Best of luck.
Actually, a computer would not really be necessary for most of you to get outstanding returns. The Al Frank Investment management group has averaged 21.73% return annually since 1977 on a relatively wide portfolio of stocks that are picked almost solely on the VALUE investing criteria. Certainly a computer could be used to help the Al Frank team churn through stock reports and research faster, but in the long run, it is the investors decision to select and follow a stock, and patience is often the most important virtue of all, not speed of processing, or luck. This group consistently ranks at the top, or second, year after year in the Hulbert rankings for investment (available from Forbes Newsletters in case you are interested) and a close second in the mutual fund investing arena is the Bob brinker Marketimer newsletter. Your last statement about returns getting smaller, although possible due to the increasing efficiency of markets domestically and internationally (due to electronic exchanges, online trading, quicker settlement, etc.) is still not that visible in the overall rankings of investment advisories in todays world. And, by the way, don't think for a moment that the hedge funds guys have anything on the rest of the industry. As a bunch, they are doing worse than traditional fund managers, 96% of whom regularly underperform their benchmark indices (hence the recent popularity of ETFs and iShares-like investments). I am a former IBM nerd who turned investment advisor when money became more fun, and this past few years with the investment newsletters has been a real education for me about investing strategies and success. The net of all this is get your money out of that savings account, and put it to work for YOU, not the bank. You can get plenty of good advice (and MORE than plenty of bad advice) and its your future, your retirement. Don't waste the chance to make it a great one (one full of cool new toys like PCs, and MacBooks, and Red Hat, and 802.11n, etc.)!!!
We often sell our older companions short when we talk down to them about computers, but it is no substitute for telling them what this machine really is. They need to understand that this is a true serial environment, that a computer is doing only what it has been told to do, either by the software, or the mouse, or the keyboard, or some other input signal it is receiving. Once the true nature of this cause and effect relationship is understood by someone, it makes them behave differently with the mouse, with the keyboard, with their overall treatment of the machine. And it is fundamental to making them respect what kind of tool it is when it is kept in top running condition, and what kind of anightmare it can become when we get sloppy and lazy about its proper care.
One important point that is essential in making the book worthwhile will be to be sure, as I mentioned above, not to talk down to the audience. This is, after all, and educational effort, as is the endeavor they are embarking on about learning to use a computer.
Human evolution has been relatively CONSTANT and no biologist would state unequivocally that it has stopped unless there are some mind-altering substances involved. Gene density is what this all boils down to and the human race now has the intellectual means to manipulate what always happened, in the past, statistically. This means that we will have the ability, the wherewithal, and the motive to alter genetic content and density within cells (rightly or wrongly) to create new species, new geni, new phylum, new orders, etc. We have not peaked, and in fact, are at the beginning of a large asymptotic curve in the manipulation of genetically classified organisms, not only as it relates to the current human species, but also as it relates to other species (a la escherichia coli bacteria that produce human insulin.)
Slashdot Mirror
Crysis, 1 & 2, and futures.... COD, entire series Ghost Recon, and series Far Cry 1/2/3 Battlefield just for starters. If these had LINUX version with support for SLI/Crossfire configurations as well, it would be a no-brainer to buy and build such a machine.
I moved TO Europe from the US. I filled a full super-container, just over 40 foot, with all household goods, 2 motorcycles, and a car. The computers were packed in soft material, and I filled the inside of the desktop machines with styrofoam corals to help stabilize all contents. Silica gel used also. In the end, the container ended up arriving pretty much in tact, but got a large ding in the loading process and this tore a small 1 foot hole in the top. Rain and sea water got in, ruined a nice oriental rug, and a piece of antique furniture, but everything else did fine. The best investment of the entire move WAS THE INSURANCE. Don't leave home without it! Insure it CORRECTLY, and insure it SUFFICIENTLY to protect the assets. The comments about taking the data with you, for example, on your laptop, are correct, and leave a copy with someone else, just in case. I regularly go back and forth between US and EU and my laptop is usually left alone. Too many business people travel with one and they cannot just decide to harass the world's business community to see how many Netflix movies you are carrying. One item we did have to deal with was paying to get the container out of "storage". Strange because we were not alerted to the fact it had already arrived 10 days earlier, and was sitting in paid storage. How convenient for the "union" that arranges such things. Be a pest, ask questions, but be a NICE pest. Its your stuff, only you care. No one else does. It should all work out....really!
You may be right. Check out this basic YouTube video about the experience one person had with lights, costs, and expected regulations. Makes you go: Hmmm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gjvOOlHmsU
Actually, maybe Edison was no so off target. The truth about CFL bulbs and the eco-bulb movement is perhaps being covered up by the right lobby. Just check out this YouTube video to see what some real-life testing shows about bulbs and where your money is going. Could we be the victims of yet another corporate push? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gjvOOlHmsU Make's one say: Hmmmmmmm.........
It seems that Kentucky's legislators who were surprised by the inclusion of evolution in the ACT tests are unaware of the irony in this. Darwin's theories clearly describe that species adapt and others are left behind (to eventual extinction). The objections to the scientific certainty of evolution (yes, we use the word theory to describe it, just like Pythagoras' theorem) are proof that even in the halls of power in Kentucky there are those well on the way to extinction, protests notwithstanding. QED.
....I moved to NL in 2005, from the US, and was troubled by the poor choices for TV here. I ended up subscribing to the UK's SKY+ service, as a foreigner, and it has all the GOOD stuff from America and NONE of the bad stuff. It has ON DEMAND, it has episodes missed, it comes with a TIVO like player (1TB, 2 tuners), and it has apps for the iPhone and other devices. With the advent in the last couple of years in NL of uitzendinggemiste.nl and veamer.nl one can now see just about any material online, after the fact, whenever you want. It has gotten to the point that I don't miss ANYTHING from the US TV experience now, which includes the ridiculous amount of drug advertising on TV. With an iTunes account in the US, and the download sites in NL, I feel comfortable that most of what I would want to see is available to me for little to no effort and cost (other than the original SKY+ installation.)
I strongly encourage you to use the www.dpreview.com website for a quick review of the cameras that fit in your range, along with usable examples of the photos taken by the cameras so you have a sense of how much quality to expect. The website contains a broad range of brands, levels, and types of cameras, and you would most likely find useful information on pricing and sources of cameras there for your choice. My personal recommendation would be a Canon G-series. They are portable enough, very high quality, offer beginners some automation and allow for growth, and take outstanding quality photos. As a starter camera it might be more than you expected to pay, but if you save a few extra pennies it might just be a super photo companion for those early photo adventures. I see others have recommended the smaller models, the S95/100 models, and they are also excellent, less expensive choices. Best of luck.
Actually, a computer would not really be necessary for most of you to get outstanding returns. The Al Frank Investment management group has averaged 21.73% return annually since 1977 on a relatively wide portfolio of stocks that are picked almost solely on the VALUE investing criteria. Certainly a computer could be used to help the Al Frank team churn through stock reports and research faster, but in the long run, it is the investors decision to select and follow a stock, and patience is often the most important virtue of all, not speed of processing, or luck. This group consistently ranks at the top, or second, year after year in the Hulbert rankings for investment (available from Forbes Newsletters in case you are interested) and a close second in the mutual fund investing arena is the Bob brinker Marketimer newsletter. Your last statement about returns getting smaller, although possible due to the increasing efficiency of markets domestically and internationally (due to electronic exchanges, online trading, quicker settlement, etc.) is still not that visible in the overall rankings of investment advisories in todays world. And, by the way, don't think for a moment that the hedge funds guys have anything on the rest of the industry. As a bunch, they are doing worse than traditional fund managers, 96% of whom regularly underperform their benchmark indices (hence the recent popularity of ETFs and iShares-like investments). I am a former IBM nerd who turned investment advisor when money became more fun, and this past few years with the investment newsletters has been a real education for me about investing strategies and success. The net of all this is get your money out of that savings account, and put it to work for YOU, not the bank. You can get plenty of good advice (and MORE than plenty of bad advice) and its your future, your retirement. Don't waste the chance to make it a great one (one full of cool new toys like PCs, and MacBooks, and Red Hat, and 802.11n, etc.)!!!
We often sell our older companions short when we talk down to them about computers, but it is no substitute for telling them what this machine really is. They need to understand that this is a true serial environment, that a computer is doing only what it has been told to do, either by the software, or the mouse, or the keyboard, or some other input signal it is receiving. Once the true nature of this cause and effect relationship is understood by someone, it makes them behave differently with the mouse, with the keyboard, with their overall treatment of the machine. And it is fundamental to making them respect what kind of tool it is when it is kept in top running condition, and what kind of anightmare it can become when we get sloppy and lazy about its proper care.
One important point that is essential in making the book worthwhile will be to be sure, as I mentioned above, not to talk down to the audience. This is, after all, and educational effort, as is the endeavor they are embarking on about learning to use a computer.
Human evolution has been relatively CONSTANT and no biologist would state unequivocally that it has stopped unless there are some mind-altering substances involved. Gene density is what this all boils down to and the human race now has the intellectual means to manipulate what always happened, in the past, statistically. This means that we will have the ability, the wherewithal, and the motive to alter genetic content and density within cells (rightly or wrongly) to create new species, new geni, new phylum, new orders, etc. We have not peaked, and in fact, are at the beginning of a large asymptotic curve in the manipulation of genetically classified organisms, not only as it relates to the current human species, but also as it relates to other species (a la escherichia coli bacteria that produce human insulin.)