At least the buyer wasn't Netgear. Maybe Belkin will actually do something with the Linksys assets it is acquiring. Netgear would probably just keep selling more Netgear crap, and you could immediately forget about ever buying anything with the Linksys name ever again.
EVERY component is relevant to gaming performance: HD/SSD, RAM, CPU, and GPU are all important, especially with some of the latest games. And you need to get enough juice from the power supply (without immediately killing it), you have to be able to keep it all cool, you want a motherboard that isn't itself a bottleneck or otherwise a hindrance, and of course you don't want to watch the action on a 17" CRT. So while I wouldn't recommend relying on integrated graphics or a $50 card, you can't forget about all the other components if you are building a gaming rig on a budget.
Definitely go SSD for OS and game installs if you can afford a second, bigger HD for other stuff, unless it will be a dedicated gamer and you can live with the low capacity. But on a tight build/rebuild budget I'd skip the SSD rather than forego something else.
A newer/better GPU can indeed improve the graphics and gaming performance of an older computer, but it won't make it perform like a newer machine with other superior hardware. Duh.
It seems like perfect common sense, but obviously not everyone gets it so I'll state it like this: If you took a shiny 2012 BMW V8 engine and plopped it into your rusty 1982 BMW 733i, your car would be faster and more fuel efficient (assuming you could even mount the new motor and get everything hooked up), but it wouldn't automatically handle like a 2012 or have bluetooth or a navigation system, and you'd eventually run into unforeseen problems if you really got on it and tried to drive it like it was new. Straight line acceleration would be fantastic (like running certain benchmarks on a new GPU in an old machine) but real world drivability would be more lackluster.
Driving isn't all about raw horsepower, just as PC gaming isn't all about the graphics card. If you have a 5400 RPM hard drive, maybe even an ATA one, with 2 GB of DDR2-667 and a a single core Pentium, you might not want to play the latest games, even if they technically will run on your rig. I DO have a 5 year-old desktop at home (among other machines) and I have vowed not to spend another cent on it. It works fine for basic stuff, but at some point you just need to think about starting over.
Haha, nice. He could have at least gone to Mint if he wanted Ubuntu compatibility. It's still hard to beat good ol' Debian though. (Mint Debian Edition on this machine)
I wouldn't really call Fedora "bleeding edge," as in being futuristic currently. Perhaps a "bloody mess" is a better description. I find it interesting that you warn about expecting "glitches" and downplay the installer, while the Fedora teams officially promotes it as stable and reliable and makes a big deal about what a step forward their crappy installer is. I'll do the same with this as I have for the last 10+ Fedora releases - get rid of it and forget about it.
Shame on me for banging my head against the poorly-placed wall that is Fedora every time they put up a new one, I guess.
I'm no expert, but I think you're on the right track. Slackware lost its appeal to me a loooong time ago, Ubuntu was never really as good as I wanted it to be, and Fedora has fallen apart as of late. Tried out SUSE, CentOS and Scientific, Mandrake/Mandriva/Connectiva, Debian, and some others over the years, and I'd honestly say Mint is the best thing out there right now, at least for personal use and smaller networks. Mint's is essentially what Ubuntu was supposed to be: it works and isn't ridiculous to setup and maintain.
If you like Ubuntu okay and are frustrated with other distros, you will probably love Mint. I've moved on to Mint's Debian Edition, which still has some unfortunate flaws, but I keep hoping they'll change their focus to the Debian base and just forget Ubuntu. I keep testing new releases when they become available, thinking maybe I'm missing something. Invariably I wipe the test partitions and sleep well knowing Mint works for me, looks how I like, does everything I ask of it, and is reliable. Of course I call this sort of testing "fun," but it reaffirms my OS choice. And BTW, I had high hopes for Fedora 18, but it is a joke.
I thought (the argument was) that we needed guns to protect ourselves against things like censorship? So why are the gun owners so concerned about dissemination of a list of gun owners? And if widespread gun ownership is a deterrent to violent crime (as gun advocates suggest), wouldn't it make you even safer if everyone knew you had a gun? Add these questions to the other holes in their arguments, as well as crime statistics involving legal and illegal gun use, and I'm quickly becoming pretty anti-gun. I'm still waiting for anything that can prove more guns in the hands of citizens means less crime, while I absolutely know that the more guns we have the easier it is for criminals to buy or steal them, and there is more opportunity for them to be diverted to black market channels.
Stricter laws and punishments are not the solution to gun crimes, either. Every criminal who uses a gun already knows what they are doing is illegal and punishable by prison. The key is that they think they have a good chance of getting away with it. Even improving policing by increasing the police force and giving them better crime solving tools has limits. We need more and comprehensive prevention methods to keep people from becoming desperate and wanting to do illegal things, and we need to make it harder for them to get guns. Guns in places like schools won't prevent violence in schools either, they will just lead to shoot-outs. Can you picture the backlash when we see the first cases of students getting their hands on teachers' guns? That's a mess we surely don't need.
Hmm, a MS app to help with disaster relief? I can't think of a common analogy, but it seems a bit like hiring a bull to restock a china shop after another bull trashes it. Or maybe there is something about a pot and a kettle, I don't know.
Please don't mix in ridiculous Space Balls bullshit, and pipe down while the adults are talking, you blasphemer! This is a SERIOUS conversation about Star Wars and Star Trek tech!
the universe does have a center, at the observer. most of the universe has already exceeded light speed with regards to us, we'll never see or travel to most of it.
I will, once I perfect my hybrid Super-Warp Hyperdrive(tm). But I can see how it is difficult for an Earthling in early 2013 to understand this, so you are excused.
But Newtonian physics begins to break down at quantum scales, despite Newton's ignorance to that fact, so perhaps there are other exceptions that we don't know about? There are a lot of Wars/Trek technology and happenings we can't fully explain, so I don't think it is too far fetched to think that we don't have the science to properly understand and explain warp or hyperspace travel. So get back to work, and keep us posted!
To confuse this even further, one must consider that Star Wars uses both the terms "hyperspace" and "lightspeed" at times. What to make of this, I don't know, and I also don't know that we can make a judgement about how long distance space travel is achieved in that "universe." Sure, Star Trek gives us a lot of pseudo-technical info about how they do things, but Star Wars canon is more limited and much more murky.
And I want idiots like him to shut the fuck up, respect my freedom, and do something useful. Oh well, I guess we can't always get what we want, and I suspect neither of us will in this case.
What you do after 5pm is none of my business as long as your work gets done on time and in a professional manner.
Too bad most employers don't see things this way. And I'm not just talking to you, pot smokers. Enforcing arbitrary morality standards has become commonplace in the workplace, even when your questionable behavior occurs strictly after business hours and doesn't affect your productivity. Hell, I refuse to even have a Facebook account (in my own real name anyway) because I know for a fact that my employer is nosy. Potheads are especially vulnerable though, as positive pre-employment THC tests, which absolutely do no indicate intoxication at work, or at any specific time, can be used as the sole grounds to fire or refuse to hire someone, nearly everywhere. Personally, I can not stand the idea that I can be bound to an employers behavior standards even if I do nothing to negatively impact business, and during times when I am not being paid. Can we who do our jobs, and do them well, just maybe keep our private lives private? Please?
10 years of medical marijuana hasn't produced any noticeable changes.
Yes it has, for many people. For example, many chronic pain sufferers have been able to live more normal lives because they haven't been as debilitated or addicted to opioids, some cancer patients have lived longer because their weed helped them tolerate the chemo treatments better, allowing them to complete regimens that many can not, folks who suffer sever anxiety and panic attacks can get out and live their lives without being overwhelmed by fear, people with glaucoma have maintained their sight without risky surgeries, and at least one person with epilepsy (who I personally know) no longer suffers from seizures as long as she "medicates" at least every 2-3 days.
It is very clear that there have been noticeable changes since medical marijuana became available in the U.S., and they have been overwhelmingly positive. Crime rates in medi-pot areas have NOT increased, cases of addiction to illegal drugs have not gotten out of control (busting the guess that weed is a "gateway" drug), there hasn't been a rise in cardio-pulmonary diseases among non-tobacco smokers, and courts in states like Colorado have not been clogged with minor, non-violent marijuana offenders.
Of course I do not advocate driving under the influence, use among minors, or puffing away all day like a stereotypical Rastafarian or flash in the pan, one hit wonder rapper, but informed use in moderation or under a physician's supervision should be possible in every state. I'd like to see it reach a level of acceptance where employers are not permitted to dictate how you live your life or choose to medicate yourself when you are not at work. If they do not specifically suspect that you are high at work, and have no evidence that you are, positive tests for THC should not warrant dismissal or exclusion from employment. But then I believe strongly in the American concepts of privacy and freedom, so I am certainly a bit biased.
Simple way to lose weight: drink 1-2 glasses of water (16oz+) BEFORE you eat anything. Start all meals by chugging a bunch of water and you will feel fuller sooner and not desire to eat as much. Of course, this doesn't address the nutritional value of your diet, but if you are seriously over weight and need to lose some, this will probably work if you stick to it.
Pretty much. This is not for "dieters." Good luck not using this system forever but managing to keep any lost weight off. If you keep eating poorly, use this pump to lose weight, then still keep eating poorly, you've either got to keep using the pump or you're going to put the weight back on. Duh. This is probably a worse solution than a starvation "crash" diet, bariatric surgery, short term cocaine addiction, and "classic" bulimia. With it you treat the symptom (excess weight) but not the underlying problem (a bad diet), and there is little reason to change, aside from the tube sticking out of your body.
Citizens the world over have voluntarily given up numerous freedoms and control of parts of their lives in order to maintain security against enemies. How far is too far? Should we do every single thing possible, giving up all privacy, allowing our governments to take away our freedom, to stop [most] terrorists? If it causes you to alter the way you live your life, doesn't that mean the terrorists are winning? You've got to draw a line somewhere and stick to it, rather than continually moving it back, little by little forever. In this case I really hope Australians stand up to their government and say "no" to them greasing an already slippery slope. Protection at all costs is far too expensive, so find another way, I'd tell them.
I think it is clear that with the Core line Intel has finally ended and won the x86 war, so it is only logical for them to begin to focus more on ARM's market. AMD is all but defeated, I am sad to say, and demand for ever-faster desktop and traditional laptop uber-CPUs has died off. I think I speak for a lot of slashdotters when I say we still enjoy the ultimate app performance, immersive gaming experience, and ridiculous storage and networking options that desktops can deliver, and don't mind lugging around a "huge" 6-pound laptop with a 15"-17" screen. But that is not where the greatest demand lies right now. Intel is lagging in the tablet and ultra-mobile market segments so their continued Atom progress is not unexpected and, to be honest, it looks pretty intriguing (which is high praise coming from a longtime Intel hater!).
They will probably not need to compete dollar for dollar on price as long as they can deliver superior performance, but they will have to close the gap somewhat. ARM SoC's, etc. aren't going away any time soon, especially on the lower end (ain't gonna see any $79 Intel tablets), but I think Intel are finally getting their shiz together to challenge the likes of the Tegra line, at least.
If you want to see Intel push the envelope with Core or a successor, they might need some competition. There is no one to push them to innovate there, and no excitement (i.e. $$$ rolling in).
But of course they won't admit failure, they'll just feed us some BS about modernizing to stay ahead of changing dynamics on the global stage, with a need to keep options open while refocusing to combat ever changing threat vectors for AMERICA, and mission accomplished. And oh yeah, they're gonna need another tril for that.
I work for the DoD. I predict this will end up costing 10x as much, take at least 5 years longer than proposed and in the end deliver less than 30% of the functionality actually required.
Thank you for the insider's report! I for one am glad to hear that the results will be so much better than everything else ya'll do.
Slashdot Mirror
My "do not buy" list is as follows:
Netgear.
I also have an "only buy as a last resort to avoid Netgear" list, which does indeed include Belkin.
Why yes, I'm an American. And I wouldn't pay two pounds of dog shit for a CISCO consumer product, let alone $3.15.
At least the buyer wasn't Netgear. Maybe Belkin will actually do something with the Linksys assets it is acquiring. Netgear would probably just keep selling more Netgear crap, and you could immediately forget about ever buying anything with the Linksys name ever again.
EVERY component is relevant to gaming performance: HD/SSD, RAM, CPU, and GPU are all important, especially with some of the latest games. And you need to get enough juice from the power supply (without immediately killing it), you have to be able to keep it all cool, you want a motherboard that isn't itself a bottleneck or otherwise a hindrance, and of course you don't want to watch the action on a 17" CRT. So while I wouldn't recommend relying on integrated graphics or a $50 card, you can't forget about all the other components if you are building a gaming rig on a budget.
Definitely go SSD for OS and game installs if you can afford a second, bigger HD for other stuff, unless it will be a dedicated gamer and you can live with the low capacity. But on a tight build/rebuild budget I'd skip the SSD rather than forego something else.
A newer/better GPU can indeed improve the graphics and gaming performance of an older computer, but it won't make it perform like a newer machine with other superior hardware. Duh.
It seems like perfect common sense, but obviously not everyone gets it so I'll state it like this: If you took a shiny 2012 BMW V8 engine and plopped it into your rusty 1982 BMW 733i, your car would be faster and more fuel efficient (assuming you could even mount the new motor and get everything hooked up), but it wouldn't automatically handle like a 2012 or have bluetooth or a navigation system, and you'd eventually run into unforeseen problems if you really got on it and tried to drive it like it was new. Straight line acceleration would be fantastic (like running certain benchmarks on a new GPU in an old machine) but real world drivability would be more lackluster.
Driving isn't all about raw horsepower, just as PC gaming isn't all about the graphics card. If you have a 5400 RPM hard drive, maybe even an ATA one, with 2 GB of DDR2-667 and a a single core Pentium, you might not want to play the latest games, even if they technically will run on your rig. I DO have a 5 year-old desktop at home (among other machines) and I have vowed not to spend another cent on it. It works fine for basic stuff, but at some point you just need to think about starting over.
Haha, nice. He could have at least gone to Mint if he wanted Ubuntu compatibility. It's still hard to beat good ol' Debian though. (Mint Debian Edition on this machine)
F18 is a bleeding-edge testing distribution.
I wouldn't really call Fedora "bleeding edge," as in being futuristic currently. Perhaps a "bloody mess" is a better description. I find it interesting that you warn about expecting "glitches" and downplay the installer, while the Fedora teams officially promotes it as stable and reliable and makes a big deal about what a step forward their crappy installer is. I'll do the same with this as I have for the last 10+ Fedora releases - get rid of it and forget about it.
Shame on me for banging my head against the poorly-placed wall that is Fedora every time they put up a new one, I guess.
I'm no expert, but I think you're on the right track. Slackware lost its appeal to me a loooong time ago, Ubuntu was never really as good as I wanted it to be, and Fedora has fallen apart as of late. Tried out SUSE, CentOS and Scientific, Mandrake/Mandriva/Connectiva, Debian, and some others over the years, and I'd honestly say Mint is the best thing out there right now, at least for personal use and smaller networks. Mint's is essentially what Ubuntu was supposed to be: it works and isn't ridiculous to setup and maintain.
If you like Ubuntu okay and are frustrated with other distros, you will probably love Mint. I've moved on to Mint's Debian Edition, which still has some unfortunate flaws, but I keep hoping they'll change their focus to the Debian base and just forget Ubuntu. I keep testing new releases when they become available, thinking maybe I'm missing something. Invariably I wipe the test partitions and sleep well knowing Mint works for me, looks how I like, does everything I ask of it, and is reliable. Of course I call this sort of testing "fun," but it reaffirms my OS choice. And BTW, I had high hopes for Fedora 18, but it is a joke.
I thought (the argument was) that we needed guns to protect ourselves against things like censorship? So why are the gun owners so concerned about dissemination of a list of gun owners? And if widespread gun ownership is a deterrent to violent crime (as gun advocates suggest), wouldn't it make you even safer if everyone knew you had a gun? Add these questions to the other holes in their arguments, as well as crime statistics involving legal and illegal gun use, and I'm quickly becoming pretty anti-gun. I'm still waiting for anything that can prove more guns in the hands of citizens means less crime, while I absolutely know that the more guns we have the easier it is for criminals to buy or steal them, and there is more opportunity for them to be diverted to black market channels.
Stricter laws and punishments are not the solution to gun crimes, either. Every criminal who uses a gun already knows what they are doing is illegal and punishable by prison. The key is that they think they have a good chance of getting away with it. Even improving policing by increasing the police force and giving them better crime solving tools has limits. We need more and comprehensive prevention methods to keep people from becoming desperate and wanting to do illegal things, and we need to make it harder for them to get guns. Guns in places like schools won't prevent violence in schools either, they will just lead to shoot-outs. Can you picture the backlash when we see the first cases of students getting their hands on teachers' guns? That's a mess we surely don't need.
Hmm, a MS app to help with disaster relief? I can't think of a common analogy, but it seems a bit like hiring a bull to restock a china shop after another bull trashes it. Or maybe there is something about a pot and a kettle, I don't know.
They're using a very small RTG that doesn't put out a lot of juice, so it is more suited to being a backup than a main power source.
It will have to take another one an hour later.
You're showing your ignorance here, because that will only be the case if it takes heavily Americanized samples.
Please don't mix in ridiculous Space Balls bullshit, and pipe down while the adults are talking, you blasphemer! This is a SERIOUS conversation about Star Wars and Star Trek tech!
the universe does have a center, at the observer. most of the universe has already exceeded light speed with regards to us, we'll never see or travel to most of it.
I will, once I perfect my hybrid Super-Warp Hyperdrive(tm). But I can see how it is difficult for an Earthling in early 2013 to understand this, so you are excused.
But Newtonian physics begins to break down at quantum scales, despite Newton's ignorance to that fact, so perhaps there are other exceptions that we don't know about? There are a lot of Wars/Trek technology and happenings we can't fully explain, so I don't think it is too far fetched to think that we don't have the science to properly understand and explain warp or hyperspace travel. So get back to work, and keep us posted!
To confuse this even further, one must consider that Star Wars uses both the terms "hyperspace" and "lightspeed" at times. What to make of this, I don't know, and I also don't know that we can make a judgement about how long distance space travel is achieved in that "universe." Sure, Star Trek gives us a lot of pseudo-technical info about how they do things, but Star Wars canon is more limited and much more murky.
Missouri Republican Wants Violent Video Game Tax
And I want idiots like him to shut the fuck up, respect my freedom, and do something useful. Oh well, I guess we can't always get what we want, and I suspect neither of us will in this case.
What you do after 5pm is none of my business as long as your work gets done on time and in a professional manner.
Too bad most employers don't see things this way. And I'm not just talking to you, pot smokers. Enforcing arbitrary morality standards has become commonplace in the workplace, even when your questionable behavior occurs strictly after business hours and doesn't affect your productivity. Hell, I refuse to even have a Facebook account (in my own real name anyway) because I know for a fact that my employer is nosy. Potheads are especially vulnerable though, as positive pre-employment THC tests, which absolutely do no indicate intoxication at work, or at any specific time, can be used as the sole grounds to fire or refuse to hire someone, nearly everywhere. Personally, I can not stand the idea that I can be bound to an employers behavior standards even if I do nothing to negatively impact business, and during times when I am not being paid. Can we who do our jobs, and do them well, just maybe keep our private lives private? Please?
10 years of medical marijuana hasn't produced any noticeable changes.
Yes it has, for many people. For example, many chronic pain sufferers have been able to live more normal lives because they haven't been as debilitated or addicted to opioids, some cancer patients have lived longer because their weed helped them tolerate the chemo treatments better, allowing them to complete regimens that many can not, folks who suffer sever anxiety and panic attacks can get out and live their lives without being overwhelmed by fear, people with glaucoma have maintained their sight without risky surgeries, and at least one person with epilepsy (who I personally know) no longer suffers from seizures as long as she "medicates" at least every 2-3 days.
It is very clear that there have been noticeable changes since medical marijuana became available in the U.S., and they have been overwhelmingly positive. Crime rates in medi-pot areas have NOT increased, cases of addiction to illegal drugs have not gotten out of control (busting the guess that weed is a "gateway" drug), there hasn't been a rise in cardio-pulmonary diseases among non-tobacco smokers, and courts in states like Colorado have not been clogged with minor, non-violent marijuana offenders.
Of course I do not advocate driving under the influence, use among minors, or puffing away all day like a stereotypical Rastafarian or flash in the pan, one hit wonder rapper, but informed use in moderation or under a physician's supervision should be possible in every state. I'd like to see it reach a level of acceptance where employers are not permitted to dictate how you live your life or choose to medicate yourself when you are not at work. If they do not specifically suspect that you are high at work, and have no evidence that you are, positive tests for THC should not warrant dismissal or exclusion from employment. But then I believe strongly in the American concepts of privacy and freedom, so I am certainly a bit biased.
And further, wait.... what?
Simple way to lose weight: drink 1-2 glasses of water (16oz+) BEFORE you eat anything. Start all meals by chugging a bunch of water and you will feel fuller sooner and not desire to eat as much. Of course, this doesn't address the nutritional value of your diet, but if you are seriously over weight and need to lose some, this will probably work if you stick to it.
Pretty much. This is not for "dieters." Good luck not using this system forever but managing to keep any lost weight off. If you keep eating poorly, use this pump to lose weight, then still keep eating poorly, you've either got to keep using the pump or you're going to put the weight back on. Duh. This is probably a worse solution than a starvation "crash" diet, bariatric surgery, short term cocaine addiction, and "classic" bulimia. With it you treat the symptom (excess weight) but not the underlying problem (a bad diet), and there is little reason to change, aside from the tube sticking out of your body.
Citizens the world over have voluntarily given up numerous freedoms and control of parts of their lives in order to maintain security against enemies. How far is too far? Should we do every single thing possible, giving up all privacy, allowing our governments to take away our freedom, to stop [most] terrorists? If it causes you to alter the way you live your life, doesn't that mean the terrorists are winning? You've got to draw a line somewhere and stick to it, rather than continually moving it back, little by little forever. In this case I really hope Australians stand up to their government and say "no" to them greasing an already slippery slope. Protection at all costs is far too expensive, so find another way, I'd tell them.
I think it is clear that with the Core line Intel has finally ended and won the x86 war, so it is only logical for them to begin to focus more on ARM's market. AMD is all but defeated, I am sad to say, and demand for ever-faster desktop and traditional laptop uber-CPUs has died off. I think I speak for a lot of slashdotters when I say we still enjoy the ultimate app performance, immersive gaming experience, and ridiculous storage and networking options that desktops can deliver, and don't mind lugging around a "huge" 6-pound laptop with a 15"-17" screen. But that is not where the greatest demand lies right now. Intel is lagging in the tablet and ultra-mobile market segments so their continued Atom progress is not unexpected and, to be honest, it looks pretty intriguing (which is high praise coming from a longtime Intel hater!).
They will probably not need to compete dollar for dollar on price as long as they can deliver superior performance, but they will have to close the gap somewhat. ARM SoC's, etc. aren't going away any time soon, especially on the lower end (ain't gonna see any $79 Intel tablets), but I think Intel are finally getting their shiz together to challenge the likes of the Tegra line, at least.
If you want to see Intel push the envelope with Core or a successor, they might need some competition. There is no one to push them to innovate there, and no excitement (i.e. $$$ rolling in).
But of course they won't admit failure, they'll just feed us some BS about modernizing to stay ahead of changing dynamics on the global stage, with a need to keep options open while refocusing to combat ever changing threat vectors for AMERICA, and mission accomplished. And oh yeah, they're gonna need another tril for that.
I work for the DoD. I predict this will end up costing 10x as much, take at least 5 years longer than proposed and in the end deliver less than 30% of the functionality actually required.
Thank you for the insider's report! I for one am glad to hear that the results will be so much better than everything else ya'll do.
:P