There are a lot of things we could say about Fallout 3. Sure, it’s Elder Scrolls: The Mutant Years, but damn, it’s still a brilliant piece of role-playing design: a wide-open world with amazing sights and challenges at every turn.

Rather than descanting at length upon stats and perks, I want to talk about the single most mind-blowing part of the entire character creation system: facial hair. Fallout 3 opens a new era in beard and mustache design. You have never, ever seen such an assortment of whiskers in any game, ranging from the pathetic wisps of a teenager’s first attempt to huge Burnside sprouts and styles not seen outside of movies like Gettysburg or Tombstone. And these aren’t just the paste-ons from Oblivion: These are complete, textured moving models.

Whew, that was quite an election, but my hope muscle is hopelessly strained and my change gland is exhausted. So I’m turning to a new pastime: second-guessing the Obama administration’s next moves.

I’m long on questions. Will his new trade representative continue forcing DMCA-like laws on our partners? Will his appointees to the Department of Justice prioritize IP cases? What legislation will he support regarding copyright terms, patent reforms, orphan works, and DMCA reforms?

I have two 256MB RAM modules. I recently bought an additional 1GB DIMM. A friend of mine asked me to try his RAM, as it was the same as mine. I tried it and my computer flashed an error. I stopped immediately, removed my friend’s RAM, and shut off my computer. The 1GB DIMM was installed and so were the other two 256MB sticks. But now the computer only recognizes the 1GB and says the other slots are empty, despite the presence of the 256MB DIMMS. How can I get the system to recognize the rest of the RAM?

I recently upgraded my cable Internet service from 5Mbps to 10Mbps. Not seeing any increase in speed, I contacted my provider’s tech support. The tech said Internet Explorer 7 is loaded with time-consuming security routines and that it is also designed for Vista. Since I’m running XP, he suggested I roll back to Internet Explorer 6 in order to see major improvements in web-page loading speeds. He also said I should uninstall SP3 first, or IE7 would not uninstall. So I tried this on one of my machines. Using Add/Remove Programs, I removed SP3, rebooted, then removed IE7. On reboot, I was back to IE6.

He was right! Even after allowing Automatic Updates to reinstall SP3, web pages are loading twice as fast, or faster.

Now, there has to be a catch, somewhere. I have had no problems (yet) with any of the web pages I’ve visited since rolling back to IE6. Am I putting my system at risk by having less security? Are there features in IE7 I’m missing out on by not using IE7? Is my system’s life in peril without IE7?!

I know you all like Firefox 3, but my question is simply about IE6 vs. IE7. I’m very pleased, so far, with the speedier IE6.