Posted 11/06/2009 at 03:12:52pm

 I was wondering why there were no cards available. Low yields kind of scares me. With this complex a GPU, low yields means that the chips that do pass are liable to have defects that were not picked up by the semiconductor testers. I would give these cards a miss until the "bugs" are worked out. Besides, if I am going to wait anyways, I want to see what NVidia has up its sleeve.

Posted 11/06/2009 at 02:59:51pm

I am sure Intel could put out USB 3.0 and SATA 6 chipset a lot quicker than 2011. With the ASUS PCI card and now mobos, the heat is on Intel. I wonder if they are waiting for Light Peak?

Posted 11/06/2009 at 02:53:10pm

 I have tried a bunch of different sidebars and for ease of use with stability, I still prefer Win7 gadgets. All CPU Meter and User Control and the Moon phase gadget is all I need. I would have a weather gadget but I have that with TrueLaunchBar (which is way better than a sidebar IMHO).

Posted 11/05/2009 at 01:24:57pm

 Want your profits to look good? Just layoff (that is a nice way of saying firing) a bunch of your employees. Lower costs= greater profits! Of course, those folks you fired did things to keep the company running,growing, and developing new products. So the real equation is Layoffs= short term profits= long term troubles for the company. The stockholders are happy so must be the best thing to do for the company, right?

Posted 11/05/2009 at 01:16:31pm

 Shoot, I have enough troubles with stock Linux installs. Thrice tried and thrice failed. Only about 1% of private users run Linux as their main op sys, for a reason. After hours and hours of just trying to network the damn thing, get web access, and making the printer work, I just said F*** it. Now you want me to "customize" Linux?  No thanks, compadre.

Posted 11/05/2009 at 01:06:36pm

 Notice that there is NO STOCK on Newegg, Amazon, and Zipzoomfly? Lot of good to have a great card if you DON"T MAKE THEM! Is AMD/ATI nuts? What are they waiting for, NVidia to catch up? Idiots. Never announce a new card unless you can deliver. Otherwise, you get folks forgetting about all the good publicity this card has gotten.

UPDATE: Well, One card in stock at ZipzoomFly (11-5-09). 20% over MSRP but 1st card I have seen...

Posted 11/03/2009 at 12:43:42am

 !st thing I thought of. ATI newest cards all support high Def audio so why bother? This card takes away all other media players too. Not a good buy unless you are locked into high end stuff

Posted 11/01/2009 at 06:19:53pm

 As far as I can figure out, ESata and USB 3.0 will be about equivalent in speed (theoretically at least). Will be interesting to see how they fare in a real world test. Obviously USB 3.0 will be geared more for external hard drive access than any other app (video to monitor maybe?).

Posted 10/31/2009 at 04:33:51pm

 Heh. I bring my computers down to the shop for cleaning and builds/rebuilds. The air compressor is THE way to really get the computer clean. Even the power supply has plenty of dust inside when the compressor is used. Hardly have to clean the fan blades with a blast of 90 PSI! And the fins of these honking CPU coolers are easy to clean.

Posted 10/31/2009 at 04:21:46pm

I think the biggest "oops" in science fiction was the "giant manned ships" theme that was assumed to be a given.
From "heighliners" to "federation starships", the thought was to build BIG. The 1950's and 60's were a time of building big: huge aircraft carriers, huge B52 bombers, tall skyscrapers, huge atomic power plants, large orbiting satellites, moon bases, space stations, and the space shuttles. These “BFF’s” are slowly disappearing one by one. Why?

 When science fiction was being written, the writers had to try to make the future believable to hold their readers attention. “And then GOD built an asteroid base” would be a big cheat!  Writers had to try to extrapolate the future from their present technologies. Thus the “if it’s big now, then they will be bigger in the future” was a given. But just the exact opposite is happening.

I remember reading early Heinlein and his “slipstick (slide rule) space ship navigation”. He really had no clue that slide rules would totally disappear in less than 5 years. Watches? Who in their right minds would expect WATCHES to change into cheap, incredibly accurate digital devices. Phones in the palm of your hand? Star Trek communicators were supposed to be in the 2200’s!

Shrinking and more powerful technologies completely flipped the “bigger is better”. The big stuff is proving to be grossly inefficient (save for container ships). The space shuttle is an anachronism from the cold war. Giant bombers are being replaced by small unmanned planes that cost nothing in comparison to a B1 bomber. The space station astronauts do more maintenance than science. Telecommuting is a hell of a lot more efficient than traveling to NYC and going up 50 stories to your office. The best science of Mars will not be done by a grossly expensive manned mission but by dozens of cheap(er) dedicated robotic probes.

Science fiction is adapting but most near future science fiction still extrapolates the future from present technology. The future is just too hard to predict!

PS: Flying cars? I am glad THAT never happened!