Posted 10/20/2009 at 03:02:37pm

yaaawwwwnnnn!  Oh, sorry did something happen at AMD?  Triple core desktops that barely compete with the core 2 Duo's from a couple years ago?  You woke me up for that?

Posted 08/31/2009 at 02:06:42pm

"...You can't drive your car faster than 65 mph, you can't carry certain weapons, you can't yell fire in a movie theater. You can't share government secrets with your friend from Russia, you can't attack or kill people who make you upset, you can't steal things from your neighbor's house, you can't use bait and switch tactics at your store."

Certainly you can drive faster than 65mph.  No law prevents you from driving faster than 65mph.  The law on the books (relative to location) simply imposes a fine and or revocation of driving privilege provided you get caught.  You certainly may carry any weapon you can physically carry.  Again the law on the books provides that IF you do not have a certain type of permit available for viewing you can be fined or incarcerated, provided you get caught.  You can yell fire in a movie theatre all you like.  If there is actually a fire no problem.  If there isnt and someone dies as a result you STILL get away with it as long as you are not identified as the one yelling FIRE!  You can do every one of the things you mentioned as long as you dont get caught tried and convicted of those things. 

Oh and btw those things you identified are not LIBERTIES of FREEDOMS.  You cited generally accepted criminal behaviour and equated it with freedom in a snide attempt to show accepted loss of freedom.  A liberty would be the protected right to be free from illegal searches and seizures of property without warrant or probable cause.  Or the right to counsel and a trial by a jury in suits at common law where the value of same is greater than $20.00 usd.  Those are enumerated liberties or rights.  Those are the things we arent willing to give up for any amount of security.  Those are the ideals that we find ourselves willing to die for.

Posted 08/31/2009 at 09:45:59am

Umm who let the Marxist in this conversation?

As to usefulness of (Gold) Aurum Atomic element number 79 is the most malleable and most ductile element.  As such it is a premium conductor.  It is about 65% more effecient at shielding from various forms of electromagnetic (Ionizing and non) Radiation so it is used for plating the surfaces of artificial satellite components exposed to radiation outside of our atmosphere.  Gold is an alpha blocker and a neutron blocker and will reflect fast and slow neutrons making it ideal for the inner reflective material in a Tellar device.  Highly polished gold surfaces can be used for mirrors of astounding accuracy and even some high end CD/DVD's use gold as its reflective surface.  Because it is NOT chemically reactive it makes an excellent neutral surface for an amazing array of chemical reactions.  It can make alloys with other base metals to strengthen it and harden it so that it can be used as the inner core of a dental crown a writing instrument, a pair of wire framed glasses, and many many more uses. 

Take your Stalinist ideals elsewhere please  The US does just fine without them.

Posted 08/14/2009 at 11:26:03pm

Frito-Lay is arguing that the Adjective crackerjack and the Proper Noun and trademark Cracker Jack are the same?  Looks to me as if Cracker Jack and crackerjack are two different words.  Meaning, whether Derived or Implied cannot stand as valid when debating infringement when the actual terms are different.  In other words if Frito-Lay has a trademark on Cracker Jack that does not mean that they own all derivations of the name.  They would need to apply for trademarks on each and every derivation.  Its why V1agra from Pf1zer can exist.  In addition no trademark can exist on words in general use prior to the application for trademark.  Therefore any competent jurist, eg one NOT from Tyler Texas is going to rule in favor of the defendant on grounds that Frito-Lays argument is specious and provides a pathway to monopoly on the use of otherwise normally accepted english words.  A scary thought indeed.

Posted 08/06/2009 at 10:53:10am

"and RAID arrays are susceptible to motherboard problems too—the last thing you want is a BIOS update destroying your data."

This is true ONLY if you built the array at the OS level (aka softraid or fakeraid).  If the controller you are using (more and more motherboard manufacturers are going with chips that actually implement hardware raid and the price of discrete SATA RAID controller cards riding the PCIe Bus has dropped dramatacially thus making this more and more common) allows block level control over the stripe set then its a true raid and unless you bork the RAID Controller while the Array is in a degraded state you are not apt to lose data even in RAID 0.  I still recommend RAID 1+0 or RAID 5 for redundancy sake but programs and settings and the OS on a RAID 0 Volume is fine.  Just dont write to the RAID 0 that which you do not have a cd or exe for.  Ive even recovered data off of a stripe set (RAID 0) after attempting to load Win 7 RC and kubuntu server and getting the grub error 21 and losing the entire MBR, just by using the Win 7 dvd to repair the MBR at the command line interface.  Yeah I had to rewrite the bootsect and MBR on the stripe but whatever, data was just fine after that. 

Posted 07/26/2009 at 10:56:03am

These kind of numbers ONLY represent the BB/Wallyweirld/GameSchlock crowd.  At the bottom of the Gamasutra article:

"...In addition, NPD tracks only U.S. retail numbers;"

Will why would you allow such brick and mortar store propaganda to grace your magazine or website?  I as a reader of both the mag and the website would love to see biased disinformation that supports only one side of the capitalist dream (aka brick and mortar propaganda) to simply be eliminated from content.  If you are going to publish numbers from games sales US Retail then please also publish numbers from worldwide etail.  NO SERIOUS GAMERS BUY RETAIL (and even if they did they would not admit to it).  NONE.  NOT ONE.  So what you get when you publish gamasutras or NPD's crap loaded numbers are the schmo's who buy at Wallywerid.  These are NOT representative of the actuall PC gamer community.  That same PC that is two out of three of the initials of my favorite technology publication.  That said the numbers on the sims at first blush are impressive but when you realize the number of sales from VALVE/STEAM and online stores I would be willing to bet that SIMS3 takes a hike to the middle of the pack. 

Those numbers that you keep regurgitating are simply the results that retailers have and want you to see to shore up their less than 50% share of the gaming market.  They realize they are on the way out of the market and use these numbers not as any kind of accurate judge of what game is selling the best but more to provide themselves with a sense of relevance.

SIMS3 is I suppose (not being of the persuasion that thinks decorating a home mowing the lawn going to work in short al the banality of day to day life is a good Idea for escaping from reality, Ive never indulged in that game ) a good game.  It wouldnt sell etail otherwise.  However, I cannot help but wonder how many of those copies in Sold at BB/Wallyweird/GameSchlock are opened up with great enthusiasm installed, and come to find out it wont work on their crappy five year old pc?  Then rather than admit technological ignorance and return the game they simply throw it in the drawer with all the other games they cant play? 

Posted 07/22/2009 at 12:32:53pm

In every state I have been in while driving (used to be a long haul truck driver so I have been to all of them except Montana, Hawaii, Alaska, and Rhode Island) Driving is a privilege not a right.  As a citizen you are not garaunteed a right to drive a multi ton vehicle down a thoroughfare to interact with other citizens.  Newton's laws tend to make an unholy mess out of the laws of man and tend not to give a shit about anyones rights.  In the state I live in it is currently against the law to operate a moter vehicle on a public highway or thoroughfare under any restriction that would prevent the operator from maintaining their attention on the safe operation of the motor vehicle or obeying all other traffic ordinances or directions from a duly authorized public safety officer.  That law covers cell phones makeup reading the newspaper or just about any other activity other than driving and paying attention. 

Newtons law describes the force of an impact very well.  F (force of impact) = M (mass) * V (velocity)

Most passenger vehicles weigh between 1 and 3 tons thats between 2000 and 6000 pounds so lets do a little math. 

Given a vehicle weighing 2 tons or 4000 lbs including fuel oil and operator and let us assume 35 mph as the velocity.  35 mph = 88 feet per second now let us convert those values to metric.  88 feet per second is just under 30 meters per second. Every 2.2 pounds of mass = 1 kilogram therfore 4000 pounds ~ 1800 kg

1800kg*30= 54000kg/s/m now describing that amount of force over an area roughly 1 meters  square (front bumper/grill area of a car) and lets double the figures cause the object we just hit is another car going 35mph in the opposite direction for a combined velocity at impact of 70mph and his vehicle weighs the same the crushing force value is now 54000*2 or 108000kg/s/m most heavy payload rockets develop about 500000kg/m/s worth of thrust so that 35 mph head on collision you just had developed 1/5th the thrust value of an atlas rocket in its first second of flight.

Now how expensive did that text message or twitter get?  You have many many rights as a citizen.  So do I.  One of the rights you do NOT have is to violate MY rights.  My right to continue breathing I take very seriously.  So if I see you not paying attention to the highway while operating your motor vehicle or if I see you operating your motor vehicle in an unsafe manner dont be surprised when I pull you over and issue you a citation for reckless driving, or driving while impaired.  I would MUCH rather issue you a citation for you failing to do your job as a driver than I would to have to inform your family or someone elses family that their loved one was blotted off the highway with a sponge.

If you endager recklessly someone elses life (this includes driving while impaired see above for a description of the statute) You are a criminal.  A potentially violent criminal.  If you injure someone with your vehicle through negligence you are guilty of the crime of reckless endagerment a class b felony.  minimum time in prison from a class b in my state is 2 years in prison 25000 dollar fine or both. 

We do have lives and this IS a real issue.  And belive me when I say it will be my pleasure should you ever decide to come to my state and drive while impaired to take you off the highway.  Just pray that I take you off the highway before Newton does.  I hate like hell to look through a blood smeared window or windshield of a car to see if anyone inside the vehicle is still alive and the smell of singed human flesh mixed with gasoline is nauseating. 

I rather think that my slipery slope is a little more urgent than your slippery slope.  At the bottom of your slippery slope lies tyranny and revolution things that can be dealt with.  At the bottom of mine lies hell itself. I can help you if you get to the bottom of your slope Im trained to deal with that situation.  I cannot help you if you get to the bottom of my slope, no one can.

Posted 07/15/2009 at 02:11:21pm

In reality there is a ratio between power and economy that says the more oomph I derive from the power that I use makes me more efficient.  I like efficiency when it gets the job done because it is a sure sign that my performance dollar is well spent and not wasted.  Call it the Ferrari Ideal of efficiency.  What I Do Not like is efficiency as a status symbol. Call this the Toyota Ideal of efficiency.  This is what happens when you put Accountants in charge of marketing and advertisiment.  Its also what happens to the Male Dog or Cat at the vets.

Just sad.

Posted 07/09/2009 at 01:25:20pm

Yes, Angry.  Angry because fools like you are allowed to continue regurgitating the elitist crap fed to you by those who would poison this great nations well of ideas.  In your own words:

"I guess rather than being a sheep, I see the value of shepherds: the sheep are too dumb to know any better and, if left to their own devices, would unconsciously spell the demise of their own kind.  "

Lets look at that sentence its very telling about your nature.  "I see the value of the sheppard"  The implication here is that you or someone you accept as the sheppard becomes the sheppard.  As long as you are the sheppard or are the ram in the flock you are satisfied.  I pity you for that elitist outlook on life.

"the sheep are too dumb to know any better..." 

What I hear when you espoused that bilge is this:  "Oh those poor ignorant individuals cant be trusted to do the right thing for themselves. Lets put together a panel of people (government born or created from some psychofants within a particular industry) who think exactly like me and restrict those poor sheep (people) from harming themselves.

My opinion is that you either need to A) take a look at what you actually wrote before you hit the post comment button, or B) if you actually believe that steaming pile of horseshit that you puked all over the comment section then you need to move to a country where they have sheppards of the kind you espouse, perhaps somewhere warm? Venezuela or Cuba perhaps?  Warm weather not to your taste?  How about The Balkans, or Tibet? They have real honest to God Thought Sheppards in those places.  Give those places a try.  Then when you have had enough shepparding I invite you to come back to the place where responsible adults are truly free of tyranny, right here in the good ole U.S of A. But if you DO come back remember how bad it was in those other places and when someone offers to take care of your rights for you think of those places and how they took care of their flock

"if left to their own devices, would unconciously spell the demise of their own kind."  Same arguments here.  but I will simply point out that no matter which way you believe the universe was formed the sheep has been around a bit longer than humans on this particular ball of mud, without us they were content, and without us would go on just as nature has intended them to go on. 

Now lets step back a pace, and look at the last sentence in the first paragraph. of your rebuttal specifically the last clause of that sentence:

"and that's why we need superfluous organizations to place restrictions on things in the public eye."

First a grammar lesson (I hate to stoop to that level here but it is necessary bear with me) Definitions.  Superflous:  serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being; how is it that we have a need for that which you already have agreed is NOT Needed?!!!     Perhaps you meant something else but I will in fact agree that orginazations like the ESRB and the MPAA and the RIAA are indeed superflous.  We do not need them and since they by fiat place restrictions on material that is to be put in to the public eye they are (whether operated by the government or by an industry makes no difference) indeed censors and at that point they are stomping on my rights and your rights and every other citizens right to access and contribute to the marketplace of ideas.  By doing that they have earned my derision scorn and enmity and it is no more than justice that they have earned those things.  Would you follow that path of treachery?

"The problem with BOOBS however, is that not everybody is mature enough to..."

Halt!  Hold it right there.  My problem with that sentence fragment is the phrase "not everybody is mature enough to..." What criteria are you using to decide those who are mature and those who are not?  How do you arrive at the conclusion that you just leapt to?  Given the set of all people.  It is your hypothesis that there exists a subset of that set that are not mature enough to... Exactly how do you define that subset?  Since they are your words and you obviously meant them, you have placed an arbitrarily large subset of people in to the sheep category without even examining whether they are in fact sheep!!    

"It's not about YOUR RIGHT TO SEE FILTH."

I do not have the RIGHT to see filth.  I have a guaranteed right (via a social contract documented in The Constitution of The United States of America) endowed by my creator to draw from the well of ideas and contribute to it.  I do not have the right to filter it for ANYONE other than those who are my DIRECT responsibilty.  My wife and I have the DUTY to filter it for our children until they become responsible adutls themselves.  However, NO ONE ELSE has the right to filter it for MY children.  You do not have the right to filter it for my children or me nor does anyone else.  We call that censorship and it is contrary to our endowed rights to access the well of ideas.  Neither do you or anyone else, including me, have the right to put a cap over the well of ideas.  There are many many outlets to the well but the caps and filters of the well apply to all outlets once they have been fashioned. 

"publishers and marketing execs constantly use BOOBS to sell things - to stir the lustful desires that they want to tap into. " 

I got news for ya sunshine  Thats been going on since before written history.  You can no more stop that as you can stop people from fighting wars.  Get used to it accept it as a necessary result of doing business cause its been going on since the garden.  But whatever you do DO NOT try to fetter it as it is one of the costs of liberty that we must deal with.  vulgar it may be unpleasant too but it is necessary to allow that because if we do not allow that then at some point some one is going to look at the way you live or act and decry that it is filth.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

"If you want to sell a game under their guidelines, you must play by their rules."

We all must play by the same set of rules.  Not one set of rules for those with money and another for those without.  We have a set of rules already in place.  Its call...wait for it...The United States Constitution.  That document is the documentation of a two hundred plus year old Social Contract that has served us well and faithfully.  But, and this has been my point throughout, We have an ideal embodied in the First Amendment.  It covers all of what we have been speaking to so that NO ONE should be turned away from the well of ideas either to draw from or to contribute to.  Responsible adults will know instinctivley how to avoid those ideas which are unpleasant to them.  They will also know exactly what to filter from their children.  You dont need to do it for them and some faceless panel of psychophants surely should be prevented from filtering anthing for anyone!

We come to the point where we all will have to make the choice that Patrick Henry was willing to make:  "I know not what course of action others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.  Are you for individual liberty?  If so you must be totally committed to that proposition.  Rember this.  The reason the chicken could cross the road and the opossum could not was not part of their nature but the fact that the opossum was not totally committed!! If you dont want to be the opossum and be run over by the Mack Truck of Tyranny then its very plain and very simple: in the war for individual rights (and do not mistake this for anything other than a furious war) those who would blindly follow the sheppard will pay the price.  I for one would rather be the wolf in the fold as to be the sheep who is shorn.  At least if I am hung as a wolf I will have the satisfaction of having eaten a few sheep along the way and will still be wearing my coat!

Posted 06/24/2009 at 10:58:15am

This is a prime example of what Nicotine and Citric Acid will do to your teeth even if you do try to take care of them.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those ... moments will be lost in time, like tears...in rain." --Roy Batty