Posts by soaklord

32B

Every time I start to dig Apple, they do something stupid. Why would you bring out an entirely new line of hardware and put it on 32b hardware? It's not like the 64b versions are so VERY expensive. I didn't even know Intel was producing core 2 32b chips. Deal breaker. Especially since I had visions of a triple boot VUltimate/Ubuntu/OSX machine.

@Matt

Hey, go get the machines, then just install OSX on them anyway. If you troll the intrawebnet you'll find hackintosh as the term and plenty of people are porting the os.

Oh and just to start the rants....

ZOMG that's the best thing ever, take that you stoopid evil Wintel idjits/freetards, nothing beats a MAC! You just got sooo pwnd.

ZOMG that's the dumbest thing ever, anyone who has half a brain would like, totally buy a M$/not pay for an OS, you should totally buy a PC/pick up an old machine and run it on freetardix.

@AC @Richard

I have a 1080p tv. I have exactly zero BDs in my home. I noticed they are starting to look reasonable for old catalogue stuff, but I don't particularly see the value in the hardware just yet. The closest I have come to being tempted by BD is an external PC drive that supports BD and using it on an HTPC. I'd come even closer if the Mac Minis came with BD drives as they would be the perfect HTPC at that point. However, having watched BD at 1080, I can say that I can't see that much of a difference from my upscaled dvds. Soo... until players are sub $100 and discs are sub $20 (convert to currency of your choice) I'll enjoy my xbox games, downloaded content, and media center playing remote dvds off my server thanks. How many BDs sold last month? (discs not players). Did BD finally hit 20% of DVD sales? No? Hmm... Don't open too wide msft.

Mine's the one with orb streaming movies to my phone in the pocket.

I think BD is going to be a bit like SACD/DVD-Audio. While they duked it out to see who was the superior format, the rest of the world yawned. Speakers are better than ever, amps are better than ever, headphones are better than ever. And when it comes right down to it, most people will take an inferior recording off itunes over a SACD/DVD-A then listen to it on inferior ear buds. BD will be the same thing unless Sony gets the industry to quit selling DVDs.

3TB = 15k

Who pays $15k for 3TB? For an entire WHS from HP with 3.5TB of data, you'd be looking at less than $1k running server quality drives and could gain pretty much all of the functionality listed in this article if you are running in a windows environment. If you are running in a unix/linux distro, you can configure this for free. What am I missing that the additional $14k buys you?

Android

Define:android--A robot or other artificial being made to resemble a human.

In this case, an artificial being made to resemble a smart phone/pda. Made to resemble, not actually succeeding there, is it now? Seriously, that is some bad design from a company that has made huge steps in phone design recently. It reminds me of linux. Packed with the ability to do anything you want to do on inferior hardware, but the software, hardware combo usually aren't all that pretty. Pretty wallpaper, but the rest of the home screen don't thrill me at all.

@Ranga

If I am paying for unlimited web access at a specific speed because that's what I was sold on, how exactly are you subsidizing me? Heaven forbid I *use* my connection!!! That would be practically unfair! Let me guess... I should only be using my broadband connection, that's advertised as always on and faster than dial up just long enough to log on to Comcast so I can pay my bill online. That way they don't have to worry about paper, mailing, etc. How am I doing? Does that unsubsidize the low traffic users? If Comcast is going to advertise that they offer always on service, that they offer a specific usage (unlimited) and that they are fast, then they should meet those requests. I have never heard anyone bitching and moaning about how all those unlimited minutes users are ruining the mobile phone gig for the rest of us. How is this different? Paris, cause she knows about using mobiles at *any* time.

Should be called

Roid Phone. Hemmor (ok, the h isn't only silent, it's invisible in this example), Ster, And you decide. But I shall, forever more, refer to it as the roid phone. Did you get rogered by the roid phone cause in the U.S. T-Mob appears to think 3G is the year they'll offer broadband speeds, not a network speed? Seriously, who wants a data phone on EDGE?

Mine's the one with a Nokia 1100 in the pocket.

Wow!!!

With that kind of RAM, I could probably get Vista to run at... XP speeds!!! Hmm... with 288GB of RAM, you could run entire app installs purely from memory... with no disk reads whatsoever.

I know why...

Who can spot the theft worthy hand set on this page?

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/

Yes... that's a current page, not one from two years ago.

Seriously, the reason why North Americans don't have to worry about it is because we are force fed crap phones. Seriously crap phones. The PAYG W810i I bought more than two years ago is still better than most of the handsets on the above page. Two f'ing years later! Seriously, who would steal any of that shite? And the premium rate number thing isn't as big over here, so stealing a phone, then running up a couple thousand pounds in premium rate charges to the carrier and getting kickbacks for it just doesn't happen.

Even Paris knows we get crap hardware. Motorola actually sells over here.

I'm with the AC

Why would you need all that space? Seriously? I bought an Elite to get the smaller chip/black box. Downloaded a couple of shows (Robot Chicken Star Wars), a couple of videos, tons of saved games, got a couple of the downloadable maps, an Xbox original game... And I still haven't used 10gb. So I have about 100 gigs of space sitting idle. As for other content... I use my box as a media extender, but I have a server with TONS more space... so I just stream via ORB to ANYWHERE in the house, world. Why store it all on a proprietary machine? PS3 or Xbox? About the only use I can see for a HD of that size is if Xbox Live starts offering Pron that isn't a rental... Then it might fill up rather quickly. Or if the game discs become huge zip repositories and the game needs to unload and install on the HD like PCs... Then maybe...

As for the Console Wars... Both Sony and MS are huge, evil empires. Both insist on proprietary formats, do everything they can to control the marketplace, and spend more time trying to stop copying than trying to innovate. Both sourced proprietary hardware, and when you consider the cost of a PATA HD, neither should probably come with one, rather should come with a hotswap slot and allow you to plug in your own... Or SATA, I don't care which.

Sony appears to be in a downcycle at the moment in my mind despite winning the BR-HDDVD wars. PS2 was amazing, wanted one from the day they came out, didn't get around to get one until 2007 when someone gave me theirs. PS2 4tw because they had the most games, the most versatility, and networked gaming and were first to market... Hmm... Xbox 360... Most games, most versatility, first to market...

I'll probably pick up a PS3 when I decide that I need some of my movies in HD, rather than upscaled 1080i...

colored balls

That's not a racist comment is it? Or is it a reference to something that requires penicillin? Mine's the one that's been in the gutter.

Umm... we may want some more of that...

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature%20Monitors%20Report%20Worldwide%20Global%20Cooling/article10866.htm

Mine's the one with the mammoth fur lined hood.

This should be taken very seriously!

Impressionable young teenagers are learning to do some very harmful things because they are being blitzed by the media! Everyone+dog's cousin bought GTA IV upon release, therefore, these umm... 4? youths + 1 adult represent a statistically significant portion of the gaming universe.

If you take the 5 youths in question and divide it by the 9M in sales, you get 0.00005555555555555560% of the gaming population that bought the game. That's a large enough percentage to prove that games DEFINITELY cause violent behavior. We should immediately give the game an AO rating in the U.S.

I mean, you know, the media might be hiding the actual number of violent crimes that are taking place because of GTA IV (after all, they wouldn't stoop so low as to report on that kind of thing over and over again!) The number could be ten times as many! That would bring the percentage up to 0.000555555555555556%. I am sure that if we compared that to the number of violent crimes perpetrated by non-video gamers, we'd see that there has to be a significant uptick in violence compared to society as a whole. Think about it, one crime spree from a population the size London within two months of the game's release. Oh the humanity!!!

I mean look at all the violence perpetrated by other negatively influencing media that has destroyed the minds of countless youths for more than a generation now!

What everyone forgets about the below article is that BOTH sides are condoning violence training!!!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/13/welsh_darth_vader_sentence/

Mine's the one with the "When am I going to actually use any of this math stuff in the real world?" on the back.

@gautam

Seriously... Methinks you must be a masochist... You really want this?:

Hello? HELLO? Can you hear me now?!? How about now?!? Yeah, I'm flying dude! Seriously, I'm like over the Grand Canyon or something... Yeah. No dude, these stewardesses are fugly dude! I thought they had to be hot to be stewardesses. Nah dude, totally psyched!!! Yeah, Vegas is going to be off the hook!!! YUP YUP!!! What? Nah dude, we gotta get wasted when I get there dude!

Or better yet!

"Say hi to Gramma! Say hi to Gramma! Hi Gramma! Say hi to Gramma! Tell her we're on a plane!! That's right, we're on a plane!! Tell Gramma we're on a plane to come see her! Tell Gramma! Say hi to Gramma! Say I love you Gramma! No don't touch that! Wait, don't touch the laptop honey! Say hi to Gramma!"

Mine's the one with the earplugs in the pocket.

ramblings...

"Chrysler does emphasise that the system is designed for use by passengers. In our experience few Dodges or Jeeps actually carry passengers, but those other seats must be there for some reason."

If that isn't the truth! The only thing worse is a four door pick up truck... Air Hauler with Cabin Expansion Enabled for maximum capacity with minimal actual application...

As for the wifi... wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a data package from your cell provider? For the overall cost, including data, you could get an iPhone (holds up shield of fire protection +5) or Windows Mobile phone and a great data package. And if you set it up as a walking wifi as article suggests, your passengers still get to surf...

I can just see a scrum of cars refusing to go any faster than the trapped in Chrysler...

"Honey, why is that pack of cars moving so damn slow?"

"Dear, they are all using that 300C's wifi connection to surf the web"

Question... How many lanes away can I surf from?

Hmm... An always on webcam... better yet, more than one. A front facing that broadcasts your drive to guesswhocutmeofftoday.com and a rear facing one that broadcasts to pickingtheirnose.com and maybe even an internal one that you can turn on and broadcast to dudedonteventhinkaboutstealingmyjalopy.com

Mine's the one with the sniffer in the pocket.

Clarification, rant, etc.

@ rfrovarp Actually, this is not true. The only way to stop unsolicited calls to a mobile phone is to register it with the Do Not Call registry. The reason so few people get solicitations on their mobiles is that it IS illegal to call a mobile phone from an automated dialer, which eliminates most telemarketers because manual dialing is WAY too slow to be efficient.

All of the U.S. carriers give you the first minute of an incoming call free. This eliminates the ability to cause malicious cost or for telemarketers to get through and cost you money (as long as you are smart enough to disengage prior to the 60 second mark). But paying to receive is also the reason why almost NO ONE has a PAYG handset here. In the UK market, PAYG makes perfect sense. Minutes are cheap (relatively) incoming calls are free and the handsets don't cost much. Not so true here where even a year ago they were flogging the razors with <1mp and no 3g on 2 year contracts.

@AC Less of a need to lock in handsets? Maybe. But in the U.S. there are really only two carriers to choose from for any given handset. If you went with CDMA, your choices are Sprint or Verizon. If you went with GSM, your choices are AT&T or T-mobile. That's not much of a choice. T-Mobile has yet to offer 3g even in most urban centers and AT&T... well, think BT only worse. Lot's worse. Sprint doesn't use sim cards, so it is difficult at best to transfer their phones and Verizon is a bit like Vodafone without the cool handsets.

I loved the UK model when I was there. Highly competitive, great choices for the consumer, and cutting edge. Most of the phones offered in the U.S. still can't do everything my W810i can do 2 years after I got my phone! (Don't start if you own a PDA, Windows Mobile, or 3g phone, look at what most punters are carrying and you'll see what I mean how many Razors do you still see here?)

Mine's the one with "I'd rather be riding the tube" on the back.

@AC @Lisa

Umm... OK, could someone translate for me? I lived in London for a year, but apparently my GB-English got well bad since den innit. What does this mean, if not a lobby for pay to receive?

"Perversely, 3 is simultaneously lobbying to have all termination rates removed entirely, paving the way for pay-to-receive telephony, telling anyone who'll listen that getting rid of termination rates will lead to lower prices for everyone and (quite possibly) peace in our time."

Specifically... "paving the way for pay-to-receive telephony"

More specifically "pay-to-receive telephony"

Lisa,

You got me there. I have a hell of a time just hanging up on people and am always trying to gracefully disengage. I should be a bit more wary of my free minutes and just hang up.

Mine's the one with "Read the last paragraph" on the back.

@Stephen

Darn! You beat me to it! Great to see a Pratchett fan in here. Mine's the one with Ankh-Morpok on the back.

Blu-Ray and Consoles...

I joined the console game (pun intended) very late. As a PC gamer, I finally got sick of needing to drop Oz loads of money to have the competitive edge or to accept that I was always going to get my Oz handed to me every game.

So when a friend gave me their old PS2, I picked up GT4 and had a blast playing split screen with a buddy in my living room. Around Christmas I decided to upgrade to a next gen console and spent FOREVER deciding what to get. I loved GT4, but PS3 still didn't have anything to compete with GT4. Let me repeat that... The next gen Playstation still didn't have ANYTHING as good as dropping in GT4 and playing a PS2 game. When I looked at all the games out there, I kept coming back to the 360. The library was impressive and I started thinking about how the PS2 dominated its market by having more games, not better technology, not better anything but selection. So, I went with selection and bought a 360.

My 360 is noisy. I refuse to pay $100 for a wireless adapter, so am figuring out how to set up my own wireless bridge from living room to router by flashing the firmware on a wrt54gl. And when I am done, I will have a router that I can plug 4 devices in to and access wirelessly for $20 cheaper than the adapter. And... I prefer the controller to the PS2/3 controllers. Bioshock is stunning, HALO3 was fun for as long as it took to beat. Mass Effect is by far the best single player game I have played since ZORK. PGR 4 is even more fun than GT4 was. And Forza 2 is the technical side of the GT series when you want realism, but it also has damage modeling. Madden still pisses me off no matter which console I play it on... But that's because I suck at it on every console I've played it on, including the PC. =)

Which is better? Umm... the console that plays the games you most want to play. Sonic the hedghog is graphically beautiful, but I still would rather play Tecmobowl!

Which is the better entertainment center? Probably the PS3. Who knows, I may pick one up so that I can have a Blu-Ray player. It would be strange... I haven't played a single DVD on my xbox and have players for all of my media that I would rather use, but who knows... If M$ offers an add on, I'll probably just buy that if it's cheaper. If $ony actually allows manufacturers to offer a player at a price that is cheaper than their whole game system, then I will just get a player and be done with it.

Mine's the one at the back with blow me and an NES cartridge printed on it.

Scientists aren't sure why?

Umm... Could it be the same principles that make a faraday cage work?

@ Nic Brough

The only reason I have a windows PC is for playing games, and if Wii or Xbox came with a mouse/keyboard combo for playing FPS games (they just doesn't work properly with a game controller), I'd happily format the windows partition tomorrow to get more space for my penguin."

Let the Penguin habitat grow. google it and you will find an adapter for the xbox that lets you do exactly that. I have adopted the controller after years of wasd, but my buddy insists on wasd and does quite well on xbox

It's a gateway drug!

Just a thought.. Is it possible that the game could be a gateway into music? The South Park episode is pretty funny, but here's the deal, if the Moe and Rons of the world can make a case for violent games leading to violent real world behavior, then couldn't a guitar game of huge popularity lead to real world musicians? And what better way to keep classic rock alive than getting a whole new generation excited about the same songs and listening to them over and over again?

And if the Moe Rons are correct about violent games, then it is a great game just by virtue of keeping kids off the hardcore stuff... Of course, I have never hit anyone in anger... And I am all about the FPS, but what do I know?

The "musician" "journalist" had an opportunity to talk about how this game could be very positive in reviving music in a way that has been missing for quite some time in modern teenagers and blew it... Guess it is better to bash the game and have kids listening to (c)rap music instead.