Messages

9326

Living Room / Re: Cheers as Large Hadron Collider smashes atoms

« on: April 01, 2010, 10:46 AM »

And on the software side, it runs Linux. Woohoo! 

-zridling (March 31, 2010, 11:32 PM)

This is why we're all going to die.

-f0dder (April 01, 2010, 10:22 AM)

Eóin?  Where's the rebuttal?

9327

Living Room / Re: Cheers as Large Hadron Collider smashes atoms

« on: April 01, 2010, 09:34 AM »

Oh quit ruining a perfectly good sarcastic joke... 

9328

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« on: April 01, 2010, 09:34 AM »

In other news, my odyssey of discovery is coming to an end. Finally all the components I have meticulously researched have arrived & I will be building my new system today.

-Innuendo (April 01, 2010, 09:14 AM)

Have fun!  I already built my daughter's (I don't know what I was thinking when I bought that pink case for her... they mounted the DVD vertically which has caused all sorts of problems), and will be upgrading mine and building my wife's tomorrow or saturday...

9329

Living Room / Re: Cheers as Large Hadron Collider smashes atoms

« on: April 01, 2010, 08:36 AM »

Because it will happen right before they stop it? ::shrug::

9330

Living Room / Re: How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords

« on: April 01, 2010, 08:21 AM »

It still wouldn't work in most cases today... that's why banks have the authorization questions and pins in place, because they figured this out already.  If you try to login from a computer that the user hasn't already used, you'll get one of a series of questions before you get in... questions that are based on the user, not the password.  Then, if your bank is extremely paranoid like mine is, you'll have to enter a pin before you do anything after that.

They have a point, but it's not as big of a deal as it used to be.

9331

Living Room / Re: Cheers as Large Hadron Collider smashes atoms

« on: April 01, 2010, 08:14 AM »

We are living interesting times.

-bgd77 (April 01, 2010, 06:38 AM)

At least until 2012 when they create a black hole and destroy us all...  

9332

Living Room / Re: Yea, I won't be getting an iPad anytime soon

« on: March 31, 2010, 10:57 PM »

Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat...

Introducing the Pad-Dock iPhone to Tablet Converter

http://bit.ly/91Z24S (via IWOOT)




























(yeah... it got me too...)

9333

Living Room / Re: Low energy use always on pc -- what's better, a laptop or a mini (htpc) pc?

« on: March 31, 2010, 03:54 PM »

Ick... Thinkpads and HP.  When I was running those, I did have problems.  But I went to Dell, and had no problems... and now my wife and I are running VAIOs.  I've had mine on pretty much continuously as a desktop replacement since October, and before I moved in October, had it up in the same capacity for a year before that.  I've only actually used it away from home at a LAN party... a 17" widescreen is pretty nasty to carry around.  My wife's is actually my old laptop, so I've had it since 2005 or so... never had a hardware problem, and the only software problems I've had are her picking up a virus from one of those Myspace games.  She has had it docked as a desktop replacement since we moved- before that she used it as a laptop most of the time... but that's still 6 months+ plugged in and on 24x7.

9334

Living Room / Re: Low energy use always on pc -- what's better, a laptop or a mini (htpc) pc?

« on: March 31, 2010, 02:47 PM »

I've always had my laptops on 24x7 and haven't had any problems with any of them (other than the one my ex had put a picture on and turned off the power management so it had one picture on the LCD for weeks... burned in (and out) the lcd.  but the other components still worked)  So IME having the laptop on continuously won't be a problem.

9335

DC Gamer Club / Re: Torchlight 50% off until Monday at Steam

« on: March 26, 2010, 08:37 PM »

And it's not just on sale on Steam... it's on sale everywhere...

9336

Living Room / Re: Howto: Torture people for money:French Contestants Torture People With Electric!

« on: March 20, 2010, 10:01 PM »

I was being sarcastic

9337

Living Room / Re: Command & Conquer Copies Ubisoft's Awful DRM

« on: March 19, 2010, 08:01 PM »

Well, I haven't heard anything about the game until reading that article (and some of the comments), but apparently it requires an internet connection because it's like an MMO or something:

Here's the thing though, Ubisoft does it for piracy, EA does it to keep track of your leveling experience and unlocks. Singleplayer (which is arguably more fun in co-op anyways) experience goes towards your Skirmish and Multiplayer leveling, and vice versa. It's actually a smart move since it's more persistent like a standard MMO and cuts down on people who hack to get level 20 and dominate level 3 folks, but of course people complain about the whole "online only".

Does it have SecuROM? No. Do people treat it as such? Yes.

-Keerosene

It still sucks, but I guess people don't expect to be able to play World of Warcraft without an internet connection, do they?

-Deozaan (March 19, 2010, 04:56 PM)

For world of warcraft, everything is online.  It's an online game, and not single player as the term generally means.  This is an excuse.  As Lashiec said, they could have devised a way to store things offline and upload.  Especially not to just lose progress.  All you have to do is look at the battlefield games to see that they're lying.  Those are multiplayer games, but each one of them has a single player mode that you can play offline.  Even their newest, BFBC2 has a single player mode that you can play without being connected.

I call shenanigans.

9338

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« on: March 19, 2010, 11:54 AM »

One more question-

The combo with this motherboard, http://www.newegg.co...Item=N82E16813131622, includes DDR2 800 memory.  The motherboard says DDR3 in the specs- but I'm assuming it will take DDR2 800 memory?

UPDATE: Nevermind... I see now. 

9339

DC Gamer Club / Re: Sniper Elite for $2 on Steam

« on: March 18, 2010, 08:23 PM »

Maybe with all of these people on steam with it, we can get some matchmaking together for a DC sniper hunt

9340

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« on: March 18, 2010, 08:22 PM »

Yeah, but I've had a bad experience with stock fans/pads... so I'm waffling on which to use.

9341

Living Room / Re: Command & Conquer Copies Ubisoft's Awful DRM

« on: March 18, 2010, 08:20 PM »

That's cool... cooler if they'd abbreviated plz better

Oh... and notice that I put a reference to what the link goes to as a nod to f0dder.

9342

Living Room / Command & Conquer Copies Ubisoft's Awful DRM

« on: March 18, 2010, 01:13 PM »

http://bit.ly/acfGHj - (via Kotaku)

It seems that the wave has picked up speed... C&C requires that you have an internet connection to play.  And the representative had the nerve to advertise that C&C had no DRM...

9343

Living Room / Re: Howto: Torture people for money:French Contestants Torture People With Electric!

« on: March 18, 2010, 12:48 PM »

Well, they're just catching up to the Japanese level of game show it seems.

9344

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« on: March 18, 2010, 12:22 PM »

That's what I thought... but this time I went on newegg and looked up arctic silver and got more than a page of hits, so I felt a bit overwhelmed

9345

DC Gamer Club / Re: Sniper Elite for $2 on Steam

« on: March 18, 2010, 12:21 PM »

I'm not sure what difficulty level I'm on... but depending on the range, it's almost *impossible* to get a headshot if a target is moving, and anything other than a headshot means that you're pretty much re-loading in many (most?) cases.  Contrast that with TF2, the BF series, CS... where I get headshots without thinking about it... and that's why I give it the hardcore when juxtaposed with them.  And yes, aim a bit higher... but then there's the breathing and heart rate to consider.  But it's fun nonetheless

9346

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« on: March 18, 2010, 09:57 AM »

Good points.  Thanks for the info!

One last question.  They have soooo many types of arctic silver... what's the difference?  I've always just bought a middle of the line one (last time I got AS5), but never really understood...anyone want to take a crack at that?

9347

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« on: March 18, 2010, 07:47 AM »

What about the motherboard?  And suggestions on that?  I just didnt see the difference...

9348

DC Gamer Club / Re: Sniper Elite for $2 on Steam

« on: March 18, 2010, 07:41 AM »

Sniping in Sniper Elite is as different from sniping in other games as ... I can't think of a metaphor.  But it's *really* different.  But it's a decent enough game for $2- I got it for $2.50 at the Christmas Sale, and haven't regretted it.

EDIT: I didn't really tell what the difference was.  You have to think and reason like a sniper- that includes heart rate on shots, awareness of muzzle flash and report for relocation, windage... and you're using WW2 era rifles, so it's worse than a modern game is with these factors.  And there's also the patience factor.  There's not really been a WW2 era shooter with this level of detail towards sniping that I can remember.  So if you like being a sniper in other games, this will be cool.  If you like using the sniper rifle in other games (i.e. like the kills and such), this game will be a bit frustrating.

9349

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« on: March 17, 2010, 08:22 PM »

Yes, it's very timely- I'm checking into upgrading my wife's computer after I finish my daughter's, and it seems that it's not as costly as I originally believed!

Two comparisons if anyone can weigh in.

Motherboard

• ASUS P5G41-M LE
• ASUS P5G41T-M LE

I don't see the difference... I would go with the cheaper one, but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything...

Processor

• Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5400 Wolfdale 2.7GHz
• Intel Celeron E3300 Wolfdale 2.5GHz

My wife does Sims3 and browse and some homeschool stuff... so Sims 3 is as intense at it gets.  Will the Dual Core be worth the $20 diff over the Celeron?  Is it something that she'd notice?  For video she'll have an x800 that I have laying around... AGP 256MB.

Thoughts?

9350

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« on: March 17, 2010, 02:01 PM »

Or for $200 you could get a Case+PSU (dunno how quiet), motherboard, CPU, and RAM that ought to best your current system in basically every way:
http://www.newegg.co...temList=Combo.352997
(onboard graphics)
Add your own hard drive, transfer the DVD-ROM from your old system, and you're set.

-JavaJones (March 17, 2010, 12:33 PM)

Actually, I don't know if this would be better than his current system, merely b/c of the CPU- celeron (even dual core) I'm really leery of vs a full P4... unless they've done some serious work on celerons that I don't know about in the past few iterations.

UPDATE: I did some research, as I've always dismissed Celerons, and it seems that they changed the die and increased the L2 cache, which are promising changes.  Does anyone know where there are comparisons of this new breed of Celerons vs non-Celeron processors?