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My BFG 8800GTX failed roughly once every nine months for the duration of time that I used it. That seems typical of my nvidia experience. So anyway, paid Amazon Prime Members get streaming video stuff for free now. That's what I wanted to tell you people. How cool is that? It's on Amazon's...

Except for the fact that they get too hot and die early deaths.

This thingie was on Engadget this morning. It looks like a good mix of features for the cash.

A dozen or more years ago, I remember reading discussions on Slashdot about very specific technical issues related computer engineering. Now I almost can't stand to even look at a thread there that relates to computer hardware. There are just too many morons on the internet.

360s are pretty much the only non-PC consumer electronics devices with which I have experience. I managed to make two working units from five broken ones, basically just following instructions I found online. My Wii is louder than any computer that belongs to me. I can't even stand to have...

Yes, but it was scaled back somewhat. What I ended up building was basically an i5 760 in a Silverstone chassis and a pair of 2TB Hitachi drives in RAID1. It did turn out to be functionally silent with a Scythe HSF and a Seasonic PSU.

Northwest Indiana is basically a giant farm for trashy talk show guests. We have the incest-farm trailer parks and the blighted urban ghetto and when the two sides get over their mutual racism, probably with the help of crystal meth, they make babies that grow up to be restrained by Steve the...

First they said that the model I selected wasn't in stock and they would have to wait for the next time they got a delivery. Now apparently I'm waiting for the company to have enough orders that need to be delivered in my area. Or something like that.

They said a month. It's been almost six weeks.

I think the biggest thing would be finding motherboards that have a real IDE controller that isn't routed through a JMicron USB bridge. One of my customers still uses some DOS systems for instrumentation. The last machine I set up for him was a Pentium 4.

It's 59 degrees outside right now. In February. A mile from Lake Michigan. That's nuts.

USB3 is an available option on some $60 boards. Looks like solid caps don't start showing up until a lot higher on the food chain, but they're not on cheap Intel boards either. In general, I'd rather buy a slower CPU and pair it with generally nicer parts like a better PSU and a second hard...

I got a Simmons Beautyrest something-or-other and I'm still waiting for them to deliver the damned thing. Shoulda just gone with the one from Overstock.com.

I'm still fairly convinced that Intel-based motherboards are manufactured to higher standards. Or may just Intel branded ones. But that $45 worth of price difference is still an awfully compelling argument against the i3.

OK but what about the part where you shut things off?

I'm not sure what issues you could be having. I'm just using a Windows 7 machine with Media Player Classic with K-lite codecs, PowerDVD and WinAmp. The only concession I made to the living room setting was bumping the text size on everything way up. I haven't done anything on that machine except...

You don't think someone could assemble a functional, quiet and reasonably low-power PC for this application? Maybe something in a fanless Atom system that boots Linux off a CF card and uses a $30 video card to handle HD decoding? That would certainly be quiet and low-power while maintaining...

Why are we not back at this point back to discussing a low end HTPC for this scenario?

I recognize these words as English but I do not know their meaning.

I was given a budget of $850 each to assemble four "nice" workstations for one of my customers. I was thinking initially that I'd go with Sandy Bridge i7s, but I ran in to issues of motherboard availability. I took a look at what $300 will buy in an i7 CPU and I spec'd out a machine based on...

Hm. Some kind of low-end AM2+ machine + 2GB RAM + small local drive, say 250GB + modest case and PSU + DVD... I think I could do it for maybe $250, plus whatever the control scheme costs. Kick in another $30 for a low end Radeon if you're concerned about video decoding.

... and we thank you for it.

I don't know about love. I was just trying to make her happy. Usually if I give her something she's excited about she calls me to tell me so, and she didn't this time.

I do not think she liked the matching earrings and necklace I gave her. Dammit. Should've gone with the e-Reader.

I do my porcelain cruises at about 9:30AM. I like that I'm earning money while I do it. Especially since I'm doing a very high fiber diet these days.

They're awesome. Seriously. Like a life-improving change. If I ever get another house I will have them. Also very nifty: Cottonelle Pre-moistened wipes. Call me a nut but I'm a fan of the clean ass.

Everything's free when you print it at work.

Why are we spelling California with a K right now?

Me either. I don't know what will happen with my job either. I think I'll probably wind up moving elsewhere, eventually.

A use 859 should be around $30.

The site has been horrible for the last hour or so. This page took about six minutes to load so that I could post this.

What's a TDU?

They're vastly cheaper on Ebay. You can get refurb units or used units from morons who couldn't work the software.

I wish there were a Thai restaurant closer to me than 25 miles away. :(

That's what the internet is for, Handy.

If you'd really like to compare, it was -12F outside my apartment at 6AM this morning. With the wind chill it was -38F. It warmed up all the way to 7F at around 2PM.

Apparently one of those knock off batteries has stopped charging. Sweet. I'm looking forward to my "I told you so."

Why bother? I can barely stand to leave my apartment. I resent 10 minute car trips and paying for lodging when I've already shelled out for rent. Wanderlust just isn't in my make-up.

Shameless is deeply amusing. The American version benefits from higher production values and William H. Macy, but the UK series are quite funny as well.

I don't have a use for one, unless some day I move to Canada.

Tmobile is offering all its smartphones free with a two-year contract this weekend. I'm trying to convince my friend that she needs something Android-y that she can use as an ebook reader and mp3 player since she refuses to change carriers.

I suspect it's more that it's a paperwork hassle.

That's still kind of crappy.

I have whole rackmount enclosures that are smaller than that.

I don't think you're going to get 200MB/sec over 1.5Gbps FC even under the ideal circumstances. In general, since the files you're dealing with are going to be large, you're probably best off using larger block and cluster sizes. I suspect that going bigger is going to cut down on the number of...

There's some things going on. Basically my company is impeding the use of a quasi-public school that's basically been set aside for the residents of two wealthy local communities, and the former owner of the building is a politically well-connected dickbag. As I understand it, the case on its...

Well, after talking to the sheriff, what he has is a notice to vacate, which is somehow different from an eviction, and he couldn't actually give it to me, because I'm not the person indicated on the document. Personally, this doesn't affect what I do very much because most of the classrooms...

OK, the big thing is Homegroup and/or Windows Search support. That's what enables Network libraries without causing a huge pile of suck.

No I am not, but making local copies of 12TB file shares doesn't strike me as a particularly good idea, either.

Library locations are indexed, so if you have stuff on them all the instant search crap in Win7 actually does something useful. You need 2008R2 or maybe WHS to make network shares available in libraries.