A Blithering Div

I work at a store with a gas station at a rest area and I've heard a lot. "Do you have any coffee?" Keep in mind the coffee bar is directly in front of the entrance. "Do you sell lottery?" As I stand at the machine with scratch tickets clearly visible behind me. "Is this where I pay for gas?" No dipshit, you pay for it at the fast food joint next door. The follow up to that is "I need to fill up but I don't know how much its gonna take." Keep in mind the entire east coast of the US is pay first and come back for change. "Where the rolls for the hotdogs?" The drawer says "Fresh rolls" on it. After asking how to get to a town: "Do you think my car will be safe in the grocery store's parking lot?" And the one that made my jaw drop is when a customer picked up a yellow packet that says mustard on the front of it and proceeded to ask: "Is this the mustard?" The scary part is these people are out there driving multi ton tin cans that can easily kill someone.

I haven't used iOS because of its limitations. I have however used Android and am currently running 4.3 on my Nexus 4. My verdict is it still sucks hardcore. FroYo sucked, Gingerbread sucked, and Key Candy Jelly Cane Lime Pie Bean continues the tradition of suckage. Where to begin... For starters, no terminal access. A java machine on top of a linux kernel (outdated at that) with no built in terminal. However, in order for you to get a useful terminal, you need root access. Why this doesn't involve entering a password is beyond me. Malware is an issue. Let me repeat that, MALWARE IS AN ISSUE ON MY CELL PHONE. There's an open app store, then there's an anarchists app store, then there's google play. Then there's the whole Java on top of Linux thing which means an automatic performance hit. My preferred phone OS? Maemo. That's right. A four year old, long dead, but pure linux OS. It actually understands that my phone is my phone. As such it has a built in terminal. Root access is as simple to get as installing a package. It has the best multitasking to date still and runs decently on its 4 year old hardware. Hopefully Sailfish and Ubuntu touch will change this, but if Tizen is anything to go by, they won't.

At first I was mur because who the funk cares about a controller ffs? But that design... The more I look at it, the more I like it. I do think its good. There's one coveat though. No d-pad. Using a joy/analog stick for 2D sidescollers is crap at best. The only time a stick works is when its microswitched out the wazoo.

A console is a computer but it isn't a General Purpose computer, whereas a PC is. Just wanted to differentiate between the 2. Although for a bit the PS3 could have been called a PC. This is where I see the Steam Box/Engine/Turbine/Iron, an x86 based "console" that can be turned into a General Purpose PC quite easily. I also like the fact that SteamOS is shipping as a stand alone porject as well. It provides a turn-key solution to those that custom build.

First, here's a link to an AMA with the team staff of voyager on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1m9wke/were_scientists_and_engineers_on_nasas_voyager/ Second, while this is an awe inspiring moment, we won't get too much out of this spacecraft. Voyager 2 may provide more data but it could be another deacde before it leaves the solar system. The reason for this is that the plasma spectrometer is defective and most likely isn't being used, whereas I'm pretty certain it still works on voyager 2 but I'm not entirely sure so don't quote me on this. That said, it will be interesting to see what data we can pull from the intersteller medium. Interesting tidbit: According to one of the engineers in the AMA, if at 2025 voyager 1 becomes an engineer only mission, we could keep in contact with it until 2036, but all we will get from it is contact, no data, just a "hello world".

Steam for games/IM Audacity for the occasional audio edit/one track transcode Fre:ac for all other audio transcodes. Strongly recommend this if you need to transcode a lot of audio. Available for the 3 Major OSes with all the audio codecs under the sun. Rips CDs as well. GIMP for the occasional photo slapchop. Winamp for Audio playback VLC for video playback Handbrake for the occasional video transcode Firefox because chrome's UI is rubbish And lastly BOINC Manager for dc project management.

We used to go camping when I was a kid. It was just meh. I was always told to go outside as it was so it was just being outside in a park. However the last time I went camping was a few years ago with friends. I learned some valuable things then such as put something over the tent when it rains or you wake up with a wet butt and smack your friend the next time he decides to bring day old unseasoned firewood. Outside of those and a few other negatives, its alright.

I wouldn't worry about it. If the game is smooth then you're fine. You're emulating a PS1 which does need some horsepower but I could see Intel HD graphics (that is your model, the absolute base is just called Intel HD) running it just fine. Out of curiosity, what video plugin are you using?

Zero because I don't instill fear in who I consider "enemies" which is what terrorism actually is. I know this is the internet but that list is pretty drop dead stupid.

The only instability I had with Windows 7 was when I tried installing a 32 bit Vista driver for wifi. IDK what made me think it would work but it only BSODed once. Second, burning ISOs may be nice but that's a small feature to add and is not worth having to be able to boot to a full DE just to use safe mode. What Windows 7 didn't have is what makes it better. It's nowhere near as abstracting than 8. I.E. being admin in Windows 7 actually feels like being an admin (to an extent). Less hoops to get under the hood. Well if we're bringing DOS into the mix: Microsoft Bob Good catch on the version numbers. Though from what I've read so far 8.1 sounds more like a service pack than a new version.

Who's down for some good ol' fashion OS bashing? I know I sure am. This pertains to NT 6.3 shipped straight from Redmund, WA to a warehouse and then to my domicile. Yes, I'm using Windows 8. No, it isn't a fresh pile of dung, more like a rehashed and repacked pile with a fancy ribbin on. I can't really comment on the not-metro UI as shockingly, I've only used it a few times and two times was to pin the control panel to my task bar. As such we'll gloss over the elephant in the room for the most part. The installer is still bleh. Click next a few times, format the C: drive and you're pretty much done. No options for designating certain drives to directories until you get to the full OS where you can software RAID/JBOD with Storage Spaces and take a performance hit for not using a hardware controller. The Explorer UI is roughly the same but now uses drop down ribbins instead of a ribbin with commonly used tasks in conjunction with a menu bar. 3 clicks to shut down via GUI rather than 2 for Win7. Performance is roughly the same between 7 & 8. I can't help but get the feeling that not-metro UI being disabled would give a bit more performace. Task manager is a bit funky now. The Prcoess tab and Details tab do about the same thing but Details has a bit more meat on the bone with Set Priority and Set Affinity being in its context menu among other things. And now to go office space on the dead horse. Windows 8 is the worst version of windows Microsoft has ever released. System Refresh is pointless as its essentially a fresh install that leaves old system files behind you can't delete wiithin the system. It also "deletes your old programs by moving them into Windows.old so you can presumably try to salvage something (IDK what but something dammit). You have to be able to boot into a full desktop in order to get into safe mode as it requires you to go into advanced settings in not-metro. Event Viewer gives you very little information on blue screens of death (though I don't think that's a new development). Not-metro UI is part of safe mode. I am not making this up. You cannot do a System Refresh or Reinstall if UAC is set to maximum for reasons I can't fathom. All windows 8 consists of is more abstration from actually being able to control your computer. That's all it is. It has no compelling features over Windows 7 to make it worth while. Sure, it does in fact boot faster, however A. I'm on a desktop that gets turned on once and turned off once and second, sleep mode doesn't suck anymore. And if you really want power saving in a portable you should be hibernating anyways. All of these are things that I have had experience with under Windows 8 and quite frankly, its shit from any angle. TL:DR It's rubbish.

Vinyl is alright. It tends to be somewhat better due to the loudness war but a good master is a good master and will sound excellent on almost any medium (except tape due to bit depth and tape just being a terribel medium in the first place). Apparently the all new remastered Pink Floyd albums are terribly mastered whereas one of the first press vinyls will most likely be better provided its in good shape as it's dynamic range isn't compressed nearly as bad. All I have for vinyl though is some George Carlin, Three of a Perfect Pair and the 45 of A Gloruis Dawn. Whether its better because its analog, I'm going to say no. The reason for this is because of the Nyquist Theroem. What this states, among other things, is that a digital signal will 100% reproduce a band limited analog signal at half the sampling frequency. In other words, if you send a 20KHz sine wave sampled at 40 KHz through your audio card and then back out to an osciliscope, it will be a perfect reproduction. Now there can be noise added throughout the entire process. Be it jitter, hiss and noise from the band pass filter. However most consumer grade devices are transparent enough for it not to be noticeable unless you have a high end system.

My mp3 player is safely maxed at some percentage in the nineties. Safely maxed because the volume is -84 to +6 dB (it's at 0, the amplifier's non-overdrived max), the amp isn't all that powerful and its connected to a stereo amp most of the time. On a daily basis, I'd say I listen to music at least 2 hours a day.

Sennheiser headphones Asus soundcard and Monitor Yahmaha HT reciever from mid to late 90's Polk Audio speakers Intel i7 4770k CPU MSi 7870 that I'm about to go office space on G.Skill RAM. They give you a case badge with each pack. Keyfob sticker FTW Seasonic power supply. Gigabyte motherboard and keyboard. Strangely my new gigabyte board came with a case badge but my AM3 one didn't. Logitech mouse and controller for emulation goodness Nintendo 3DS with the added benefit of being the first Nintendo console I actually really like Linksys WRT54GL router Asus RT-N12 router Western Digital and Seagate Hard Disk Drives Crucial Solid State Drive Coolermaster Storm Scout and EVO 212 hyper that is still on my old Phenom 2 mobo A small Gerber Flashlight and a cheap blade along with a multitool, a keychain tool and an artifact. LG and a Nokia cellphone An Audio Technica record player A Zhumell 10 inch dobsonian I've been kind of neglecting An Orion 100mm tube I don't use anymore SanDisk mp3 player A possibly still working Commodore 64 that still needs a new dualSID board. And lastly 4 Wiha screwdrivers that are the best I've used and own.

Well after a month and a half of Intel's Haswell CPU hitting the streets, I finally splurged on an i7 4770k to replace my 4 year old Phenom II. The difference is phenominal. It really is. My framerates in TF2 alone are far better. The lowest I've seen was ~70 FPS on a 32 man 2fort server which certainly beats ~40 or at least it would. See a long time ago when I bought my Phenom II, microsoft had a deal on windows 7 for college students where you could buy Windows 7 Pro for $30. It was great, problem is, the backup disc has no product key and I am no longer enrolled (hoping to change that very soon but I digress). From what I've read in the microsoft support center or whatever it is, all signs point to "sucks for you, pay up." Now currently I'm running Linux Mint 15 with KDE for teh frameratez. But there's an issue. Last year I made the error of purchasing an MSi Raedon 7870. Under windows, its fine for the most part. Under Linux, performance is less than stellar because well AMD and driver don't quite go hand in hand. In fact I have to turn down some settings in order to get comparable framerates to windows (game running natively, not in WINE). So I've come to a bit of a conundrum. Do I shell out for another Windows 7 key, "upgrade" to Windows 8 as its about the same price, stay with Linux Mint, deal with it and hope things get better or get an nvidia graphics card and hope it resolves the issue?

Back in the really olden days of PCs, it was common to buy a $600 "breadbox" computer (Commodore 64 anyone?), hook it up to the TV and away you go. More fancy computers like Apple 2s and IBM PCs had their own monitor. Now the separate PC were usually progressive scan. That means that the whole frame is drawn on the screen rather than opposing alternating lines (or interlace). Fast forward to the HD craze and now people who I can only hope do know better, state that their computer monitor is 1080p or 1440p or something like that. Now, at this point in time, PC monitors have been progressive scan for decades and the large CRTs had pretty high resolutions. I have an old Dell CRT that tops out at 2048x1536. Yet for some reason, it is now necessary to state that your PC monitor (not a television where it actually differs) is progressive scan. Its not even short hand. If I said my monitor was 2160p, would any of you even guess that was I was talking about a 4k monitor? What about 1200p? 1050p? 4360p? Seriously, its annoying to see 1080p and 1440p when typing out 1920x1080 is far more informative. How? I can see how many horizontal pixels there are. 1920x1200 tells me that its A: high resolution, B: its on a computer monitor because TVs market with xxxxp and C: Its aspect ratio and in this case its 16:10. So, in short stop the 1440p and type out 2560x1440 please.

Not true. It's actually the other way around although resistance is negligible in both cases. The reason its often thousands of smaller strands is for flexibility. First, it isn't entirely uncommon for someone to pay out the wazoo for a new turntable. Better needle, pickup mic, yadda yadda yadda. Second, Hi-Fi headphones can easily cost a grand. More so if they require an amplifier (looking at you HiFiman). Is there a difference? I'd wager so but I don't have the gear to test it. Is there a point of diminishing returns? Of course there is. There is for just about everything, but in this case its much higher than $200 for each. I myself use the apparently popular Sennheiser HD280s and they're great for $80, but I know the HD650s will mop the floor with them. Lastly, the only time paying for cable makes sense is if you're sending a signal over long distances. That's about the only time ultra pure, gas injected übercopper and (more sensibly) shielding are going to have an effect. But yeah, I usually laugh at the people who actually buy them. Bonus points if they bought this as well.

Kind of. I try to get my music in flac when available and would happily spend thousands on a good system if I had it kickin' about. I'm not mental over it however as there are much bigger things to worry about than sampling rates. I found this video particularly informative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ That said, again I would prefer to pay a bit more to get better sound quality, however I personally find spending north of $15k like some do to be a tad ridiculous on a 2 channel home stereo. And you also have the people that spend hundreds of dollars on power cords to "improve" sound quality. Cause apparently electrical grade copper isn't enough.

You aren't gonna find a cheap gaming laptop. They simply do not exist. No cheap solution can provide 60 FPS at 1366x768. At least not yet. Screen capping is going to annihilate a cheap laptop. Here's a review of the best integrated graphics around right now. The only thing on those graphs in your budget would be the 4600 (on mobile i.e. slower) and the A10-4600m. So if you're really set on a gaming laptop, you're going to have to double your budget, especially if you're gonna screen cap. On the desktop side, things change a bit. Gigachip's build isn't all that bad and is one of the few cases where a bulldozer based CPU will work as you're set on doing a youtube channel (i.e. video encoding). It will easily handle skype and games and should (in theory) handle screen capping as well. Your load times will suck but the games will be playable. One thing I would do however is swap the GT 640 for a Raedon 7770. its only $20 (or about 3 pounds) more and significantly more powerful.

The worst pain I had was when I was a kid. Testicular torsion, or when one or both twist enough to cut off the blood supply which as you may imagine is very painful and it takes a few days to not be like that provided you're lucky enough. That's when I found out what an ultrasound is.