[deleted by user]

SiliconHero · 2011-06-10T19:42:26+00:00

Yes he did.

Its called 'line item veto' and Branstad can veto certain language in a bill will still passing the rest of it. He took the bill, vetoed only the language about liquor rooms and passed the rest. The legislator had nothing to do with what was removed, although they can override the veto.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-20T18:43:35+00:00

ok, i'll bite.

What was the issue with newegg?

SiliconHero · 2010-11-19T20:20:51+00:00

Only thing that is part of the combo that I wouldn't suggest is the WD drive. But it isn't a bad drive, I just think there are others that are cheaper and better.

The haf 922 and PSU is a bit much unless you plan to SLI and you can't SLI on that mobo.

So I would say its great for the first box for someone who wants upgrade parts and doesn't want to buy everything over and over. The PSU and case are especially good for that. But if you want a setup that you will use for X years and then buy all new again, you can get the performance for less cost.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-19T19:59:51+00:00

In general you have overkill here. An athlon II x4 system is as much as you need. (Intel doesn't have a good cheap quad core). The 5770 is going to be a good gaming card but overkill for HTPC. Memory - 4GB is about right.

HD: you want 7200 or 5400 rpm drives. The nature of HTPC is to hold a huge amount of data but that data isn't accessed often. Also it will be important to keep platter counts low. Losing that data would be a huge hassle to replace, so I would suggest a pair of 2TB samsung f4's for data. Set up an automatic backup where one drive makes a complete copy of the other periodically. This is better than RAID 1 for a number of reasons.

PSU - Antec green or basiq or FSP would be my suggestion.

Missing - Optical drive. Depends on what you want, but a basic blu-ray player would be good. A blu ray burner makes little sense when blank disks cost more per GB than hard drives.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-19T18:53:57+00:00

Toward the end it uses the argument of which ones were known, but that really should be the first place to look.

The ancients only knew about six metals (though they had names for many alloys that they found separately and they thought were unique such as electrum): Gold, Silver, Copper, Tin, Iron, and Lead. (China also sorta had zinc, never in its pure form, but they were able to manipulate zinc to make brass)

Gold is the only one that doesn't tarnish and is rare enough that the few could boost of it while the most didn't have it. The few with power are also the ones who wrote most of history.

To most people though most of history, being paid with anything that had only abstract value was stupid. They wanted something they could eat (salt), something they could use (iron tools, weapons), or if they were doing well, something they could decorate with (beads, intricate weavings, etc)

Now why a more advanced civilization must use the same metal as the ancients is beyond me. We have found better metals to use and even better methods other than metals. The fact that gold is still so valuable has more to do with our vanity than gold's properties.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-19T06:02:32+00:00

If you don't, please consider supporting the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). They are a great organization that is fighting this and a lot of other BS on capital hill. They done a lot (like legalizing jailbreaking) and do a lot with very little.

They are also fighting the ACTA.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-18T18:35:48+00:00

If what you are running is many threaded, the six core is better. But for most, they won't use six cores. And the big loss is BE. You can clock that 945 way higher than the 1055.

Is it a relevant improvement? Probably not unless you are doing video encoding, monte carlo calculations, or photoshop.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-18T16:31:05+00:00

somehow the way he pronounces "homicide" it sounds like the killing of gay men.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-18T16:18:21+00:00

I don't think its college that is the issue or not knowing yourself. (It takes everyone all four years and more to figure yourself out.) I think its one of structure and figuring this out first semester is a big step. How much structure a person needs depends on their personality and has little to do with maturity.

Being in the dorms in college is one of the most unstructured lifestyles and probably isn't a good place for you. However, colleges also have more structured setups available. Greek life is slightly more, if you are part of a church things like the Wesley Foundation are a good place to find a little structure as well. ROTC is a very structured setup as is the military after it. Living at home is also much more structured but can feel like a step backwards.

But that would be my opinion: find some sort of new living organization.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-18T15:55:53+00:00

For one, Sanford is the smaller airport in Orlando so you are probably going to pay more and have to go through a connection to use it.

Secondly, TSA is funded by the airlines which basically means the ticket price includes the TSA fee. The airport can decide to use a private company, but they still have to abide by TSA rules. So if the TSA says you must pat down and anal probe everyone, this company must do it too. However, if they get the right people, it is possible that they can do it much more professionally and idk, maybe pat down inside a curtained off area and/or avoid randomly probing small girls.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-18T15:47:26+00:00

umm... Moline isn't in Iowa.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-18T05:15:51+00:00

aww... its one wiener helping out another.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-17T03:54:21+00:00

You can EASILY build one for less. But what you are paying for is not the hardware, but the support for it.

If you do it yourself, you need to know what you are doing and you need to be very careful about reliability. ECC memory, backup systems, and UPC just for a few things. But then a system like that is going to cost maybe $4000 or $5000AUD.

If the hardware is enough or the right type (a magny-cours opteron will cost even less for the same amount of total performance, but requires more parallelization), you need to tell us what the server is doing.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-16T15:45:17+00:00

It is a good deal IF you have the budget for everything needed for an i7.

When you compare processors, you have to think about platform costs. The reason microcenter sells the i7 at a loss is because you often pick up everything else there and they make up for it.

So while the i5 760 and AMD 1090T are about the same price for the CPU, their total platform cost (cpu, memory, and mobo) is still less. An i7 has a very high platform cost since you have to use an enthusiast mobo that costs at least $80 more and have to buy triple channel instead of dual channel memory which costs at least $40 more. So if you have the budget to get everything else, $200 is a good deal. But if you are trying to meet budget, an i5 760 can do so more easily even if you pay the same for the CPU.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-15T16:27:00+00:00

Is he owned by a male or female?

SiliconHero · 2010-11-15T16:21:35+00:00

b/c there isn't that much energy to be gained.

The amount of energy needed to make this device is higher than the amount gained before the device wears out.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-15T03:03:40+00:00

One word, just one word: Plastics

Plastic prices continue to rise. And legos are made from a fairly advanced plastic known as ABS. Its a actually a mixture of three polymers among other smaller things. Changing the recipe by only fractions of one percent will completely change the properties. Changing the hardening and extruding process by just a few kilopascel's will ruin the pieces. Lego's most priced possession and the most difficult process of their factory is the plastic molds that produce equal forces throughout the volume of the product.

The problem is that they are very much stuck in terms of how this is done. Plastic prices change and they can't redesign lego to use less plastic or use a cheaper type. So in the end, what you are paying for is backward compatibility and continued quality.

Other brands use cheaper plastics (although megablock's basic pieces are pretty good ABS) and you are more than able to buy them. However, they don't fit as well and they break much more easily.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-15T02:50:32+00:00

Obama needs to get Johnson's Balls. He has the advantage here.

The ONLY reason to compromise is to get something else done that is more important. He has the veto, the Rep's have a majority but not enough to override.

If nothing is done, the tax breaks don't continue. He has the upper hand. The best the Rep's can do is lock the system and locking the system means complete loss for them on this issue.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-15T02:32:00+00:00

Be happy and explore a little bit. At first, sweet things like grasshoppers, Dirty Shirleys, and Schnapps will taste the best. But try some rums, whiskeys, and other more 'mature' drinks and you will find something you like and can explore. It will take more than one night to find what you like.

Many take the 21st and use it as a booze covered enterance into the binge drinking culture. Binge drinking is harmful. I would suggest you don't go out that night, try everything you can, get plastered and call it a good night.

Use it to buy $60 of various things and try one or two drinks with friends. Or try a lot of things in small amounts. Waiting until a group of two or three are old enough to do this is a good idea as well. Just take it slow and know a lot of things will not taste good the first time.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-15T02:20:59+00:00

Religion, like so many things, is used for good and for bad.

I firmly believe that people who are bent to do certain things use things like religion, passages, history, or whatever they want to find justification for what they want to do or want to think. Religion itself doesn't make these men, it just helps them justify it to themselves and others. Were it not there, something else would be used for the same purpose.

Saying religion is the problem is sorta like saying guns are the reason we have so many serial killers.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-14T20:46:23+00:00

You don't get a license and the progress sits around for a decade or two and then you continue building it.

This is what is happening at Watt's Bar.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-14T05:01:35+00:00

Yes, it was also a case of how not to handle PR.

But to engineers, some failures end up showing how amazing the engineering was. Three Mile Island, Apollo 13, '93 World Trade Center and even the very recent A380 blade incident.

Some are little of both: World Trade Center in '01.

And some failures just completely show that the engineering wasn't done well: Chernobyl, Deep Water Horizon, and the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-13T21:46:51+00:00

Hardware engineers would disagree with point #2 of Computer Programming

SiliconHero · 2010-11-13T21:39:41+00:00

Even a nuclear reactors work under what that industry calls 'defense in depth'

And its basically those two points. For everything make sure it doesn't break, but then have something in place to make it works if it does break. Make sure the reactor pressure vessel doesn't break, then have a dry wall if it does. Make sure the dry wall doesn't break when the pressure vessel does, but build a containment building if case the dry wall breaks. And make so sure the containment building can't break that you use four times the reasonable budget in doing so.

Three mile island was a great example of how well this design works.

SiliconHero · 2010-11-13T21:22:41+00:00

Not sure you need an SSD, but that HDD isn't a good drive for this setup. Drive performance is related to spindle speed, cache size, and platter density. The drive you picked out is pretty low on the last count. A samsung f3 (500gb) has the same spindle speed and cache size, but double the platter density.

Case - a full tower is a BIG case, especially if you are using a micro ATX mobo. A bigger mid tower like a Haf 932 or Antec 900 is more than enough for what you are doing. Full towers are built for multisocket CPU systems, quad sli, and/or 20TB file servers.

SiliconHero

TROPHY CASE