MajesticTreeFrog

When people complain about expandability, the only valid thing I can see is the video card. Everything else can be daisy chained with either firewire or USB. Also, people generally don't need that much stuff. When I go visit my dad, he has the mouse, keyboard, monitor, a printer, and he used to have a scanner before that became part of the printer. Even the sound card can be upgraded this way, though its a bit more expensive. Seriously though, how many people buying cheap PCs are into messing with computer upgrades. The one thing apple needs to do is up the base ram to 512, because OSX really needs it.

People don't want to take the time to get used to something different. And really, you can't blame them. If all they are doing is trying to print a report, it makes sense to just use what you know. On the other hand, the people waiting in line are stupid.

Sadly, in America I get a good deal with 500 down/50 up for 35$ a month.

The 4gen ipod was finally cracked. People used some code that made the ipod make peizo accoustic beeps (they found this by accident). Using this, they made the code read the firmware and emit different beeps for 1s and 0s. Then, they recorded the beeps and wrote software to reincode that to actual binary. Now that they have the firmware, they can learn how to talk to the ipod internals.

Actually, the hard drive degredation is a result of the filesystem used, in windows case either fat32(ancient) or NTFS. There are other filesystems do not have this problem. Just FYI.

Well, the point is that you can never prove anything, but you CAN disprove at least some things. The issue with stating that the bible, or any other religious text is true is that as soon as you do that, any discrepancy acts as at least a partial disproof. How partial or absolute the disproof is depends on the extent to which the faith/religion rests on that truth being necessary. If faith rests on something being infallible (like the pope at one time) then as soon as a mistake is made things fall apart. As for word for word vs. phrase for phrase translations, word for word is less accurate in some ways. For instance, if one were to translate the phrase 'the jig is up' from english to some other language word for word, then it would come out saying that there was a floating saw. This is, to say the least, innaccurate.

Actually, that is the best evidence of all.

I think the biggest issue with the shroud is that if it really did rest on the face of a person, it wouldn't look like it did. The face depicted on the shroud is of a man with an increadibly narrow face. Now, a peice of cloth laid over someones face would make them look bloated (its hard to show why without diagrams). So, I am disinclined to think it is legit, and the catholic church probably feels the same way. They really don't need any further embarassments over and above what they have suffered already in the last couple of years. I think they are playing it safe.

Indeed. Please don't interpret what I have said an linux hate or something of that sort. It is mainly in reaction to the topic, which is that it is time to switch. What I am saying is really, that its ALMOST time to switch. I look forward to that time. Similarly, most of what I have said is regarding linux as a day to day desktop OS for regular users. For advanced users, and admins, and servers, etc, I think it is currently quite good. When I get into discussions, I often play the devils advocate. So, please interpret my statements similarly.

Actually, there is an answer. For analogy, think of a movie, in film form with all the frame in front of you. That film represents our lives. Now, the being looking at that film is god. God is outside time. He can see all that will happen. The people in the film/life can make choices, and have free will. God is outside of time, and sees simply the choice that they make. Its a matter of perspective. That still doesn't change that god can choose what will happen. However, it allows both an all powerfull god and free will.

And the answer to all of this is for the linux community to sacrifice the thing they worship: choice. Get one of the GUIs, any of them will really do, and work to making it the defacto choice because it is the best for any personal computer. You know, something that will run fine on anything less than 5 or 6 years old. And build it to be user friendly and have good plug and play as primary features. Copy OSX stuff like services(even if they don't like the interface, copy the ideas behind it. Hell, improve it.). If they build it, they will come.

What you want in photoshop(esp. 7 and CS) is the paintbrush tool. You also likely want a tablet if you are using it for drawing. The tablet + paintbrush solution is crazy for doing art, for instance: my lizardman As for the difference between illustrator and photoshop, illustrator is for illustration. The difference is that illustrator mainly does vector graphics, whereas photoshop handles pixel or raster based graphics(like for the web and such). Finally, imageready that comes with photoshop is for taking photoshop stuff and setting it up for web use(like slices of images and such)

My point was that drivers EXISTED. The problem was getting them to work. Other than that, I agree. It would be nice if something that allowed true system independence like java (only having it work) would come out.

I agree, fair trade is a very good goal. Now, what needs to happen is to create an actually fair definition of fair. Which strikes me as hard. Here is to hoping it can be pulled off.

There is a reason money was developed: It allows for more efficient exchange. For instance: A person raises some cows and wants to trade them for veggies or something. The person with the veggies has no interest in cows, and has no interest in messing with selling them to someone else. So, cow guy must find an intermediary thing to trade for that veggie man IS interested in. Multiply this times society and the usefullness of a universal exchange unit becomes obvious. Currently, workers 'barter' their time/labor in return for universal exchange units(money) which they then barter for other services. The error you are making is that everyone has access to a commodity to trade, such as a good. Really, what people generally have is their service, their direct labor.

Well, that only works assuming they can even get on the net with linux. Linux drivers and such for tech(that old people DO buy btw) is sorta sketchy, especially plug and play. For instance: Linux drivers for my USB wireless card supossedly exist, but getting them working quickly(even with the help of a friend who has been running linux for a long time) proved to be more than a few hours work(and since that was all we had, we gave up). Yet more gui cleaning, better help files/wizards/etc and easy driver stuff is what is needed. And while I would be willing to help with help files/documentation, I don't know enough to do so.... because its too hard to get started.

I find this view interesting given your support for workers rights. The poor and the working class have the least, and generally need whatever they have, and therefore would be in the worst position in such a system. They could barter their work for food, but then they would be working for many people, and that would make things inefficient for them and cause them to have to work even harder than they do now for the same stuff.

A lot of the topics here have focused on Religion, so I decidede to switch things up.What are your views on economics? Free Market all the way? What about market failures. Do you think there are ways of making communism work?

The problem here (as I see it) is that Christianity holds god as both Omniscient and Omnipotent. As such, things only occur, at all, because he allows them to. Being omniscient, he knows all that will happen, and always has known. Thus, at the time of creation, by choosing to create things as he did, he caused those events to happen to Job.

As much as I agree with you, C++ as the language has nothing to do with anything. Its as stable as any other language. Its the stability of what you write with it that matters. The language has is only relevant to the extent that it makes that easy(but there are usually trade offs for that). For OSX, you could talk about things like universal spell check, color control, text quality/print consistency, consistent GUI behavior, lack of bugs, security, workflow improvements, or anything else really. As for the grandma who can't figure things out, that is OS9 more than likely. It did indeed suck. Don't judge OSX on that, because they aren't related at all other than name. Also, there is always the internet. Finally, the whole point of Mac is to have things NOT go wrong. Which I think is the correct approach. That said, I find problems with OSX are much easier to fix than windows issues, and I have only used OS X a few months(versus years with windows).

Well, I don't know about where you live, but guns are not nearly so available as 'on the street corner'. Criminals(long term ones) may know where to get guns on the side of the street, but random white collar angry at his wife for cheating does not. The period is to let him cool down. It doesn't make things worse, but it might make things better. As for the study you posted, I am aware of it, it was part of the stuff I looked at for my research. Results from this study and others are inconclusive, and often the studies have rather fatal flaws, or are only accurate for a few years(at which point the trend reverses). This is on both sides of the debate. THIS IS ALL SECONDARY. Guns are not the be all end all of the solution or the problem. On both sides, they are a symptom. The real issues are the ones not being debated which is sad. That said, I agree with you Nilsc, education is always the answer. However, it doesn't have to always be guns. For instance, instead of country line dance being taught in schools (I am in NC), they should teach aikido or tai chi or some other martial art. Correct teaching of martial arts is more than moves, it involves teaching awareness of a situation, and avoiding situations where violence may occur. Like I said, the real issues/solutions are not being debated. You should have a separate poll option: intelligent gun management.

So, total pack mentality. Fair enough.

Well, for MB, since you have so much already, try Shuttle. They make stable, bare bones MBs for 50 bucks. You can read reviews, and I have been nothing but happy wiht mine(its what I have in my PC). As for the rest, it needs to be split between processor/vid/and ram. Old SDR ram just won't cut it. Frankly, the jump to new ram will make as much of a difference as the other components. If you can swing it, go for an AMD-64 processor and skimp on the graphics card. This way your system will be more updateable in the future. As for graphics, these days you can go pretty low and still play decently. Go pick up a low end geforce or radeon, and check reviews to get the best one for the money you have left. A better thing would be to know what you intend to do with the computer. Certain configs work better for certain things(like video work: all processor and RAM, vid card is rather secondary).

I would like similar advice, but this is the wrong forum for this.

Thank you, and you are welcome. I came to my (semi) religious views through being challenged. So, I find that thoughtfull challenges do not hurt faith(unless that faith is truly unwarranted), but instead clarify and deepen it. Well, if you are like me(in the past) then that feeling comes from meeting mainly the loonies or the ignorant. Not everyone is like that, nor are religions(per say) the problem. The problem is dogma, the lack of thought, which unfortunately some religous groups(or even social groups like racists) press into others and their children. I agree with you about scientology though. It is truly a den of evil(at the top). And I pitt the poor people suckered into it. I had a step-sister in the witness protection program because they tried to kill her for leaving.(Had, because my father and that woman divorced).