rayzoredge

I suggest you take a look at what they recommend at Tom's Hardware. It's a pretty good site to reference and research benchmarks for processors, graphics cards, and of course, the newest, latest, and greatest stuff. (The above link will throw you into the best graphics cards for the money @ ~$100+, reviewed during this month.) If it's just your friend that's going, have him or her do you a favor and see if the graphics card you finally set your eyes on is even available there and how much it costs. The currency in China is the yuan, and Google says that 1 Chinese yuan is approximately $0.15 right now. Use Froogle to try to find the best deal on your graphics card for stateside (but check NewEgg, TigerDirect, eBay, and PriceWatch to double-check anyway in case Froogle doesn't catch a cheaper price) and compare the prices between the Chinese variant and the U.S. variant. (Don't forget to factor in shipping, unless you can convince your friend to fork over the cash to ship it for you.)

It makes sense.Look at the direction that phones are taking. It's not a phone anymore... it's a multi-functional device that is convenient for you to do just about anything that you normally do on a day-by-day basis. Phones are getting "smarter" and more capable. What used to be a luxury of mobile communication branched to being a ubiquitous necessity and a gadget that everyone is going to have. (Even SafeLink Wireless, a branch of Tracfone, is giving cell phones and a decent minute plan to those that can't afford them otherwise using the money out of the Universal Service Fund that cell phone companies contribute to by way of generosity or by charging existing cell phone users more for "government fees.")A lot of phones nowadays offer Bluetooth technology. I saw a video and supporting article last year that featured a Bluetooth "gun" which was able to pinpoint and hack a ground Bluetooth-capable phone from the top of a rather tall building (easily over 20 stories), allowing access to saved texts, phone book information, and all the goodies just by accessing an open Bluetooth protocol.We're using phones now for our music, our digital media, sharing pictures and video, and even as PDAs with smartphones. They're essentially portable computers... and they're going to be susceptible to every sort of malicious intent that you would be subject to with the use of a computer on the Internet, but to include the much-easier occurrence of losing it or having it stolen.And the future even suggests using cell phones as a payment option, allowing you to ditch your wallet and scan your phone to make transactions using credit card information stored in the phone. IDs will be a thing of the past when they start using phones with digital IDs in the same fashion... if they decide to go this route. (They're already starting experiments with people, which currently doesn't seem to be a fad that catches on right now... but who knows what the future holds?)How do you combat this kind of thing? A little common sense goes a long way. I wouldn't worry so much about someone being bored enough to target me and hack my phone to get phone numbers or contact information... or even listen to my boring conversations with other people. I would worry more if and when we start storing more sensitive information on our phones, such as financial things. A hacker, if determined and skilled enough, WILL be able to get into anything. You, as the victim, have to set up your deterrents to help prevent or discourage being a victim.If you're one of those people that are paranoid about people listening to your conversations, establish a mindset with personal security (PERSEC) involved. If you're going to talk about sensitive topics, do it in person. If you're divulging company secrets, do it in person. If someone wants to know badly enough, they would be stalking you anyway... but it makes it harder if they can't get at your personal information through your phone.Right now, I wouldn't care if anyone hacked me through my phone. The iDEN and Bluetooth 1.1 transfer speeds would be enough of a deterrent to begin with, not to mention that I have a simple phone with nothing of worth information-wise on it. Makes you second-guess that Blackberry or high-speed fancy phone purchase, eh?

x2 No actual performance changes in my eyes, although I'm running FF 3.5.2 on a decent system with company-provided cable Internet.

No antivirus is 100% effective. Nowadays, more of the focus is generalized around malware, to include spyware, Trojans, and other malicious code. Personally, I run Norton Internet Security Suite 2009 to give myself some sort of an illusion that my PC is secure. I also utilize Panda's scan services and Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware for full manual system scans just to make sure... and even then, I'm not 100% satisfied. It still boils down to individual usage habits. If you indulge in risky behavior or peruse in popular attack venues (like social networking, sharing files with others, and even Internet shopping), you can fall for a lot of socially-engineered attacks, let a virus or Trojan into your system, etc.

I'm sure that you'd be charged with much more than manslaughter if you actually committed the act... it's a whole different screwball game then. But we're just talking about the mere utterance of the thought here... kind of like how you want to kill your little brother/sister sometimes.

It depends. For the most part, I think that most girls actually are more attractive without make-up. Going au naturale actually works for every girl, and I would prefer one without than the same one with. However, if it is not overdone like most girls tend to do, make-up can accentuate and bring out certain facial features. I am not a huge fan of lipstick, and I think it's one of the first things that make a girl absolutely artificial. However, some girls probably can do lipstick well in the sense that they can actually apply it correctly and with the right color, it could help with the whole ensemble (or ruin it). I do like eye makeup, but that's VERY easily overdone too... and it looks horrible. I'm not sure what you girls call it, but it's darkening the outline of your eyes... not eye shadow, I don't think. (Eye shadow is another thing that I think is rather horrid for the most part.) Girls have to remember that make-up is there to touch up on some things and maybe make some features look SLIGHTLY better... but it won't improve anything. It's too bad that girls are mostly brainwashed by our society and "cover girls" and models to care about what we actually have to say... I actually find a LOT of girls rather attractive. To put a more humorous twist on it, you can't fix "ugly," and you can only polish a turd so much. But for those of you who actually think you're ugly are usually the girls who aren't, and for those of you girls who actually cake the make-up on actually become eyesores, and for those that don't give a d*mn are probably actually pretty but obnoxious enough to be a turn-off anyway... so make what you can of it and remember this: if you're trying that damn hard to impress a guy, you're most likely going to attract the shallow retard that's not worth keeping.

In America, our first Amendment protects our freedom of speech: It is not illegal for you to say those words; therefore, you are doing no wrong in saying them. However, you would be doing wrong in planning and conspiring if you actually meant those words, not to mention that you would be assaulting [def: the threat of violence] the President and thus can be held and tried for those two offenses. There's also the whole common sense thing... It's like how when Obama came down to the Portsmouth High School in little 'ol New Hampshire and although someone was actually found sneaking into the school prior to the town hall meeting with a pocket knife and a loaded, unregistered gun in his car, there was more hullabaloo with a guy who had permission to be on the grounds with a gun in a leg holster. Yes, the guy had every right to have a weapon, thanks to the second Amendment to the Constitution, but common sense dictates that you probably shouldn't have a weapon near the President of the United States as I'm sure it would be suspicious. (The guy had it on him to prove a point, which did happen and which also drew a large amount of attention thanks to the media... all of which he wanted in the first place.)

Leadership demonstrated anywhere has the same concept, no matter what job you hold or where you are on the totem pole.You lead by example. You garner respect and capability of working with others by doing things with people. Leadership isn't about delegating downwards, which most people would think. It includes doing the dirty work with your subordinates; suggesting ideas and thinking outside the box with/to your peers and management; and showing that you are proactive, eager, and willing to take risk.Xuan is a leader by helping lead his fellow co-workers into an organized system to be able to work together most efficiently. He took the first step in acknowledging that there was a need for organization and a system of labor and established roles for everyone. A leader also listens, and he does this by consoling others with work-related or personal problems. Taking that first step establishes you as someone that your peers will come to or look up to.OP is a leader too just by doing his job. He is the subject matter expert in advising others with technologies and leading them to help with all the confusing legalese and licensing crap that businesses have to deal with when concerning software and hardware.I am a peon at my workplace, but my expertise lies in getting close-out packages for projects and I tell the guys what I need in order to send them out, and of course they look to me to figure out what needs to be done to get the entirety of the project done (including the as-built). I'm also an IT-savvy person, so I help my co-workers with computer problems and try to make their life easier with the crappy laptops that we have to work with thanks to a tight IT budget.I am more of a leader during my U.S. Army Reserve time, as I am a team leader for our unit's combat medics. As a senior person, I see myself not as a leader, but as the go-to person when questions arise. I take care of my guys and make sure that they are fed first, get the goodies first, and their Army behind-the-scenes administrative crap are taken of. I make sure that they are eligible and put forth favorable actions for them to help bolster their careers and their DA files in order to make sure that they get promoted on time and have opportunities that I never had because a lot of my previous leadership failed me. I am also the go-to guy for medical advice and action, and I take care of anyone that comes up to me with confidentiality and professionalism. Out in the field, I can also consider showing leadership abilities when I hold short classes on combat tactics, volunteer for grunt work and sweat with the rest of the guys, and demonstrate my prowess with certain skills during training exercises... and later, during the real thing.It's actually quite easy to be a leader in certain aspects and capabilities. It's much harder to become what others consider a leader. You can be a friend and be that someone that others look up to, but a great leader is able to do things that are unexpected and make the tougher calls... and have others listen.

This is mis-categorized... this isn't news, nor is it hot.Oh, wait, I forgot that there's a d*mn FOLLOWING behind MJ's every move...Who cares? Let the guy die already. We have soldiers dying on our "war on terrorism" and no one cares about them. We have people dying left and right in our own nation, some the kindest, most awesome people in the world, others not so much. Do we have followings for those people? Hell... does anyone even know that Farrah Fawcett died? (We did the right thing for her: quick news flash, then stopped flooding newscasts with a dead person that overshadows other possible news or what we call "news" nowadays. Or at least I haven't heard about her since the first and only news brief on her death.)Oh wait... I also forgot that news corporations and the media like to play on America's fanaticism over celebrities and other "important" people.Carry on... I'm in the wrong. Sorry for being out of line.

1. Take some transparent tape, take out someone's Ethernet cable, put the tape over the head, then slip it back in. Walla: a network issue that your coworker won't figure out anytime soon. 2. Create a shortcut leading to shutdown -s -t 10 -c "Windows has detected an error in the boot sector of the system and must shut down to conduct repair procedures. Please close all running programs and save your work." and disguising it as something ordinary as the Internet Explorer icon leads to some fun and frustration too. This causes your unknown victim to try to run Internet Explorer only to be met with a message and a 10-second countdown to shutdown. 3. Slightly disconnect USB input devices and make people wonder why their mouse or keyboard isn't working. Better yet, if they're still using PS/2 devices, switch the keyboard and mouse (plug the keyboard into the mouse port, mouse into the keyboard port).

So of course, I'd like to bring up the issue of child support.I used to think that child support was an important thing that should be followed through and that it was a good source of funds to help with the many expenses that come with kids, to include food, clothing, shelter, diapers, baby wipes, rash creme, blah blah blah. And I can see how not only that it is important, but crucial when you have children and having to be a stay-at-home mom with no way of making any income.My main gripe about this whole issue is that we're not getting anything for child support from dear 'ol dad because he apparently doesn't have any money to give. The guy has a record, isn't able to get a job, and has his girlfriend do rent, the utilities, and and all that good stuff. His parents apparently enable him by paying for his phone and buying things to help him out, and as much as I can sympathize with his situation, I also don't care because I'm so frustrated over the whole thing.Look at it this way. He and my fiancee signed a contractual agreement stating parental responsibilities and other stuff to include a $50 per week for child support if he was unemployed, with the figure ballooning to a very reasonable $550 per month for when he does get a job. However, he hasn't been able to get a job... again, apparently, because of his record. I have no idea how hard it is to get a job with a black mark, so I can't say anything but be able to imagine that if I was an employer, I would not take more than a glance at him after seeing that. I don't know anything about unemployment benefits or if he's even getting anything. All I know is that we're not getting crap for financial support from him except for the beds that he "bought" for the kids for daddy weekends at his place and for raincoats... two things of which my fiancee had to remind him about constantly until he broke down and finally bought them. With who's money is anyone's guess, considering we haven't seen $50 a week since they both signed that contractual agreement. So basically, he's unreliable on the financial front. (We won't get into his parenting.)With all this being said, here's the kicker: If he can't get a job because of his record, but is being supported by his girlfriend and his parents, where's the incentive in even getting a job? If he works, all that money goes towards child support and towards restitution, basically, so he would be working for free. There isn't an incentive for him to work unless the court asks if he's been helping out financially, and then we would have to basically tell the truth and say no, which lands him in jail, which doesn't change anything because now he CAN'T work because he's in jail. Rock and a hard place. Can't ask the guy to give us what he doesn't have, and if he does, I don't trust him to even admit that he has some cash, because I'm sure he's spending it elsewhere. (This is the same guy that "lost" my games he borrowed and the Wii that I let him use for the kids, of which I asked for it back and that's when he gave me the *BLEEP* explanation of "the ex-girlfriend taking it" and lame apology of "sorry." He pawned it, I'm sure.)So how does one win in this situation? I don't see one, with what I outlined earlier. Right now, I'm taking responsibility and taking care of three of HIS kids. The kids are awesome, don't get me wrong, but at the same time, the principal of it is disgusting. Until he turns a leaf, lands a job, and actually pays forth, I can't be anything but at the very best indifferent of him. Right now, it's hard to be civil when this sort of frustration clouds my head. It's been an entire year and he still hasn't been able to do anything about supporting his own kids. Can he help it? I don't know, but I'd like to say yes.Is there a way to get anything out of this? Like I said, can't ask him for what he doesn't have, and putting him in jail does no one any good.

Forgot to add my own profile links and such... I'm such a hypocrite. My eBay Feedback My eBay My World Profile Just to be able to show that yes, there's a method to my madness, and at least 28 people can attest positively (within the past year) that it works.

+1 on mostly everything on this topic. Ash-Bash... probably the best post I've seen so far from you. One thing that you can do for yourself is to include your eBay profile page link so that people CAN see that you are a guru and that you aren't just making things up. Plus, I believe you require a bank account and/or credit card to establish a PayPal account, which in the US, you have to be 18 to snag the plastic. (I'm not sure if there's an age requirement for an individual bank account.) As you've said, credentials. I'm simply amazed at how crappy some auction listings are on eBay... next to CraigsList for being uninformative, uninteresting, not enough or too much information, etc. I will support most of Ash-Bash's points because I use the same things to make sure that I sell my stuff. I am not an avid seller and I do not live off of eBay, and most people that do sell on eBay are doing it to get rid of a few odd things or to try to establish an online business. A few things to consider in addition, however: - When Ash-Bash said research, I think he meant to look at other listings to see what they say, what the descriptions are, etc. However, I look more into it than that. I start by knowing what I'm selling. As silly as that sounds, it's important to know what exactly you are selling. If you don't know what the heck it is, what condition it's in, what the history of the item is, any damages done... you can't really describe it very well or even do any research, can you? We'll go with the example of an iPod. On close examination, you will find out that it is an iPod Photo, fourth generation with 30GB. This is much different than an iPod Touch, second generation with 8GB, and so forth... a multi-hundred-dollar difference. You need to know this stuff so that you can set a realistic price, be able to describe your item so that buyers will know what they're looking at, and the more they know, the more interest you get. No one's going to spend a lot of dough on something they have no clue about, and the fact that they can't hold it, touch it, try it, or test it makes the mystery harder to unravel... something you're going to have to do for them. Another important part of research includes knowing what your auction price will be. I personally like to offer my items as an auction because it gives people that interest to bid for something for the possibility of getting it cheap. Be realistic. The person that wanted me to sell his iPod Photo told me that they were selling for $120. He was correct... to the extent that they were being offered on eBay for $120 for Buy-It-Now. Auctions were ending at $30-$50 for these things. Now, pretend to be a customer that wants an iPod Photo 30GB. Would you want to pay $120, or try for $30-50, maybe $60? Exactly. Be realistic. What I do with this sort of research is to search for the item I'm selling, then placing similar or exact items on my watch list to see where the auction closing price is at. Once I establish a trend, I shave off a bit of that price and start my bidding price at that amount. You COULD be adventurous and start at $0.01, but I like trying to make a return on my investment. No seller likes putting an auction out at a penny and then turns around to see that their $100+ item sold for a mere $4.51 because no one was interested enough in it. Another thing is interest. Is the eBay market looking for what you're selling? Everyone is dumping their iPods on eBay, but are people actually buying them up? From what I'm seeing, even people are wanting to snag iPod Photos, but for cheap. So there is a market, but it's competitive and we're not going to make much from it. It's your call whether to even try or not. Watch how people are doing their shipping. Free shipping is always a nice thing, but we all know that shipping isn't free for us. So make it work for you. Like I said, I always take the closing price of the trend and shaving a bit off and starting it from there. It helps with making a decent amount off of my item and shipping doesn't really kill me with the items I sell. But it's your call. Remember, people are trying to snag a deal. Charging someone an insane amount to ship an item will turn most people away. - Now, back to the item. When putting up your listing, I agree and disagree with Ash Bash on headlines. You don't need a subtitle, but it can help if you make use of it correctly. An extra $0.50 won't kill you, but utilize that space well. You only have so many characters in which to insert keywords. Which brings me to my next point. When people search for items, there's a common search term. "iPod" would be one. "new" works. Even specifics are helpful for people who like to refine their search terms, so "30GB" will really assist and highlight your listing from others when punched in as a search term. There are problems, however. People mis-type and misspell things... including you. Don't misspell your item headline... that's just inviting a savvy eBay user to steal your item for less than nothing, or it invites no one at all because no one is looking for an "iopd." Double-check your spelling. Also, someone looking for "30GB" may not actually find your listing with "30 GB." See where that might be a problem? You can also use CAPS LOCK FOR YOUR HEADLINES, but I see it as childish and dumb. On eBay, it doesn't matter as long as you can attract some attention to your headline. Use at your own discretion. I rarely if ever do. - Now, does the item have any scratches? Any bumps or bruises? How old is it? Does everything work? Are all the accessories included? Looks like the finish has some minor dings and scratches to it. That and I only have the charger cable and nothing else. PUT THAT ON YOUR LISTING DESCRIPTION. I also disagree with Ash-Bash on technical jargon. Keep it simple at the beginning of the auction, but put technical specifications at the bottom of your listing so that it is easily accessible and again, the buyer will know what he or she is buying. - Take pictures of everything that you're including. Put down the history of the item, to include repair work, what you usually do with it, etc. Honesty builds trust. Trust builds interest. I personally take pictures of everything included, then zoom in and take detailed pictures to show any scratches, dings, scrapes, etc. And take good pictures. A blurry photo does no one any good. A low-resolution photo is just as bad. Aim for at least 800x600 so that the customer can actually SEE what he or she is buying. Post every good picture that you take, and offer more photos if buyers want them. Encourage questions about anything from the item itself to shipping to special arrangements. Accommodate to the best of your ability without risking yourself to dealings outside of eBay/PayPal. Oh, and do not take anything other than PayPal! This is to protect you and the buyer. There is no reason not to... both parties are protected if something goes awry during the transaction phase. - I also disagree a bit, but not much, about adding personal information to "spice up the auction." No one cares about you on eBay or about your personal story. They are there to buy something. They MAY want to know why you're selling "such a great item." If it is so awesome, why are you selling it? Always put yourself in the role of the buyer before you make up your listing. Putting out extraneous information on your auction listing may turn people away too. As long as it is relevant to the item, it would be safe to include it. Otherwise, you can do without it. Then again, that's just my opinion. I'm also skeptical about the part where Ash-Bash mentions to ask for a sale. That's up to the buyer, and you don't want to try to coerce anyone into anything. Would you like to be pressured to buy anything? Then again, how do you do that on an auction listing with no immediate interactivity? Maybe if you were creative with your words and "show" how that particular item can be useful to the buyer, then yes, you can do that. However, most people on eBay know what they want and this kind of becomes a moot point. - Basically, Ash-Bash was on-point with most of his tips. Just keep in mind that you are dealing with a real person on the other end, so present your stuff as such! @Ash-Bash: As far as an e-book goes, good luck with that. I think most of these kinds of tips are available for free, and if not, you and I just provided a bunch of tips here. But carry on... you probably have a ton of unsaid goodies that you're saving up for your e-book.

So this might be hard to explain...1. At work, I've been suffering a strange issue on my work computers. I have one computer that I've recently wiped clean, reinstalled Windows XP, updated everything to include SP3, and it works GREAT. My laptop hasn't been wiped in a while, but it's still rather dependable. I had a configuration in where I was using the desktop locally and not connected to the company VPN and the laptop was, and I just shared a keyboard and mouse using Synergy.Now here's the issue in question. Whenever I would try to open, create, rename, move, or delete a file on my laptop, Explorer (as in Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer) would hang for a few seconds or more, then continue on to do whatever I just wanted to do. My desktop does not do this and it is not on the company VPN. Both computers have similar specifications (1.6ish GHz Pentium processors, 1GB RAM) and both are updated using Automatic Updates as per company standards.I just recently moved back up to the office and plugged my desktop back into the company LAN (accessible via VPN where I was previously with my laptop). I am now experiencing the same issue: with creating, renaming, moving, or deleting, it now stalls for a few seconds or more before continuing with the task... like it's checking with the server for some reason before performing what I wanted it to do. What gives?2. I mentioned Synergy earlier. Synergy is a program that allows for a host computer to share its keyboard and mouse inputs over a network so that you can literally use one pair of input devices for multiple computers.With that being said, both the desktop and the laptop were on the same network. They also work with each other with Synergy, as I've mentioned. The question here, though, is why does the client not see the host for five minutes or more, then all of a sudden connect as if everything was peachy? You would think that since everything was configured correctly on each end that they would "immediately" see each other and thus work in conjunction once that connection was established, but this wasn't the case. I would have to wade through error messages of the client not being able to connect to my host until suddenly, it just works. Not sure if it's Synergy or XP being dumb... but I'm wondering if anyone had an answer.3. This is more of a user account question. I noticed before that when I'm running a single user on my home machine that it boots up beautifully, no snags or lag. However, as soon as I decide to lock my machine with a password and use the Welcome screen, Windows XP takes a lot longer to log onto the machine: startup programs seem to "wake up late," etc. That's just one user: me. Same with my other computer that my fiancee is using: it worked great for me, but she decided to lock her account with a password and offer a Guest login for when her mom visited and wanted to use the computer. Now that laptop is slower than ever in just logging in! Is it because XP does a back-and-forth deal to run each start-up program as that user? Are there that many checks and balances that XP goes through just by using a multiple-user machine? Can anyone relate?-Note: I'm a pretty decent cookie when it comes to computers, but for these sorts of XP mysteries, I'm at a lost. It's kind of hard to Google for information when you have no idea what the problem is and when everyone complains about a slow computer... in which a ton of enthusiasts jump onto the problem and tell them the stupid usual "solutions" of defragging, possible malware, downloading a ton of "great" software to clean up registries and crap, etc. Since these issues came up after I did a certain something, I've pinned the possibilities to the OS or to the network, but I don't know WHY, which is what I want to learn if anyone is willing to teach or suggest. I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about, so I would like to hear from others that know what they're talking about too.

Using pirated software is illegal, yes, but was it your fault that you unknowingly purchased it, or was it the seller's fault for allowing you to purchase illegal software? Or is it your fault if you knew that you were getting pirated software or the company's fault for making it cost-prohibitive?With those moral questions aside, since you are stuck with pirated software, let's say that you wanted to stick with it because you couldn't afford to go out and purchase another retail box. If that's the case, you are all set with Windows XP if you're updated to SP2. All the updates that they are pushing out are unnecessary but recommended because of all of the exploits and security holes that were found, but unless you are going out and downloading a ton of stuff, taking files from friends, or being targeted for a hacking attack, you shouldn't be worried. I find it funny that one of the updates includes WGA, which basically is required for Windows to tell you that your copy of Windows isn't genuine and then to prevent you from accessing your own computer, which is another reason why you shouldn't be updating blindly. (But no one likes to bother reading about what they let Microsoft put on their machines, right?) ;)In my mind, you are wrong in knowingly having acquired pirated software. However, if you didn't know at the time of purchase, the seller was wrong in letting you buy it. At the same time, it's a harsh bullet to bite when you weigh the cost of piracy over the cost of legitimacy, and although we all should be purchasing our copies of Adobe Photoshop @ $399+, Microsoft Office @ $299, Windows OS @ $199 (total guesses, by the way)... you can see why people resort to piracy.Basically, you're all set after Service Pack 2. Windows Firewall and the addition of a router will deter most hackers, but remember, any other malicious occurences have to go through YOU as you would be the introducing factor for malware via downloading things, sharing files, using infected USB sticks with AutoRun... I'm sure you catch my drift.

I used to be a big frame person when I first started doing HTML, but I've always hated those fugly gray borders. Never knew you could remove them, but there was always the problem of users only bookmarking the frameset page and not the content that he or she wanted, so every time they access the bookmark, they're taken to the main page. It was also a pain in having to set things up in the correct cells and the framesets didn't always show up correctly in browsers... but then again, that's the struggle we have with web design anyway. At least with CSS and JavaScript, we can define a style sheet and a navigation bar that's written the same way every time AND it avoids the fugly border bars, the scroll bars, and the bookmarking/URL deal. From a web design and user perspective, frames had their use until Web 2.0 showed its prettier face.

I used to play Empire back in the day when it was the strategy game of choice. Turn-by-turn hotseat war with hundreds of units and hundreds if not thousands of turns... where games never ended or would take months to finish. (It was awesome when you told an infantry unit to go somewhere, and after a few dozen turns later, don't remember why you sent it there in the first place.)I think that both genres are pretty good. With turn-based, you have the luxury of time and can actually enjoy a game that can get pretty complex and actually requires a ton of thought, if you like being an armchair general. However, I prefer real-time strategies, just because it's real-time, more realistic in terms of having to make quick decisions and conjure quick strategies to defeat your enemies... it definitely keeps you on your feet, and it's ultimately more satisfying seeing the mayhem on the battlefield than it is to see placeholders disappear and territories turn into your color or have your flag. Another thing is that I think you leave more to chance with a turn-based game than you do with a real-time strategy. With turn-based, the odds are thrown in and an outcome is determined with numbers. With real-time, YOU decide how the battle turns with the resources you have on hand. Think about the various wars we've had. There were some great leaders that SLAUGHTERED armies with mere units and good, quick thinking, but if you pitted one army against another like they did in the Revolutionary War in the U.S., of course the cannons and sheer number of soldiers would win.

Very bad misconception. The Apple OS does not have much of a problem with malware because it doesn't reach much of an audience. The only real reasons why anyone would write malware for any Apple OS would be to shut Apple-heads and elitists up and to steal their personal info. The reason why Windows operating systems are crawling with malware potential is because "everyone" has Windows. Companies, big and small, and just about every consumer computer sold off the shelf has a Windows operating system. If you wanted to have a slice of pie, would you go for the sliver, or snag the much larger piece? Plus, proven again and again, Apple isn't invulnerable to exploits, security issues, viruses, etc. And as mentioned in one of my threads, the Apple operating system is actually LESS secure than others. It makes me wonder if someone would actually create a sort of malware to infect iPods via a fake media file, since most people nowadays steal libraries of songs from each other to get their music.

Piracy kills CD sales. However, piracy also promotes ubiquitous enjoyment of said pirated music and that leads to concert attendance, buying accessories and apparel, and even donations. Now only if they used piracy to their advantage instead of trying to fight it like Metallica did... I think that a lot of people pirated their new album just to prove an ironic point.

RayzorEdge: I don't remember when I made this up, but it was just a play off of my first name and a razor edge. Sharp, cutting commentary from a preteen boy who didn't know any better... and doesn't know much up to this point, either. Other people have come up with RayzorEdge too, so for the most part, I add a dot to still claim the name if I can (rayzor.edge).RayzorEdge911: A variation to my main username when it's already taken. I added the 911 originally because of 9/11, but then that kind of changed to the whole emergency thing... I pride myself in trying to learn anything I can to be able to help and protect others, which explains why I'm in the Army, a weapons enthusiast, a military geek, and a medic in the U.S. Army Reserves. JetChowMein: I also use this screen name from time to time when I can't use RayzorEdge and when I just don't care. It's a combination of things: a lot of people mention Jet Li when they see me, and the Chow Mein came up because an army buddy of mine called me that just because I was Asian.-I can already see it now... people will be using Google to get every single bit of information off of our MySpace, FaceBook, Friendster, Tag, and other social network profiles, not to mention e-mails, forum participation...What have we done?!

We were just talking about this guy last night. Be mindful that I hate politics and that I don't watch the news or pay attention, so maybe I have no say here, but maybe I have more of a say here because I don't watch the news... 1. It's bad juju to make a promise that you can't keep. Obama can say all he wants about the economy, but the economy's state does not fall on his shoulders... it falls on the shoulders of the American people. Sure, you can promise a percentage rate of unemployment, but how do you do that when you know how human nature is? Stock market declines, people spend less money to save money, companies cut costs and lay people off, and businesses don't rake in as much capital because consumers are cutting back on spending to save money. It's a vicious cycle that has an eventual end, but no one will ever know what the consequences will be during that time. Apparently Obama had a strong confidence in that the stimulus packages would keep banks running and make them less hesitant to loan out monies, but it didn't. The company bailouts were supposed to keep them afloat so that they could keep operations at a normal level, but companies still reevaluated their operations and slashed jobs and cut funding to ride the recession. Small businesses had no stimulus money, so they did the same and froze wages, cut costs, limited hours, and laid off workers. No one can find work because no one is hiring BECAUSE they're trying to save money. (That's just a figurative statement... anyone can find work, really, with persistence and tolerance.) The stimulus plan had a purpose, but it failed, and now the president is being blamed for it. Guess he can't depend on the nation to do what he planned for, right? Don't forget that the previous administration handed him a bad card to start with... I imagined that one of Bush's last words to Obama before he stepped down was "good luck." You can't depend on tax cuts happening either, considering the fact that billions of dollars actually were spent to support those stimulus packages ON TOP OF the usual government spending on military advents, education, health care, government programs, etc. How do we get these millions and billions of dollars to give out to people? Taxes and bonds and borrowing from other countries. That's something that people don't even think about, always wondering when they'll be paying less to the government. And that's the problem when people do get tax cuts and then wonder why they don't get as much Medicare benefits, or social security, or education and extracurricular programs, or other government-funded programs hosted by federal agencies and whatnot. We don't make money out of thin air. But a lot of us think so. (This isn't an attack on OP... just a true statement.) 2. Abortion is not a valid political issue. It may, however, define character, as well as that person's stance on stem cell research, going green, global warming, and whatever crap people hock out and use as a single-issue vote to put the wrong people in office. I'm not saying that we have the wrong president, but I'm definitely saying that there were a lot of idiots that didn't vote for McCain because "he was too old." True quote. 3. I can't comment on this, since I don't even know much about Reverend Wright. 4. Stupid. This isn't even an issue either unless you want to determine character. In my opinion, it's kind of dumb that this was even brought up as an issue. You are right in that he shouldn't have had any judgment with an issue that he was unfamiliar about. It was even more stupid, however, that anyone would have asked the president that question. (Out of everything that you could ask, someone came up with that?! Might as well have asked him about what he thought about Michael Jackson's death.) That should have been a "no comment" situation, but I guess that when you're facing a thousand people and you're on a podium, addressed with something that catches you off-guard, that you don't screw up and do what you would expect of a perfect spokesperson, right? He screwed up and he'll have to face that music if and when it comes. I also think that there's more of an issue that the president had a light beer. 5. The biggie. The bulls-eye topic of the day. You're going to have to understand both sides of the argument before you join a side. The funny thing is that stereotypically, most of the conservatives against this health care plan are old farts that actually understand some things, and most younger folks that don't understand how things work are for universal health care. Duh: everyone being provided health care would be awesome and would work in theory. No one would have to go without health care. Uncle Sam would take care of us. However, there are numerous arguments against this. Like, for one, OP's argument with having to WAIT for health care because 10,000 patients are coming into to see doctors for ouchie-boo-boo crap while a heart transplant patient dies because he or she couldn't make it through the lines quickly enough via triage. Also, there's the principal of socialization... being provided health care, regardless of whether you want it or not. Why would you refuse the concept? Because somebody has to pay for it. Who? YOU, the taxpayer. If universal health care passes, there goes our right to accept or deny something... and any dreams of tax cuts because we would have to foot the bill to take care of ourselves, our neighbors, our friends and families... and even Joe Schmoe that never worked a day in his life to contribute to society. How is that fair? You wonder why capitalism actually becomes more appealing over socialism when you have to take care of people who don't do a damn thing. You also wonder why we shouldn't help everyone else. And then you get this argument, and when YOU have to pay, you whine and squeal and wonder why you even considered helping others in the first place. It's not exactly the most moral thing, but when there are people who abuse the system, you have to consider these things before vouching to help EVERYONE without prejudice, no favorites, no selective sample. - I'm not saying that the president of the United States is doing a good job. I'm also not saying that he's doing a bad one either. But when you're in charge of an entire nation of Americans and millions of people's lives are affected by your decisions, it's hard to consider choices that would appeal to most people because things like the stimulus plan CAN backfire. That and the guy gets blamed for everything that happens on a nationwide level. Look at Bush. I'm sure a ton of people hate him because he "sent thousands of our men and women into harm's way" for a "war" on terrorism. An unjustified clause. Is it really, when we're making a difference in the countries that we assist? Should we really stop being the world police and let women, children, and men die needlessly because we stood by and watched the Taliban wreak their havoc in a physical, religious, and psychological way? Would you let a total stranger die because you were selfish enough to only worry about your family and your loved ones? Or should we try to take care of our nation first, ignoring everything and everyone that occurs on a world-wide basis?

How do these "sin bins" differ from being jailed as a family?When I first jumped onto this thread without reading the article, I thought that this was a nation-wide gig. But for rehabilitation?Maybe this won't be as bad as it actually is, but at the same time, I can see how it violates human rights. As much as I am for human rights, if things are this bad with "problematic" families, I am for it because this can only work to favor these children and hopefully set parents on a much better path.Think about the issues that we have in the United States. I don't know what it's like because I haven't been in that situation, so forgive me if I speak from the mind of a person who tries to sound like he knows what he's talking about. But we have our own problems with domestic violence, rape, and other bad things that happen behind closed doors or even out in the open. If there are children about, they will subliminally absorb this behavior and it will affect their thinking and cognitive development. Do we agree on this, or do you really think that being absorbed into this sort of environment won't change the cognitive development of a child?We don't have "sin bins" or Family Intervention practices... we only charge the guilty when proven as such, foster the children, and hope for the best. Will a new life with new beginnings and a safer, "healthier" environment help out with the prevention of a potentially-disturbed individual or criminal? We would like to think so. How about those closed-door activities that I mentioned earlier, when people aren't caught, when domestic violence continues, when children are sexually assaulted and raped, when children bear witness to the acts of these "problematic families..." Crazy to think that the government should interfere with these sorts of things to make the attempt at making things better, eh? Or should they do it like we do it here and wait for substantial evidence to charge people with crimes, hoping that court proceedings are successful and that the right people are receiving rehabilitation in a prompt manner, THEN end up with surveillance on parole to make sure that these family members don't repeat history?Yes, it revokes any sort of privacy and some human rights. No, it probably isn't a right thing to do. But what would be the right thing to do? What could someone possibly do that an unanimous vote would occur in favor for it?

Applying some technological arguments to this thread to end the discussion until anything else better comes along... Comparison of Wireless Technologies Here is an awesome table as to what cellular technologies (and therefore, carriers) offer the consumer. According to this chart, it makes sense why AT&T (Cingular was bought out by AT&T) and Verizon are awesome carriers. They are pushing to improve their networks with 3G and later LTE technologies, and they have the capital and the customer base to support that capital. However, if AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint actually works on their higher-frequency technologies, they would rule the market, I think. From my understanding, higher-frequency bands are able to penetrate through blockages (depending on what the material is) better than a lower frequency. On this note, though, Sprint is in a bad spot because of company-level issues and that because of these issues, they are actually unable to satisfy their customer base and losing out on customers, which also means that there's no capital to improve on the network. I don't think that they're even trying to expand the iDEN technology as they are more focused on bringing QChat to the table to replace the Nextel PTT. (QChat will work on CDMA.) If that happens, there's no point to having Nextel around except to support current customers and current users of Boost Mobile (which runs on the same technology). AT&T faces a good bit of competition from Verizon thanks to what I hear as great service, reliability, and customer loyalty... but doesn't AT&T have the same, if not at that same extent? (Then again, I've read that the CDMA technology will be the most superior when it actually matures. GSM is rather old but still kicking around with a lot of utility, and the standard is here to stay because GSM IS the standard worldwide.) Personally, I was going to go with Verizon because of all the good things I've heard about it, and I was foolish enough not to explore AT&T on the basis that they didn't have a rugged handset that I liked. That's another thing that drives customers too: if you have cool phones that people like, you're going to have a potential user base for that carrier.

+1 on the flubber recipe. I used to make this a lot during my YMCA years. It makes a white (unless you add food coloring), moldable but soft "clay..." more squishy than firm, really. Kids can create shapes, tear them apart easily, roll it, poke it, blah blah blah... I might actually go and make this for something to do on the weekend. On another note, since I don't want to make another thread, here is a recipe for what I know as "oobleck:" Cornstarch Water That's it! Put a nice bunch of cornstarch into a large bowl, then add water slowly until you get a slow-flowing consistency that looks much like cake batter. You will know that you did it right if your kids are having fun with it. Oobleck is basically cornstarch and water in the right proportions to create a batter-like mixture that when you slowly introduce your fingers into it, the mixture behaves like a liquid... but add any bit of resistance, and it acts as a solid. It's pretty neat, and it's a project that is much, much messier than "flubber" as wherever it ends up, it's like cake batter. However, to make clean-up easier, just rub spills of oobleck right off with your hands and then wash them immediately, since the oobleck will turn solid when you apply the force of rolling your fingers over it. I tried this with the fiancee's kids... messy, but they were very interested with it. Kept them occupied for an hour at least, anyway. Plus, it's an opportunity to teach a bit of science (forms of matter)! How's that for a $0.99 box of cornstarch and tap water?

Don't you worry... I'm probably not going to be able to afford one for quite some time. I was just looking to shop around and settled with the iPod Touch 2G. Depending on what new features that a 3G would offer, I may or may not change my mind. If I actually am in the position of snagging one, I'm definitely going to figure out a way to make the damn thing work for me and not the other way around. Such a rebellious statement against Apple: I'll pay you to buy your stupid product, but bet your *ss that I'll change it to listen to and watch what the hell I want, darnit!