rayzoredge

For those that are curious...I took my Oakley Straight Jackets to my U.S. Army Reserves Annual Training. This year, we had it at the beach-with-no-water: the Mojave Desert at Fort Irwin, California.It did not exactly take a beating, but then again, maybe it did and I didn't know it. They didn't melt from the 110 degree weather, they didn't slip and fall off of my head, and they did not fog once, even during the frequent times that I was swimming in my own sweat. They kept me from going blind with the occasional sand fronts that would blow up and across the FOB (forward operating base), and not once did I have to worry about it performing under stress. The lenses surprisingly weren't scratched badly if at all with the blowing sand, but it's kind of hard to believe that when I got a few minor scratches with normal wear being a civilian with the occasional weekend-warrior drill.Then again, I was only there for a little over three weeks. But hey, it's enough for me to most likely snag a couple more pairs for deployment.

Not sure if you intended it as such, but this post reeks of Apple elitism/fangirl-ism/whatever-you-want-to-call-it-ism with a last-second statement to save it from said -isms. Every MP3 player is going to have its pros and cons. I do extensive research in everything I propose to buy, and I can say that the iPod isn't exactly a slouch... but then again, it's not exactly showing its true colors when one person says something bad about Apple and a thousand people call that one person an Apple-hater, a retard, a Microsoft follower, etc. There's just way too many people that don't say a lot of bad stuff about the iPod, and Apple's practices with trying to hush up owners of exploding iPods (same issue with exploding Lithium batteries in laptops and cell phones) kind of have me miffed... not to mention having to already pay an arm and a leg to be part of the trendy, Apple crowd. With that being said, I'm looking into the iPod Touch 2G because the functionality of it is outstanding. It's literally a small PDA and not so much an MP3 player anymore, and my main incentive is Skype capability on a feature-packed device since I'm looking for alternative means of communication for when I go overseas. I'm reading rave reviews (of course... who would say anything bad about Apple?), but I'm not looking forward to having to deal with the horrible iTunes software. Someone mentioned that iTunes is easy and blah blah blah, so I must be retarded in not knowing how to use it. (Too bad I didn't state that I'm computer-illiterate and unable to adapt to new things.) What I don't like about iTunes is that it is REQUIRED to interface with the iPod. I'm used to dragging and dropping and not having to deal with crappy software. Why is it crappy? Because I run Windows XP and not an Apple OS, so of course, iTunes will run like crap, no matter how speedy my computer is. Not the fault of XP... it's the fault of Apple and their genius in making iTunes sluggishly slow on a PC in comparison to a $1999 MacBook Pro. Makes business sense, right? Duh, but it doesn't give enough of a reason for me to fork over my paycheck for a laptop and only pisses me off. Not to mention the crap you have to deal with when servicing the iPod. Some of these things are built so that you have to bring it to the stupid Genius Bar (yay for oxymorons!) or void the warranty and risk not being able to use the right geeky powers to bring it back to life if something goes wrong. A handful of consumers are lucky enough to meet the right person and literally trade their old iPod in for a new one... and then there are some that are not so lucky like Renaissance and his iPod with the conveniently-built-in battery. Basically, when I think about it, it's like having to pay more for necessary evils to play the elitist and enjoy a possibly-superior product... or at least be able to wave the Apple logo. My Creative Zen Vision M was awesome and was better than most of the iPods out when I got it, had more space, more colors, more vibrant and quality video quality, more space, blah blah blah... all of which doesn't matter because it was so awesome that someone broke into my car and stole it. Thankfully, portable multimedia devices are more affordable now. If I'm going to be buying anything Apple, it would have to be an iPod, because that would be the only thing I could remotely see as affordable starting at about $160 for a second-generation piece of tech that I can actually flaunt and not get stolen... well, because everyone else seems to have one as well.

Last one seems like Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd.

I'll second that notion, but with the assumed condition that I'm going to lay out here. If you are the proud owner of a piece-of-crap car, van, truck, or what-have-you, it's probably because you've been holding out on buying a newer car or because you can't afford a newer car. Why buy a new car when your older one works just as well? (It's also a funny thing how one of the incentives is a more fuel-efficient vehicle... when you look at EPA ratings - which is a joke in itself - from the 80's and 90's and see a number of vehicles that are actually more fuel-efficient than their next-generation successors. Look at how the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic MPG ratings have gone down, 1 MPG at a time per year, it seems.) Now, if you can't afford a car but now have perked interest thanks to this government program to get up to $4500 for your piece of crap, does that mean that you can now afford a brand-new car from $12,000 and up? Typically, a decent passenger vehicle at MSRP figures about $22,000. Now we're going to finance $17,500? Over how long? And can anyone really afford that if they were trying to make their clunker last in the first place? I don't know about you, but I pay about $240 a month financed over 5 years for my used 2003 Honda Civic EX standard, and that was a $11,000 car when I bought it in 2006. $240 is borderline on the hefty side. Now think about paying for this brand new vehicle over 5 years with a decent markup on the principal that you'll end up paying over the finance duration... we'll say a total of $22,000... which incidentally was what your clunker traded in for. That number is a scary $350 per month, ladies and gentlemen. Now, if you had a clunker BECAUSE you couldn't afford a new vehicle... can you afford $350 a month for the next 5 years? Or will you start the payment discipline, have something go awry in life, and have your brand new car repo'd by the bank, which now takes a loss in trying to sell the car for less at an auction or at a dealership (because the dealership has to make some money, right?). That same bank deals with more than just your vehicle and takes risks with consumers and their houses, their business ventures, and other private loans. If they don't get a return on investment with all of them, interest and miscellaneous banking fees won't pay off the thousands of dollars they lose out on trying to sell your repossessed car. (This plays into the whole closed-mind, sheep mindset that rpgsearcherz pointed out. Not a lot of people think from outside the box, and not everyone sees the whole picture. Try factoring this example I laid out into the state of the economy.)

They actually did a good list of girls of gaming on GameTrailers.com. It's kind of hard to actually pick out characters because they're all digitally-rendered and therefore, perfect in every way. It all boils down to personal preference from there. If you want an opinion, though... Princess Toadstool can't be too cool, because she always gets kidnapped by Bowser or whoever. How appealing is that? You would want someone who would be smart, able to take care of herself, independent, etc... which cuts out a lot of damsels-in-distress. I can't just pick one because then there are a ton of girls that have that criteria, like Lara Croft, Alyx Vance, Joanne Dark, Eva from Metal Gear Solid 3... the list goes on.

Easy explanation: CDMA is faster than GSM because it is a third-generation (3G) technology, as opposed to GSM being a second-generation technology (2G). Detailed explanation: Although CDMA is faster, GSM still remains as the most popular cellular technology world-wide. That's because GSM is a much more mature technology and thus has had time to grow and expand to cover and be available at just about everywhere in the world. However, CDMA is the choice technology within the United States because of its maturity from within the states, already covering most of the nation. CDMA is able to send more data and more efficiently than GSM and can accommodate more users on the frequency. There are other advantages and disadvantages to each, such as GSM having less dB loss indoors (whereas call quality with CDMA can get crappy really quickly unless repeaters are present in the building), CDMA not being able to cover as much terrain with towers because they have to be shorter to avoid interfering with each other (which makes a huge difference in hilly terrain), etc. For more information, do some Google-fu, or follow the lazy linkage below: http://nordicgroup.us/ssub/techcomp.htm http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDMA2000

Currently, I own a 2003 Honda Civic EX. After having done a ton of research on fuel-economic cars, weeding out the fugly ones, and then refining down by availability, I ended up choosing between a Honda Civic, a Toyota Corolla, and a Chevrolet Cobalt. The Civic was my choice over the others because the Corolla just looked "cute" and was a bit too small, and I couldn't find any Cobalts in standard in the New England area. After snagging the Civic in 2006, I've been pretty happy with it so far aside from my desire to put a small spoiler on it to complete a sportier look. It fits the bill as a good commuter car while having a decent amount of room to cart around my crap. I originally wanted a 2006 Honda Civic Si, but I just didn't have the money. One of these days, maybe...

I actually would start out cheap or leave the building to a more experienced user.A friend of mine fried his brand-new Pentium i7 CPU because I believe he forgot to ground the stand-offs from his motherboard to the case, or something like that.If you still do decide to build this, invest the $5-10 in an anti-static wrist strap and the time to read every single for-dummies guide to building your own PC. With the rather expensive components going into this build, I wouldn't risk anything. Hell, if you're paranoid enough, snag a $30 grounding mat. (I'm assuming that you're going to be around to supervise.)Liquid-cooling is going to be a PITA to set up, especially if this will be his first experience with building a machine from scratch. Fans and a good case that allows for good circulation should be fine, but if you wish, add an additional heatsink or cooler for the CPU and/or the GPU to help with heat issues. If you get the chance to have hands-on the product, make sure that everything physically fits in the case. I don't know if noise is a factor, but I don't think it's going to kill anyone if you hear a bit from the fans going off.

I actually would start out cheap or leave the building to a more experienced user.A friend of mine fried his brand-new Pentium i7 CPU because I believe he forgot to ground the stand-offs from his motherboard to the case, or something like that.If you still do decide to build this, invest the $5-10 in an anti-static wrist strap and the time to read every single for-dummies guide to building your own PC. With the rather expensive components going into this build, I wouldn't risk anything. Hell, if you're paranoid enough, snag a $30 grounding mat. (I'm assuming that you're going to be around to supervise.)Liquid-cooling is going to be a PITA to set up, especially if this will be his first experience with building a machine from scratch. Fans and a good case that allows for good circulation should be fine, but if you wish, add an additional heatsink or cooler for the CPU and/or the GPU to help with heat issues. If you get the chance to have hands-on the product, make sure that everything physically fits in the case. I don't know if noise is a factor, but I don't think it's going to kill anyone if you hear a bit from the fans going off.

I've had some horrible times with one of my Logitech mice back in the day.As much as I love their products, the older Logitech mice had a horrible click design that wore out the tiny parts that allowed for you to click, so you would first have to click harder for the clicks to register, followed by mashing the mouse buttons for clicks, followed by immense frustration and Googling to find how to fix it, only to find the solution is to disassemble and manipulate a few TINY components to restore the clicking function which, inevitably, would cause the clicking device to have a ghastly demise either by the snapping of the little tiny metal arm on the clicking mechanism or the more likely cause of the operator throwing his mouse against the wall. I don't know if newer mice have this problem, but I still like my MX3200 mouse and keyboard set and my VX Nano.Logitech also stands by the retarded stance to not offer support for Linux, which leaves geeks in the dark and having to make up ways to make their products work with full functionality. Just going out on a limb here, but if you make products that people actually like and are of decent to good quality, why not go the extra mile and offer it to a wider audience of folks?With these gripes said and done, I'm still buying Logitech for my peripheral input needs. However, I would recommend VModa Bass Freq Earbuds to OP for awesome sound for cheap ($20). (Only gripes I have with those are that they feel fragile, don't survive a wash in a washing machine, and that the cord can be too short for PC users.)

Here's an online typing exercise you can use to work on using DVORAK. Note: The above link converts your QWERTY keystrokes into DVORAK and does not actually change your keyboard input settings. Ingenious!

I'm not sure what I classify myself as.I used to be big into playing PC games, even though I never had the hardware to run anything well. I'm so used to ~15-20 FPS for most of the games that I play that smooth, fluid gameplay is actually very unfamiliar and almost uncomfortable. I started out playing with the Commodore 64, but there wasn't much to it. I did Lode Runner and the Mario Bros. game with King Kong in it. Worked up to the NES and I thought it was the best thing ever. I remember whipping out the gold edition of the first (or second?) Link game, and I remember having a few cool games that I played the crap out of (like Ninja Gaiden and Mario Bros. 3).The SNES was pretty damn fun when I had it. I remember playing Street Fighter II with my uncle one night, button-mashing and having the hardest time trying to do a Dragon Punch with Ryu or Ken. (I also remember him being the cheap bum he was, always camping with Guile and ready with a vertical Flash kick or slinging Sonic Booms my way.) I remember having a damn good time with Earthbound, Super Mario World, E.V.O., Gradius III, and a ton of other classics. I was big into the SNES when I was a kid because it was cool and had a ton of fun value in it. Better than the Sega Genesis, really... but then again, the Genesis had Road Rash, which was another game I've played to death and inspired me to snag for the PC just last year.I don't remember much about the PSX, but I know I used to play a good bit of it when I did have it kicking around. Was still quite a gamer then... and I believe that was about the time I was introduced to Resident Evil, playing at night with my uncle watching on the 3DO. (Does anyone remember that?! ) Crazy times... I think the N64 came out around there too, which then I started getting addicted to 3D gaming with Starfox 64, Super Mario World 64, Super Mario Kart, Perfect Dark, GoldenEye, and all the fun games.When the PS2 came out, I remember being AMAZED at how fluid water looked in Baldur's Gate II. I think it was then that I started to really appreciate and almost demand eye candy from my games. I don't remember playing too much with the PS2 though except for Metal Gear Solid 3, which was a fantastic game. I think this was also about the time when I did my gaming runs where I would play and beat a game, then get distracted with something else for a while until I jumped back into another game.The XBox really got me into games during times when I had nothing else to do. Halo 2 LAN parties in the barracks was always a riot, with CAT-5 cables running up and down stairs, across hallways, and even out of windows just so that we could have a blast fragging each other with stickies, tanks, swords, and dumb-luck shots. I loved the crap out of Halo 2 just because of the multiplayer. I jumped into playing F.E.A.R. on the PC too with my crappy Dell Inspiron 8600, later to be replaced by my now-current HP Pavilion zd8000 that actually ran the game at 1024x768 with medium settings at an acceptable 18-20 FPS (until the firefights got going). It was a vast upgrade from playing Doom II, Duke Nukem 3D, and Soldier of Fortune II back in the day. Call it heresy, but I never played CounterStrike or Half-Life on the PC... ever. I might give it a go sometime, but probably not thanks to the PS2 fabricating my requirement for outstanding graphics.I replaced my XBox with a 360 much later on, but I never got any games for it for the longest time. I don't remember why. I do remember snagging Halo 3 like everyone else did, but after beating it on day 3, the 360 collected dust. Sad, really... but I made up for it when I did my gaming runs a couple of years later with Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Army of Two, Portal (after having played it on my PC), Half-Life 2 and the two episodes (thanks to The Orange Box), Burnout, and a handful of other great games. I haven't really done too much PC gaming recently, not after leaving active duty and also leaving LAN games of Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour, but I still enjoy World of Goo, Unreal Tournament 2003, Spore, and some others from time to time. I'm going to have to re-explore emulators again... the Dell Inspiron 1501 I'm working off of now isn't that great for the stuff I want to try, like F.E.A.R. 2, Crysis, Gears of War, and other games I'll have to wait for.I'm glad I haven't been sucked into any MMORPGs... the time invested in them just seems like a waste of time to me. Why play World of Warcraft for over three years when you can play over a few dozen games or more in the same amount of time? Then again, it's hard to keep me entertained.I can say that I used to be an avid gamer and continue to be when I want to be. But when I'm not, I'm usually busy with other cool stuff... like paintball, lame-o social networking, work, and my fiancee and her kids.

Flu. Not flew. :)Now that's out of the way, I agree with those of you who know it's just another strain of the flu. I love how everyone panicked and thought the worst of it, gripping their seats at the first few deaths from the "deadly" H1N1. ZOMG, the world is going to end!I'm in firm belief that I am a survivor of this disease, and boy, it was a close call! I thought it was funny when my Captain-Morgan-looking doc told me these exact words:"One must be careful of what one says nowadays, but judging from your flu-like symptoms occurring outside of flu season, I want to say that you have the swine flu."It didn't help that I was having a case of seasonal bronchitis at the time, which made it look much worse than it actually was. After a week of intense coughing, sore throat, chills, fever, hot flashes, and just feeling generally crappy, I was left with coughing fits from my bronchitis (which no doc seemed to diagnose until I got a THIRD opinion).The second doc I had even told me that medical professionals weren't making a huge deal of H1N1 anymore. This was in the beginning of July.Now all I need to do is design a t-shirt to wear that says something along the lines of: "I survived the swine flu and all I got was this crappy t-shirt."

<br /><br /><br />I know it's been a while, but I'll respond anyway just in case. I would try to troubleshoot what exactly may be dead in your laptop and replace as necessary, if you truly want to go through the efforts to salvage your laptop. It's more of a pain to do this for a laptop than it is a desktop, but if you have the luxury of having more than one like laptop, I would try swapping components until I found out what was the culprit. You are receiving an indicator light, but you failed to mention what lights were on. My guess is that the power board may be functional, but the mobo is toast; or the circuitry to the power switch is toast. Problem is that it's pretty hard to troubleshoot or give any advice on anything from a million miles away from the troubled item... If you think it's a lost cause, you can always try to take it to a tech, but I wouldn't bother. Rip the hard drive out, throw it into a 2.5" enclosure, salvage what data you can off of it, and buy a new laptop. Recycle the old laptop and see if you can get cash for it... and if not, it's one less paperweight you'll have lying around.

It's a double standard. There isn't much doubt that most guys are completely fine with lesbians (especially of the attractive variety ) but turn their heads in disgust when there's any mention of male-male relationships. That, in itself, is wrong. Homosexuality is homosexuality is homosexuality. No ifs, ands, or buts about that. I don't understand the whole argument against homosexuality. Who gives a rat's rear end that it violates your religion? Obviously, the religious folk raise angry fists. What's the excuse if you don't have a religion? "It's wrong." On the basis of procreation, then yes, a male cannot mate with a male and a female cannot mate with a female. That is TOTALLY wrong. I'm glad we got that out of the way. So what other excuses are there? It's not right? By what code? (See religion.) Even if you have some sort of code of conduct, what harm is the gay and lesbian community doing to you? Are they trying to convert you? Are they mounting same-sex bystanders left and right without warning, without reason? Do they pose a reasonable threat? If you're sticking to your religious codes, you are no better than the people who are blowing themselves up right now, killing innocents because they are assumed to be infidels. You are no better than the people who were part of the Crusades. How do I make this accusation? Because you said it was "wrong." Why is it wrong? Because a book said so. If you just hate homosexuals because you're not, you just announced that you're a bigot. Yay for you. Wait, I'm sorry... did I praise you the way you wanted me to, or was it inferior? :angel: I read an interesting article back in the day how sexuality was determined by your gene makeup and not by choice as most people commonly make it out to be. This isn't it, but good findings regardless. So if science has the theory that it's actually part of your genetic makeup, then how can you hate? Or do you associate yourself with prejudice against another because of the color of their skin, their sexuality, their race? You would be no better than Adolf Hitler's mindset on the Jewish race or the Southerner that still holds a grudge against the black man. With these arguments, I'm surprised that the U.S. is still uneducated enough to allow sexuality to enter politics. It's not even a viable issue. That's like trying to run a campaign saying that being human is wrong. I don't have a stance against homosexuals. I have stances on morons, idiots, and whoever else doesn't suit my fancy. And that tells you that I'm a bigot on what I believe to be stupidity.

Lazy Link for M$ Shameless self-advertisement: If anyone wants to follow me on Twitter, I just tweeted the link too. It's funny that the discount only applies to Home Premium and Home Professional... you know that most geeks would hope for a discount on the Ultimate version, but sadly, it has no discount. Guess M$ is really pushing to introduce people to Windows 7. From what everyone else is saying, it should bring some promise and better light on M$ now that we actually have a viable upgrade option from XP Professional. :angel:

Ray Boyington.It really doesn't matter if you give out your real name or not... people can simply look you up using tidbits of your own information that you already put out. I'm not afraid to put my real name out there because I want you to know that I am a genuine person and I'm not here to play anonymous, but to actually share information, learn, network, and present myself as who I am.It's not a bad thing to put your name on a public forum, but it's also not a bad thing to avoid doing so. Depending on how you look at things, both choices can be smart. Reasons for not wanting to release such information onto a public forum would include being paranoid of being targeted by someone for some reason, or just to retain and keep personal information secure, or what-have-you. But think about how much personal information you put onto your MySpace profile or your FaceBook page. Some of us can agree that it is beneficial to release personal information in such instances like a LinkedIn profile to expand your professional as well as casual network. If you think along those lines, you can probably see why it makes sense to establish a sort of virtual persona for people to recognize.Of course, I wouldn't do anything like put my cell phone number on here because you guys would prank-call me to death. :angel: If you Google for my name as I put it up there, what's awesome is that the first few things that show up include my LinkedIn profile, my oDesk profile, my Facebook page, and a few other things that are unrelated to me. (Apparently there was a chemist/biologist/scientist by the same name who lived in the 1800's.) How's that for good exposure?

I don't know what Wiley-X has for ballistic protection, but I would imagine that they would suffice for what most people would request. I would like to see a demonstration of different brands, different models, and different styles tested vigorously for ballistic protection, but there's no all-encompassing one. I've seen a pair of Sawfly shades survive an almost-point-blank blast from a shotgun, with "competitors" simply blown away, which intrigues me, and I wonder if Oakley M Frames, or even styles like the Half Jacket, survive that sort of punishment.The Wiley-X XL-1 goggles fog up like crazy on me, and even if they have better ballistic protection, there's no point if you can't see.I have yet to have my Oakley Straight Jackets fog up badly, although I can say that after leaving them on top of my head after wetting my hair down, there's a slight layer of fog that disappears quite quickly after I put them on. I'll have to do something similar to bringing them out to the field for some real-world use, which has been limited.A note about Oakley Asian Fit: Maybe I have a weird-shaped head, but one of the caveats of AF is to prevent the common issue of shades slipping downward on the bridge of your nose, and my pair still slip down a tad bit. Not enough to have to push them back up, but I do like my shades to conform to my face so I end up pushing them back up anyway. YMMV.A note about Oakley lenses: they scratch like crazy, contrary to what I said before. You won't really notice them until you put them up to the light or look very closely, and the scratches don't really interfere much with the clarity of the lense, but it's enough to drive a person with OCD crazy. Or is it just me? I'm still loving my pair of Straight Jackets though. I'm planning on purchasing two more pairs, although they will be for deployment and prescription. I just wish they weren't so damn expensive, being over $200 a pop for Rx Half Jackets with anti-reflective coated black iridium...

I definitely know that there are some veterans out here that can add to this. *coughSMcough*

Congratulations! I suppose it suits her perfectly to be on the front page since she's rather photogenic. Cute.

Motorola already makes the i580 for Nextel users, which survives the beatings that Sonim's phone goes through. I'm proud to say that I own the phone that has survived drops off of buildings, run over by cars, submerged in water, meets and exceeds military specifications, and so far is baby/kid-proof, with some gnawing scars on the antenna.I wonder if the Sonim is just coming out for European handy users...

Red Alert 3 was fun.I am actually more of a fan of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, since I'm more of a "serious, realistic" RTS player, but RA3 did not disappoint me much if at all. I still think that it follows Red Alert 2 in terms in terms of ridiculity with unit types and even raises it a notch with the kooky acting and the style of graphics... but it's all well-intended, and it makes for a fun game regardless. I LOVE the score and it really gets you into the game. (I actually listen to the OST on my free time... it's that good, and I'm that dorky.) :angel: If you're looking for a serious RTS, I would stay clear, but Red Alert 3 won't disappoint you if you were a fan of Red Alert 2. Not to mention that Gemma Atkinson delivers a damn good bit of eye candy... I'm sure the girls of RA3 were only there to sell the game even more, but there is a fair share of famous guys, like George Takei, Tim Curry, Jonathan Pryce, and J.K. Simmons, who definitely deliver to the personality of the theme.@HDuff: I found it rather easy to switch between secondary abilities using the F key. Hotkeys are your friend! For balancing between abilities, like the Crusader tanks, I would set a few tanks with the targeting lasers and leave the rest with their primary and make that a team... use your imagination.

@ galexcd's fun with semantics@ ashbash: Good luck with making that processor last. 7.5GHz might be impressive, but it means nothing if your $$$ processor doesn't even last you a year.I'm jealous of the setup, although I'm actually jealous of anyone's setup that includes a dual-core processor of 1.4GHz and up. :XD: Once I win the lottery though... you'll see. You'll all see! *shakes fist in air*