Kwisatz

Heh, this was hilarious and made me actually get the song. My friend was telling me about how epic Nightwish was but I didn't really believe that any of it was halfway-decent. Too bad the lead singer left on account of being such a prat.

My thoughts exactly, being the grammar nazi I am. I believe it should read "For some things, there is skill. For others, it's just being Mirrorforced. I think.

I just made about five sigs for myself using the GIMP, GNU Image Manipulation Program. My question is, am I the only one who uses it and didn't shell out for/pirate Photoshop? I've seen all sorts of Photoshop tutorials hanging around (as well as ones for Paint for pixel sigs) but absolutely nothing lately for the GIMP. Just FYI if you want to start doing graphics work it's a wonderful program to use without having to pay money.

Someday you will thank them. You will be successful and able to cope with virtually whatever life throws at you, unlike some of the spoiled morons I know who sit around doing absolutely nothing and get cars, insurance, scholarships, computers and spring break trips handed to them by their parents. I take pride in the fact that I have a job and work 30 hours a week at it. It simply demonstrates how you are more equipped than others. My dad is the same way and makes me work pretty hard but I'd say that it's worth it because consequently I'm much less of a [Richard] than many of my contemporaries. My parents can afford to give me pretty much anything I'd want short of something drastically unrealistic, but at this point I wouldn't want that because then I'm at their mercy and don't feel very much accomplishment. For instance, the computer I'm typing this on I bought and built myself with money I earned from hours and hours of labor, not something my parents gave me for an Easter present. I value it much more because of this, as well as many of my other possessions: web site, MP3 player, speaker system, other computer, etc. Every big-ticket item I own was paid for my me, and I'm damn proud that I put in a bit of elbow grease to get it rather than get it handed to me for getting a 3.5 average on my report card. Once you get out into the real world, you'll be thinking "The bar has just been lowered, baby!" and you'll be so much happier that you're able to work smarter, harder and reap more benefits from it than people who are utterly confused as to what to do with their lives. Granted I don't necessarily believe that you should be grounded for not finding a job, but I think that you should make a good effort to get and keep one. I'm really glad I have somebody to identify with. I work a 40-hour week all said and done. I mop floors, do accounting, fix computers, weed, mow the lawn and do a bit of consulting (but I don't get paid for yardwork or certain consulting things, since they're rather informal). In short, more power to ya. Although it may seem harsh, keep at it and remember - no matter what anybody tells you with regard to their status, unless they got there by doing it themselves it means nothing, and their fortune is anybody's but their own. You, on the other hand, are making your future and are better than them, and don't let any two-bit lazy [puncture] tell you otherwise.

Edit, don't reply. It's considered spam. You use a program to capture whatever's on your screen and convert it into a video. Try Camtasia, Google for it.

When all the adults I know grew up they had one of two things: 1) they gave you drivers' ed in public school free of charge or 2) you could have your parents teach you, then you just take a written test to get your license. However where I live you have to take some BS class as well. It's mandatory, you can't get somebody else to teach you and then take a written or real test. It's the stupidest thing ever. I think that if they made the written test rigorous enough and had a reasonable real-world test then it would save everyone a lot of time and money.

Matt Reilly's books read like movies, and I therefore enjoy them immensely. My favorite would have to be Ice Station.

Dude, there's nothing wrong with your computer. Everything is a normal process.

Ignore the above poster. I took the liberty of actually helping by pasting your HijackThis logfile into the HijackThis logfile analyzer. You have nothing out of the ordinary. There are a few non-essential system processes in there, but I wouldn't terminate them because sometimes terminating "non-essential" processes causes the system to restart anyway, and it only frees up maybe 10MB of memory. The Acer stuff could go, but once again it's negligible. To my knowledge there is nothing wrong with your system. It's good that you seem so vigilant, but I wouldn't post here unless anything is actually happening or you have any symptoms or premonitions of something wrong. However, please ensure that you are running a virus scanner and firewall at all times, and periodically run Spybot S&D or a similar program and HijackThis (using the above log analyzer) just to be sure nothing is wrong. I would also recommend keeping Internet Explorer installed but also downloading an alternatie browser such as Firefox or Opera for general use, and using IE for things that absolutely require it (uninstalling IE can royally screw your system). Just my two cents.

Old people are awesome! Oh and also metric = ftl. People who hate imperial are the ones who are severly lacking in the intelligence department, the ones who want metric because they don't have the mental capacity to work with imperial. Tards. Edit: In accordance to the previous post, I would like to state that I am English. In reply to it: we are not 'complex' as you say, we just do things how we like it, but everyone else is too stupid to understand. u lack the mental capacity to actually explain why imperial is better :roll: "u" lack the capacity to type two extra keys and use Shift to avoid sounding like a hypocritical moron. I think what he was trying to push is that people who are good with mathematics are less likely to switch to the metric system because they can already do decently-fast conversions in their head with the Imperial system. I also think he might be being a bit saracastic, but I don't want to be presumptuous. Once again - if it works, why fix it? We use metric measurements in scientific applications and international trade, and if somebody screws up it is their own fault.

I'm surprised at you all. What do you think MP3 means? There's also mp4, which I think the poster was talking about. There are also mpegs for video. MPEG is the Motion Picture Encoding Group, and they make standards for audio and video. As for the Creative comment, I concur. My friends all have problems but now I'm one of two people with Vision:Ms and we never have problems. I cannot, however, speak for the Zen V Plus, but the MicroPhoto is twice the storage, more battery life for 50 bucks less, if a bit bigger (size of an iPod mini). You might want to try finding a utility to repair MP3s, or just burn them to CD and re-rip, adding tags manually; this usually fixes audio errors. If you get something new, I'll give you $20 plus shipping for the old one.

The liquid-cooled system I saw was just as loud as my gaming machine, which uses 25dBa fans. And although it won't leak "if you build it right," that's not to say that something won't come loose during transport, wear out over time, or that some other freak accident won't occur. People do stuff "right" all the time, but due to many uncontrollable circumstances shizzat always happens. Case in point - although decent liquid cooling might be quieter (according to you; in my experience the difference is negligible and it is still audible) it costs a lot (~$80 USD) more for a decent setup as opposed to, say, some Vantec Tornadoes and a fan controller. Additionally, larger fans make less noise for the amount of air they move and are a better choice; in that respect buying a case with 120mm fans will help noise a LOT. At this point the only thing in my case that makes any real kind of noise is the 40mm fan on the Albatron 7800GT.

Yes, totally own at the expense of messing up a case or two because you've never done it before. Also, memory doesn't cause the motherboard to overheat, and it's not "recommended," it's "supported." Going over the amount will make it not POST. Liquid cooling is, as another poster mentioned, noisy because it still has to circulate the liquid somehow...and that how is with a fan. And if anything spills your computer is RUINED, unless it's off and/or a nonconductive liquid. Either way unless you're doing hardcore overclocking it is most definently not worth the trouble. To the thread starter: If you post your budget, needs and country then I'm sure many posters will be more than willing to get you off on the right foot.

dude, i have a pentium 2 with windows 98. and i cant even run RS, along with a browser. and i have 262 RAM. Last I checked you can't have 262 RAM. That aside I lived with a PII 350Mhz, 64MB and 8GB for a year or so and it ran everything fine - Winamp, RS, Doom, Quake (to an extent)... If you have 256 it should actually fly for most things. People really don't put enough faith in low-end technology these days; a computer like that would make a fine web browsing terminal. Anyway I have a gig of ram in each of my machines with at least 3.2Ghz or equivalent processors and x800 or better video cards and they all run fine. I don't see what need there is to up it to 2GB. The only time I lagged was while making a map in Valve Hammer and playtesting it at the same time.

I think this originaed in that movie "Pay It Forward," where the social studies teacher tells the kids to do a project that will change the world. This one kid said "I'm making a website that will get all the kids in China to jump up at once." The teacher then replied "The objective being to knock the Earth off of its rotational axis?" It seems feasible since the movie came out in 2000, when most people were still browsing the intarwebs with dial-up. That aside the domain was registered in 2005, so the idea is most probably derived from the movie or some other source.

Heh, I just had to do imaginary numbers for summer math today :D. Remember, i^.5 = 1 ... I think... I hope.

The people I am talking about believe that the country is really run by evil Christian leftists who are conspiring with bin Laden to bring down the world by refusing to help those with cancer by not using stem cells and then taking away all ownership of rifles so you can't go plinking with a .22 in the middle of a densely-populated suburban area, and that we are all going to be eliminated by the gestapo-esque police if we don't rebel and turn the Southern half of America back into a confederacy and legalize pot. If that really was the case then I don't think people would be very much worried about their legal or financial situation; it'd be "get the hell out of there." If it's bad enough they'll leave regardless of their legal or monetary ability to do so. It's alright if you think that the country could be run a bit better, but if you think that the country is going to explode and that's what you preach then why are you still living here? Many people fled Korea and Vietnam when the war came there illegally, despite the fact that they might not have been legally able to or that they didn't have enough money. If somebody truly believes that the US is going to start WWIII and that the States are going to get bombed to smithereens then they should shut up with their political preaching, save everybody the trouble of listening to their mindless drivel and get their stupid selves to somewhere else. 1) They may believe they can change the situtation by thier preaching, thus avoiding the calamity 2) Fiscal ability to leave is a big deciding factor in leaving or not, especialy when the situation is not immediate enough to require evacuation 3) It's not like you can just up and bugger off to where ever you feel like. Things like language, jobs, travelling illegaly has may dangers, worried about what they may face, being too young etc 4) do not attempt to characterise all extreme political activists as idiots. This is not true, allthough admittedly some are. Many academics have very politicaly extreme views that are quite sensible, or at least easliy justifiable. Now, let's all READ FOR COMPREHENSION AND NOT TRY TO PULL STUFF OUT OF THIN AIR. I did not characterize all extreme activists as idiots. In fact I said that the ones I'm talking about are the ones that make unreasonable arguments, hence the argument concerning plinking in a populated area. I'm talking abuot people who truly believe that the US is in a state of ruin and is going to be destroyed regardless of what happens in the near future. These kinds of people say "the Man has the Oval Office in his pocket and we will never get a good President elected and we're all screwed." They do not back up their arguments with anything, save anecdotal evidence and misconstrued quotations. I don't have any political affiliation, but I do believe that if you're going to criticize the government that you should do it rationally and, if you believe that bad things are going to happen, then rather than making noise for the sake of making noise and showing off your self-proclaimed superhoned intellect that you should get the heck out of the country. That aside can they not preach from a foreign country, say, via the Internet? I believe that the web and blogs carry much more weight than they used to, and that almost anybody can simply go to Blogger and set up a new blog and post in just ten minutes. What I'm getting at here is that many people whine and whine about how our President is a moron and that we're all going to die because we can't carry sawn-off shotguns on our person, and that all they're doing is giving themselves a cause to live because otherwise they have none and simply consume resources. For instance, a kid in my class was a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi, as well as a huge Neil Young fan. Real smart too, nice guy. Problem is, he believed that the government was spying on him because he bought Mein Kompf off of the internet. He wants to take over Germany and re-organize it as a Communist state under his totalitarian rule. He sees himself as empowered, and yet when I ask him why he doesn't move to Germany to begin his world-conquering he invariably answers "my parents live here." So, let me get this straight - you want to turn Germany into essentially a wasteland, kill Jews, believe that you are able to make your own decisions and have little to no respect for authority, and yet you continue to live in our society, listen to adults who might have an idea of what's going on (and in the case of our school system many times don't), and refuse to leave our screwed, forsaken country? Could he not jump onto a ship heading for another country? We live ten minutes from a huge complex of docks, an hour away from a humongous harbor (which he claims to go to every other weekend with his family that doesn't understand him at all) and he can't just sneak away from his evil unloving family which he has no respect for and jump onto a ship heading for somewhere else? Logistically it might be a bit difficult but if things are as terrible as he makes them out to be and he wants to take over Germany it should be relatively simple, especially for an intellect as great as his. These are the kinds of people I am talking about. They are extreme and make no sense. It's alright if you don't like the Social Security reforms, but if you think we're all going to die because our President is a redneck who can't pronounce nuclear then you should stop trying to be smart with everyone and just go somewhere else.

The people I am talking about believe that the country is really run by evil Christian leftists who are conspiring with bin Laden to bring down the world by refusing to help those with cancer by not using stem cells and then taking away all ownership of rifles so you can't go plinking with a .22 in the middle of a densely-populated suburban area, and that we are all going to be eliminated by the gestapo-esque police if we don't rebel and turn the Southern half of America back into a confederacy and legalize pot. If that really was the case then I don't think people would be very much worried about their legal or financial situation; it'd be "get the hell out of there." If it's bad enough they'll leave regardless of their legal or monetary ability to do so. It's alright if you think that the country could be run a bit better, but if you think that the country is going to explode and that's what you preach then why are you still living here? Many people fled Korea and Vietnam when the war came there illegally, despite the fact that they might not have been legally able to or that they didn't have enough money. If somebody truly believes that the US is going to start WWIII and that the States are going to get bombed to smithereens then they should shut up with their political preaching, save everybody the trouble of listening to their mindless drivel and get their stupid selves to somewhere else.

I completely agree. I don't understand how people can group the US with countries such as North Korea that has opressed its citizens so much or something like Iran who funds terrorists groups. Man, I'm not one to like the US, but what people say about it is so damn silly. What's even sillier is when its own citizens complain about how bad and evil it is, yet still live in it and pay taxes. If it was really that bad then they would try to escape "persecution" by "the man" and move to a different country.

If Wall Street crashed, I'm sure whatever country you're in would be affected in some way. America is by far the most powerful country, but that doesn't mean we don't have idiots running it. I'm actually debating moving to Canada when I get a little older. Health care here costs $900 a month (*?), the people running our country are Christian's with Christian ideals in mind, NOT governing ideals in mind, our very own leader is an open Christian who is going to veto a stem-cell bill pretty soon here that could help MILLIONS of people, just because his religion hints that doing it one way, which is the way they won't be doing it (killing babies, lol...) is wrong. I'm wondering what happened to seperation of Chruch and State in this country. People all of a sudden want to pull the pledge of alegiance out of schools just because it says the word "God" (hint: When I was a kid, I didn't know the difference, 'tards...), and now Christians want to force all their beliefs into our government system because they think that God is being pushed out of everywhere. (hint: The Bible says this is what will happen, and soon after, you'll all be saved...WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING? Scared? Thought so.) If that Stem Cell bill gets vetoed by George Bush, I swear...I'm going to be angry. He has no right to veto something just because it goes against his religious beliefs, which is exactly the only reason he'd be doing it. He is obligated to put the people's needs ahead of his idealogy. (HAAA!) Anywhoos...To answer the question, yes, America is a neusance, but only to ourselves. If our leader never started some imaginary problem to go to war, gas would still be $1.50 a gallon and everyone wouldn't be pissed off. Forcing democracy on people is something I laugh about, because honestly: Why should we care? It may sound mean, but it isn't our damned problem. If we were really doing it to help the PEOPLE out, North Korea would have been before Iraq. NK's leader is starving his people to death, yet we've done nothing there, so...Whatever. Glad to see I'm not the only one. I don't really know enough about the issues to determine what's going on with our government, but it seems as though Canada has laxer laws that keep people safer with regard to legal copyright use, etc. so that we don't have the RIAA telling us that we can't mix CDs. That and I want some more snow than two inches, and I don't want every business to close when we get a forecast of solid precipitation.

And people say I'm a Richard. Seriously you can't discount people with different religious beliefs as stupid. The truth is that there is no quantifiable evidence that proves or disproves any one specific set of beliefs regarding the origin of the world or deities. There are arguments for both creationism and evolution, but there is no solid fact that can explain each one of them. Some people say "omg omg fossils lol" but that still doesn't mean that we evolved. And who said that there wasn't an ultra-power deity up in the sky influencing evolution, meaning a hybrid theory? Truthfully we don't know, and it is simply one of those things that you need to keep an open mind about. I've swung back and forth concerning religion and honestly I still don't know what I believe but I'd say that's better than absolutely discounting something on a whim. We could launch into a huge debate about religion and such, but that's off-topic. What isn't is that calling somebody an idiot because they believe something that cannot be rationally justified as correct or incorrect is like calling somebody stupid because they don't believe in magical gnomes that feed us pie during the middle of the night; both situations are analagous in that we can't tell what is true or not and that civil people do not rely on petty subjectivity to determine one's intelligence. On the driving though, me too. I don't even drive yet and it seems that at least once a week some jacktard neglects to turn on their blinker and nearly runs me over, despire that I, the cyclist/pedestrian have the right of way. And people speeding, tailgating, swerving, pulling out into traffic... it just slays me, and if I do drive like that I hope somebody shoots me.

LoL. So did I. :| Maybe put some dudes in your sig instead of girls? There is one guy one girl in my sig.... Plus i have a guy in my avy now... And so what if i put girls in my sig, isnt that more manly then putting guys? I don't think it's your lack of guys in your graphics, I think it's more your demeanor and opinions that are traditionally more associated with feminine thinking. I can't be bothered to think of an example, but there was a time where I thought you were a girl as well until I read something about you having a girlfriend a few months ago.

Well, everybody is in their own special way - I have brain farts all the time but other times I come up with such "innovative" solutions or find really good ways of doing things that impress people, much like an idiot savant. On the other hand there are people that are truly inept, and people who aren't but think that if they act like that they will be better liked by the opposite sex, boys and girls included. About the actual ineptitude, this one person in the shipping department of my company didn't foward me a package because he thought that my name was the indicator of which manufacturing plant it had come from, despite the fact that it had ATTN: in front of it :roll:

Because that's the way it works. Equally many girls won't go out with guys who are ugly. Additionally, a lot is left up to the guy's preference. Although there are traits that are universally undesirable (ie acne, which doesn't occur as often in girls as in guys, or obesity), virtually everything else is left up to personal taste. For this reason I think a lot of girls are good looking but my friends don't think so, and the opposite is true - they might point somebody out, but I won't like them. I also look for somebody who isn't ditzy, clueless, overbearing, mean, spoiled, or any other undesirable traits because I simply wouldn't be able to be around them without having the uncontrollable urge to verbally abuse them as compensation for their rude actions. This is rather unfortunate, because a lot of girls that are good looking that I know act excessively stupid on purpose, are incredibly self-centered, spoiled, or just flat-out hate others because of the clothes they wear or the music they listen to, and simply cannot grasp anything beyond their own. I used to be closed-minded, but I'd like to think I've gotten a bit better with regards to being tolerant of others, evidenced by the fact that I am friends with "goths," "preps," "rednecks," and so on and so forth. However there are only a handful of girls who are really the way I described above, and so given the chance to go out with a really hot girl who's kinda mean/stupid/whatever I would probably do so, but I'd try hard to let my friends in on it and not be around them with her so as to avoid degrading them. And because I'm still only 14 everybody will simply forget about us when we break up after one month :lol:. I'm no expert, but in all likelihood there is somebody out there that enjoys your appearance and your personality, unless you are somebody that has virtually no concept of hygeine and has no semblance of wit or compassion. Just my two cents. Also, you are likely to get no sympathy from others on this forum because they are very likely to be in the same situation as you are, but aren't going to make a dedicated post about it to get others to explain to them the unavoidable conclusion. Not getting mad or upset at you, but just FYI. And I concur with x76, there are many children that deserve a beating once in a while. Nothing that will break skin, but just like a good slap on the face or lovetap on the arse. Although I've had quite a few of my moments I'd say I'm almost certainly a better person than those whose parents haven't done anything to discipline them.

...but common sense is the best protection. That and 1337 sk1ll2. Anyway Netscape Navigator was pimpin' back in the way with 56K, but now I use Firefox just because it has tabs. I used to use MyIE2 which is now something like Maxtathon because it had tabs, but it takes up far too much memory for my liking.