Pyro

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We are not discussing the moral issue here, so whether or not it is just to steal is pretty much irrelevant. What is not irrelevant is the fact that incidents like this is the result of the kind of society you wish to create. When you push someone far enough, they'll eventually start pushing back. Suddenly what you and I think becomes pretty much meaningless. Poverty equals crime. This is a universal truth. Most likely. This is why we are currently working to ensure it is easier to start new companies all while attempting to be able to maintain the high standard we offer our poor. This is working out pretty well so far, but as always there is room for improvement. But then again, it's not really any worse here than it is in the United States. We have the same problems of jobs moving outside the country, and that would not be solved by reduced taxes. Hence, this does not necesarily mean that lower taxes will create more work. It might, but it might not. That's pretty easy to say when you've never been unemployed for a long period of time. Not everyone is going to be able to get a job, it's as simple as that. You're just gonna have to accept that, whether or not you feel they deserve it or not. Yeah, but then again Canada isn't exactly the nation with the least homeless. A more fair comparision would be to various nations of western Europe as they are closer to the system I'm describing. It comes in because what you are saying is that reduced taxes is a good thing as it benefits you and you don't have to worry about the consequences. The sad truth, however, is that you do. It will affect you no matter if you like it or not. I don't care more about that book than you do, probably less. Religion is a product of the morals and ethics of our time, not the other way around. You might not care about the less fortunate, but in the end they are more of a threat to you than you are to them. You'd be wise not to push them too far. I couldn't really care less about what attitude you have to the world, but I didn't think it would be fair for you to live in a bubble of ignorance regarding the effects of letting each man fight for himself. If you still fail to see how taxes can benefit you, I think this is a lost cause.

To my knowledge, there are no recent exploits of this kind available for this service. I find it likely that he is just trying to scare you.

Not funny, you deserved it. Grow up.

I can tell you're pretty young, so I'll go easy on you. The primary objective of income taxes is not to decrease income for the rich and increase it for the poor. The objective is improve society. While it may seem black and white in your view, it is far from it. Let's assume a child is born in a poor family in your state. He does not receive any education as his parents can not afford this, and hence he has no choice but to steal for a living. He mugs another guy and gets caught. He is arrested and sent to jail. You and your fellow taxpayers now pay thousands of dollars per year to afford to keep this system in place for "his" sake. Let's instead assume that there were taxes in place that allowed him to get himself an education and get a job. Which do you think will cost *you* less in the end? This is a crystal clear example of how taxes can be beneficial for everyone. In your black and white redneck world it may very well be as simple as "getting a job". However, this is not true for everyone. In my country your odds of getting a job decrease severely if you have a foreign family name for example, and the unemployment rate is massive. These are intellectuals, academics. Yet, they lack work due to the current economical climate. I suppose this is their fault aswell, and they should starve to death because you were lucky and they were not? A mock question of course, but you get the idea. The very notion that taxes only help the poor is moronic. While it may help the rich to a lesser degree, it will affect the lives of everyone. Imagine suddenly losing your precious job and finding that there are currently next to no jobs vacant where you live. Whoops, suddenly you have a problem. With the kind of system that is in place in many nations in Europe, you would get economical support aswell as help in getting a new job. This service is obviously founded by taxes. Guess which system has the smallest amount of homeless people? Thieves? Killers? Yeah, it's not the one you want. It's interesting to note that you share views with a large number of famous communistic leaders in the sense of isolationistic politics. "It doesn't concern me". That may work for you, but my world does not look like that. For every action there is reaction, and thinking that your bubble will never burst is weak and naive. This world doesn't need any more of attitudes like the one you are displaying, and it doesn't need selfish isolationism. It doesn't need your contempt or your arrogance What this world needs is people who actually, genuinly, care. You are superfluous. Welcome to my world.

DDR and DDR2 are different standards and are not per default compatible. The current implementations of the AMD64 platform do not support DDR2.

[/bandwagon] But yeah, it's pretty lame. You can't blame them for being partial to their product since they ARE after all in it for the money, but then they shouldn't try to appear impartial either. The term "facts" does imply a certain degree of unbiasedness.

We are not living 3 years in the past. The top AMD processor is not the Athlon Socket A Barton line. At the moment, you can purchase any AMD processor, run it with the cooling included, and expect less than 40 degrees celsius on full load (obviously there can be conditions that will increase the temperature, but you get the idea). Hence, I fail to see to how this is relevant. Oh yeah, and my last processor is an Intel Pentium 4 which was originally specced at 3.0 Ghz :P Of course it does. When there are two major competitors and the difference in product-quality is so large that the choice is obvious, the brand which you will not purchase *really* sucks. Now, this is not the case in the entire market. An Intel Pentium M laptop for example might very well be an excellent purchase. But as for the Pentium 4, the Pentium D or anything related to Netburst... Don't even try defending it. It's not worth it. The following is an example of CPU performance in games, which is what the majority of the users on this board mainly use their computers for: http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/12/21/ ... age16.html

Holographic storage has been in development for quite a while, this information isn't really particularily fresh. It is an interesting concept though, but you shouldn't be expecting it for quite a while yet. Sure, they may claim that the first versions will be released soon, but there's quite a long road from there to personal consumer products :P HD-DVD/Blu-ray will live for quite a while though. When it comes to movies, there is no real need for more storage than either of these offer. For now.

-nevermind-

The very concept of an army is people who fight the wars of other men. While it may be different in a lot of nations today, I get the idea that you're joining the US army. Say hi to George for me.

If I were to purchase a new computer, selecting the main parts would be fairly easy: For a processor, I would go for an AMD64 X2 3800+. It's got two cores, so not only can you run programs that support multiple threads better, but you also receive improved multitasking capabilities. This is great, no matter what you use the computer for. There are faster X2 processors aswell, so just select the one that fits your budget. The 3800+ can be overclocked quite a bit though, so that's why I personally don't see the need for versions with higher clock frequencys. Motherboard? I'd go ASUS A8N-E. No reason in particular, but I've built three systems with this baby, and it's an excellent board. It's got the NF4U chipset, so you get SATA2 and NCQ etc. The BIOS settings are excellent and unless you need to go beyond 3.0v with your memory power, it'll overclock enough and beyond. It hasn't got SLI, but since that technology is one of mankinds most idiotic inventions in my highly subjective view, I wasn't bothered by this. I mean, seriously. Your high-tech rig gets old, so you put another old card in it? Heh. Memory? A pair of 512 sticks should do it. TwinMOS, Corsairk, etc. Doesn't really matter, one of the well known brands. Preferably CL2 or CL2.5, most of the other numbers don't matter enough to bother with on this platform in my opinion. Graphics? I'd go for the Geforce 7800GT. Feels like a nice mix between performance and price. Can overclock quite a bit, but it'll do just fine without that aswell. I really like Stuart_G's setup aswell, but IMO it's a bit expensive. I didn't feel the need to type up an entire setup, but here are some ideas about components at least.

Amusing post, especially the part about how mean Dell were when they wouldn't sell you a whitebox. So, to present my experiences of Dell when I ordered a box for a member of my family: Great support, they even called to make sure we got the parts we really wanted and needed. Then, a few months later, lightning struck, PSU died. Since we had an insurance-like guarantee from them, they offered to come the next day and fix it free of charge. While they were there, they even put in an old harddrive that the guy who owned the box had when he asked them too (Yeah, obviously I could have installed it myself, the guarantee was what prevented me from opening the box). I've used the computer a few times, works like a charm. Does this mean everyone will have good luck dealing with Dell-techs? Heck no, but what it does mean is that horrible support is most certainly not guaranteed. Lame case and cooling? Yeah, it's pretty ghetto. Doesn't matter, it does what it's supposed to. If you're looking for cooling that will support overclocking you're out of luck, but for the end user, it couldn't be better. I don't suppose you thought of the benefits of the cooling system used in modern Dell cases? First of all, one fan produces less noise than two. Second, this setup ensure less dust on components. So yes, it could be argued that the setup is not ideal. However, you won't earn any points by complaining about it. For the average user, it's pretty cool. Low-end PSU? Yup. But then again, Dell sell pre-made computers. They don't sell loose parts in neat packages. If you want the modular approach and want to be able to make the upgrades that suit you, you shouldn't be buying pre-assembled computers. Once again, this part does what it needs. It may break occasionally, but all PSU's have a chance of doing this. I for one have not seen any kind of statistics that conclude that the PSU's Dell use break more often than others. Conlusion: I find your post unjustified, and I think you're crying for attention. Have a nice day.

That was indeed part of the problem, but this is another thing that is changing. When it comes to desktop processor, the Athon64-series consumes a lot less power and hence produces a lot less heat than any of the latest models from Intel using NetBurst (Pentium, etc). The Pentium M, naturally, is more power-effective than it's desktop counter-parts, but a mobile processor should not be compared to a desktop processor. A more sensible comparision would be Pentium M contra Turion64, and in this field the competitors are fairly even. My one and only point is that while AMD had heat problems a few years ago, this problem is now far more common on Intel platforms than AMD ones. Currently, I would not consider an Intel processor in any non-laptop system. There is a fair bit of fanboyism involved, but the specs certainly aren't in Intels favor at the moment.

Partly because AMD hasn't been releasing particularily strong products focused at that particular market for very long, but also because of the mass-deals involved when purchasing components for OEM-assembled computers. For example, Intel offered Dell a serious discount if they only used Intel processors in some series of computers. There is also the fact that a disturbingly large amount of people still believe that you can measure a computers performance in megahertz/gigahertz, which means that processors from Intel are easier to sell. However, I suspect that this will all change in the near future. Intel will still be by far the largest producer of Home-CPU's, but they will finally have a serious competitor. This, of course, benefits us comsumers.

I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the 350 watt PSU will be able to provide more power in average than the 600 watt would. The reasoning is simple, different brands use different ways to measure wattage. The value brands use the peak wattage to determine the specifications, and the brands who market themselves as slightly more exclusive use average wattage and similar marks. Hence a 600 watt PSU can easily be less effective than a 350 watt PSU. It should also be said that I have a system that uses more power than yours would per default, and I have also overclocked this system. I use a 300 watt PSU. This system has been 100% stable. Not SATA-friendly? How so?

Of course religion should be taught in school. What is important is how it is taught. There is a massive different between teaching a child how the world was created and teaching a child how the Christians believe the world was created. There are a lot of people who fail to see the difference between these types of teaching, and these are the people who believe intelligent design is science. This is part of the reason that I would never consider becoming a teacher. I would never allow myself to teach someone that there is any reason whatsoever to believe in the supernatural, and hence I would be forcing atheism on students who may want no part of it. Unfortunately, there are quite a few less enlightened folks out there, and it wouldn't suprise me if we needed a revolutionary atheist movement one of these days. Freedom of faith is cool with me, but when your freedom reduces my feedom, I'll bite :P More power to every religious person out there who lets religion stay personal and doesn't try to force it on others.

Speaking of Ipods, they should make whoever is in charge of the Ipod marketing section president of this universe. I'm not kidding, the guy is obviously a genius. Suddenly an entire type of product is compared with one particular brand, and it doesn't end there. A while ago, they started providing free engraving (That's the word, right?). So basically, they'll put text on your Ipod for you, for free. Now, the general customer will feel that this is awesome as he gets an extra service, and it generates goodwill. Does it end there? No, because suddenly the amount of used "flawless" Ipods for sale on various auction sites decreases majorly, since the people who would sell them put engravings on them. Hence, even more sales for Apple. I mean, people are sheep and all that, but I do find the above to be quite impressive. And that's my anecdote of the day :P

Labtec is the label that Logitech puts on products that aren't good enough for the mother company. You may have been lucky with your headphones, but I assure you, Labtec is not a quality brand. They even profile themselves as value on their website. That is usually a bad sign. When it comes to hardware, I'm a big fan of the "buy cheap, buy twice" moto. As for the PSU, I'd go with the cheapest Antec over that generic one any day. If I'm to pay a major amount of cash for a computer, I'm not going to be cheap when it comes to the one component that has the potential to mess every single one of the others up. I'm not saying it will detonate your computer and sell your soul to the devil, but what I am saying is that my experience from generic PSU's is unstable systems. I am deeply in love with Forton, but they don't seem to have their PSU's at your store, so meh. http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=90608 Also, is it just me or did you pick P-ATA drives in this day and age? :(

If you were to install a keylogger on a computer you own for the very purpose of monitoring an employee without their consent and in secret in Sweden, you would be facing serious legal charges. I would talk to a lawyer before attempting this, and I don't mean a hobby-lawyer online.

Seriously, stay away from generic stuff aswell as Labtec. They are cheap for a reason, and getting a cheap generic PSU which is specced at a high voltage is a fantastically bad idea.

Fair enough. The actual laws don't concern me though, as I'm not concerned with how things are currently working, just how I believe they should work. Of course you can. You should never accept the rules of the majority if you find them ridiculous, as they are simply fools with strenght in numbers. It should be said however that in any school I have ever been to, tax payers do not directly control the rules. This may be different in other parts of the world, but I personally do not encounter this. Certainly, I'm not blaiming the school, only the system. Correct. However, that doesn't make the PDA rules any less laughable ;P

I don't want to be walking in the hallway and have to look at people displaying their affection everywhere. Its completely inappropriate. Well see, I'm a wee bit more liberal than you, and I don't give care whatsoever if people kiss, or what the heck, have hot sex in the hallways or not. Innapropriate? In your view mate, not mine. You're at school to learn, feel free to display your affection for another person on your own time. School boards want to enforce this concept, hence the rules. Actually, it doesn't work quite that way. School time IS my time. I aswell as my parents pay taxes for the tuition my school provides, and it is owned by the state. Hence, we all own the school. Obviously this is not the case everywhere, but it explains why I find this whole issue silly aswell as pathetic. And then there's also the issue of fighting for my rights, which I will do 24/7 regardless of who makes a claim on controlling/owning my time.

So do I, which makes it fairly practical to go there indeed :P

Idiotic rules are meant to be broken. Public displays of affection... Heh, welcome to the reich.