-=SKArface=-

I don't know all that much about DLP, I believe it is still CRT based but I could be wrong. DLP is an odd beast. Rather than exciting phospors or tuning on thousands of little lights, a DLP set uses a reflective surface and a fast spinning color wheel. The reflective surface is the DLP chip. The chip consists of thousands of tiny mirrors (one per pixel) that can be moved to reflect onto the screen or onto a non reflective surface. There is a light that shines on this chip. The light passes through a color wheel (think a wheel with 3 different gels, one for red, one for blue, one for green) as the wheel rotates the little mirrors move so that red is reflected on the areas that should have some red, blue reflects on areas that should have some blue, and green reflects on areas that should have some green. All of this happens very quickly so your eyes blend the colors to form the true color of the image. Unless a mirror can get stuck DLP has 0 chance of burnin, or dead/hot pixels. The downside is that the screen can't be flat. Here is a far more accurate description as to how it works: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dlp.htm

If you're looking for decent DoD:S servers. . . the SunLit guys run a pretty decent set of servers. Similar rules to the GC servers (though they don't seem to be as strictly enforced) Pretty decent environment to play in, few e-thugs, good players. I haven't played on their servers in a month or so though.

Changed my name. I'm not squeak1990, I'm now SKArface GC

Viva pinata is a surprisingly addictive game. My wife and I sit on the couch after we put Liz to bed and figure out how to make a kick butt garden. It's a good deal of fun. The odd thing with the game is that you have to feed some of your cute little pinatas to other pinatas. My wife loves the whirms and really doesn't like feeding them to the birds. . . . CoD3 is fantastic MP. I found the SP to be a bit repetative (though I did just play through CoD1, CoD: UO, and CoD2 for the PC on SP, so I may be a bit burned out) I'll be sending friend requests when I get home tonight. I'd definately like to play some 360 with youall.

my gamer tag is: squeak1990 I've been playing CoD3 and GoW.

Yup, all is going great. The lack of sleep is even getting a little better. No need for a shotgun (I can't hit anything with it, prolly gonna go for the deagle) Anyway, thanks to all for the prayers, good wishes etc. I hope to be playing a little more in the near future.

Agreed. Using the safe graphics mode for the install solves many issues with the install hanging. Not sure why, it wasn't really an issue before Dapper. I haven't tried the LiveCD with the newest version though. Another option is to use the free version of VMware. You don't have to dual boot, and you can run your linux install from within XP. It is a good deal slower than running linux natively, but you do get the ability to try out many different distirbutions without having to reformat you drive etc. There are even quite a few pre-packaged virtual machines that you can try without having to go through the install yourself. http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.html - links to their free products VMware Player - lets you load a pre-defiend virtual machine image (like the ones from the link below) VMware Server - lets you create your own VMs. (It does more than that, but for most users this is the main difference) http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/cat/45 - list of some of the pre-installed vmware OS images. I've been using vmware at work for the last 4 years or so. I can run around 5 virtual computers on my desktop. Makes developing our software much easier. Without it I'd need 5 extra computers.

I don't know about their 22" displays but I have a pair of sceptre 20"s that I'm very happy with. I got my two for just around 300 ea. at costco (about a year ago)

I don't know what's on the test, but whenever I need to refresh on details about linux I do an LFS install. Takes for ever, but really gets you back in touch with the system. I think being a unix admin is like riding a bike, you never REALLY forget how. . . . I haven't run unix boxes (outside of my desktop) in over 4 years. I find I still remember most of it, and can make up what I don't remember.

I dig Op Ivy. . . I haven't listened to them for a very long time though. You've inspired me to listen to them now though.

I'd go for the dual heads rather than the single 24. Being able to have a game full screen on the primary and stuff like email/im/whatever running on the second is fantastic. You can't really access the second display without minimizing the game but being able to see stuff is great. I have had some issues with a few games (3 or 4) that do not appear to capture the mouse to the main display. i.e. you move the mouse hard to the right and the pointer leaves the game screen. I picked up a pair of 20" Sceptre monitors from costco about a year ago for about 300 each. I've been VERY happy with them. I have one on DVI and one on VGA (I had two CRTs when I bought the card so I didn't go for the dual DVI) and the VGA display needs to be coereced into focusing correctly sometimes, but that's the only problem I've had with 'em.

Dunno . . . I haven't been playing much recently . . . new baby and all . . . I'm about to get some game on in a few minutes though. www.totalwar.org seems to be a pretty decent resource for m2tw. I'm currently running a spain campaign and I'm fighting a 3 front war yet again. (I'm terrible at getting the diplomacy right) I did get the toledo knights guild, which gives me some pretty fantastic cavalry units.

I had to take out my audigy to use the onboard sound. I got horrible distortion through the card. I think it may have been something with my mobo (abit aa8xe) the onboard sound is good. I get good effects and good 5.1 seperation.

40G is a very large file (if it is indeed a single file) many applications may have a 4G filesize limit. You may need to rar the file and then split it into more manageable chunks. If it's several files then you may be ok. 1) FTP You should be able to find a free FTP server to run on your computer. The person on the other end would need a decent FTP client to download it. I know windows comes with a command line FTP client, but I don't know if it supports auto resume etc. I've used ncftp under *nix as a client, it works pretty well. You may be able to get a decent free ftp server using something like Cygwin. 2) scp - scp is short for secure copy. It is related to ssh (secure shell). Again, you'd need to get an ssh server running on your box. Cygwin should have one available. WinSCP is a great client, supports auto-resume, bandwidth throttling etc. 3) Run a webserver on your desktop (apache is free) and make that file available via the webserver. The other end could retrieve the file using a web-browser. 4) rsync over ssh - this one is a little more complicated, but if you're transferring a large directory of files it is a very good way to go. (I use this to backup my windows box to my linux box). Rsync is a program designed to keep two directories syncronized. You can tell it to transfer the files via ssh (or rsh). It supports md5sums after copy (to ensure nothing got corrupted) as well as partial file completeion. If you have a directory of files you want to copy to another computer I'd definately go with rsync. The scenario where this works well is: You have a directory of files a friend of yours wants. You may add files to that directory over time, your friend would want those too. Rsync is smart enought to only transfer the missing/updated files. Good way to share out directories of pictures etc. I've only tried to do any of this type of stuff with *nix, under windows Cygwin is a great way to get unix like functionality on your desktop. Most, if not all, of the things I mentioned above are available for free using Cygwin.

The longbow coupled with the passive AI bug is fantastic.

A few questions. . . . 1) Diplomacy: I really haven't been able to get diplomacy to give me anything outside of trade rights. I have yet to successfully be able to offer an alliance or ceasefire. Any tips? 2) Preists: Short of killing heretics (which I have only seen 2 or three times in 80+ turns) how do I raise piety enough to promote to a cardinal? Also, do any of you use AI management for cities and towns? I have been setting some of my backfield (non border territories) to financial based AI and it seems to be working fairly well. I'm playing england and I think I have York, Inverness, Dublin, and the one to the left that I can't spell, set to AI management. I don't really use the territories for much other than $$ so it appears to have worked fairly well for me. The downside now is that I'm fighting milan, spain, denmark, and rebels. I was attackign spain and milan/denmark came in from behind. boo. . . . Loving the game tho.

www.doom9.net for all of your DVD burning needs.

Routers typically don't go "bad" and still pass traffic. One of several things is happening: (When I say ISP, I'm referring to who provides the network you're using, not who provides the last mile work) 1) Your ISP is peering at one of the public peering nocs (If any still exist) Mae East/Mae West are examples Traffic flow at these places is often poor 2) Your ISP has shifted it's traffic around (due to re-engineering, or line failure etc) 3) Your ISP does not have an adequate peering relationship with AT&T 4) You're in canada, any change there's maple syrup in the optics? 1&3 are most likely something that you can only have an effect on if you are a large customer. Number 2 is something you can complain about. It's really hard to figure out from just traces though. There may be some information at nanog.org (I think they have stats on major peers on their website) If you post an actual traceroute (tracert) that may help pinpoint where the issue is I couldn't make sense of what you posted, but I'm quite tired Yes, I spent far too long working for a very large hosting provider (I wrote support software in their backbone group, so I don't know a ton about networking. . . . take the above with a grain of salt) Yes, having a major yahoo presence 30 yards from my desk was fantastic.

I was getting server is full.

This appears to still be happening (or my reserve doesn't work anymore). FYI

I'm not that into cars, but a friend of mine is, and showed me this vid. It's a bit over the top, but very entertaining. http://www.fxnine.com/overdrive_mov.html

here here fatty! Anyway, back to the assignment. I'm thankful for: My new baby girl! my family my friends my cats my job 4 days off! and that I haven't gone 0-10 in quite some time on mayhem. Happy thanksgiving all!

A guy I work with brought his WII in on wednesday. We just played through the nintendo sports disc, and I gotta tell you, the controller is fantastic. The tennis game and the bowling game were incredibly fun. I wasn't really planning on buying a console until my girl is old enough to play one, but I'm really tempted to get a WII now.

I've gone through about turn 25 as england. I had an unfortunate turn of events then when William died, and rufus got killed on the way south by pirates. I just called it a mulligan and re-started. Love the game though.

Yah, if you get belligerent with a cop you are a fool. That said, just because you are being a fool doesn't mean that you need to be dropped. . . . anyway. . . . This particular peace officer appears to have had some violence issues in the past. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/19/10734/370 Getting tasered for not carrying your papers on you in a publicly funded building seems a bit, well, Orwellian. All this said, I have a general distrust for imposed authority anyway. i.e. If GC ran the only CS servers in the world, I'd have a huge problem with the server rules. However, since I can voluntarily choose to play under the rules I really like them.