Dvd is acceptable and many times darned good, but there are many poor transfers out there that look hideous on an hdtv. Compression artifacts can be annoying, but the biggest problem is edge enhancement. You can see this on any big tv, not just hdtvs. Videophiles used to complain about edge enhancement from poor dvd transfers as they observed on their 36 inch sd tube tvs. Since I'm seeing the snake oil term of "upconverted" raise it's head again, let's clear this up. Upscaling doesn't improve detail on dvds, it's just necessary to do on fixed pixel displays (i.e. lcd and plasma).

In particular B vitamins can really improve your energy levels, especially B12.

A cup on a coffee pot is 5 ounces, sometimes 6 but usually 5.

I drink about 40 ounces of coffee made at American strength (one tablespoon per 5 ounces water). I recently tried to quit by drinking 4 ounces less per day. Besides feeling nervous it actually went fine. That is until two days after my last cup, WHAM! I got a nasty headache. I had presumed that caffeine fading would result in not being dependent, and not having to face withdrawal at the end, and I was wrong. Actually the withdrawal doesn't really start until after you're done drinking coffee. Whether you go cold turkey or gradually cut back you still have to face the withdrawal. The only time I successfully quit coffee (albeit for only a month) was when I quit cold turkey just because the worst is over quicker. I have tried about every fading scheme you could come up with going from over in a week to over in a month, but no matter how slow you take it you can't get away from the withdrawal.

Linux internet forums are populated by enthusiasts, they are like fan clubs. You posted in the wrong place (but yes those forums can be useful). It's like posting on Slashdot to get help with repairing a radio just because it's a tech site. Linux and *BSD OSs have dedicated email lists for the kind of support that you seek. You need to go there where then you would be in direct contact with devs. There are also web sites just for reporting bugs as well. This is about finding the right channels for support, and the attitude on linux forums, and not about linux itself. Also the major distributions offer support that you have to pay for. If you need quality support, then pay for it!

I've played both Fable games (and I haven't played Black and White), and well I like the second game. But the point is that they are not experimental or really new. I've seen it all before in other rpg games. I think the reason why I like the second game is because it's very polished and it improved upon or fixed the elements from the first game. Molyneux projects an image of being a wild and crazy experimenter, but honestly he's more of an innovator (improving upon what's already there).

Not everyone is shooting for merely a Bachelor or 5 year Master's degree. If you want to go into law, medicine or earn a PhD, working before going to college wastes valuable time, and you just can't afford it from not only a time perspective but a financial one as well. And teenagers still work at part time jobs and full time during the summer, what you said is simply not true. Just look around you next time you're at a store or a fast food joint. Anyway I don't think you gain maturity by sacking groceries, I think you gain maturity from being placed in positions where you have responsibility and a sense of duty.

That movie was my first exposure to Watchmen, and IMO it's not that good of a movie. It lacked a cohesive plot. Telling the backstory through all of those flashbacks made it feel like an episode of Lost, and took the attention away from the main plot. The flashblack mechanism didn't even work right because there were too many characters, and too much emphasis on things not important to deliver character or plot development effectively. I guess I can't blame 'em. The whodunit mystery and the evil plan are trite. The movie is not complex or subtle, it's just bloated. And the choice of songs completely lacks subtlety. Think about it-- "The Times are a changin'" next to a montage showing how the times changed, "The Sound of Silence" at a funeral, "All along the Watchtower"... wait do I even need to go on?
Now the fanboys say it's supposed to be deep, thinking movie because it deconstructs the superhero archetypes or whatever. Now ask yourself this question: why is that important for a movie seeking a broad audience? Answer: it's not! And to top it all off, most of the acting was poor.

I had the same happen to my 580s, but I shipped them to Sennheiser (yeah still under warranty), and three weeks later I received them back good as new with no charge (except shipping). That being said, I've found that AKG and Audio-Technica headphones are more sturdy and durable.

I've never heard as anything as strange regarding headphones as the comment you made about foam pads. I've owned many headphones and none of them audibly changed if I squished them closer to my head. The real point is that the cost needed for the "well-designed listening room and good speakers" is much greater than the cost of good headphones. My $100 Audio-Technica ad700s sound far more accurate (and revealing) than my budget Polk Audio Monitor towers. I would like speakers that rival inexpensive headphones, but I can't afford it.

I doubt that. Transparency starts around 192, just by lumping 128 and 192 together suggests to me that you think they are audibly the same. The reality is that 128 and 192 are more dissimilar than 192 and flac. And then once you get to ~250 to 320 it's extremely difficult to tell mp3 apart from lossless in blind tests. You can find a program, I think it's called abx, online and it will allow you to blind test yourself. Now that this is the real way to see when mp3 becomes transparent to you. I treat all blanket assertions that mp3 sounds audibly inferior to flac as suspec. It really is just a matter of when (and not if) mp3 becomes transparent to your ears.

I turn off my laptop because I will not have it running on battery when I move it around. When I go home for the weekend I turn my work station off. Why waste electricity when you're not going to use it for awhile? I doubt that I'm far from alone in turning off computers when they won't be needed for long amounts of time.

I had a standalone (Panasonic bd30) player, and it required frequent firmware updates just to play blu-rays. The same thing was happening on the ps3 and every standalone player. Your problem was not specific to the ps3. You don't have to update as often on your new player, because nobody has to on any player. It's settled down. I own a ps3 now and have had no trouble playing back any blu-rays, and updates are not that frequent, and are not a headache. I own both a ps3 and a 360, same as you. What I like about the ps3 is that since most gamers own a 360 or a wii and not a ps3, I can walk in and rent ps3 games on opening week, even on opening day (have done so three times now). I can never, ever do that with 360 games! I also like that the ps3 fan noise is quiet (unlike the 360). As a cheapskate, I rent far more often than I buy, and I find it much easier to rent on the ps3 due it's unpopularity and price point. That's a funny way for me to praise it, kind of like a back handed compliment, but there you have it!

Most of the ps3 games are bad ports of 360 games with performance issues (just to give an example Orange Box is probably the worst offender). On top of that the 360 has better hardware that outperforms the ps3 in terms of framerate and loading times. Graphically the two consoles look the same since nearly all games are developed for 720p. It will still probably be another year before the ps3 has a long line of interesting games that are not just crappy ports from the 360.

If you actually care about gaming, then simply choose the console based on content. The real reason that the xbox looks like garbage on this thread is because the thread is on slashdot. The anti-MS fud knows no bounds here. I do get tired of it, very tired of it. Face reality: this is not the year of the linux desktop, and this is not the year of the ps3. Maybe next year, we'll see.

And that doesn't make me an MS fanboy either. I want to enjoy the ps3, I am waiting patiently for good games to be released on it to justify buying it. For those that feel it's a must have for a media center (not unlike the reason people buy those overpriced iphones) I have a "media center" too-- it's called a computer. I mean how many people at the local walmart say "awesome I bet it plays Blu-Ray!" or even better "fantastic, I always wanted a media center!" No, the reason to buy a ps3 is to play games on it. The rest are supposed to be perks, and not the main reason to buy the console.