It's a fairly new Gateway laptop with Intel hardware. You may have heard of them.

PM

Why do I upgrade? That's the question that I've asked myself for at least the last four versions. I spend six months ironing out all the trouble to the point where it mostly works then I upgrade and start all over again.

A year and a half for my mic to work, USB drives that transfer at absolutely crawling speeds (solving in Koala for the first time ever tho!), disk to disk transfer at an absolute crawl (seems much better in Koala), flickering screens, disappearing mouse cursors (happens every time on bootup in Koala - a simple CR in any terminal window brings it back), and a host of little this and that's.

The worst issue though by a mile has been sound. There is always a problem with sound. Without exception. I almost had my sound working perfectly in Jaunty but now something is glitched in Pulseaudio or Firefox or Alsa or something cuz padsp now won't wrap around Firefox.

Ya know, I bought an original sound blaster for a 286 in '89-90 and it blows my mind that something like sound can be such a problem 20 years later. Everyone really needs to get on the same page.

Anyway, despite the problems I continue to use Ubuntu. It still seems the best for my needs out of all the distros that I've tried. And I'd certainly still be wasting far more time in Windows dealing with the anti-virus and mal-ware nightmares that are found there.

I'll keep using Ubuntu. And although I'll probably keep asking myself why I upgrade I'll still do it. ;)

PM

resembles a real rifle. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was the Barrett 82A1 .50 cal rifle. Take a look and compare. I think this person was justified to be concerned. I do doubt that the game geek that was carrying it looked very menacing though. http://www.barrettrifles.com/home/rifle_82.aspx

Who says so? Why must something be conscious to wield human level intelligence? It's artificial intelligence right? Not artificial human.

PM

And haven't yet hacked out huge, popular parts of their game to combat RWT. Like Jagex did with Runescape.

Back in the day, my friend and I would co-op in GTA2. Our mission was to steal as many cars as possible then jam them next to each other for as far as we could go. Then we'd blow one up and create a massive chain reaction which on occasion would crash our machines. It was great fun.

When I was a kid, my step-brother and I would spend hours playing this game "co-op." One of us would take charge of the movement joystick while the other took the firing one. It was great fun yelling back and forth about where to go and what to shoot. Try it with a friend some time.

PM

Driving Like a Geek, The Geek Guide to Not Sucking In Bed, A Geek and His/Her Dog, The Geek's Kitchen Friend, The Geek's Guide to Overcoming Superficial Label Addiction

I dunno if you're a geek or not when you can't figure out how to switch "(neglect due to interest in sports, etc.)" to "(neglect due to interest in Linux/gaming, etc.") Sorry to break your "Geek" heart but you don't need special books because you're a geek.

I hope your marriage works out. Really, I do. I've just had my fill of people that need "Tags" and live their lives around them.

It seems every day now I end up stopped behind some idiot who's too busy texting on the phone to realize he's sitting at a damn green light. Or I watch some soccer mom weaving around in her SUV with the telltale hand to the head posture.

It used to be that here in the south that when you saw a car weaving around it was from good old fashioned drunk driving! WTF happened?!

PM

Maybe the stockholders should be given a file about the donor what with the potential of genetic memory influencing Jobs' decisions now. ;)

PM

I don't want a democracy. I don't want a democratic republic. I want a REPUBLIC.

Too few people know the difference.

Arresting pot smokers is an incredibly lucrative business! That's why it's still banned.

From their support email:

"Hello,

Thank you for contacting Sprint regarding the Palm Pre handset. We really appreciate your interest in our new products.

You can certainly purchase the Palm Pre handset without providing the SSN Number. However, to use this handset you are required to add this handset on any existing Sprint account of your family member or friend (if any).

In case, you wish to open a new account on your account, then you need to provide us the Social Security Number as per the FCC guidelines.

Thank you again for contacting Sprint and have a nice day."

So they claim it's an FCC guidelines requirement. True?

PM

I'm with you there. This is one issue where it's very easy vote with your dollars. I won't support an industry that behaves like this.