Sounds like a good deal. I did opt for a lot more options, tv card, wireless, dual burners, fairly high end card in its day etc., which ate up part of the balance. I know I could have built for a little less, but sometimes it is a matter of putting the risk on someone else, and how much your time is worth at the time. But either way, it shows it pays to buy quality. I'm using that computer right now, on my TV in the bed room :)

I tend to buy boxes with fairly high end parts (not expensive, just high quality), and when I built them I did the same. High end enough that I really didn't have to upgrade until everything was no longer "state of the art", so no parts to recycle in.

My ooold computer has a Q9550 and 8 gigs of ram, just as I ordered it. It is still pretty usable as a daily backup video player, and not bad for midline gaming like Portal 2, Goat Simulator, etc. Upgraded the video 3 years ago, $150-175 for what was then a steal.

5 years old, and the CPU is still on the front page of Passmark, at >4000 pmarks. Not bad. Paid around 1800 without monitor. Upgraded to 7 Pro over Vista, but even the original install is intact. Hard to beat that kind of stability, and not convinced you can build it by hand anymore.

As long as the manufacturing can scale and it does offer the advantages we assume, I would expect in in £300 cameras with 5 years, maybe even cheaper. Look at Gorilla Glass, once they found a market and could scale, now everyone uses it for smartphones.

Generally speaking, anything with lots of parts has more points of failures. Since CFLs all have ballasts, my experience has been that spikes does take a toll, by virtue of them dying after the storm.an incandescent is just a big resister. Yes, it can break but it is fairly tolerant by virtue of being tungsten and having no other parts. This is why I spend the money for the better CFLs. I've been using CFLs for well over a decade now. Been using them since the 90s, so not an expert, but I've owned a lot of them.

"Junior has permission to use this gun, but only at these times"

Are you fucking kidding me? This isn't a toy or an internet device, it is a self defense tool. I think that mandating "smart" guns is stupid, but this is even more stupid. Most people can't even program their DVR, and you want them to program a GUN?

The beautiful thing about a gun is its simplicity: simple point and click interface. Add some basic safety and legal training, and the average person is just fine without any "smarts" to foolishly rely on.

I'm glad to see that even the ACs around here see the benefit of this. I read enough of the article (really) to get a pretty good feel, and wondered if /.ers were going to trash or praise the idea. As a training tool, it is pretty useful, more practical ways than it might seem at first glance, as it is fun enough to keep people's attention when being trained.

And yes, there are some real life parallels to zombies, like the AC said, or rapidly spreading infectious disease. Interesting stuff.

...of bullshit. How this poorly written piece of crap got on Slashdot, I have no idea.

Interesting how this gets posted on Sunday morning, a time when people of faith are particularly likely to be offline doing other things. Deliberate attempt to skew the discussion, or just failure to think things through?

Actually, you are saying that PROFESSIONAL drivers have conversations and don't get into abnormal amounts of wrecks. Ok, I believe that. The bad part is that most drivers are amateurs.

I drive two hours a day on the interstate (not a "professional", just reasonably cautious with phone features built into car and never text and drive). You would be amazed at how many "professional" truck drivers I see crossing the line while fiddling with a phone. Whether they are texting or calling, I don't know. I don't see this daily, but I do see it about once a week. I85 in NC.

It's one thing to need 3+ people in a car to use the HOV lane, but how does this promote carpooling if you make ALL the roads in town illegal with 1-2 people in the car? The first guy can't go pick the other up, and at the end of the day if you're down to two passengers, you can't drop either of them off.

What's wrong with the requirement to be able to service customer vehicles on site? Making it as convenient as possible to buy a car but having to take it to some far off location to actually get it fixed under warranty sounds like lousy customer service.

You speak from experience?

Physics.