i LIKE the BBC! It's got Top Gear!

I bought what I could afford at the time. I guess you've never had a part break down over time? Or are you still using your old (insert whatever your first machine was here)?

I didn't say I didn't like your comment nor that I didn't welcome it. You judged me unfairly, and I corrected you. And then you insulted me again. Flame on, my sensitive brother, I've been here way longer than you.

Perhaps I should explain. My Phenom 9850 works just fine, it's my mobo that's actually dying, bit by bit. I've lost functionality of one of the PCI-E slots, two of the USBs, the Ethernet, and the audio. So it's going in the waste bin, yes. I'll probably freecycle the chip and ram though. So, I'm not upgrading just so I can have the latest-greatest-up-to-datest; it's an actual need, not that I need to justify it to internet tough guys like you.

Thanks for judging me, though. :)

This is highly relevant to my interests as I embarked upon an upgrade crusade about a week ago to replace my aging PC (circa 2008 tech). I had just got caught up on all the new architecture, and then I read about the recall. Massive bummer. I'm still going to hold off until the fixed boards actually still coming out since I have a bunch of SATA drives and I do not want the trade off of a discrete SATA card taking up one of the slots, but it was mighty tempting to go get an i5 2600K that our local PC store had labeled on it's website as a return... for $125.

Heck, I may still go check it out (if it's still there) as that's at least $100 off retail, and I'm guessing it was returned because of this whole fiasco. I'm just loathe to have it sit around as a paperweight until at least April!

I would hazard a guess that the number of people really affected by this would be in the minority. I'm in that category, but honestly, the last time this really bothered me was nearly two years ago when I bought my wife and myself a couple of netbooks for college. Being the power user that I am, I actually relished in systematically purging all the crapware that MSI had preinstalled. My wife otoh, not a power user in the slightest, couldn't have cared less.

Chances are, if you know enough about PCs to be bothered by all that bloat, you also know how easy it is these days to simply get rid of it, either by purging or reinstalling a fresh OS. Honestly, it's not that big of a deal, and if it keeps the final cost of the machine below astronomical levels, then by all means, you go ahead and put 50 icons and links all over that desktop, Dell, HP, Gateway, etc.

I wonder if anyone has actually managed to ask a major manufacturer just how much cost savings (if any) is passed on to the end user, or even just to the company itself. It must not be insignificant.

Seriously, it's a hella good book. Wiki has a good synopsis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(Isaac_Asimov_novel)

I first went to college in '93, before wide-spread cell phone usage and internet for the most part (my dad wouldn't spring for Compuserve or AOL). My room had a phone that we paid for with a university card, unless you were canny enough to figure out how to use someone else's card to get free calls (perhaps someone who had dropped out and not canx'd it...) I had my dad's old 8088 with a 5" monochrome CRT and a 9-pin dot-matrix for banging out papers in my dorm room, and iir the best systems were pc towers that could play apache sims and of course, the college's computer lab full of apples. I spent countless hours there playing Civ off a 3.5" floppy...

Anyhow, I'm now attending college again in the age of cell phones and ubiquitous internets. On one hand I am horrified at the sheer number of kids walking around like zombies, barely aware of their environment, but on the other, I can understand that it's how they grew up, always connected, so it's not entirely their fault. And yes, I do vaguely remember how "zombified" kids back in my day seemed with their walkmans and diskmans, but at least then it was only your hearing that was impaired.

Heck, even these days I feel a little guilty if I leave my cell at home when I drive out to the quickie mart for only 10 minutes--in the back of my mind, I'm thinking "holy crap, what if something happens! Nobody will know!" At the same time I often think WTF. We got along JUST FINE without all this connectivity for many, many years and no one thought anything of it unless you were super-uber late to something. My wife reads me the riot act if I don't answer my cell or a text: "you NEVER answer your cell!" And have to remind her that a) maybe I was driving or b) maybe I was taking a nap or c) maybe I was in the freaking SHOWER (and not ever d: maybe I just didn't want to talk to you).

It's sad, really. Our time isn't ours' anymore. Used to be that I'd wear a pager during working hours and I felt so relieved when I could take it off at the end of the day and not have to worry about being bothered by work, Used to be I could go for an hour long drive and not worry about whatever catastrophe what might be brewing in my absence. I sincerely miss being able to unplug, because now when I want to, it's cause for scrutiny and not the status quo. And that's the part that really sucks going back to college nearly 20 years later-- I'm only 34, fer chrissakes, but I must seem like some sort of dinosaur to these kids today when in reality it was my generation that saw the whole evolution of todays "always connected" culture unfold before our eyes.

Come to think of it, this is nothing new. Kids and young adults have been entranced by new tech or "stuff" that is often seen as a mystery or even a menace by their predecessors for decades (if not centuries); think rock'n'roll, the previously mentioned walkmans, hell, even the first cars, or the first whatever. IMHO, the only thing that is new about this is our ability to communicate this shared awareness of what is going on in new and previously unheard of ways.

Sorry for the novel, I've been thinking a lot on this as of late. Here's the TL;DR:

TL;DR: Oh noes! It's the end of civilization as we know it! No, wait. It's the same thing that has happened before and will happen again when each new generation comes of age. It's mystifying and slightly alarming to watch it happen from the sidelines but perfectly normal for those who have known nothing else. While I miss what once was, what has replaced it is not necessarily bad. Just different. Cheers~

For my senior year, I got $10 per A on my report cards. Yeah! Except I hated nearly every class except Latin and calculus. So in my case, the reward was more like, Only 2 A's, you could have done better. But here's 20 bucks, go wild. Which might be why, 20 years later, I'm commenting snarkily on /. Or at least a contributing factor.

it depends on how well your team works together. I've had both good teams and bad--the bad ones are where having your boss hovering over your shoulder is a huge encumbrance. But the good times, those were great; your boss can play any number of positive roles, from getting the pizza to running interference between his subordinates and his superiors, to using his position to Get Things Done with parts supply or special access etc. So OP, if you're a good boss and your guys like having you around, then by all means you should stay. But if you sense you might be getting in the way but you still think you should stay, then go hole up in your cube--your guys will appreciate your sacrifice all that much more.

Let's not forget the rampant cannibalism...

VASIMR.





...what.

Not that I had any real fears, mind you, but the main reason that I don't own a Kindle or an account on itunes is precisely because of this shit--you don't physically own what you buy. Yeah I could hack an ipod or kindle to do what I want, but out of the box these objects are unacceptable to me. Digital medium still has a long way to go before the masses accept it on a level on par with existing analogue tech.

This does not need to be made public. I love only having to sit through 25-30 seconds of commercials verses 2-3 minutes for each break. This is what drove me to Hulu in the first place, but I can't fault them for wanting to make more money. I just knew it was too good to be true for as long as it has been--soon it will be just like watching regular TV, and then I'll be back to torrenting the shows I like _sans_ commercials. Meh! Remember these halcyon days. I know I will.

Same here, and I thought it highly amusing since I still had over 40k miles and 4 years left on my super-duper Hyundai warranty. But yeah, good point... they must have had information pertaining to the sale dates and stuff (I'd have been right on the mark on a standard warranty). I wonder how this information is made available?

It's the nerd humor. My all time fav is the one where it starts out with Nibbler drinking an entire swimming pool and then burping out the resultant chlorine gas. Everyone drops to the ground, knocked out by the poison gas, and Bender is left there laughing at the plight of the "meatbags" until he goes (with classic comic timing): "Oh wait, chlorine..." and then is nearly immediately covered in rust and succumbs as well. Oh wait, found it! http://www.hulu.com/watch/65768/futurama-chlorine The best, imho. Followed closely by the Asteroids episode. *chuckle*