You just aren't amplifying the noise anymore... the noise is still there.

I bought an Asus XONAR Essesence STX because I listen with headphones often. Best purchase ever. For headphones, you can notice the clairity difference between headphones plugged into the reciever (connected by S/PDIF) and the analog headphone port. There is NO background noise on the head phones and it can drive headphones with unreasonable power at instant permenant hearing damage levels.

For digital out, it allows the card to send a Dolby Digital signal out over the S/PDIF - which is of huge value in that it stops my reciever from switching in and out of dolby digital when I pop in a DVD. Also, I don't have to mess with the controls on the reciever. I can choose the headphone or digital out from software and leave everything connected.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can get the STX for $50 :(

But your raptor still wont fit in a laptop!

So what does the raid controller do when you re-write the same block multiple times... how do you ensure the drive is in a consistant state?!

I don't think you can do RAID1 with a fast drive and a slow drive.

To be fair, OCZ has some pretty decent customer service. I had neumerous OCZ drives fail, one while I was over-seas which they still RMAd - they have always been supportive of their product and shipped replacements quickly. I mean, if it were any other company, they would have cocked up and lost my business. But that said, I'll still never buy another sandforce based SSD again.

bah whatever. If they would have released what was promised, it wouldn't have been used right away to its full potential anyway, cost more, not been adopted, and would have left them with little upgrade path. Instead, they flooded the market and got developers thinking how to develop for the interface and are now improving it.

yes you spammer, it's a HAL reference.

With such password policies, do you sometimes wonder if these facebook "friends" are really enemies out to get you? :)

Also with blackberry, it can't be brute forced and the files (including media card files) can be stored with full encryption...

But lets not talk about the good things of a platform that is hated for being boring and working.

My bank in the UAE used to call me to sell me products, and would try to confirm my identity... In which case I described the problem with their protocol, which usually resulted in a complete waste of time. They no longer call to sell me services.

Version 2 can involves knives, which could include more violence, guts and gore. This will sell very well indeed.

We have a system in the UAE called Salik. There is a partial toll road in Dubai... it has 4 gates (that you can go arround if you plan your trip) on a long stretch of road that runs along the coast connecting the western emirates. It works via a passive RFID sticker. If you go through a gate without a working sticker, it is ~$60 fine. Crossing of the gates are ~$1 for the entire trip (ie, if you cross more then one gate, in order, you are not billed more). The gates are crossed at highway speed (120km/h) and are not known to fail even when crossed at high speed. The RFID sticker is available cheaply so EVERY car in the UAE seems to have one. The sticker is linked to the vehicle registration. It appears there are RFID readers various places in the city which are not toll roads. I do not know of anyone getting any speeding tickets calculated from average speed between gates or RFID readers, but I would be surprised if the data isn't used by national security or police. They do not seem to fail.

No no no, you're holding the map upside down...

Austrailia is like New Zealand's Canada

The facebook page is quite entertaining, here are some of the comment threads

Some are not only stupid and ignorant, but incomprehsibly so:
Linda Gillard - TAKE MY 6 E-BOOKS OFF YOUR SITE IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS BOOK PIRACY AND THEFT! I receive nothing for these loans & you haven't even asked for my permission to give away my books. (And you wouldn't get it.) I have informed Amazon, my agent and The Society of Authors of your illegal activities.
Linda Gillard - It looks as if the whole thing is a scam. You can't download the books. Borrowers are referred to Amazon to buy them. Whoever runs the site is probably just collecting referral fees from Amazon. Neat racket.
Jenny Woodall - Linda, have you tried registering and 'borrowing' a book?
Linda Gillard - No, but someone else has. I think their post is on this page if you look back.
(previous referenced comment: Philip Catshill Hang on hang on.... I have just registered and tried to download my own book, But the site tells me the Book CANNOT BE BORROWED - ONLY BOUGHT : Click on BUY and you go to the Amazon sell page. Its just a referal site - I have similar links for "friends" novels on my Website so I reckon this guy is just out to collect referal fees from Amazon.)
Jenny Woodall - Thanks, will do.
Jenny Woodall - Did a 'Who is" search and have now contacted the Domain host with a cease and desist letter as well.
Linda Gillard - I've just heard back from the SoA who think what they are doing is not illegal but is probably misleading to both borrowers & authors.
TLDR; Even after understanding site is reffering customers to buy her books through legit channels, Jenny Woodall decides to bother the hosting company.

And then there are some clearly out for blood money:
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - EVERYONE ON THIS SITE!!! EMAIL ME YOUR ADDYS AND WE WILL FILE A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!
Rosalind Smith-Nazilli - I have mailed them also and commented here..
Philip Catshill - ?"Hang on hang on.... I have just registered and tried to download my own book, But the site tells me the Book CANNOT BE BORROWED - ONLY BOUGHT : Click on BUY and you go to the Amazon sell page. Its just a referal site - I have similar links for "friends" novels on my Website so I reckon this guy is just out to collect referal fees from Amazon."
Miranda Stork - This 'guy' is not a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and so is not collecting referrals. We currently have a lawyer looking into all of this for us, as even if the site WAS legit, he has books there that are DRM protected. These should not even be SHOWING up. On top of that, if he is legit, why has he answered no emails, or removed any books?
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - Please keep me in contact with you about the lawyer. My book is on Kindle Select and he should not have access to it a all!
Miranda Stork - We will do, as I mentioned in the message to you, we are just sorting out things before we make a lot of statements, as we don't want too much information floating around panicking people until we have compiled everything, but this guy will NOT get away with this.
Dawn Sinclair - If this action goes ahead, could you inform me as I have 2 books on Amazon Kindle and they are both on Lendink's lists illegally...Theresa Dawn Sinclair...my email address is dawnspen@gmail.com...thank?s very much
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - He has taken down the site for now. Wish we could still get him financially!
Miranda Stork - That's what we are still looking into, we're still talking to our legal counsel.
Miranda Stork - Also, he didn't take the site down, it was taken down by the server after several lawyers got in touch :)
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - Awesome! Who are these lawyers...let's join forces!!
Miranda Stork - I heard about it from a friend, Maxi Shelton, so if you ask her, she can tell you the full details.
TLDR; even after understanding he is not making money and no piracy is taking place, greedy bastards still want money

It seems the biggest instagator was an OG Tomes and EA Setser - It appears there are some sort of Anti-Piracy mobs involved here.
You can see in the facebook comments evidence in this:

OG likes all posts which are negative, and calls other authors fools who recognize no wrong is taking place:

Michele Poet - If you are running your business exactly as is described on your website (and I really really hope you are because I've been defending you all over the place and don't want to look a fool) - then I would like to say I fully suppurt your endeavour and wish you well. I am pleased to see my books are on your site. You seem to be a very honourable individual and it is a shame you have been tarred with the same brush as other less professional individuals.
OG Tomes - Looking like a real big fool lady!
TLDR; He's looking like the big fool

Seumas Gallacher - I see my two novels are on your site WITHOUT MY PERMISSION ... As far as I'm aware, This is tantamount to PIRACY and COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT . Please remove my books immediately from your site ..
Seumas Gallacher - OG ,, do you have any means through your networks to get this viral ?? this is an amazing usurping of copyright ...
Jacqueline Wood - Good luck getting these fraudsters, your hard work went into writing these books you should be paid for them
Seumas Gallacher - The author community is railing hard right now against this... it's lousy
EA Setser - Seumas I'm part of an Anti-Ebook-Piracy Group here on Facebook. We assembled to deal with "The Ultimate E-Book Library" but have branched out into others. I sent you an invitation, in case you're interested.
Seumas Gallacher - Where did you send it please . I'm sure every author would want to join up ..
EA Setser - I added you to the group, it's just awaiting Admin approval. You should get a notification once they clear you.
Theresa 'tish' Webb - bloody hell, hope that you get it sorted Seumas, what a cheek!!! x
EA Setser - From what I've learned so far, they may be legit. The questions are whether the Borrow links work for books that aren't part of the Kindle Lending Library and whether they take a cut from sales made through the Buy links.
Rosalind Smith-Nazilli - mm.. curious.. I will go look tomorrow when I have the energy..xx
OG Tomes - Phillip I have to ask.... did you sign a release for your work to be displayed on this site so that said site can earn from the sale of any of your books? Yet another cut comes from our pockets......This goes deeper than a referral. This site is not listed in any of the channels I approved for my sales distribution.
OG Tomes - Also it is a misrepresentation..... lending for free..?
TLDR; Tomes is an idiot and doesn't realize how Amazon works. Setser is part of a secret lobiest mob, probably responsible for all of this.

There are many posts by multiple people that are basically "Burn the witch" accusations of piracy - some complete copy and pastes from multiple accounts, like:
Maxi Shelton-This is a PIRATE SITE with no rights to any of the books they list. They seem to have just harvested details from Amazon regardless of the book ... so they probably don't have them available anyway. And the creators will see no money from any of this activity. As with all pirate sites, use with extreme caution, and remember that most often, pirated books come with additional nasty extras like viruses and whatever which may screw up your PC ...
David J Howe-This is a pirate site with no rights to any of the books they list. They seem to have just harvested details from Amazon regardless of the book ... so they probably don't have them available anyway. And the creators will see no money from any of this activity. As with all pirate sites, use with extreme caution, and remember that most often, pirated books come with additional nasty extras like viruses and whatever which may screw up your PC ...

Overall, very entertaining.

It is national don't type that letter day. Insensitive clod. :)