Kush

Well, here's my #^%$&^%$. It depends on what you're going to use the OS for. Games first, work second, you can wait for XP. Work first, games second, you can go win 2000, or even XP pro. I'm waiting for XP myself, but I still have some classic old dos games that I've always wanted to play, so I'm going to hold on to 98SE for another six months, or the first patch. Whichever comes first

Here in Canada, they just legalized medicinal Marajuana use, but I think it's in some kind of pill form.

Gee I guess I've been told. As you can tell, I'm surrounded by a few Mac heads who want to turn me over to the dark side with their talk of Firewire and 400mbit! And Tac... there's one game that's hopefully (really REALLY hopefully) will be out soon that takes advantage of Dx8. It's a little game I like to call BATTLECRUISER MILLENNIUM! I was at a friends place, he has a 21 inch monitor. I pulled up the screenshots page on his computer, Man ALIVE! A Gforce card, combined with a huge monitor really makes the game look stellar. There's no way I will ever EVER be able to convince my wife that we can afford to upgrade my monitor and video card, let alone spend $500 am (I don't even want to think about what it will cost here in Canada!) on a video card alone. I never thought the day would come when my 3dfx card and my 17inch would make me feel inadequate. er... 17inch monitor. [ 05-08-2001: Message edited by: Kush ]

It's funny, both sides of the argument make total sense. You legalize it, it becomes too easily available. (But it is already easily available know.) You keep it criminalized, and you create criminals and feed billions of dollars into the hands of organized crime. (But there would be organized crime even if drugs were legal.) I agree that pot should be legal. I can't smoke it anymore, at thirty, I'm too old. It makes me fall asleep. And when I was younger I never really smoked it that often, at a party I'd take one toke and try to have a conversation with the girl I had a crush on, and I'd just start laughing at nothing, and shoving nacho chips down my throat. I learned the hard way it's not a great tool to pick up women. Cocain is a different story. We all know that. It's a stupid drug. It makes you talk fast, makes your nose bleed, and you do it long enough, you can no longer... function... if you know what I mean. And Heroin kills you. It makes you a slave and then kills you. The problem with pot being illegal is that you have to get it from a dealer. And pot doesn't make a dealer alot of money. Or rather, a dealer would rather you move on to Coke or H, s/he makes more money that way. I've seen this in action, it's simple economics. I think you could actually reduce the amount of Cocain and Heroin use in the young if you just made pot legal. I would rather know that my child picked up some legal pot from a safe source than a dealer who could possibly turn them on to stonger, more lethal drugs.

I'm at the point where I think everything should be legalized and controled by the state. I don't do drugs, and It's just an opinion, and I don't expect it to happen, but I'd rather the state take control than allow massive criminal organizations to make literally billions of dollars a year. Let the flames begin!

Woah, did I ever come to the party late! Good job Menchise, I would chime in, but you seem to be handling everything quite well!

Plextor is a stellar name. I have never heard anything but praise. If you can afford it, go Plextor. A friend of mine who works at a hospital told me a horror story about how they bought a bunch of Yamaha CDRs and in six months each of them had failed. This could be useful information or not. I've been cautious about recommending them. And for those who care, I went for the CDR. I did some soul searching, and soon realised that my real problem was not hard drive space, (I've got plenty for my needs) but back up media; Zip had its day in the sun, and now it is the weakest link... GOODBYE! Spent $200 cnd ($120 am?) on a 12x8x32 IDE drive. Anyone heard of LG? Anyhoo, thanks for the advice. Now it's back to Dawson Creek. (I can't believe it took Joey that long to tell Dawson she slept with Pacey!) My next question will be right after BCM is released. "Should I spring for a Geforce 3 or stay with my Voodoo and suffer." Next on Oprah.

Unfortunately I don't believe anything the Canadian media reports, so your guess is as good as mine.

Sure, I've got $250... Canadian! (I'm guessing that's about $130 American) Trust me, I've done the hunting around. I've gone to every shop, I've looked up every price I could find on the net and to get a SCSI HD or CD-R is going to cost me. That's the price I am willing to pay for wanting that little bit of extra speed. (I checked out USB stats and it's just not as fast as SCSI) I've been struggling with this one for a while and all I need is to tally up how many people go: "You nut bar! Go for the HD!" or "You lamer! CD-R is the way to go!" The most votes win. (I am also counting the votes who say "SCSI's for Apple-wanna-be's. Real men go IDE!" or "Get off your fat butt, bite the financial bullet and go for both you... you 'Dawson Creek' watching, N'Sync loving, 'Why can't Gerri get along with the other Spice girls?' wussy man!!!")

Hmmmm USB CDR. Interesting. Not a bad idea at all. And Jag, I think the SCSI/IDE debate comes down to what you have to do. If your basically shovelling around text and code all day long, IDE is fine. If you work with alot of video and music files, SCSI is... correction... Firewire is the way to go. If I could afford Firewire, hoo doggy, I'd have... a better paying job and no life.

Aramike I have a desktop and a laptop. I exchange files bewteen the two all the time. I could use both for work and for pleasure. For work I generate very large files. I have worked out a way to break them down and save them on zip disks. But saving to a cd would be great. Or I could just get a massive drive and create a couple of giant partitions for back ups. SC I thought about that! I could just go IDE, and get both and be happy, but I love my SCSI! It's as expensive as hell, but it's fast, solid, and I've hear rumours about 60 gig IDE HD's overheating alot. This could just be bad press put out by Adaptec to mess with the competition, but it got me concerned. Anybody have any problem with the bigger IDE drives? Should I be concerned?

Okay, I'm in a situation, and I need strong computer advice fast. I have exactly enough money to get either a) a new CD-R 8x4x32 OR a new 60 gig hard drive. (7200) I can only get one. Not both. Ultimately I just need more space, I could move files onto different CDroms or just get one huge drive. There are down sides and up sides for each choice. What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Tac, you just confirmed what I feared all along. I'm sure there are some good people working at companies like Dell and GW, but that doesn't matter, it's a big huge company and has all the problems of a big huge company I'm sure. Steve, I really would suggest next time you buy, you put the system together yourself. Do a little research on quality products and then go nuts. Jag is right, it's not that hard to do, and the benifits are plenty. Not only do you get satisfaction of creating it youreself, you also get greater stability. There are plenty of computer nightmare stories out there, and my guess is that there are fewer stories coming from those of us who put together our own systems. I know I can't complain.

"Ah Calgary, I miss you so. With your crazy chinooks and your neon glow." I thought only Electric Ave. was the big neon offender in Calgary.

Nah, get BCM, you'll really be blown away. (Of course, you will have to wait a couple of months, but hey, it'll be worth it, TRUST ME)

I never ever get pre-built systems from major comanies like Gateway or Dell. I just don't trust them. I find it's way better to buy from a local store, from someone you can talk to in person if something goes wrong. And if you know enough to hand pick your components, then you at least have some idea what's under the hood.

Perhaps some of us (ME) don't want to be reminded that we are exactly one year closer to death. I guess that wasn't a weird thought, just a morbid one. [ 04-18-2001: Message edited by: Kush ]

Just a question SC, have you thought of an instant update option in the game menu that you could use to get patches from this site automatically? Or is it something that's a little impractical to impliment?

Oh just you wait till you get to my age, you young whipper snapper! Happy B day!

Neo, you're going to have to wait for the next demo or the full game to know more about flying around planets. Those testing the game right now are under an NDA, they can't talk about it, but based on my experiences with BC3K, being able to pilot your ship to a planet, command a shuttle to the surface, ride around in an ATV, mine for resources, travel to mountain tops to get a better view of an enemy position, is WAAAAAY better than anything you'll find in Klingon Academy or Star Fleet command, or anything else for that matter. You are going to have to be patient however. Even the demo won't give the experience of the full game.

To be honest, an attack is actually being waged by the West against the Chinese every day, but it's not a military offensive. By opening up business channels, and trade, we in the west can create change in a way more powerful than any bullet or bomb. By flooding China with Western movies, books, magazines, products, with wester IDEAS, we can light a fire of change that is already burning. Dissent already exists in China from student activists to politicians to certain military leaders. If you were to declare war on China you may be able to win all the military battles, but you would never ever be able to rule the people. The country is too massive. They can barely maintain order themselves. The best way to create lasting change is from within. With every trade mission, with every accord, every product we can change the government more effectively and permanently without firing a shot. The problem is, this method takes a very very long time to work, and it's not as exciting as watching stuff blow up, but it's more effective, and the change is more lasting because the dissent comes from within the country, not from without.

I'm certain Jaguar's comment wasn't meant to be offensive or stereotypical.

What's your video card?

All the bluster and posturing on this thread is definatly entertaining, but that's all it is, entertaining hyped up opinion from people who (myself included) are not privy to the inner workings of america/china relations. The fact is opening up china to american business is WAAAAY more important to America than a spy plane, or Taiwan, or anything for that matter. It started with Nixon and continued with every president up to this current president. There will be talk of reprisals from both sides, but that's all it will be, just talk. Within months, talk will turn to opening up business channels, trade missions, a slap on the wrist for human rights violations and business will literally go on as usual. But hey, let's get crazy for a moment and think for a second about what would happen if it came to war, and America decided to use all its force on China the old fashioned way. My guess is America would win. Having the largest army in the world only is a threat to your immediate neighbours, not an ICBM. But wars aren't fought the old fashioned way anymore. The loss of human life would be so vast on both sides that it would be very VERY hard to convince the American public that this would be a good idea. Let alone the other nations of the world. And correct me if I'm wrong, but no military commander, worth their training, places any life, that of soldiers or civilians, into danger reckelssly. China may be an evil regime, but that is something the chinese will have to deal with on their own. I'm glad the old days are over, I hope that my children and my children's children never witness a war and eventually live in a world where it is no longer necessary, but gosh darn it, there's a side of me that would love to see a couple of first world nations kicking the crap out of each other. (I should save these urges for GCO )

Great, I join the thread just as everything is wrapping up. The crew is returned, a letter of regret is sent for the loss of life and landing without clearance. And spy missions will continue with some protocol on what to do in case of a collision. It's done. I think Bush handled it well. I think everyone should be thankful there was no further loss of life.