Things Smackie Thinks You Need to Know...

[vansmack]

Originally posted by vansmack:
  In following up on my reaserch, the higher end models (900 & 1000) have built in Bluetooth.  They sell for around $549.

Hey kosmo and others who are interested in the subnotebooks/ultra-micro pc's, I checked out the Eee PC (8G) over the weekend:
 
  </font>

• <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">The Screen size on the #G models is a waste.  Sure 7 inches is small, but on each side of the screen is a big speaker.  Why bother?  They were better off using the full screen like they do with the 900 & 1000 models.</font></li>
• <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">Performance was surprisingly strong (this was a WinXP model) and I bet the Linux model is even better.</font></li>
• <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">The keyboard is really small.  It's sort of a tweener.  Remember when you first got a blackberry or some other full QWERTY smart phone and it took you a little while to get used to using your thumbs?  This keyboard is the same way.  The bigger your fingers the harder it will be to get used to.</font></li>

<font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">
  I'm going to pass on the 2G, 4G and 8G models.  I don't like the price point of the 900 and 1000 models, but I think they'll come down in a few months as the competition heats up.  That's when I think I'll make a move.
 
 I was tipped off on the new MSI Wind Laptop (US release is supposed to be today).  It has a 10inch screen, 6 hour battery life and the linux model comes in at $399 (can be upgraded to run WinXP - the OEM XP model sells for $549).  The downside is it uses a regular old 80gig HDD.  I really want to go Solid State Drive (or SSD Flash) so I can boot it up in under 20 seconds.

[vansmack]

I don't remember what thread it was where we were talking about the two candidates energy policies and I mentioned both candiates have severe holes, but here is an example of where McCain has it right and Obama has it wrong.  Contrast this with drilling for oil off the coast and you'll see that neither canidadate is going to lead this country to a proper energy solution as long as one is sucking up to the oil companies and one is sucking up to the US corn based ethanol lobby....
 
 Biofuels in Brazil[/url]
 Lean, green and not mean
 
 The United States may drop a tariff on Brazilian ethanol. But the industry is still the victim of much misplaced criticism
 
 
 WHEN John McCain laid out his plans for reducing Americaâ??s dependence on oil to an audience in California on June 23rd, the candidateâ??s keenest listeners were 6,000 miles away in São Paulo. Mr McCain argued that the tariff on imported ethanol of 54 cents per gallon should be scrapped. Others in the Senate (though not Barack Obama) are pushing for it to be reduced. Either way, the case against the tariff has been strengthened by high oil prices and by the June floods that damaged the mid-western corn (maize) crop. That sent corn prices soaring and made subsidising corn to produce ethanol look like an even worse idea than it did before, given the greener, cheaper ethanol that the United States could buy from Brazil instead.

[godsshoeshine]

hunh, the wash post energy op ed yesterday mentioned the ethanol tariff as well. maybe a real issue this time?

[walkonby]

i like how people think mccain and obama are different.  they are the same, will be the same in office, and come out rich like reagan, bush sr., clinton, bush jr., ect.........
 
 lobbyists will control them, like they do the senate, and the house, and you.  religion will scare you, life will swallow your mind as you tvo, taxes will take from you and give to people leeching off the system as you go see shows, and freedom will taste like sweet destruction as you finally give in to walmart's low prices.  the president of every country that has oil will somehow be connected or once worked for a major oil company (like afganistan).  people will bitch about who they voted for one to two years after the fact, hate people who don't vote, and then go ahead and vote another idiot in.

[vansmack]

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
  hunh, the wash post energy op ed yesterday mentioned the ethanol tariff as well. maybe a real issue this time?

Yeah, like the farm bill was...

[walkonby]

gotta love this:  the us goes to war with iraq because they have wmds.  then they have no wmds.  then 5 years later the us attempts to "secretly" ship out 500 tons of yellow cake uranium out of iraq (dating back to saddam, though no one has heard or knew about this until now) and sell it to canada.  can this war and country and government get anymore shady?

[walkonby]

http://www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?ID=19526
 
 god . . . you fucked women over since eden and this religious thing was invented by men.  way to go, fake jesus.

[godsshoeshine]

Originally posted by vansmack:
   

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
  hunh, the wash post energy op ed yesterday mentioned the ethanol tariff as well. maybe a real issue this time?

Yeah, like the farm bill was... [/b]

true, but the farm bill wont let us keep our h2's

[vansmack]

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
  true, but the farm bill wont let us keep our h2's

Actually, with all the subsidies for corn based ethanol, it might be your best hope (assuming they make a flex fuel H2 someday).

[vansmack]

Originally posted by walkonby:
  http://www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?ID=19526
 
 god . . . you fucked women over since eden and this religious thing was invented by men.  way to go, fake jesus.

Yep, we've covered this topic in this thread before and it's going to keep coming up until brave Muslim leaders in free countries step up.  
 
 Put him on trial for murder, convict him, and don't give into the Muslim pressures of tradition.  Then the brave Muslim leaders in this and other free countries must publicly support the decisions of the courts.

[walkonby]

science - 1, false idol religion that has controlled humans for far too long - 0.
 
 way to go, vision of gabriel.

[Relaxer]

Originally posted by walkonby:
  i like how people think mccain and obama are different.  they are the same, will be the same in office, and come out rich like reagan, bush sr., clinton, bush jr., ect.........
 

(edited)
 Originally had a question for Walkonby, but then I realized, he has nothing interesting or intelligent to say about... much of anything, but likes to dress up his comments in non-sequiter space-case random-for-the-hell-of-it language to make himself look soooooo deep. So fuck it.

[godsshoeshine]

Originally posted by vansmack:
   

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
  true, but the farm bill wont let us keep our h2's

Actually, with all the subsidies for corn based ethanol, it might be your best hope (assuming they make a flex fuel H2 someday). [/b]

can i change my flip remark to 'yes, but brazil is my new favorite country to obsess over'

[vansmack]

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
  can i change my flip remark to 'yes, but brazil is my new favorite country to obsess over'

Sure.  You can obsess over Brazil and I'll continue to obsess over Turkey.  I think you're winning this one.

[vansmack]

Kosmo's post about htpc's (home theater personal Computers) has inspired me to start talking about...
 
 SMACKIE'S DIGITAL REVOLUTION 2008
 
 Around December 2007/Jaunary 2008 Smackette told me what it would be like to be married to a Doctor in their first year of residency.  Basically, it was "I'm not going to be around so get a hobby and think of some big projects.  I can't have you going to the bar every night I'm not around, and I'd rather you spend that money on something useful."  
 
 She probably meant paint the apartment (which I sort of did), but I took it upon myself to reorganize my home entertainment this year.
 
 I took stock of current inventory, decided what needed to be replaced, what needed to be better utilized, and set some ground rules:
 
 (1) No copper wires. Think Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest.  If the technology existed 150 years ago and was barely improved upon, it doesn't work in my revolution.
 
 (2) $400 price point for any new devices.  Desktops are dead, laptops are overpriced and under-utilized and I already own an HDTV, so $400 seems like the proper price point for any new devices (feel free to disregard this rule if you don't own an HDTV).  We're not wealthy by any means, and a $400 price point, spread out across the year meants that I had checks on my spending and forced me to be creative.
 
 (3) Think catch-up, but plan for next year.  It wouldn't have done me any good to simply set out to get everything working today, just so I would have to change it all in the fall.  Sometimes this wasn't possible, but other times I went out on a limb.
 
 (4) Lastly and most importantly, plan in such a way that a non-techie person can run it.  They may not be able to build it, but if Smackette wants to listen to music, watch a movie, see her photos, etc., she should be able to do it with reding a guide or following 15 steps.
 
 I would also point out here that I beta test for Sprint, Microsoft, TiVo and DirecTV so if it looks like I favor those companies, it's because I do.  And sometimes I'm an apologist for these companies, but it is what it is.  I took long, hard looks at a lot of companies over the years and these are the ones I work with.