Seems like there have been very few flame wars lately, so I will offer this up. If anyone had gone through what I am going through the past five months to get crossfirex running with two ati radeon HD-5870’s, you would understand completely why Apple computers, while not doing everything you want and having limited game support, are teh awesome.
Open Thread
This post is in: Science & Technology, Assholes, Sociopaths
fourlegsgood
But do they were a redonkulous hat? or have a flag?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Yeah, if you don’t want to do anything, then everything is easy. Ask my kids about that one. Let’s try another one: If you have gone through everything I have so far to try to earn my PhD, then you’ll understand why a bachelors degree, while not nearly as well regarded, is awesome.
Dennis SGMM
What kind of mainboard are you running? Some are way better than others in supporting multiple GPUs.
meh
yeah and you spent how much on that rig? As opposed to a $600 base set with upgraded memory, SSD, etc? Apples are very, very nice machines, but hardly worth the price…(imho)
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
Curses, I’ve been EPU’d! Oh, well, I’m not too proud to cut’n’paste. (And this thread is filed under Assholes, so I guess it’s appropo):
Anyone catch Michael Scott’s sendoff on The Office, last night? Although played to top hilarity by Carell, Michael is nevertheless a supremely enough buttmunch of a character that I completely did not expect the ep to be anything of a tearjerker. But then when they had Pam run to say goodbye to him in the airport, I got – uh, a serious case of something in my eye. And I’ve only discoverd the show through reruns over the last year or two. Can’t imagine what it would have been like if I’d been there all six seasons.
Of course, Pam (and Jim) is the most accessible character on the show, so that’s why the scene worked. Very smart writing.
Still on the fence about Will Ferrell’s character, though.
Oh, and I was glad I waited to watch the show after it recorded on the DVR – I was all too happy to skip over the plugs for The Apprentice.
JGabriel
HFD? Hi-Fuckin’ Def?
I’m pretty sure there’s no “F” in that model number, John. (ETA: Though, of course, there should be.)
.
a.j.
I have a mac and a dell, both laptops.
The dell automatically restarts itself at random. Cannot be put into sleep mode more than once without a complete reboot.
And is an all around PITA.
The mac mostly works, with occasional crashes. And I was last to convert after dismissing dozens of my friends as dupes when they raved about their macs.
Lysana
Since it’s not in the lexicon, is there a reason the “Sociopaths” tag is misspelled beyond “someone’s fingers flipped and it wasn’t caught in time?”
Hey, spelling and grammar flaming’s a long and dishonorable Internet tradition. Just doing my part.
burnspbesq
The Feds are asking New Jersey to repay $271 million for the cancelled railroad tunnel under the Hudson.
nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/federal_government_orders_nj_t.html
Let’s see you squirm your way out of this, governor Lepetomane.
Eric S.
Cat question…
Ozzie, my ~ 9 month old, can be quite the little terror when he plays. My hands often look like I got in a fight with, well, a kitten. He’ll just wrap four legs around my arm and hand, dig with his claws, and chew. He’s never broken the skin with his teeth but those hurt all the same.
In the morning before I want to get out of bed it is lick, lick, nip. My cheeks or jaw or neck. Cute little vampire that he is.
So I’m looking for some training ideas. How do I break him of these habits?
j low
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Go eat a bag of salted dicks. (Was that good? That’s how a flame war works, right?)
Martin
The Mac is what you use when your gaming rig goes to shit. Kinda like owning a Honda and any British or Italian vehicle.
John Cole
@Lysana: Someone fat fingered it. Fixed.
Anya
What flame wars? John, this is the first time in a long while that you said something that I completly agree with. I find that quite refreshing. And now that you came out as a proud member of the Apple cult, I can forgive some of your other unattractive ways.
schrodinger's cat
What kind of gibberish is this? I didn’t understand a single word. Has Tunch taken over the blog once again?
ETA: Tunch is sending messages to his home world. He wants to go home before we reach peak-wingnut.
schrodinger's cat
@Eric S.: He will outgrow it. My boss kitteh was very nippy as a kitten and he still bites when he is mad, but he has mellowed quite a bit.
JGabriel
@Lysana:
Because of Google Ranking, the correct spelling of sociopaths, when used as a tag, causes all the ads to be for the Republican party and other far-right political extremists.
(Maybe. I made it up, but it could be true. In other words, it’s intended to be a factual statement, but it probably is not.)
Edited to add: And, oh look!, now it’s spelled correctly.
.
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
@Eric S.:
Me an’ the Mrs. got a bitey cat a few years back, and have persuaded him to go light on the chomping by gently (but not too gently) blowing in his face when he gets too rough. Cats hate that and will instantly stop whatever they’re doing to shoot you an annoyed look. Upshot is he’s much less painful to play with, these days.
burnspbesq
@Eric S.:
“How do I break him of these habits?”
Would be much easier to break yourself of the peculiar notion that you have any control over his actions.
BGinCHI
It has nothing to do with hardware. It’s Windows. The whole system is a giant piece of shit.
If it’s all that existed in the software world, people would write sci-fi novels in which future societies worked on computers with an amazing OS. It would be called “Mac.” Or maybe “Dragonfire”. That would also be cool.
Lysana
@JGabriel:
Well-Kyled.
ant
@Eric S.:
im not sure about training tips, but i suggest you nip this behavior in the bud.
I wound up in the emergency room after an infected puncture wound my cat gave my foot whilst playing.
the doctor told me, cat saliva is something you don’t want to fuck around with.
dmsilev
Speaking about video cards and Macs, anyone know how good the cards in the current generation of Macbook Pros are? My laptop is pushing 4 years old and is starting to wheeze at some of the jobs I give it (“Process 200 16-megapixel RAW images”, “Perform finite-element stress analysis on annoyingly-detailed mechanical model”, etc.), and I’m starting to think about replacement. Would be nice to have *some* gaming capabilities on the thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes, I also operate on the “me press buttons on computer and computer do stuff; if no work, curse at it and reboot” theory of computers.
Corner Stone
As flame posts go, this one is about as lame as anything SP&T has attempted recently.
zzzZZzzz..z…zzzz…
cathyx
Huh? What is the translation of this foreign language?
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
@ant:
Apparently, cat spit will kill a bird even if the bite puncture by itself is non-fatal. (Told to me by a bird owner.)
Jay C
@Eric S.:
Wait for him to outgrow it?
For whatever reason, it seems like male cats keep up with Teh Chomp longer: our Jeremy, a Himmy, now 3 yrs old, used to shred my hands when young (my wife has been smart enough to keep out of the way), he doesn’t do it much now, but it’s still a pain when he does (Jeremy has teeth that look like something out of the La Brea Tar Pits).
The neck/face stuff, though: dunno: maybe a gentle flying lesson? Though if Ozzie is like most cats, he’ll just take as a new type of play….
Lv Bu
Long time reader operating under a new pseudonym.
I just started a new project! It’s a blog about China and Chinese international relations for people who are interested but have no technical training and background.
It’s called Blog with Chinese Characteristics. Come and comment!
BGinCHI
@Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity: This is why they hurled cats in catapults in the Middle Ages.
Hence the name of the war engine.
schrodinger's cat
@cathyx: Tunch is sending messages to his homeworld, the current crazy in the political environment, upsets his equilibrium.
Corner Stone
@BGinCHI: Always wondered bout that.
Gina
@Eric S.: No wrasslin’ with kitty. Also, too, get him a kitten buddy, then they beat the tar out of each other for lulz.
Chris
Ugh, multiple GPUs. I just buy the most badass single GPU I can get my hands on and live with it till its obsolete. Crossfire and SLI can be a pain.
baldheadeddork
John – what are you running (monitors or games) that can’t get by on one 5870?
I don’t think you can blame that on Windows. I’ve worked on Mac Pro’s with multiple GPU’s that were nightmares, too. It’s all about drivers and how the program was written to run with multiple GPU’s.
I try to avoid Xfire/SLI like a NRO cruise. If this is really annoying, think about putting an aftermarket cooler on your 5870 and overclock it to get the performance you need. But the first place I’d look are background programs running while you’re playing games.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Eric S.: I got a cat/ten like that too. My advice is to drown it.
Calouste
@a.j.:
It’s hard to find shittier consumer computers with shittier customer service than Dell. Dell is for computers what GM was for cars 20 years ago: the main reason to buy Japanese (Korean, Taiwanese).
BOSS BITCH
I have no idea what you are talking about but what kind of fuckery is this?
mediamatters.org/mmtv/201104280046
schrodinger's cat
@Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity: Cat bites can be painful and get infected quickly, but that’s only if the kitteh breaks skin. Boss kitteh just gently puts his teeth on you to convey his displeasure.
Eric S.
@Jay C: He does like his heights
He gets banished from the bedroom when he starts to early. This results in a few mournful cries followed by a toy getting the s**t beat out of it or, more disturbingly, silence.
I’ll try the blowing in the face idea.
And I don’t want to make him out as an all bad kitteh. I worked from home (bed) today and the little lover has been quietly curled up against my hip for the past 6 hours.
dmsilev
@cathyx:
I speak Geek, let me help. John has a computer which (most likely) he built from parts himself which he uses to play video games. Since he apparently feels the need for More Power, he is trying to use two high-end video cards simultaneously. In theory, this lets games render their scenes with more details and with smoother motion. It’s a fairly delicate process to get working correctly and reliably, hence the complaints.
dms
Gene in Princeton
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
The guy in the office next to me builds software that tracks and allocates thousands of railroad cars on behalf of all four class I railroads in the U.S.
My two colleagues in the NY office just helped to rebuild a major insurance company’s policy rating system from database to UI.
Other members of my team are designing and preparing to build a data warehouse for a company with $75 billion in assets under management.
My colleague down the runs several multi-million dollar technology projects.
All of the above done on Mac laptops.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@j low: LOL.
fhtagn
@cathyx:
John Cole is compensating for something by waving his big, hard war machine around. What that something may be… I have no desire to know.
Corner Stone
@Calouste: Dell really went to shit the last 5 years. Their customer service for years was stellar.
Last few years. Shit.
schrodinger's cat
@Gina: Seconded, we did that, we got boss kitteh another kitten to harass. It works!
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
@BGinCHI:
Someone forgot to tell the plucky folks at Wikipedia about this.
=0 P
J.W. Hamner
Problem being that the only reason anyone would put two HD-5870’s in crossfire would be to play games. Which, as you say, Apple can’t really help you with (though maybe Steam supporting Macs is a sign for the future).
It’s a much better argument for why people play games on consoles.
Surly Duff
@meh:
Exactly. A new MacPro with Intel i7 and most the bells and whistles costs upwards of $2,200. I can get the same setup on a Lenovo, Sony, or Samsung for less than half that price. And I won’t sound like a hipster d-bag when I talk about how awesome my mac is.
Bob Loblaw
I’m surprised you didn’t do a post on this yet.
washingtonpost.com/politics/debt-ceiling-more-democrats-threaten-to-vote-against-raising-borrowing-l…
When you’ve lost Amy Klobuchar and Mark Udall…
Martin
@meh: Go see if you can find a thin/light 13″ with an SSD that costs what the MacBook Air costs. Nobody is undercutting them on price in that space.
Apple’s price premium always comes in product where they simply lack the scale to compete on price. Once they get over that, their pricing becomes quite competitive (see the iPhone, iPad, iPod). The Air works well for Apple because they have economy of scale on SSD and high density, moldable batteries that beats everyone else on the market by a mile, and because they’ve jettisoned so many components in that product that they were always undercut on. I think you’ll find that as Apple starts moving units comparable to other vendors, that their prices will fall nicely in line.
Just Some Fuckhead
If yer serious about a flamewar, start a Libya thread.
abo gato
No techie by any means, but I lurve me my macbook.
Oh, and OT, I want to really thank whoever it was a few weeks ago on a tea/coffee thread who recommended Good Earth Sweet & Spicy Herbal Tea. Good lord, that is the best tea, ever. I like it hot and I’ve been blending it with a couple of regular tea bags to make sun tea, so it is a bad ass iced tea as well. (But to me, it needs to be blended a bit for iced tea as using nothing but these, it seemed a bit too harsh) It has a great, cinnamony and sweet flavor that is just perfect. I never drink tea with any sweetener in it and I love this stuff. I ordered it from Amazon and got a box with 6 boxes of 18 tea bags and it was less than 20 bucks. Already gone through two of the 6 boxes of bags. Thanks again for the recommendation!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Gene in Princeton: I didn’t mean that apples sucked, that’s someone else’s fight. I was talking about the fact that John is complaining about putting two video cards in his box in order to play games, yet extolling the Mac even though he said he it has limited game support. Unless you’re a politician, I don’t see how you can complain about a computer sucking when you’re trying to get it to do something that is hard.
schrodinger's cat
@Eric S.: Another thing that works is if you hiss back at them if they get too feisty. Also a gentle tap on the nose to convey your displeasure works.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bob Loblaw: Jesus, it’s like a parade of stoopid.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Eric S.: They’re also very afraid of fire.
Quicksand
@Studly Pantload et al.:
You know what’s great about cats? They think that annoyed look is FAR MORE SERIOUS AND DEADLY than actually ripping your flesh apart.
Radon Chong
And which games like the ones you want to use that CrossfireX setup on are available for Mac?
BGinCHI
@Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity: Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: Manning threads work too.
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
@Bob Loblaw:
Somebody here not too long ago posted the Clevon Little bit from Blazling Saddles where he shakes up the townfolk by taking himself hostage at gunpoint.
Yep…
Just Some Fuckhead
@Omnes Omnibus:
Meh, that has lost some its power now that the Obots don’t have to defend the president hell or highwater over it.
BGinCHI
Great, now I have the REM song “Catapult” in my head.
I need a beer.
kindness
The people who shit on Macs because the cost more kill me.
What would you say if someone said ‘spending $X on a Porsche is absurd because I can get my ’69 VW bug up to 85 mph and it costs 1/5 less!’.
Yes, it does cost less. There is usually a reason things that sell succesfully for a higher price cost more. With Macs, there are tons of good reasons. Since I switched over I’ve not had one software incomatability issue. I haven’t had my machine die for no reason once. No viruses. It works. It works every time. Open up the machine and look inside. Apple spends more on their engineering than PC’s. No, it isn’t the best gaming machine. But it is a significantly better computer.
As far as I’m concerned it’s money that was well spent and has already paid itself off.
So enjoy your VW bug. Just don’t tell me it’s as good as my Mac.
Mandramas
We need a good troll or m_c to start a couple of flame wars.
IL JimP
@a.j.: My Safari keeps getting crashed by Flash and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.
Melville
Ok I’m in.
Ahem.
Well, if you want to use your computer as a TOY by all means get a Mac.
More and more Apple is becoming a consumer electronics company, leaving the actual computing to Microsoft, Oracle et al.
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
@BGinCHI:
Indeed, my eyes have done their fair share of lying, but genrally only when there’s been likker involved.
Just Some Fuckhead
I have 4 laptops and 7 PCs in the house and at least three of ’em are broke at any given time. So I can’t really make a case for PCs. At least I ain’t broke, like I would be a with a Mac. I guess.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandramas: Didn’t m_c issue a GBCW statement a couple of days ago?
soonergrunt
PFC Manning has been declared fit to stand trial by the RCM 706 board.
The next step is the Article 32 investigation and hearing.
wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/manning-ruled-competent/
schrodinger's cat
@Eric S.:
Is a religious kitteh wants to be close to the ceiling cat.
gene108
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
So you are saying, I shouldn’t try to get my PhD?
I’m doing an MBA and was thinking of getting a PhD. I’m tired of the private sector.
schrodinger's cat
@Mandramas: Be careful what you wish for, cudlip.
BGinCHI
@IL JimP: That sounds like a good graphic novel premise.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: Which subject?
Dr. Squid
@fourlegsgood:
+1. Eddie Izzard FTW.
BGinCHI
@gene108: What field?
Catsy
@baldheadeddork:
This. The HD 5870 is a lot of video card and it will smoke damn near everything you might want to play at max settings. Unless you’re trying to set up an Eyefinity rig or angling for a future beta test of Crysis 4, you are wasting your time, money and patience trying to set up two of them for Crossfire. If you’re not getting good performance in your games, it’s a lot more likely that you’re CPU-limited.
And regardless, as attempts to troll up system wars go this is some seriously weak shit. Whining about the difficulty of setting up Crossifre as if that were a compelling argument for Macs is like whining about the difficulty of setting up WordPress as an argument for using Facebook.
Cat Lady
@Just Some Fuckhead:
A Libya thread criticizing what Glenn Greenwald said about Andrew Sullivan’s Trig birther obsession. Also.
freelancer
I’m in the market for a new computer. I’m heavily leaning towards a MacBook Pro. Does anyone have input on any other laptops in the $1k range that would be as good or better?
Geeno
@Jay C:
@Eric S.:
Cats are very sensitive to the skin/not-skin dichotomy.
Thin fabric fools them in to going claw when they would just paw against skin.
Other than that caveat, yes, they outgrow the need to KILL the play-thing.
Corner Stone
@gene108: Meh, a PhD is what you make of it. I do alright with mine and know more than a few who do not.
It’s not a silver bullet.
Lawnguylander
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ll give it a try.
Bradley Manning is the Natalee Holloway of imprisoned Americans.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: You credulously believe that?
jl
Could only understand the post with help of some comments above.
My opinion is that this is the sort of computer problem that is best solved, if worth solving at all, with a very large hammer and great upper body strength.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Cat Lady:
No, a Libya thread calling out Sullivan for agreeing with Greenwald about the unconscionable killing of Palestinians by Israelis.
BGinCHI
@freelancer: There aren’t any, unless you want to work in Windows, in which case you should just get a legal pad and some pens.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat: Accounting
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: My wife went that route. After her internship in the middle of her MBA, she decided that corporate life was not for her. She wants to do her own research, not do PowerPoints for someone else. The only real downside to this is that she a painfully slow, careful, but precise writer. This makes year one of the PhD a bit painful.
fourlegsgood
@Eric S.: How do you break him of these habits? you probably can’t. But a good trick is to put your hand in a big fat oven mitt (that you don’t mind getting ripped up) and let him go to town on that.
Eventually they grow out of the “bitey” phase, in the meantime you have to give him something to chew on that’s safe for both of you. The bonus? you can wear him out quicker.
I’ve done this with dozens of kittens over the years. It really works.
Martin
@dmsilev: They’re pretty decent. The new 13″ has only Intel integrated, so skip that. The 15″ have both Intel integrated 3000 and Radeon HD 6490M or 6750M, depending on what model you get. The 17″ has the better Radeon. If graphics are a concern the high-end 15 or 17 is what you should be aiming for.
The 6750 is roughly twice as fast as the 6490 and probably just a bit slower than one of Cole’s 5870s. The 6750 has 1GB of VRAM vs 256MB in the 6490, which is where a lot of that performance will come from. The MBP will automatically switch between the integrated and Radeon depending on need, the former being significantly more kind to your battery life.
The 6750 should be able to play pretty much anything on the market from 2010 at high quality assuming you have enough regular RAM in there, and a lot of the 2011 titles at high as well. For a non-gaming laptop, it’s quite decent. I think the only thing on the mobile market that can beat it are the crossfire/SLI setups.
gene108
@Corner Stone: Not really expecting a silver bullet, but I’ve reached my saturation point with producing balance sheets, income statements, etc. for ownership, bankers, etc.
Need something more intellectually stimulating.
Gin & Tonic
It’s not a flame war without Glenzilla.
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: link, please? Of course, it will only be good until her next Sci-Fi/Fantasy turn.
We ought to take a pool on what character from what book it will be, and how many posts before she’s outed.
BGinCHI
@gene108: Sorry, humanities here. My answer wouldn’t scan.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: I’d trade my PhD back for all the money it costed in a second. No one will even call me Doctor Fuckhead.
Cris (without an H)
All computers suck. Macs, PCs, and Linuces each suck in their own unique and interesting ways.
TooManyJens
@Omnes Omnibus:
Christ, if only.
BGinCHI
@Just Some Fuckhead: You need to wear one of those round mirrors on your head and get some scrubs.
And honestly, I’m surprised everyone doesn’t call you fuckhead. With all due respect.
Corner Stone
Actually, the only way to get a really juicy flame war thread going is to have GG show up in the comments.
burnspbesq
@Surly Duff:
“And I won’t sound like a hipster d-bag when I talk about how awesome my mac is.”
No, but you’ll sound like a sanctimonious douchebag when you mock those of us who would rather just do stuff on computers rather than have them be huge gaping time suckers.
WarMunchkin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Yeah, job market with bachelor’s right now – total suck. Can’t.. get job.
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: What kind of bait do you use for that?
fourlegsgood
@Dr. Squid: You speeka mah language.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: No, I think it means she will be gone for a few days and then show up as Ms.C3PO or Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Marmot
@Surly Duff:
You won’t be talking about how awesome your computer is at all!
(There! That should start a flame war, right?)
EDIT: Dang! Preempted by burnspbesq.
Martin
@Radon Chong: Since the Mac runs Windows just fine, that’d be all of them.
Joel
@Just Some Fuckhead: Some part of me just wants these prima donnas to just get hung out to dry.
MattR
Could anyone here forgive the group of youths who brutally attacked and killed their granfather in a robbery attempt and think they deserve at a second chance in life? I’d like to think I have the class and compassion of NBA star Chris Paul, but I honestly doubt it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@TooManyJens:
She got chewed up pretty bad in the last EDK thread by folks pulling off old Bush II paeans from her blog.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: OMG why? That is self inflicted torture. Just kidding, that’s what an accounting PhD would be to me.
handy
Xcode is still garbage.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: I only ever use it when I’m flying. Those fucking authoritarians always seem to pause for a second when you have PhD in your title on the slip.
And I wouldn’t trade mine for shit. I killed myself to get it as a single parent. They can pry that shit from my cold dead hands.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt:Back a few days at the tail end of one of EDK’s posts. I don’t remember which, but I haven’t see her since.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Well, Scientific American has a recent article showing that city birds have bigger brains and are smarter than their rural counterparts.
Seems like us city folk might be able to say the same with respect to our rural brethren, especially all those teabaggers, rednecks, hillbillies, & southerners.
(And count down to flame war: 10… 9… 8…)
(N.B., comment author had a childhood split between NYC and Appalachian Pennsyltucky.)
.
soonergrunt
@Just Some Fuckhead: but did she actually GBCW, and if so, link PLEASE?
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll take a look for it when I get home.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: Meh, when yer as old as me, you get other priorities. And I need booze money.
Lol
What’s the over/under on how long it takes some pissed GI to shank Manning? And how long will it take for Obama to be criticized for letting him out of protective custody knowing he’d be a target?
handy
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Dammit how did I miss that?
Corner Stone
@BGinCHI: You have to ask Cole. He’s the only person here who’s ever had sexual congress with GG.
Just Some Fuckhead
@soonergrunt:
HellifIknow. I can’t even keep track of the Nicks.
BGinCHI
@JGabriel: Bigger brains and better pizza. Coincidence?
Marmot
@Just Some Fuckhead: Wow. She was a GWB fan? I wouldn’ta thunk.
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: That explains a lot, actually.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
Actually, ezmom is the one to go to for all the salacious details since she’s the one that always mentioning it.
fhtagn
@TooManyJens:
Look at the bottom of the thread which followed ED Kain’s latest posting. She pouted and raged at being reminded of her love for George Bush, back in the day, and then announced that she refused to post on a forum where ED Kain’s “mainstreaming of Islamophobia” was tolerated.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@gene108: I’m still going to get mine, but, for what I do right now – software development – it’s more of wanting it for its own sake rather than expecting to do anything grand with it. But I want it.
burnspbesq
@Marmot:
On this blog, there is no penalty for piling on.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Marmot:
Yeah, hard to scrub that stink off.
Joel
@MattR: Yeah, I don’t think I could be so forgiving, either.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@freelancer:
.
.
The MacBook Pro is always your best value, especially if you have some perverse need to run Windows. Macs can boot Windows and run it at native speeds, or you can run OS X and Windows simultaneously — but only with a Mac.
.
.
TooManyJens
@fhtagn:
What the ever-loving fuck?
I can’t say I’m a bit surprised that she used to be a Bush-lover, though.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: No one’s asking her as she’s still frumping herself from imagining Superluminar speaking with a British accent.
HarleyPeyton
@kindness: On the other hand, you could buy Mac stock instead and reap the benefit. Tho’ this worked better fifteen years ago.
Take a look: kyleconroy.com/apple-stock.php
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: It’s true. Yer an old drunk.
lamh34
Ugh!!! Joey Lawrence, if Nell Carter was still alive she would slap yo azz!!!
Donald Trump gets support from ‘Blossom’ star Joey Lawrence
Ugh…Nell is turning over in her grave.
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
The Glenzilla® brand flame starter is indeed a good brand, although it’s slow to start ’em up as first you have to take about 30 minutes to slog through any one of his posts with the requisite 28 updates.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
She’s moved on to Stuck now. Apparently a hillbilly accent sounds like a British accent when yer drunk enough.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: Link here.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
I only drink to make the shaking stop. After that, I’m fine.
Journeywoman
@Eric S.: Try wearing a leather glove when you’re playing, and do NOT engage in the same kind of play with your bare hand. The cat will quickly learn the difference. My husband grew up with a Siamese who shredded multiple gloves over his lifetime because he played so hard, but he was a perfect gentleman with a bare hand (and this cat once treed a bobcat that wandered onto their property, so it’s not like he wasn’t a fighter at heart).
Also, it may sound silly, but I find it helps to “squawk” when they hurt you. A sharp “OW!” will often bring them up short and result in gentler behavior, much as it will when animals are playing among themselves and one of them screeches or yelps. They’re not trying to hurt you, they just have little concept of how much more sensitive human skin is compared to their own fur.
Good luck…
burnspbesq
@MattR:
Starsia finally lowered the boom on the Brattons. S is off the team, and R is suspended indefinitely.
RareSanity
@Gene in Princeton:
Are you inferring that the same workload could not be done on other computing platforms?
I have been writing software for 15 years. I have developed on Windows, Mac and Linux computers and for the kind of stuff you’re talking about, there’s not a dimes worth of difference between any of them.
How does using a text editor and a compiler differ from OS to OS? Real coding ninjas can perform their code-fu on whatever is sitting in front of them.
What you’re saying, is analogous to something my Dad always says, “I don’t care how much you spend on clubs, shoes, clothes and balls, you can’t buy a golf game.”
handy
@Omnes Omnibus:
I like this post from droog that soon follows:
We are all Phoenicians now!
Marmot
@Omnes Omnibus: Awww. Isn’t that just like her? The last word is apparently a misspelling of two words, sez Googlor:
jeffreyw
PC ravioli with Mac marinara
Joel
@soonergrunt: Elmer Elevator.
baldheadeddork
@freelancer: If you want to get a Mac laptop I won’t try to talk you out of it. They are more expensive than even a very good Windows system, but they’re really good. Just try to avoid Mac Personality Disorder like you can see in some of the comments here. (I don’t care what your OS is, if it hasn’t pissed you off recently then you’re not trying.)
For a Windows machine, I think the $800 range is the sweet spot. My favorite brands for reliability and customer service are Asus, Sony Vaio and Lenovo Think Pad. (Avoid Lenovo’s Idea Pad line.) My favorite of the three is Think Pad. I love their keyboards, reliability and service are very good, and they are the only laptop brand that offers matte finish on the screens.
Unless you’re going to play a lot of games, any Intel i3 or i5 will do everything you need. Get 4GB of memory. The best size depends on how often you’ll have to carry it around. Only get a 17″ if you’re going to keep it on your desk almost all of the time. 15.5″ are a good compromise between screen size and weight/bulk, but if it’s never going to see a desk I’d strongly recommend a 13 or 14″.
Dr. Squid
@Marmot: Is there a piccie of GWB with a halo on her wall?
Marmot
@Journeywoman:
I was going to mention that too. And blowing on their faces dissuades them a lot of the time. I think the whiskers get too much sensation or something.
Martin
@IL JimP: Because it’s running Flash. Flash is exceedingly crashy.
Dennis SGMM
Mac, PC; Phooey! Real Men run UNIX on a DEC Alpha.
fhtagn
@baldheadeddork:
I would agree with your Thinkpad endorsement. There was a bad period when the fan tended to be both inadequate and noisy, but they’ve fixed that and the Thinkpads de nos jours are generally very good and competitively priced.
Marmot
@Dr. Squid: Ha! No idea. I was asking JustAnotherFuckhead about it.
baldheadeddork
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Very good laptop, but you’re not getting one for under a grand.
BGinCHI
@jeffreyw: We had the best bison burgers last night.
If a poor buffalo had to die, at least it was delicious.
MattR
@burnspbesq: Interesting to read on one article that it was the choice of the players. Disappointed I wont be able to head down Memorial Day weekend but a good friend is moving cross country the week after so we have BBQs, etc planned.
fhtagn
@Dr. Squid:
If you want to probe matoko more deeply, her dodgy dossier can be found here, in all its sociopathic vomit-colored glory
http://quantumghosts.blogspot.com
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
@Marmot:
I’m kinda not about getting my face blown on, too, even though I shave my whiskers daily.
Joel
@Journeywoman: Worthy and relevant link.
Blue Galangal
+200
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: One of the Caesar women, Livia perhaps.
Marmot
@Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity: Hm. There goes that hypothesis then. Science strides on!
fhtagn
@Dennis SGMM:
Such an exhibitionist! Next you’ll be calling people cudlips and changing your name to Duke Leto-Dennis Atreides-SGMM.
Kilgore Trout
@gene108:
I can relate, I did the accounting thing for 20+ years.
I’m doing support for an accounting software company these days and am very, very happy about it. I never know what kind of stuff I’m going to deal with on a given day so it’s never a rut, and best of all by the time I get in my car to go home I’ve already forgotten about whatever the worst issue of the day was and I don’t start thinking about work again until I get here the next morning.
AkaDad
FWIW, I’ve had my Gateway pc for 8 years and it’s still working.
Jay C
@BGinCHI:
Yum. Well, at least when the buffalo went off to the Happy Grazing Grounds, someone got the use of the meat (like the Great Spirit intended)- buffalo is great, ground or whole, IF you know what you’re doing: the problem is timing: just the right amount of grill-time – perfection: ten seconds too long – Sitting Bull’s revenge.
Just Some Fuckhead
M_C wasn’t all that bad. She suffered the same affliction most conservatives suffer, that there is one central truth to divine. I had a hard time understanding her pidgin lolcatspeak but she seemed nice enough.
J.W. Hamner
The Yelp Elite is amusing.
Calouste
@freelancer: Depends on what you call “better”. I recently bought a Samsung I think is excellent. At less than half the price of a similar spec’ed Mac.
Tip: only look at sleek, thin laptops. Think, clumsy, brick-like laptops are like that because more room inside means it’s possible to chuck in whatever component is the cheapest at any point in time without having to worry about the exact sizes and margins. Thin laptops don’t have those margins and thus have better component sourcing. A few hundred bucks extra can mean a big difference in quality.
jeffreyw
@BGinCHI: Never had any. Never see any for sale around here. I’d try happily try some.
WaterGirl
@freelancer: Go with the MacBook Pro! It costs more, but you won’t be sorry.
@IL JimP: Try installing ClickToFlash. Then it only loads the flash stuff you actually want to see.
Edit: Flash is evil.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: I have had moose and venison but not buffalo. How is Homer kitteh and his buddies? Any new Homer pics?
Dennis SGMM
@fhtagn:
LOL! It was a just my way of saying that the endless Mac vs PC argument is fucking tedious. I’ve worked with Macs, PCs, Sun Workstations, Power PCs and DEC Alphas (Back in the day)and a lot of other hardware. The best machine is the one that enables you to best accomplish what you want to accomplish. The rest is just tribal bullshit.
Lv Bu
I rage against the moderation queue.
MTiffany
Radeon? Well, there’s yer problem ryight thar….
schrodinger's cat
@Dennis SGMM: What is DEC Alpha?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dennis SGMM:
I wouldn’t say tedious. Often they can be informative. I’d call the music (Your music sucks, mine is cooler) threads tedious.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Bison is quite good. Like very lean beef.
handy
@fhtagn:
Just skimming through that site, it appears that the grammar structure and spelling of her posts there are leaps better than her efforts here. So she was either BJ’s laziest commenter or biggest poseur. Take your pick.
Corner Stone
@gene108:
There are a couple ways to go here.
But honestly, if you’re working for someone else, you’re working for someone else.
At some point you’re going to hit another wall.
TooManyJens
@Jay C: I had buffalo goulash once. Damn, that was good. I assume it’s easier not to mess up the timing on something like that.
Maude
@baldheadeddork:
Thank you so much. I am trying to get a replacement laptop for someone who uses it at work. She is using an old Thinkpad and it is great except it could die and the video memory is low. I installed Ubuntu on it and she used it easily right from the beginning.
This discussion about her employer getting the new laptop will take months. It will come out of his computer budget. I am a free tech and so I really don’t have much of a say in these matters.
I’ll look up the Lenovo Thinkpad.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: Don’t open that door!
Quicksand
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wow, that was epic. I especially enjoyed that whole thing upthread a bit about “understanding” == “agreeing.”
fhtagn
@handy:
I admit it, I had fun bringing up her old adulation of Dubya. I wouldn’t have bothered, but she insists on denouncing ED Kain’s alleged sins, while never acknowledging how her own follies have been forgiven by others.
My money says she’ll turn up in the near future with another pretentious name and briefly pretend to be reasonable, until ED Kain rides again.
Silver
With a Mac, it depends where on the product cycle you buy.
You buy early, they aren’t a bad deal when you compare them to a Windows laptop, especially since they tend to have a much longer productive life. If you buy at the end of the product cycle, yeah, you get hosed.
slag
@freelancer: Depends on what you want to do with it.
If you can, go Macbook Pro and avoid installing any Microsoft software. I don’t know if it’s memory leaks or what, but I’ve never used a piece of MS software that didn’t eventually bog down whatever computer I was on. That doesn’t happen with any other software that I run–not even Adobe. On a Mac, I’ve had no problem using only Google docs, even when working with people who insist on using Excel. Never once been an issue. But then, I’m not an accountant, so it does depend on your use cases.
Omnes Omnibus
@fhtagn: No one will take the other side of that bet.
fhtagn
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, I can think of one person who might. It’s a matter of baiting the hook the right way for the cudlip fish, so to speak.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Elk is much better.
Harder to get, acknowledged.
Corner Stone
@Quicksand: It’s odd because I always thought JAFI was Just Asking For It, and was a blaming the victim tactic.
Omnes Omnibus
@fhtagn: Fiendishly clever.
Dennis SGMM
@schrodinger’s cat:
The DEC Alpha was an early 64 bit PC. IIRC it used a RISC processor and it packed (For its day) a ton of RAM. One of the drawbacks was that they threw off a lot of heat: putting your hand in front of the outlet duct was like putting it in front of a hair dryer on “High.”
handy
@Blue Galangal:
Slow down, pardner!
You’re not trying.
@Corner Stone:
Not gamey?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I haven’t had elk or moose.
Corner Stone
@handy: No, no, no. Not gamey at all like venison.
Elk is really good stuff, and when smoked/grilled with a little bacon wrap and jalapeno it’s near heaven.
I’ve only had it a few times but it’s been consistently good, tender and quality.
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Homer is a bit grumpy because he was napping, but here you go.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: He looks like Tunch in training, he has the scowl perfected! What a cutie, I iz a fan.
ETA: Thanks much jeffreyw. Homer kitteh made my day!
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
@Corner Stone:
Y’all two have Ph.D’s??
bwaaahaaaahaaaahaaaaa
Yeah, and I’m Princess Kate.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: Keep reading, doll.
Lysana
@BGinCHI:
Heck, to keep a buffalo herd, you have to do an annual cull. I learned this from Tommy’s Joynt in San Francisco, the home of some of the best buffalo chili ever. Seems the ideal male-to-female ratio to keep the buffalo happy is 1:10. Excess males have to be slaughtered or you get rampant fighting and damaged animals all over the place.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Thanks for taking your hand out of your sweatpants long enough to join in here.
Oh, wait. No, the exact opposite of that is what I mean.
JCT
I was a hard-core PC user for the longest time, built all my own machines both at home and at work, some of the ones at work are still chugging along 6-8 years later.
When the kids hit the age where they started to really use computers in school I switched to Macs mainly to keep my time from being wasted with maintenance / network stuff as the Windows boxes definitely were more hands-on. I soon started to switch at work though I still give my students a choice when they join the lab. The amount of time spent on computer maintenance and fiddling plummeted. One of the smartest things I ever did. My mac-using students are also much better about backup thanks to Time Machine.
As for myself, I like both Thinkpads and Macbook Pros for laptops, The new Macbook Pros are stellar machines. More recently I’ve been traveling with an 11″ Air for work and couldn’t be happier.
I guess all else being equal (eg software availability) – these days I would choose a Mac.
Oh and re: biting kitties? Our cat almost never bites except when he wants to be fed. I was sleeping in our back room the other morning (to escape the SNORING BEAGLES in my bed) and kitty jumped on the bed and started playing patty-cake with my head to get me up. I ignored him until.. he bit me! Ack — my loud ouch sent him running. but he may have learned a new bad trick.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Look, we’ve already covered that she is not a princess. Try to keep up. Remember that some have said that BS stands for “bull shit,” MS stands for “more shit,” and PhD stands for “piled higher and deeper.” You know what JD stands for, right? Asshole.
Lysana
@slag:
I am a longtime Mac devotee as well as Windows user (oh, trust me, I am aware of my biases here). On either platform as well as from what my *nix-using friends tell me, Adobe software leaks like a sieve. Especially Flash. Think your browser is a memory hog? Odds are very high it’s really Flash scuppering the works. Doesn’t matter which browser or OS, Flash is a mess. Don’t even get me started on Photoshop or InDesign, let alone InDesign’s predecessor, PageMaker.
But I’ll say this much. My Windows machine has OpenOffice for a *reason*.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
Weird. I was recently talking to a tax preparer who wanted to know how to document a charitable donation of a large amount of processed deer meat. Elk. Deer. Buffalo. Must be something in the air.
Just Some Fuckhead
@JCT: If you fed him, he prolly did. I make my two cats go out and hunt for their meals. It builds character and keeps the birdshit off the vehicles.
gnomedad
@dmsilev:
That should turn out well. Like using two women to make a baby in four and a half months.
Mandramas
By the way, link:
balloon-juice.com/2011/04/27/why-obama-waited/#comment-2556466
(Can’t hotlink, I don’t know why)
Also, EDK is also mysteriously absent, and he is not in the contact list.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
I think you’re in California? In TX it is common to donate deer meat. More than common, really. You get the backstrap and a ton of deer sausage for friends/family and have the butcher/processor package up the rest, then drop off at church or other local places.
It’s very common in TX, but I know nothing about the tax part.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
damn, that “sweatpants” line is just as devastatingly snarky today as it was 30,000 uses ago.
Lotta Texas ladies pleasuring themselves to the tune of your itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dotted peenie, I’ll wager.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Dennis SGMM: Man, those things were great machines. My intro to the power of X was a buddy showing me his DEC with Netscape running on the desktop… but executing on the linux machine in the next room. This was back around 96 I think…
Calouste
@Lysana:
I was going to call shenanigans on that as well. There’s a reason there are only a few mobile platforms that support Flash.
slag
@Lysana: Oh I’m sure it leaks like a sieve. But it doesn’t leak quite enough to flummox my Macbook Pro. Can’t say the same for MS Office. And I do a lot more with Photoshop and Illustrator than I ever did with Office.
baldheadeddork
@Calouste: No, no, no. I’m sorry, but that is absolutely wrong.
The parts in a $300 Black Friday special and a $1500 Alienware or MacBook Pro are identical in size. Hard drives, memory, processors, chipsets, optical drives – they’re all the same size between thin and fat computers, or cheap and expensive.
There is a difference in parts quality, but it’s at a level where your eye can’t see. A cheap laptop is built down to the price by forcing suppliers to cut the cost on each of the thousands of parts that make up a system. A good motherboard will several layers of PCB board and will use a lot of copper between them for cooling. But that’s expensive, so the $299 door buster is built with three layers and less insulating material between them. It will overheat more easily and fail sooner, but all the manufacturer cares about is getting to the end of warranty with a repair rate that doesn’t kill them. If it lasts one day after warranty or five years is your problem.
Thin laptops typically have poorer reliability because there isn’t as much room for cooling fans and air circulation. Heat is the killer for all laptops.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: It’s common in Texas but not Taxes?
Martin
@baldheadeddork: It’s funny how price sensitive people are about their computers, which they spend hours per day on, but will happily promote every other product on earth ignoring price – from tea to pet food to cars – almost none of which they spend as much time with as their computer.
I’ve never understood why people can appreciate value in every product in their life but as soon as the product has a CPU in it, they turn into Republicans pushing tax policy.
freelancer
@lamh34:
Was the girl that played “Kimmy Gibler” not available for comment?
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: FYWP
ETA, the elk meat I have had was from some very wealthy friends of mine who won licenses and went to Colorado for elk hunts.
JCT
@Just Some Fuckhead: I’m laughing — he is actually a very active hunter (or as my husband puts it “murderer of helpless creatures”). Just this morning I caught him coming through the kitty door in the kitchen with his newest trophy. Took off like a bandit when I came after him, feathers everywhere.
The worst was just a couple of weeks ago when we discovered that he had turned our daughter’s bedroom (she is away at college) into a bird mausoleum. Oh, the carnage. Damn cat. But you’re right about the birdshit and the cars…
Dennis SGMM
@polyorchnid octopunch:
A buddy of mine has one brand new, still in the box. He won it in a contest and he never even fired it up. I’ve offered him everything short of a Lexus for it and he won’t budge.
Just Some Fuckhead
@JCT:
Ha!
LauraW once told me that my ginger must love us very much to bring us food every day,
handy
@slag:
Leaks are (cumulatively) bad news, irrespective of platform. And the particular Adobe culprit mentioned was Flash, which I think most will agree ought to die, the sooner the better.
Corner Stone
@eemom: [blushing]
Model Citizen
I’ll keep my Mac, thanks. I use Windows for the occasion where I need to open old FrameMaker docs and convert them to XML, but it’s running in VMWare Fusion. The experience is kind of weird, especially in unity mode, where the Windows executables act just like Mac apps.
I’ve found Macs to be longer-lived and have higher resale value as well.
slag
@handy: Yes, they are and Flash is, indeed, a mess. The best way to deal with that I’ve found is Mac Chrome. And also to never ever create a Flash app.
freelancer
@eemom:
Flamewar accomplished.
And thanks, y’all for the input. Yeah, my best friend picked up a MBP two years ago and can’t STFU about it.
Mandramas
Well, looks like that explain everything. I should try to work as a sidekick.
eemom
omg — don’t look now but there’s an ED Kain GBCW post up!!
They’ve run off together, so they have.
eemom
@freelancer:
huh?
What’s that got to do with Stoned’s electron microscope required-size manhood?
Martin
@baldheadeddork:
Normally, I’d agree here, but the new thin SSD laptops are a somewhat different animal. You’re basically looking at a device with no moving parts, so mechanical wear is largely a non-issue, and thermal wear is much reduced because you’ve stripped out a bunch of heat-producing items. Compared to a thicker laptop with spinning HD and optical drive, it’s going to be significantly more reliable given a similar build quality.
Once you get down to these animals, then you actually start running into more structural failures – where cases and hinges crack, etc. It’s here where Apple’s laptops really shine because the unibody is simply awesome. When you have mechanically static items stuffed inside a single slab of milled aluminum, you really start running out of things to break. Sure, the battery will wear, and you may still get some component failure, but a LOT of points of failure no longer exist.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: If I didn’t know better, I’d say you hate CS more than me.
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: Ohhhhh. I might need a cigarette and a cuddle.
slag
@Martin: Heh. My last Mac Air ended up requiring frequent icing just in order for me to watch The Daily Show online. And this is after installing CoolBooks. That said, I heard the next gen is much better. And I will still miss my icy-hot little friend, the Air.
handy
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Do I sense a hint of jealousy?
RSA
@gene108:
Getting a Ph.D. means giving up a lot in the short term, but for some people it’s a good decision. (At least, it was for me, but I started 20 years ago. Things are tougher these days.)
singfoom
Meh, flame war fail.
I’m a software developer. I do my .NET on Windows 7 and I do my Ruby on Rails development on a Mac Pro. Since I’m a PC gamer, my main rig at home is a desktop PC running windows 7 (which is the best version of windows yet).
There’s no need to choose either/or. Choose both and use them for the things they are good at.
Omnes Omnibus
Good god, EDK really is going GBCW (in a non-emo way).
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: Don’t look at me.
handy
@singfoom:
Before someone chimes in with the inevitable “That’s not saying much” or “they couldn’t do any worse” I would have to second this comment. XP has been good, but Win7 is actually a solid, stable OS that adhere’s pretty faithfully to plug-and-play (as opposed to “plug-and-hope with your life it works”)
Corner Stone
@eemom: I kinda like the fact that you think about my pen!s so much.
It’s looming over you right now. #Loo00ooming
Odie Hugh Manatee
Unfortunately, your problem was caused by ATI/AMD and this was discovered over at places like [H]ard|OCP (and hashed out to no end at places like [H]ardForum). Can’t really blame Micro$haft for it (nor could you blame Apple either).
What’s really funny is that I remember a heated discussion where Mac users were bitching about some game (StarForce2 if I remember correctly) not running on the Nvidia 7600 (I think, it was a 7-series card though) in their systems. They were angry with Nvidia about the crappy drivers and one of the Nvidia reps came in and told them that they had released a patch to Apple but for some reason Apple hadn’t released it to their users with their updates yet. It seems that the poor little Mac users can’t update their drivers without Stevie “Wonder” Jobs making sure that they won’t get a boo-boo. While Nvidia never released the specifics of the patch, nobody really knows if it was ever released to the Mac community. Someone else pointed out that that the Apple business plan is to get users to upgrade regularly and that dropping support for things is one way to do it.
I’m glad that as a Windoze user I can install any damned driver I want to.
On top of that, the Mac users were bitching about how games would run on a PC with lower system specs than their Mac so the game developers must be intentionally screwing with them. For example, if I remember correctly, StarForce2 would run on a pc with an old Nvidia 6600 series yet the same game required at least an 8600 series card to run on a Mac. Members tried to explain to the Mac users that that’s because the game uses DirectX on the pc and OpenGL on the Mac, thus the difference. Plus the fact that a Mac is more of a content creation system that is being pushed into gaming by some owners. Still, the Mac owners thought they were getting screwed. They were, but not by Nvidia…lol!
If you want gaming power that will handle just about everything you can throw at it and won’t break the bank then get a pc. The AMD 5-series Crossfire problem is well known and now some Crossfire 6-series systems (mostly three-way it seems) are suffering from “microstutter” in some high-res gaming though it’s not widespread as the 5-series problems were.
They just reviewed and compared a three-way Nvidia 580 setup versus an AMD HD6990/6970 (two card, three GPU) setup over at [H]ard|OCP. Nvidia lost and the fanbois commenced whining… :)
If it was me and I had money to waste, I’d get an HD 6990 dual-GPU card and enjoy it. If I wanted the best I could get for a bit less money then I’d get the HD 6970. If I wanted HD 6970 power at a cheap price then I’d get a reference design HD 6950 and unlock the shaders to a 6970. As it is, my HD 4890 still does everything I need so I’ll let others ride the bleeding edge and get cut, learning from their experiences.
Nerd fights are fun…
One last bit on the Mac users I mentioned above:
When it was pointed out that they could use their Nvidia 7600 if they used BootCamp and ran their game in XP on OSX. Nope, they didn’t think that was right and that they shouldn’t have to do that. Now that’s a Mac purist!
I had to laugh at this…
“So enjoy your VW bug. Just don’t tell me it’s as good as my Mac.”
I spent less than $1,200.00 for my self-built Core i7-980x system with one of the latest Asrock X58 boards (Extreme6, six SATA3 ports, six SATA2 ports and USB 3!), two OCZ SSD drives, SoundBlaster XFi Elite Pro and AMD HD 4890. Granted, I scammed royally on the i7-980x from a bud who bought it and had to quickly sell it for the cash ($600.00!) so that was a big bonus. I can do all of the content creation/video editing and rendering I want on it and game my ass off without a problem. Pretty nice VW…lol! I turn the sucker on and it works, just like it should. Stable, powerful, fast and relatively cheap, the way I like my computers.
Scenery is sure nice in that boring walled garden, eh? I prefer the wilderness, it’s more lively out here. :)
fhtagn
@eemom:
You’ve given me a hideous vision of matoko lying back, smoking a cigarette and looking repellently self-satisfied as ED Kain laments his folly beside her in a New Jersey fleabag motel.
slag
@handy: A couple of weeks ago, I was using Excel 2010 on Win7 to process 5000+ rows x 6 columns of data. On a brand new Dell. I had to reboot (not just close out Excel, but reboot) twice before I could get the number of rows low enough to be able to work with the data in Excel. Now, I’m not judging. I’m just saying.
Omnes Omnibus
@fhtagn:Now I have that in my head as well. Great.
soonergrunt
@handy: Personally, XP was merely OK until SP1 when it was great. Win2K was exceptional in its day. Vista was fucking horrifying until SP1, and is pretty good post SP2, whether 32-bit or 64-bit flavors. Windows 7 32-bit is pretty good. Windows 7 64-bit is, as my younger coworkers say, full of win and covered in awesomesauce.
Oh, and I got hired by the Veterans’ Administration. I start the new job in a couple of weeks.
Yay me.
Mandramas
@fhtagn: You have a fixation with “m_c lust over EDK” theme, right? it is not far fetched, indeed.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: Congratulations.
j low
@fhtagn: I wish you would have just posted a picture of that, cause then I couldv’e just gouged out my eyes. Now I have to gouge out my brain. How do I do that? Gin, perhaps?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@soonergrunt:
Corngrabulations on your new government job! :)
Seriously, that’s cool!
Malron
ATI video cards have always been a pain for me. I’m more of an Nvidia man myself.
handy
@slag:
I think I found your problem. You said “Excel 2010”
Edited for clarity. Excel 2003 was on the main rock solid.
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: I am VERY happy. I just took a 20% pay jump, and my military service counts towards civil service retirement. And since I’m pending my VA disability, it’s a source of security that I’ll work for an organization that will support that.
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Thanks!
Just Some Fuckhead
@handy:
I still haven’t recovered from the 2007 upgrade.
slag
@soonergrunt: Kick ass! Congratulations!
JonathanW
This may have already been posted, but it pisses me off so I’m gonna link it anyway:
Daniels To Sign Bill Stripping Federal Funds From Planned Parenthood in Indiana
tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/daniels_to_sign_bill_stripping_federal_funds_from.php
So much for a “truce” on social issues from My Man Mitch
kdaug
@handy:
WebGL just went live last month. Open source from the Khronos Group. Still 1.0, and you have to have a WebGL-compatible browser (Firefox 4, latest versions of Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc.)
But it’s the Flash Killer.
Cat Lady
Randomest. Thread. Ever.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cat Lady: Is this a problem?
fhtagn
@j low:
I can do better than pictures. Just remember, you made me do it….
youtube.com/watch?v=fg3qj5I-28A
Omnes Omnibus
@fhtagn: I clicked.
baldheadeddork
@Martin: Thoughtful reply, but I can’t agree. Heat from the hard drive is the least of a laptop’s thermal problems. Chipsets on pre i-series systems get very toasty, processor and video chip heat is good for 60c or more under load, and no one ever cleans the dust out of the system so a marginal design soon becomes incapable of preventing overheating or (more likely) thermal fractures in a board circuit from excessive heat cycles.
The only think that keeps people from frying their laptops every six months is that all but a handful of users never put their systems under sustained processor or video loads.
Apple’s “unibody” is teh sex for a geek like me, but it’s not without its drawbacks. If it’s dropped the aluminum is going to transmit the shock load through to where ever it finds a weak point. There is a really good case to be made for sacrificing a cheap plastic shell if it means you can prevent a $$$ repair.
gwangung
@soonergrunt: Sounds better and better.
Yay for good news!
Arundel
People who moan about how Macs cost more clearly don’t value their own time. The incredible amount of housekeeping, keeping viruses out with extra software they also never figure into the price, the constant vigilance and maintenance..yeah, it takes hours of your life. What’s that worth when you add it up? With a Mac you never have to even think about all that time-consuming shit, the viruses and malware.
People should use whatever they want. You can run Windows on a Mac too, for gaming, which is apparently very fucking important for grown menwith lots of time to kill for some reason. Anyway, Macs are just fucking superior. “It’s not real computing” bla bla. Yeah, like driving is not real automotive maintenance, where your car gets VD every week and you have to go under the hood to constantly fix it. How great! You get what you pay for, and the price difference between a good PC and a decent Mac is not that vast. And as someone said, Apple products retain their resale value surprisingly well. Whatever makes a person happy though.
JCT
@soonergrunt: Seriously awesome — good luck with the new gov’t job. My VA colleagues are great folks.
Arclite
@ John Cole,
Why do you need to run crossfire anyway? Are you running your games on a triple monitor set up or something? All modern AAA games are designed for consoles, which have 5 year old hardware specs. A single high-end graphics card should be sufficient for any single monitor, and will save you headaches too.
toujoursdan
@Arundel:
Seriously, I have never had to do any of this on my ASUS PC with Windows 7. Never. I have never had a virus, even back to my Windows XP days; I have never had a BSOD; I have never had a crash. I have never had to do any maintenance. Nothing.
And I have both a PC and a Mac so I have no dog in this fight. I just find it amusing when Mac owners build these strawmen and then tear them down.
Arrik
Haha, way to stir the shit, John. 270 comments and counting.
Dream On
I only had to replace my Windows twice – unfortunately each time I was stuck with junk for years. Windows Millenium, then Windows Vista. I never had a chance for Windows XP to enter my life.
Now I use a 17″ Macbook Pro – and I’m happy. Quite happy.
BruceK
My brother got into Macs in college and stayed that way until last year. His impression was that both OS cultures suck, but in different ways; the Mac (he had an iBook, still has a first-generation iMac) would be great for a couple or three years, but then dynamic obsolescence would box him out of upgrades. The Windows laptop he got to replace his unusable iBook, he says, sucks in different ways, but at least he can use it to work with.
Ruckus
@Jay C:
The neck/face stuff, though: dunno: maybe a gentle flying lesson?
I have seen this type of training work on my ex’s cat. He never seemed the worse for wear although I’d say the lesson was a little less than gentle. He never bit or scratched me but then he seemed to actually like me.
John S.
Martin nailed it.
Anyone waxing poetic about their awesome PC that never crashes, gets a virus or causes them any grief is exactly like a Republican pimping tax policy. That is to say, completely full of shit.
soonergrunt
@Dream On: Nobody allowed you to buy a copy of XP at a store? Had a gun to your head, did they? What world do you live in?
@toujoursdan: That’s what one does when one is unhappy and committed to one’s unhappiness.
I’ve had lots of computer problems over the years. Being an IT guy, I play around and experiment a lot. The problems are almost always the fault of 3rd party programs or drivers, and almost always very easily fixed.
I thought about buying Apple products, but I decided that I really wanted computers instead.
DPirate
PEAK WINGNUT