New Testingstan

speaking of which,
today I've discovered possibly the most British thing ever

if you don't get it: consider that we have a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but only a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
and the RSPCA predates the NSPCC by like a hundred years
and it's the oldest surviving organisation with the power of arrest -- it even predates the metropolitan police

Ford did you ever get on the PJ insult generator

Jesta you are THE MAN. I had been looking for that video for aaaaaages

thejester wrote:Ford did you ever get on the PJ insult generator

Totes

gotta say I'm looking forward to tonight

hello i am extremely happy right now

thejester wrote:gotta say I'm looking forward to tonight

Except now we face the long wait until next week when the gas gets connected.

I found it pretty interesting

I grew up during the Hawke and Keating years but I wasn't politically aware as a kid. The only impression I ever had of him was that he was arrogant.

i just had a random thought about space battleships

i've never quite actually pictured the laser on some of the classes of ship in my brain. i have a fuzzy picture of the overall shape, but no specifics. i just take it for granted that they're there, and generally assumed the laser would be on the nose of the ship

but i just now was imagining the enemy trying to take a look at them, and since they'd be interested in the specifics, i had to think of them


and the first picture that popped into my brain put the laser on the belly of the ship. that's partially because the nose has to face the direction of movement amirite and the laser points at threats from the ground, so belly it is

but thinking about it.... that might actually make a whole lot of sense.

pros:
perpendicular to the engine means you can (in theory*) change your vector while firing. if your only acceleration choice is toward the enemy while in battle it takes some fun away. you can also increase your orbit while still pointing the weapon towards the surface

you might have more room on that side; the nose may be smaller or already packed with shit, though this isn't a given; you could just as well have a plate shaped ship as a cigar one.

cons:
it might flex the mirror more when the main engine fires

if the craft is solar powered, the solar array is likely perpendicular too (so you can change your orbit bathed in sunlight), and thus either you present your biggest side to the enemy while firing (turn to point the laser at them but it is on the same side as the solar panels, so they can shoot at them more easily), or your own solar wing are in the way of the main weapon (the laser is on the end of it; remember a cube has three sides so the engine is on X, the solar panels are on Y, and the weapon on Z), which i think would be hard to balance if nothing else

* firing while accelerating is something i think would reduce laser power, messing up targetting and the vibrations might like mess up the beam w/ jitters, and thus might be generally avoided. also, of course, you could point the ship in any direction as you move so it doesn't necessarily matter anyway


overall i think for nuke driven ships... the pros have it. the jury's out on solar ships.

but this is cool, a nice alternative to the spine laser!

Stofsk wrote:I found it pretty interesting

I grew up during the Hawke and Keating years but I wasn't politically aware as a kid. The only impression I ever had of him was that he was arrogant.

As a child I was very certain that it would be best if he beat John Howard

I don't really know why, but I was very adamant about this on election night in 1996

Ditto. But I garnered that from my parents and their peers, mostly.

While it's still very preliminary, I'm in the planning stages of a potential road trip to the midwest.

IIRC baks is in michigan; anyone else in the northeast?

I am in the Massachusetts.

Where we play Beejee's songs all the time.

you know what the Midwest is? young and restless

watching some ncis la

first lol @ the tv land habit when ppl get shot they have to rip open their shirt to reveal the bullet resistant vest. every fucking time.

second "guy in the beige jacket." sitting on a bench "he's looking for somebody!"

clearly the sure mark of a criminal lol

just watched the finale of season 4 of buffy

that was a weird episode to watch while exhausted

PC enthusiasts: I'm building a PC (my first time) in January and here what I have chosen. The main reason for this build is for some gaming, and lots of photo and video editing.

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan
CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE
EVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2662-KR GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16
G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
Dell U2413 Ultrasharp Monitor

Thoughts on these? I can't really go for anything more expensive because without the monitor, it's already at $1200. This has to last for years. I do not want to completely upgrade in three years like I do with pre-built computers.

If you want maximum future proofing, I would go with a Haswell i7 and a 1150 socket motherboard. Both are the latest iteration of Intel's cpu's, and thus will have the fewest troubles being forwards compatible with new shit.

Your choice of monitor appears to cost between $400 and $600 before taxes or shipping. I don't understand this choice, but you should know this is a ridiculous price for a monitor regardless of what it does.

Your GPU seems fine, though I don't know the geforce stuff very well.

Stock cooling on the intel processor is plenty good enough, don't bother with a replacement cooler. You only need more cooling if you're overclocking, and you only overclock if you're a huge idiot.

Good choice of PSU. Doublecheck it has all the right pins you need (specifically, make sure it has enough PCI-E power in 6 or 8 pin, make sure it has 20+4 pins for the motherboard, etc.)

The mobo you currently picked qualifies, but if you change mobos to go with Haswell, make sure you have room to expand your RAM. 8 gigs is plenty for now, but a few years down you may want to bump up to 16.

All that said, what you picked will in fact work right now and will in fact kick butt.

joviwan wrote:you want maximum future proofing, I would go with a Haswell i7 and a 1150 socket motherboard. Both are the latest iteration of Intel's cpu's, and thus will have the fewest troubles being forwards compatible with new shit.

Hmm. I was leaning toward the Haswell but I've been told by numerous parties that it's not really worth the jump in price.

joviwan wrote:Your choice of monitor appears to cost between $400 and $600 before taxes or shipping. I don't understand this choice, but you should know this is a ridiculous price for a monitor regardless of what it does.

I've been making steady money at photography and it's time to upgrade to a monitor that is reputable and has 100% sRGB color space. I shoot in sRGB with my DSLR and color is very, very important to me. I don't want a client to look at their photos and think the color is off (has happened). The Dell Ultrasharps are renowned for their quality and I think it's a good choice. Naturally, I could go with an ASUS monitor, but I've been using one for years and not only are they unimpressive, their colors nowhere near match the Ultrasharp. Of course, to edit in 10-bit and utilize the entire 1.074B colors with the Dell, I'll need a better video card. But that can be done in the future.

Also, 16gb of ram is a must for video editing.

Thanks, Joviwan!

**thumbs up**

I now understand the choice better. The price gouger in me still disapproves, but this is clearly a business and professional development expense, so that's a-ok.

The jump to haswell for you probably *wouldn't* be a big deal, as in, you'd feel no difference other than the effect on your wallet. Purely from a future proofing standpoint, however, it's the better choice, because Socket 1155 is done with--nothing else is going to come out for it to incrementally upgrade your processor, if that's what you need to do.

And yeah, 16gb is a must for video editing, so leaving yourself the room to get there is important, and something you've already accounted for.

I'd be curious to learn more about the colors thing with regards to GPU. Do current gaming GPU's have problems pushing color at that level?

joviwan wrote:I'd be curious to learn more about the colors thing with regards to GPU. Do current gaming GPU's have problems pushing color at that level?

I read an extensive review of the monitor on Amazon and it had this to say:

"In order to get the 10-bit 1.1-billion color palette, instead of an 8-bit 16.8 million color palette, your graphics card and your entire workflow must support 10-bit color. Manufacturers do not mention this requirement when advertising that their 10-bit monitors can display 1.1 billion colors, leading people to think that you can just plug this U2413 into any computer and display 1.1 billion glorious colors. If your digital workflow entirely involves JPEG images in sRGB color space, using an 8-bit monitor like the U2412M is perfectly suitable for your needs. The same applies for people who will not be using this U2413 for graphic design or photo editing, but just want to edit text, use Internet browsers, watch movies, or play video games. For photographers using this U2413, this means you should shoot in RAW instead of JPEG, edit in Adobe Photoshop CS4/CS5/CS6 (not Photoshop Elements and Lightroom which do not support 10-bit color), and use a high-end graphics card that fully supports 10-bit color such as Nvidia Quadro or AMD/ATI FirePro (e.g. Nvidia GeForce cards do not support 10-bits-per-channel color) attached to this U2413 via DisplayPort or dual-link DVI."

Aaaah. Okay, tha tmakes sense: gaming GPU's don't give a crap about it, so you need a workstation GPU (which is, maybe not surprisingly, shit at gaming)