taks

as i reread your post, it sounds like the input port on the monitor has died or is in the process of dying. could simply just be a bad connector, maybe one of the pins broke away from the solder point. hard to say without looking at the connector. really, the difference between DVI and VGA is not that huge, particularly if you have a crappy monitor. taks

you bastard! what will my friends think... i'm friends with arabs. i'll never live it down. you already slandered me... i'm not falling for this. no way. i'll never live this down, you've totally ruined my otherwise pristine reputation. mark

typhoid walshy? taks

technically, any signal is transmitted in analog in at least some sense since truly "digital" is only a mathematical construct. DVI signals are differential signals similar to LVDS (low voltage differential signalling). essentially, each of the three twisted pairs (RGB) has two possible phases, {1, -1} or {-1, 1}, one of which represents a "1" and the other a "0". this is very similar to something called bi-phase shift keying. the signal has some coding on it (similar to 8b/10b). the "gain" is due to the fact that since only 1s and 0s are being sent differentially, even when there is noise the comparator at the receive end, it only sees the difference between the two lines in a pair, and decodes it as its respective 1 or 0 output. for example, say a {1, -1} was transmitted but there is a bunch of noise. since both lines in a pair are together, they both see approximately the same noise. even if the noise is high, say +1 and the comparator sees {2, 0}, it will still decode the difference as +2 (first minus last), which is the same as a {1, -1} (usually, a + difference is a 0, and a - difference is a 1, but that's another story, and it depends on other things). barring extremely high noise environments, the data is received exactly as it is transmitted, so there is no loss, i.e. you see exactly what is intended to be seen. the only errors will result from the standard bit error rate of transmitting such signals, which is pretty low over short distances (i.e. maybe one out of a million bits is in error, probably less than that). that said, converting to analog simply means that the each of the RGB components is converted to a number, 8-bits per line, and transmitted as an amplitude modulated signal (essentially, it is more complicated than that). now you have to detect the level and determine what number it represents. while not necessarily more difficult, it is more prone to error, particularly in the presence of noise since a subtle shift in voltage will appear as a different value for the respective line, altering the picture. another thing that has an impact is imperfect load matching, but that's yet another story. yes, yes and yes. taks

i'm not either, but his voice was definitely "beautiful." another singer i really dig is the original phantom of the opera, michael crawford. i got to see him circa 1995 in st. louis and the show was unbelievable. his voice dominated. taks

what pope and ellester said... i wouldn't want to hang around other people because i couldn't handle the emotional onslaught. i don't find guys particularly attractive so that route would be out as well. chicks that drink like a sailor, i.e. like i do, are not received very well, so ixnay on that. taks

there'd be no role-playing for me... taks

really, that's odd... of course, there's no rational reason for 16:10.5 scaling on any monitor. it's always been 4:3 or 16:9, so it would _seem_ like the 1600x900 should inherently be better because the game is probably coded for it... no need to interpolate up via the video card i bet. hard to say, since that's not my area of expertise. sorry to hear that tale. i've got a 6600 core2duo. not gimped by cpu at all. in fact, once either my wife or child experience catastrophic pooter failure, whether initiated by me tinkering or otherwise, i'm intending on upgrading to something meatier. taks

well, that one is a little larger in overall diameter, so there are probably some "shortcuts" they can take to extracting the sucker, er, well... taks

wimp. we already know how they are: they talk about how we are. you don't even have to ask what i'd be doing for that week... taks

uh, wow... even indoors my showfps is now reading upwards of 80, minimum of 45-50 or so. outdoors consistently 60-70. way cool. oh, 1600x1200 with everything at max, or near max, but environment shadows off. taks

i assume you have a monitor with 1600x900 native resolution? taks

naw, but they do have to slice your whang open to pull 'em out. taks

at many schools, fraternities/sororities are actually MUCH cheaper than dorms, even including "dues" which are insignificant in the big picture. UMR had 4800 students while i was there, 1500 or so were affiliated with a fraternity or sorority. about the same lived in the dorms, and the rest lived "off campus." taks

yeah, it would be something... certainly not very high on my list of afflictions to suffer through. taks

i went through the agony with fedora core 5. of course, i later discovered that release 5 was otherwise considered unstable, and i just happened to DL it during the tiny window in which it was actually available. i haven't ever gotten around to putting 6 on my system, nor do i think i will (i prefer linux to winders, but it is just not practical for what i do with my home computer any more). taks

i've played through the tutorial and i must admit, it is pretty sweet. the visuals are outstanding. i haven't started the demo campaign yet, however. taks

sort of... there is also the candiru fish, which is called the "willy fish." hate to get one of those suckers stuck in my willy. taks

plenty of both today, but no alcohol till friday. i'm reformed, at least reasonably so. fret not pixies, not drinking is not a bad thing, and i'd guarantee i would have done better in school if i had abstained at least a little bit. i had the misfortune (from a drinking standpoint) of attending a school in the middle of the ozarks (read: redneck as they get) with about 20% of the school population consisting of the fairer sex. since it was a small town, there wasn't much to do but party, and since there weren't many females, said partying consisted of either dancing with other guys, or getting another beer. i opted for another beer. my grades were good enough that i could do that every night (literally) and still get a decent GPA. had i opted to join the dorms my first year, instead of a fraternity, my party options would have been limited somewhat to boot, though remembering the way i was, i would have found my niche anyway, i'm sure. taks

one interesting difference is when installing nvidia video drivers. since kernel releases occur rather frequently (often with wildly incompatible changes), and nvidia does not release their source (at least, the last time i went through this they didn't), you have to rebuild the kernel with their "patch" in order to install drivers compatible with the kernel you're using (depending upon which driver you want to install and which kernel you currently have). of course, video drivers aren't that important for a server, so this is normally a non-issue. taks

no kidding, neeshka and qara were expected to do each other's nails... sheesh, sick people in this thread. taks

they did that with some of the pledge parties since pledging occurred while you were still in high school (at UMR). the reigning belief was that most high school students are not very well acquainted with mr. alcohol yet, so many will act drunk not knowing the difference. i, on the other hand, was already a bona fide boozer by the time i was 16, so there was no fooling of the taks man during pledge parties. taks

baa baa withteeth have you any wool... taks

yeah, neeshka an qara... i'll bring the movie camera if someone else can get the popcorn! oh, you ment with the PC... i see. taks

animal house was so not like anything in reality. taks