taks

this is the problem they do not seem to understand. once this sort of issue gets publicized, particularly their response, people simply won't buy their products. they may get a pass once or twice, but eventually they will be forced into bankruptcy. if it becomes endemic to the chinese way of doing business (it has, actually), it will crush them long term. taks

what ways would those be? taks

10 games up on chicago - woohoo! wainwright pulls off his 16th W (and a 2.47 era), now definitely in competition with carpenter for the cy young! pujols is a shoe-in for the MVP! glory. taks

i just got out of bed a half hour ago. my illness has not left yet, apparently. hacked up a lung ("throwed up a lung" as john said once) all night and didn't get to sleep till after 5:00. ugh... taks

AC/DC is the best live band i've ever seen (at least 4 times now). taks

do you have any information other than "voltage regulator?" in particular, a part number or chip manufacturer. absent that information, it depends. more than likely it will be near the power connector (assuming the radeon uses that extra connector), and it will look like a simple chip with not very many leads, and possibly a large heatsink on it. the heatsink on a high power regulator, however, is not what you think. it's often more like a tab, and that's the part that is soldered to the board (with 3 to 5 leads coming out the other side). here's an example of a TO-220 regulator package as i just described. the heatsink is the little tab thing on the top. here's an example of a regulator that comes in several dozen formats as well 5 different packages. there could also be some little ones (like the SOT-223 package) in various places used for precision power control/isolation of certain circuits, and they could be anywhere on the board. with more information, i could provide a better answer. taks

i think smoltz has found his stride and his team. i was skeptical at first, but not anymore. too bad he didn't get the decision yesterday. taks

^Calax: your school allows replacement grades? dang, mine didn't. neither did, actually, though the latter school wasn't an issue. couple grades as an undergrad i'd love to have off my record. i figure i must have had one of the flu strains, my son, too. my wife works in a retirement home so she'll get whatever vaccines come out, and i'm guessing john will, too, but i don't know how it works if you've already had the flu (h1n1 is a type-A variant). taks

then you should have it removed. if it were benign, however... taks

there's a 30-second per post limit, so the most you could get would be 2 per minute. taks

i think you and i have some sort of record with this. i'm getting to the point that i can't finish ToB anymore, however. it's sort of stale and contrived. too cliched, actually, focusing on all the cool things in BG2, e.g., assembling cool weapons, but not enough of its own while making the cool things from BG2 cheesy. taks

aw man... pillow biting or carpet cleaning? why does there have to be romance anyway? i never understood that. seems childish and not really the point of fantasy gaming anyway. the whole point is to escape reality. guess you can tell that i'm married. taks

you'd also have 99.9% of the board's members. i'm convinced there are only 6 of us posting in here. taks

man can i pick 'em. the last winter. sigh... my bad for being up so late i guess. taks

while i don't have any expertise with radeon, i'm pretty sure it's no different than any other video card. you'll simply have to take the case off and remove the fan and/or heatsink (if they are attached). shouldn't be difficult. may just need to be cleaned out. my vid card is the dirtiest component in my case (i've been mucking with a noisy system lately, too, but it was case fans causing the problem). taks

uh, that website does not say that 32-bit vista and 64-bit vista are the same differing only in licensing. 32-bit vista is different than 64-bit vista, it just has the capability of dealing with greater than 4 GB of memory due to the use of the PAE, which MS has apparently disabled in 32-bit vista. they describe the whole thing in detail and even point out that programs requiring greater than 3 GB of memory will require 64-bit vista because it doesn't need the PAE. taks

define "better." i've always been of the opinion that not causing grief is "better" than causing grief. my opinion changes not. taks

i started to watch remo williams tonight, then discovered it was different than i remembered (with fred ward). now, don't get me wrong, remo williams is a rather silly movie to begin with, but at least it was entertaining. this thing was... oh my. apparently they did a pilot for a tv series in 1988 that got pre-empted by some reagan speech, so most of the US didn't get to see it. those that did apparently voted it down in the ratings. at any rate, it was bad. anyway, i found out about the tv series because i did the standard imdb search and discovered that they're going to make another movie. seems strange given that the original really didn't do well, though it is sort of a cult-classic now. they've got some big names attached and plan to release "the destroyer" (name of the original books i suppose) in 2010. taks

is that in one sitting, or would you have to go back for seconds? taks

yes. got a colorado health advisory from john's school today. they don't specifically mention h1n1, but that's what they're referring to. keep them at home till the fever has subsided for 24 hours on its own they said. i wouldn't be surprised if that's what i have, and what john had, btw, because i haven't heard of anything else going around. probably hype. i don't understand this. most of these (that i know of) are anti-bacterial, i.e., they cannot help with a virus. simply washing your hands works better most likely. taks

me too. i think my fever broke, however, as i just started sweating. taks

watched in a dark place. i guess it's sort of a remake of the innocents, which i never saw anyway. it was... retarded. one of those movies you have to think waaaaay too hard to understand, and even then, you wonder what the writer/director was thinking. i'm not a leelee fan anyway. tara fitzgerald gets nekkid, and that would have been worth it other than the fact that my son was sitting there so i had to quick change the channel. i'm not ready to explain to him what the pretty lady was doing to herself all alone in the bed. same for the lesbian scene. taks

sorry walsh. suddenly my extreme cold/flu does not seem all that extreme. taks

among other things. case, sound card, speakers, etc., are all reusable parts along with a monitor and sometimes even a power supply. most of these only need to be upgraded once every 3 or 4 builds depending upon how long you go between builds. taks

interesting, isn't it, that you can actually assemble your own rig for under $1000 and get something rather nice. my first PC was a mid-level thing that cost almost $3000 in 1993 (maybe 1994). i bought it after i moved back down to UMR to get serious about my thesis. taks