taks

no, please re-read what i said. in your tiny world you may not need to know above 2^12, but that doesn't cover the real world that i work in. broad statements like yours are not only impossible to prove, but very easy to disprove. i know what 2^18 is off the top of my head. sorry you don't, but that's enough to disprove your entire statement (all of them). i regularly use powers of 2 out to 32 bits, which is why i explained all that. i don't know exact breakdowns (though it's not hard to figure out that, either), i.e., all the bits, but i wasn't talking about all the bits, just 1, 18 places to the left (it's actually in the 19th digit if you didn't know that already). a) i said i know what it is off the top of my head, you said you don't. sorry. b) i said it is easy to figure out, in your head, the bounds around 300000, 2^18 and 2^19. it is also easy to figure out in your head what 2^18 is. you can do neither. sorry again. good, because apparently your other profession is a bust. you have a very hard time addressing what i actually post. is it because you can't figure out a valid way to "trick" me into saying something you can mount a straw attack against? or just that you are incapable of making legitimate claims about anything? taks

did you read what i said? most people that work with numbers, like programmers, engineers, etc., know all their powers of two out pretty far*. a benchmark is 2^20, for example, which is ~1e6. to get <300000, simply divide by 4, or 2^18. nonsense. i do, and i'm guessing he does too. i'm sorry that you aren't as knowledgeable as i am, or even alanschu. i hope your company isn't overpaying you. hate to tell you but i work with 32-bit and 64-bit numbers every day. my A/D converter is 14-bit, and after going through the downconverter, the numbers are all 16-bit, which i immediately convert to 32-bit. it is also pretty easy to figure out in your head the two powers of 2 that bound 300,000. again, i'm sorry you can't do that without a calculator (i don't own one, btw). gee, even my desktop is 64-bit. taks * obviously not you.

2^18 = 262,144 < 300,000. no logs required. yes, at least, i do and i kinda got the impression that alanschu does something with programming, which means he probably does too. most people that work with numbers know their powers of 2 pretty far out. taks

uh, 1/2^18 doesn't require logs to know that it is larger than 1/300,000. taks

not really much to work out... largest power of 2 less than 300000 is 18 (but you do need the "odds i flip heads 18 times in a row" qualification as you note). taks

i have many years of doing that sort of thing behind me and my liver is perfectly happy. every other part of my torso, however... ahem. man i miss being young enough to drink every day. we have to plan ahead now (my friends and i) if we're going to drink more than a few beers only two days in a row. it takes effort, skill, and lots of morning-after drugs (read: advil) to accomplish this feat these days. hangovers don't make underlying anxiety problems any better, either. taks

50 people a year die from lightning in the US alone... hardly worth worrying about. taks

master of the strawman. taks

yeah, some new degree type... www.uccs.edu for more information if you're thinking about coming across the pond. careful poking around, i'm actually listed somewhere as an instructor, hehe. taks

i enjoyed the OC and will play it again after my run through the witcher. the witcher is a bit tedious in chapter 2, btw. so many nonsense quests it is hard to keep up. most of the mini side quests are fed-ex, too, which makes them boring. the main story arc is still interesting, so i will continue to forge ahead! taks

subway for lunch for me. had that new chicken pizziola. meh. i'm not really a subway fan, but it is close and cheap and some of their other subs are fairly good. taks

oooookkkkkaaaaay. ahem. i could never be accused of seconding my own posts. rarely does anyone agree with me, or vice versa. i would probably be too obvious if i argued with myself, too. taks

my jeans aren't very lucky at all. i gained back all the weight i lost during my evil final semester of school and now weigh a few lbs. more. they aren't happy with being stretched back out. taks

that's the ultimate key, right there: current cpu prices will drop, which results in more bang for the same buck if you wait. it's these one-time jumps that you watch for if you want to save money while still sitting near the bleeding edge (the bleeding edge usually requires actual bleeding to afford, IMO). i totally agree with mkreku's choice of case and PSU, btw. in fact, that's the case i want (i have an antec server at the moment). i'm not a huge fan of the modular supplies (i hate the one i have) simply because the danged cables end up being just as bad, if not worse, but it is feasible that certain configurations would work out rather slick (i just don't have one of those configurations). either way, antec supplies rule. not sure about the mobo for no other reason than i have no experience with MSI. depends. cache technology is pretty solid and with proper pre-fetching*, most applications are typically not memory-bound. of course, it is application dependent and my experience is with a different type of application (not games). with a faster CPU, however, one that can outstrip cache speeds, that may change. hard to say. could be new processor technology coupled with faster CPUs is what pushes the performance. taks edit: not just pre-fetching, but the cache algorithms in general. if the algorithm has an average of a 99% hit rate, increasing memory speed won't change overall performance at all. the worse the cache algorithm performs, the more opportunity there is for memory to make a difference. cache algorithm efficiency is application dependent, however, and the types of applications i write often have high efficiencies. i'm not sure how efficient they would be for games.

oh, that sucks... well, they took me to a "recovery room" afterward and i have no idea how long i was in there. i was hitting on the nurse they said, which i do not remember. with the brevital (or similar) drip, you typically begin to wake up almost immediately (at least, that's what they told me). of course, "awake" and "aware" are two entirely different concepts. taks

i do... 75 hours till i get to leave on our weekend camping trip. this time we're going to longs peak in rocky mountain national park. the forecast for estes park, CO (nearby) calls for snow. should be an interesting weekend. taks

LOL! those two seem to show up in pairs, don't they... taks

wow, an hour and a half? my wisdom teeth came out in 20 minutes, tops. taks

same here. that was one of the better buzzes i've ever had, too. the versed was nice, coupled with fentanyl (pain killer), and i was rather happy. i was only "out" for a few minutes and i woke up half-way through the endoscopy. versed does bad things to your memory for a few hours afterward, however. taks

um, regulations to prevent this, fraud protection in particular, are legitimate. i've made that point countless times. government is there to protect the rights of both the seller and buyer, which means it is their job to make sure everyone is equal. fraud protection, full disclosure (which is really a fraud issue anyway), etc. are required "regulations." taks

certainly more regulation ain't the "way to do it right," yet that is what is going to happen. the only real evidence that exists is this: less regulation works better than more regulation. taks

no kidding, a socialist implementation fails and what do the euro-snobs and pseudo-intellects do? they blame capitalism. oy vey! oh, and you really have to go back farther than FDR to find "capitalism" in the US, though it was closer then than now. taks

i love it so far. voice acting seems pretty good, AFAIC, much better than a lot of titles. i've heard the EE is better than the original in this regard, however. either way, i'm impressed. the one foot barriers are a pain, and a remnant of the engine i guess (in NWN, you simply couldn't go places, fence or no). combat is boring, but neat to watch the uber dominance of the witcher dude. i'm only playing at the lowest difficulty level, however, so maybe it's better at higher levels? the story is definitely better than most, too. it would be really interesting if you could play as one of the other characters and go their path at the beginning instead. of course, that would greatly complicate the game (but the replay value would be immense). taks

when i read this the first word that popped into my mind was "laxative." they tried to put me on darvocet afterwards, and i took it after i got back from the dentist when the anesthesia wore off. it was at that point i decided narcotics (at least, morphine derivatives) were not for me. advil rounded out the next few days. the only time it bugged me was when i smoked. felt like my stitches were going to pull out. taks

barbituates are cool. they gave me brevital. sigh... i had mine out 23 years ago. i often forget how old i am. taks