Manipulators
Some amusing stuff. This one’s the best.…
Hmm, not sure these two are all that accidental…
Noticed on Techbargains that there is a $200-off coupon code for the awesome Dell monitor…
$200 off, with coupon code SGS8?T0JFVF1CRDell 2005FPW 20in widescreen Digital LCD Flat Panel 600:1 contrast ratio, 12ms response, DVI, Svideo, Composite Video $599
This had me kind of freaked out, but then it seemed I may want a better source for news then ‘cdfreaks.com’ so I did a Google NEWS search on the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2004 and was amazed. Amongst all this darkness there’s a light, just a spark really, but this is so much more positive then what I expected to find.
The spark my miraculously still-living unique brand of pessimistic optimism sees is that McCain-Fiengold may have some meaningful effect on campaign finance. That is, it may de-emphasize (at least a little) the importance of corporate/industry lobbies… Senators and the like are realizing they’d rather have $100 in clean campaign money they can use any way they need from the several thousand constituents passionate about issues like these then the lobbies’ $2000 to $4000 total in clean money and the dangers of trying to use all the other money (and perks) without it becoming a PR nightmare.
Notice the pessimistic optimism(TM) — they aren’t doing it because they believe in consumer protection or because their constituents asked, they’re doing it because they can get more $$$ from constituents and large groups of private activists then corporations and their lobbies.
I like Dell a lot, but they keep screwing up. Their first big screwup along these lines was being DVD+R only, which they’ve just now rectified… long after HP (who along with Sony started the whole +R mess). Even worse is their lack of AMD chips, which is obviously starting to cut into their sales… I think that’s pretty amusing.
Even a year ago I would be dead-set against an HP/Compaq anything, and I’m still not a fan of their desktops, but despite the stupid design their workstations have worked quite well for me for the last two years (the only ones certified for high-end Avids), and Dell hasn’t given me much reason to be intensely loyal…
I still kind of prefer Xeons for servers, I’m not sure I’ve got any real reason for that, but using that technique to get Xeons for Opteron prices sounds like a hell of a bargain! Now if only Dell had any high-capacity storage systems not based on antiques…
I think it’s now obvious that AMD’s now the best way to go CPU-wise for single-CPU boxes, and the most promising chipset looks to be nVidia’s.
Asus looks to be the first with a good SLI motherboard, and I really like the extra PCI-E slots, but I haven’t seen anything on how well non-games may use SLI.
I wish there was an nForce 4 Ultra Shuttle or other SFF… ’specially with SLI. Of course having only 2 RAM slots keeps most SFF systems from being perfect VFX workstations.
Not quite positive which is the best way to go for a dual CPU workstation, as soon as there are PCI-E AMD duals available it’ll be obvious, and even until then they’re still probably ahead because of the price advantage… plus the great advantage of the extra RAM slots the dual Opterons have. Now that’s a real workstation: 8GB RAM! Only thing is you have to be using XP64 to use the extra slots at all (and to access >4GB). I wonder how big the performance penalty is from having both CPUs have to rely on the first one’s memory controller in the meantime…?
Dell’s 20″ widescreen LCD (cr)Apple competitor for $719.10!! (It’s higher contrast ratio, has SVideo in, and is cheaper then the shiny Apple). Specs: 2005FPW 20in widescreen Digital LCD Flat Panel 600:1 contrast ratio, 12ms response, DVI, Svideo, Composite Video.
Not quite as pictured though, the ’sound bar’ is another $49. Still, hell of a monitor, and the picture in picture option sounds interesting for using with a switchbox and other computers…
Even better, through our business account we could buy in multiples of 4 for $599.25!
And for those who don’t need 4, UNTIL Wednesday the 24th you can get them for $649, with coupon code LQTKCQDFSC$0M7Dell
Go through the ’small business’ store on Dell Online (not home/home office).
Stetson sent me this great site for finding bargains like these.
(Maybe) http://www.democrats.org/feedback/
I called for the resignation of Terry McAuliffe and declared my support for Howard Dean for DNC chair, told them they need to start taking strong stands so that people can actually see a difference and have a choice to get excited about.
On a lighter note, the ads Republicans ran in Ohio and Florida.
;o)
That is three elections in a row the leadership of the Democratic Party has ran to the center, three elections in a row they have failed to capture even their own voters.
All the lemmings who declared Kerry ‘more electable’ in the primaries, how electable does he look now? In the coming days and weeks many will bemoan the turnout among 18-29 year-olds, while conveniently forgetting how the candidate who energized that vote was dismissed out-of-hand.
What I am saying is that it is time to learn from the Republicans instead of just trying to be them. They played to their base while the Democrats were ashamed of theirs. Republicans offered the appearance of real choice, real positions, and the Democrats offered ‘anyone but Bush’. That’s certainly not the way to win a mandate, and it turns out it’s not even a way to win the race.
We need leadership again that stands for something. Something other then getting elected, that is. Something based on strongly held personal convictions instead of the latest (oh so accurate!) poll numbers.
Long ago there should have been primary challenges to the likes of Zell Miller, Tom Daschle, and Joe Lieberman. We now have nothing more to loose. It is time to pursue ideals and goals, time to stop going for nothing other then selfish pursuit of power and influence by any means necessary.
Many will dismiss me, but I offer incontrovertible proof of my argument: Barack Obama. Impassioned, articulate, original. He offered something solid and got 70% of the vote. So I ask others to stand up with me and demand party leadership who will nurture candidates like Obama, leadership who will not drive to the center and crush the spark out of candidates like Gore, and leadership who will provide encouragement instead of a knife in the back to the progressive candidates who will lead us to victory by offering the people a choice.
