darkhosis

yah, pretty much. when you really need to see a doctor, you'll see one.. but lots of the time it ends up costing the taxpayers 10x more than if the person was able to see them when they should have originally. this isnt always health cares fault tho, theres plenty of ppl with insurance that put !@#$%^&* off for so long that it becomes a severe issue rather than something more moderate. anyway, i actually agree there should be some sort of nationalized health care. id just change the statement that US gets awful health care to "some people in the US get awful health care", probably over 65% of the population would get "top 10" on whatever list was quoted in the first post unless maybe it's one of those liberal whacko groups publishing the stats, didnt look at it. ps: the cuba thing is pretty amusing

My last virus I had on my computer was over 5 yrs ago, but I still would like to have a decent AV program. !@#$%^&* like trendmicro and "onecare" takes too long, and I havent found a method to just scan memory + my download directory using those. I was wondering if anyone knew of a decent anti-virus program that you can totally turn off (nothing memory resident left whatsoever) and just be able to manually scan every once in a while whenever you download or receive new files off of the internet w/o having to deal with all the ctrl-alt-deleting and msconfig and registry editing and !@#$%^&*. i.e. something like how a lot of spyware works. of course it says im exposing myself to spyware by turning it off, but at least it doesnt force me to run some !@#$%^&* in the background. i had to totally turn off that windows defender crap. is there any such program? i have googled and seen a lot of ppl talking good about "nod32' or something, but it seems like it also runs in your memory.

yah, read some benchmarks, looks like the 4850 is better. i normally just avoid ATI cards so didnt know that. the ATI website says 450w+ for one, so 500w should be fine. it does recommend 550w+ for crossfire mode though. might want to try: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817341001 if you dont mind using the mail-in rebate. the main reason i listed the other was because of the combo deal with the case. that one is $70 ($130 originally w/ $30 discount atm, plus the $30 rebate), is 600w and has huge amount of 12v amperage. also comes with 2 PCI-E connectors instead of one, and has some awesome ratings on newegg (some of the best ive seen for a psu). that could hold 2 in crossfire mode easily w/o needing to be upgraded. it's also a nice brand. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817152031 there's one for cheaper that might work. some negative reviews tho, lots of them relating to screw holes not fitting up properly, but definitely worth getting over the rosewill since you aren't gonna get that -20 combo deal. both have more 12v (the first has a lot more) and also 2 pci-e connectors and high enough wattage to handle crossfire mode and i would still change your HDD over to one of the western digital AAKS models (the WD AAKS with 250GB costs the exact same too, but if you need more storage it's like what $10 more for 150 more gigs). look up the benchmarks on tomshardware. 3250410AS has a horrible random access time and the caviars will beat it in most other benchmarks as well.

lol, spent some more time on this.. checked yer mobo just to see if it supported SLI and it doesn't (still didnt delve much into specifics. not sure if it's a decent mobo or not). So don't need to worry about that. Then I went to newegg and looked at some cheaper cases/PSU since the ones you are buying aren't that hot anyways and not really needed for the system. For any major upgrades, you'd probably end up having to change one of those anyways. I found this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817182076 which is a 500w power supply with one pci-e connector that should be sufficient. it has two 12v rails. one at 15 amps and the other at 16 amps. if you're running with just one hard drive, optical drive, dual core cpu it should be enough. if you have like 3 hard drives, 2 optical drives, all kinds of !@#$%^&* in your usb slots, then it wouldnt work. overclocking may strain it. you should use: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp you might want to spend $2 for "pro" to make sure the amperage is sufficient. also, generally you wouldnt want your psu running at -90%+ or it'll go out pretty fast (so you want it to show less than like 400) but anyhoo, this power supply has a combo deal with: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811147096 it comes in black too, but didnt see that one on newegg. that case should fit the 9800gtx, it might go into one of the 3.5 bays, or you might have to cut, bend, or remove part of one of the bays. total cost is $55. that would save about like $100. i think something in the range of 550-600w would be better, but that should probably work there. unless you have a lot of extra stuff i dont know about, or intend on overclocking quite a bit. but yeah. psu + case are 2 things you should really look into. you can take that any extra money saved there and spend it on a better HDD and/or memory.

if you're running something like 2 geforce 8800 ultra or 2 geforce 8800gtx in SLI mode, you can just about hit that with yer video cards alone =)

It's better to buy a few steps down from top of the market... something I usually don't follow, but that's the best way to keep stuff running good and save $ in the process and you should be able to run games at a decent clip for at least 2 years with most setups. I forgot to look at his MOBO and don't reaally feel like it anymore =) haha.. but, really, look at his components.. cpu - he's buying something better than the one i got 9 months ago. my cpu still isn't taxed by any of the games coming out. i can run m!@#$%^&* effect at 2048x1536 with graphics set to max even including some .ini twinks for even better quality (like changing AF from 4 to 16 and shadow textures). it's probably something i won't upgrade for at least another year or two and i like to keep my !@#$%^&* up to date. gfx - i have an 8800gtx card that i bought 9 months ago. 9800gtx is roughly the same (well, ok, a bit better), depending on how you use it. it's a !@#$%^&*load better for stuff that uses physx (but nvidia is supposed to have physx support for 8800gtx in a future driver sometime). in most cases, it'll be better, but if you're running extremely high resolution in games it generally runs a tad worse. it should be fine for at least 2 years for running games at high settings. i imagine it won't be totally obsolete for quite some time. it's still one of the best vid cards on the market (besides the extreme top of the line !@#$%^&*, like the new gtx 260 and gtx 280, not familiar with ATI's line). review of those is at: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-gtx-280,1953.html hard drive - loading times might take a bit longer, but is it really a huge issue as far as gaming goes? not really. it is moreso if you do things like graphical design or something of that sort and deal with lots of large files. regardless it's $60 and shouldnt have a huge effect. memory - 2x1 gig is fine. i'd buy 2x2, but if an upgrade is needed he still has 2 more mem slots, so you could easily add another 2, or even 4gb. what games will take more than that in the next 2+ years? tower - im not too keen on the midtower, buying a full tower basically makes it so you're fine to upgrade the components inside for a very, very long time. but i spent $250 (or maybe more like $300) vs his $60. mobo - i didnt look at it psu - i bought a 1000w psu so that i can upgrade later and not have to buy a new psu. he doesnt need 640w with what he has, but he might need it later (the 9800gtx only uses about 200-250w under load). i also did a quick search and i think you could do better for spending $110 on a psu. you could probably spend less here and get by with a 480w or 500w or look around for a better deal and maybe get a decent 750-800w for around the same price that should keep you for a while w/o needing to upgrade it.

fshizzle

US has just about the best health care in the world, you just have to pay for it.

I only have 72GB of space and I've never had any problems with it. Two old WD74 SATA raptor drives in raid. It's the only thing in Vista that doesn't get a 5.9 in that performance index, so I actually have two of the Velociraptors on order and it's supposed to be here tomorrow. Those cost $300/ea though. I care a lot more about performance than space, I've never had any issues with just the 72GB, if the Velociraptor came in a smaller size for cheaper I'd probably buy that instead. But I know lots of people like to keep tons of music and movies and crap on their hard drives. I also buy all my stuff off newegg cause they are so good on shipping & returns, so I end up paying more on some items.. For the hard drives, I'd consider looking into the WD5000AAKS, which is 500GB and only $20 more than the one you're getting (and also a better/faster drive regardless of the extra space). There's also the 7500 (+70), 6400 (+30) , 4000 (+10) , 3200 (+5) , and 2500 (same price, same storage). All have superior benchmarks than the one you have listed, 'specially in the critical random access time if yer a gamer. The 9800GTX won't fit in some mid-tower cases, I don't know about that Antec case (<-- ok just checked and it will). 9800GTX cards aren't so great. 8800GTX is even better than 9800GTX if you play lots of games in (very) high resolution. I play most my games at 1600x1200 or 2048x1536, so the 8800GTX (the 768mb variety) that I'm using is > 9800GTX, course 8800GTX still costs more than 9800GTX. I was gonna say to get an 8800GTS G92 card but it seems like prices have went banzai over the last few months (only like $30 diff between the two, wtf). If you do any gaming you should get at least the 8800GT but honestly the price differences really are just about jack !@#$%^&*. I don't know much about ATI cards but 9800GTX is very good for $200 value. If I remember right just several months ago it was $500+? wtf. I paid ~$550 for my 8800GTX about 9 months ago. CPU looks solid, beats out my E6850. 6850 is priced at $185 on newegg, but the one you have listed there has better benchmarks and you're showing a cheaper price to boot. (the one you picked is $190 on newegg) Seems like nowadays that's around the sweet spot. Anything better you pay a lot more $ for. I always buy Corsair or Crucial RAM, but gskill is good too (altho the link you have is pointing to Kingstom ram, they're OK also). Might want to look into buying 2x2048 though instead of 2x1024. The 32bit operating systems will detect 2.75GB, but the 2x2048 is better for upgrade purposes later. Some if it depends on if yer planning on overclocking. Personally, I'd get the: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145176 Which is $82 after mail-in rebate ($22 more for if you send in the rebate for 2 gigs more ram, and imho a better brand too). But they won't overclock as well as 4x1 would, not sure how overclockable Kingston memory is but since you were getting the DDR2 1066 I guess that wouldn't really be a problem. Really just depends on if you're going to attempt to overclock past 3.6GHZ. I run my E6850 at 3.6GHZ and could go a bit higher, but don't want to overclock my RAM (it's also DDR2 800). You could also save probably about $15 by going to DDR2 800 instead of DDR2 1066 (w/ your same brand and settings). Just depends on if you are planning on trying to take your CPU past 3.6ghz (well, also you can generally underclock 1066's to 800 and run at better settings, but I run my ram at 4-4-4-12 with no problems). You might also want to look at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820148070 Which I think is better RAM (DDR2 1066) and cheaper if you actually use mail-in rebates and don't mind waiting to get it back. You can put these at some bad!@#$%^&* settings if you clock them down. The case and PSU, I dunno. I have a full tower coolermaster case that cost about $250, and a 1000W power supply.. bought these so that my system will be easy to upgrade in the future, w/o having to buy new PSU or case.

yah, it was for motorcycles. when someone says bicycle i automatically assume motorcycle, hah. you just dont see ppl riding bicycles aroudn here =p but, by utilizing the elite bicycle helmet -motorcycle, the very top site contains a lot of data: http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm (go to research & statistics and pull up the stats page) didnt go through it all, but it has all sorts of stuff about helmets. since it's called 'helmets.org' i guess it's spin is gonna be obvious, but from what it presents it's pretty conclusive that on bicycles at least helmets help. motorcycles are prob a bit diff, in that if you get in a crash you're moving at such a high rate of speed that in many cases a helmet wouldnt really matter regardless. did see something a little bizarre near the bottom Product Number of Injuries Motor Vehicles 1,744,903 Stairs, Steps, Ramps and Landings 854,500 Bicycles and accessories 514,700 Beds 299,200 Household Chemicals and Cleaning Products 65,900 Doors (Not Gl!@#$%^&*) 46,200 Pens and Pencils 29,900 Money 28,700 First Aid Equipment 27,300 Toothpicks 5,500 Combs or Hairbrushes 3,700 fear injuring yerself with money

2nd sentence appears to make no sense whatsoever.. ("decided the center is anything, but bull!@#$%^&* and ..." ??) are you saying that obama has magically turned into a centrist, or that he used to be a centrist? either is a bit laughable mccain isn't a right wing nut (try huckabee), he's just a nut. either way, mccain > obama because of supreme court and john paul stevens is almost 90 years old

Yes, that's exactly right! The highest paid public employees in the city of Houston, Texas make huge sums therefore all teachers get paid more than enough!!1 Congratulations!

anmy game that steals !@#$%^&* from Oblivion would by default suck wtf anyway what about that super columbine massacre game, haha.. worst well known game = E.T. for atari 2600 ed: fear the wiki backgroudn image comparisons and ending video. What the !@#$%^&* ok, nm, limbo of the lost wins

haha, made me actually check. yeah, game still isnt released. been like what 2 years since it was cover page on pc gamer or computer gaming world (or whatever its called now).

JOKER'S WAITING FOR YOU ON THE BRIDGE

sorta off topic but not worthy of a new topic. but i saw this: http://www.nypost.com/seven/07092008/news/...bama_119161.htm and the headline.. and just couldnt help but laugh my !@#$%^&* off

lulz, "emogirl" who joined jan 1 2008, with like 8 posts, has 1500 views. dorks

Since ppl are talking about job openings and what not.. http://www.chron.com/databases/publicemplo...amp;CPIorderBy= always thought teachers supposedly only made like 30k? isnt that why ppl always say they should get paid more? ABELARDO SAAVEDRA HOUSTON ISD SUPT OF SCHOOLS $0 $442,556 CHARLOTTE J PARKER HOUSTON ISD PRINCIPAL, HIGH SCHOOL $0 $127,301 JUNE L HAYMAN HOUSTON ISD TCHR, ESL ELEMENTARY $0 $94,313 MARY E BAKER HOUSTON ISD TCHR, FIRST GRADE $0 $91,451 SCOTT D SMITH CITY OF HOUSTON POLICE SERGEANT $93,661 $180,539 MATTHEW LLOYD DAVIS CITY OF HOUSTON POLICE OFFICER $59,443 $120,039 first number is overtime pay, 2nd number is total pay recommend checking city of houston website. might be some positions open

http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq3/table2.htm ^^ is what I'm using for poverty stats. using the average for the years 1998-2000, since the only census figures on racial makeup of states is from 2000. these are the states with equal to or greater than 90% of the population identifying themselves as being white (non-hispanic). poverty rate is ranked on a 1-50 basis, with 1st being the state with the least amount of poverty as a percentage of the population. murders are rated from 1-50, with 1st being the state with the least amount of murders per capita. leaving off DC. 1. Maine (97% white) - ranks 17th in least amount of poverty, 3rd in least amount of murders 2. Vermont (96%) - ranks 19th in poverty, 5th in murders 3. New Hampshire (95%) - ranks 2nd in poverty, 7th in murders 4. West Virginia (95%) - ranks 46th in poverty, 13th in murders 5. Iowa (93%) - ranks 5th in poverty, 6th in murders 6. North Dakota (92%) - ranks 33rd in poverty, 1st in murders 7. Montana (90%) - ranks 47th in poverty, 7th in murders OK, so out of the 7 states with >90% white pop according to 2000 US census, the avg poverty rank is 24.1 out of 50. so these states on a whole are just about around the national average poverty wise. their avg crime ranking in murders per capita is 6 out of 50. or, we can just say that it's really !@#$%^&* low. yes, all those states are small, with the largest being 3m. feel free to look up mississippi, delaware, arkansas, new mexico, and nevada on your own (states under 3m with large populations of blacks and/or hispanics). the numbers are quite different. if you went up to 4.5m, you'd have the gem that is known as Louisiana. i'll check delaware for ya. 700k people. largest city, wilmington, pop 120k (and it was probably less in 2000). 73% non-hispanic white, 19% black (10th highest as of 2000). 16th in poverty, 18th in murders. neat, except when you compare it to similar size states. fyi, the state with the lowest poverty rate from 1998-2000 was maryland, at 7.3%, alas it ranks 48th in murders per capita. only louisiana and mississippi were worse. georgia was 4th. i think there might be something.... common amongst these 4 states... http://www.censusscope.org/us/rank_race_bl...anamerican.html use that and compare south carolina (66% white) and kentucky (89% white) for some fun. both with near exact same pop as of the year 2000. in 2004-2006, kentucky had 16.5% individuals living below poverty line, compared to south carolina's 13.7%. 2006 murder rate? kentucky at 4.0 individuals per 100,000, south carolina at 8.3. this is obviously linked to poverty rate, err, wait, nm. or maybe guns, except supposedly more people have guns in kentucky than south carolina, scratch that. or maybe it's lack of education, but kentucky ranks #1 in people not completing 9th grade, 2nd in lack of ppl graduating HS, and 49th in # of people with college degrees, lagging behind south carolina in all 3 areas. obviously race isnt a factor. thats just politically incorrect. gun ownership? you can check at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/healt.../ownership.html all seven states i listed originally are >40% except for new hampshire. montana, north dakota, and WV are in the top 10 in the nation. maryland is at 25% and is 3rd most murderous state. but the top 2, louisiana and mississippi are at 44% and 55%. how does that go again? guns don't kill people, people kill people. edit to respond to new post: hawaii has 1.73% black population, or 41st out of 51. asians and pacific islanders tend not to murder each other. yah, the same wiki article that says burma has the 2nd lowest homicide rate in the world? .12 is similar to Germany. France is .175, Canada is .15, UK is .14, Hungary is .20, Portugal is .23, Italy is .13, Australia is .15, Iceland is .17, etc, etc. Yeah, I don't believe that !@#$%^&* about Pakistan, Burma, and Morocco having the lowest homocide rates in the world.. sorry. I'm inclined to believe the Japan .05 which would place it as the lowest. It's a very homogenous society. ed again: was going over some of those "wiki" source articles.. haha.. yeah, the united nations is really on its toes. obviously a lot of that !@#$%^&* is underreported. shockingly enough, in the USA homicides tend not to be shoved under the carpet... or executions.

yah, i played once yesterday and got 1400. that's when the computer kept getting accelerate and +paddle size powerups, making it impossible to win. i think im probably done with that game tho so grats. like i said in a previous post, anything past 1000 is pretty much luck. the comp still makes some mistakes at 1000 (besides the paddle direction switch crap), but very few. after 1200'ish, uhm, it just all depends on what kind of powerups the computer (and you) get really. if you're full of paddle deceleration powerups, theres nothing you can do. i can handle using one size reducer in hopes of getting something better, but not two. if the computer gets +max accel it will hit everything you throw at it at 1200+ score, even with a one centimeter paddle (unless it gets the paddle reverse movement powerup).

Obama is the most liberal senator in congress. Open to debate, but national journal agrees. 1st in 2007 and states that he was 10th most liberal in 2006. Clinton in contrast was 16th and 32nd. There are 49 democrat senators (and 2 "independants" that are basically democrats). This makes clinton a relative moderate in terms of democrats. I dont really want to get into specifics since I havent put a whole lot of study in it.... this being because.. I would never vote for Obama anyway once I learned of the whole Reverand Wright bull!@#$%^&*. This guy is in this hate whitey, !@#$%^&* america, blame everyone else for your problems church for 20 years and just realizes it after he becomes a presidential nominee. Then you have Ms. Obama who has never felt pride for her country before, her thesis, there's all kinds of !@#$%^&* you could hit at. It's not too hard to swing and miss. so, yes, it's basically a character trait. I'm guessing if I actually did compare their actual voting records though, that i'd prefer hillary's. at a quick 3 minute glance, here's one example I found: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll...&vote=00189

first off, let me mention that in gun ownership per capita, texas ranks 30th amongst the 50 states+DC. DC ranks 51st. which has the highest murder rate? texas was 18th in murders per capita in 2006 amongst the 50 stats + DC. (5.9/100,000). national avg is 5.7. mexico is 6th in the world and 3x that number. oddly enough, texas also has a large population of illegal immigrants. so do arizona, new mexico, california, and nevada. they are ranked 7th, 10th, 10th, and 3rd (calif & new mexico tied at 6.8, arizona at 7.5, nevada at 9.0). here's a nice, non-politically correct post for you: http://www.halfsigma.com/2008/06/what-caus...un-control.html ahhh, strength of diversity http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm <-- ps, this considers hispanics white. fyi, the states with the highest gun ownership rate per capita - wyoming, alaska, montana, south dakota, and west virginia all rank below the national average in murders per capita. three are so low that they're comparable to many european countries and below canada - wyoming, montana and south dakota (1.7, 1.8, 1.2). west virginia, which is 95% white and happens to rank like 49th or 50th in # of people living in poverty by state has a 4.1/100,000 murder rate which is also significantly lower than the country's national avg. but i guess it does lend credence to the statement that poverty leads to crime, that amount of violence amongst whites is basically unheard of. alaska is at 5.4 (also below national average). The correlation between a the violent crime rate by state and the percentage of its population that is either black or Hispanic is ., higher than any other single variable identified (a county level database--with some major urban counties not included for lack of data--showed the percentage of single-mother households to be a stronger correlate than the black+Hisp population, which was the second strongest variable). If the US' Hispanic and black populations are !@#$%^&*umed to commit crimes and other pathologies at a rate equivalent to that of whites, the US falls in the middle of the pack among developed nations on a host of social variables, from teen pregnancy to violent crime. gun ownership: DC 3.8% (51 out of 51). murder rate. #1 out of 51. hawaii 8.7% (50 out of 51). murder rate #48 out of 51. new jersey 12.3% (49 out of 51). murder rate #25 out of 51. massachusetts 12.6% (48 out of 51). murder rate #36 out of 51. rhode island 12.8% (47 out of 51). murder rate #38 out of 51. connecticut 16.7% (46 out of 51). murder rate #33 out of 51. new york 18.0% (45 out ouf 51). murder rate #27 out of 51. illinois 20.2% (44 out of 51). murder rate #17 out of 51. maryland 21.3% (t43 out of 51). murder rate #3 out of 51. california 21.3% (t43 out of 51). murder rate #11 out of 51. umm, where exactly is the correlation? lowest murder rates in country: new hampshire 1.0, south dakota 1.2, north dakota 1.3, hawaii 1.6, wyoming 1.7, maine 1.7, utah 1.8, montana 1.8, iowa 1.8, vermont 1.9. respective gun ownership rank 38th, 4th, 10th, 50th, 1st, 24th, 14th, 3rd, 17th, 20th. only two of those states have gun ownership rates below average. more liberal hogwash

you better keep adding new games, since none of ya'll will ever beat my battle pong score. bring it on suckas.

said something else but nm, misread this. haha. but personally i would have preferred the dem nominee over the republican one for the first time in my life if anyone but obama had won their nomination process (of their top 4 or 5 nominees), seeing as how rep nominee is mccain. this is the guy that wants to increase military size, probalby invade iran within 4 years. guy is just totally beholden to the worst special interest group.