Sunday, June 22, 2008 by Myke.

Some times, great ideas and great technology just fades away and we never get to use it again…even if it was a great product.

Here is the list of the top ten technologies that never survived.

10 - Knobs
Cool little heat touch buttons are cool but what happened to the good old knob we could adjust?

9 - Keyboards with real switches
Do you really need an explanation?

8 - RAMBUS
This was a great product but was knocked out by the royalties and the fact that it was way too damn expensive. Did you know it was actually faster than DDR?

7 - Minidisc
We had the ability to write and rewrite on these little suckers back in 1992, what happened?!?

6 - DVD Audio
Great idea, great sound but not enough backing to make it last.

5 - CRT Monitors
You can go to every single resolution and they looked great. Heavy as hell but still did a great job.

4 - Tube Amps
It kept me warm in my first apartment and they worked incredible. Sure today’s digital amps are good and cool but nothing beat out that beautiful glow of a tube amp.

3 - The Amiga
I dare you to to argue this one!

2 - Apple Newton
Hey Jobs, the iPhone would have been here sooner if it was not for you scraping this product. Dumb ass.

1 - HD DVD
The only reason this failed was due to Sony paying the movie industry with large truck loads of cash. Damn you Blu-Ray!

Posted in Technology | Print | 2 Comments »

Sunday, June 22, 2008 by Myke.

Have you ever been so drawn into something due to the hype that surrounds it? Like Star Wars Episode 1. With the help of the Internet, things and people can become very over-hyped and then become such a let down.

Here is my list of the top ten things that I felt were over-hyped recently.

10 - Multiple GPU Video cards
Not much to say here, just not as cool as one thought originally.

9 - Nintendo Wii
Now hear me out. This is a cool product and very fun to play, but where is my game list I was promised. Maybe over time the list of games will grow and maybe Nintendo will actually make enough for everyone to actual purchase.

8 - MySpace.com
All you ever seem to hear about anymore is how cool it is to have a MySpace.com page. To me, it is basically a way for people to do another form of on-line dating with actually saying it is on-line dating.

7 - 64-Bit Computing
With PC’s being able to handle more than 4GB of memory and the cost of setting up hardware for 64-Bit computing, where have all the apps gone that were supposed to come out? I mean the only logical place for 64-Bit anymore is in the server world.

6 - Battlestar Galactica
The once famous and awesome Science Fiction idea has turned into a futuristic version of Melrose Place or 90210. Sorry Travis and Ian.

5 - Downloading movies from the internet
Okay, this was very cool when I first tried it out back in 1999 and 2000. But today it is so easy and places like Netflix.com deliver right to my door.

4 - Facebook.com
This is a very distracting and fun place, but state of the art or revolutionary…Not.

3 - HD
Everyone everywhere is talking about HD this and HD that. By the time this becomes mainstream, there will be a new way to go. Let’s face it, some folks are still watching plain old analog TV.

2 - ASUS EEE PC
Experience easy, excellent and exciting computing with the New EeePC. Did you know there was an entire line of these PC’s? Things that make you go hmmm.

1 - The iPhone
Has anything in recent years received more hype and hoopla? I mean we were given a complete over dose of this crap. Yes it is a cool phone, but it has NO 3G support.
* Funny fact about the iPhone. According to AT&T, there is about half the number of subscribers as there have been sales of the phone. Damn hackers of the world.

Posted in Technology | Print | 1 Comment »

Sunday, June 22, 2008 by Myke.

In the classroom where our children are today, do we really want them to learn about God versus monkeys? Are the teachers today so much more educated than before that they can teach this with 100% proof? Do you believe in creationism? Do you believe we evolved from monkey’s?

I can already feel the burning begin on this one. Those that know me, well, they know where this one is going. Those that are just beginning to know me, well, it is about to get ugly in here.

This topic is generated from the story on CNN.com about an Ohio Science teacher that burned a cross into his student’s arm to make a point.
Teacher accused of burning cross on student’s arm

Some side notes from this story, he was not arrested, the school board has voted to begin the process to fire him and he was reprimanded numerous times for having a bible in his desk at school.

(Deep breath…exhale)

First of all, the school is not the place for any teacher to preach. You want to preach, then become a damn priest! You can keep the bible in your desk, that is your right in my eyes. But the second you pull it out and start preaching, you are no longer teaching children. You are trying to push your religious beliefs onto our children.

Second, the school board sucks. If you actually had to hold a vote to figure out that you needed to fire him, you are just as dumb as he is. I understand that maybe you have rules and policies in place to protect teachers from being out right fired, but this is crazy. If my step-father (in my eyes, he is my father as he raised me all my life. and for this story, he is my second step-father) ever did something of this nature, I would expect him to step up and walk away and know he did wrong. Because that is what he taught me. When you do wrong then admit your fault and take the punishment.

Third, you are lucky this is not my child you branded with a cross. If it was, there would have been an old school lynch mob on your ass that night and I would make sure to publish every thing straight to youtube.com. I would make sure every teacher in the country would know, you better not mess with our children. If this was the child of one of my co-workers, associates, friends or family member, I would still hunt your ass down and brand you my own way. As parents, it is our job to teach our children that there is religion and they have a choice to believe it or not to believe it.

I cannot even begin to explain how upset I was when I read this story. There is no comment about being arrested and charged with assault/battery. This is clearly an attack on a child as it left a DAMN mark on this child. Where in the hell are the cops in this whole mess???

I will end this with my personal feeling about all of it. I am not religious in any way. I do not go to church or pray or ask for forgiveness. I have done so many wrong and bad things in my life that whoever is actually watching over us gave up on me a long time ago. I will personally be driving the short bus full of helmet people straight to hell. There will be no windows on this bus and no door. I know what I have done and what I deserve in return.

I feel that there is a holy spirit out there. But I do not look to him/her. Those that believe in god are not dumb. They actually see something and they believe in it and that is great. Those that believe in hell (me), that is great as well. It gives you something to work towards to not end up there. God is like Santa Claus. If you truly believe in him/her, then they are real and will have an impact on your life. I do not believe in gods, goddesses or ala donkey humpers because if they truly were there watching and making things happen, then why is the world so fucked up now.

There are wars, violence, murder, rape, child abuse and so on. If they existed, then why are they not putting a stop to this crap. I was abused both physically and mentally growing up by my sperm donor father and first step-father. Why did that happen if there is a god? Why was I subjected to so much alcohol and drug abuse growing up? Can you really explain this to me?

I was told by a guidance counselor in high school that with as much abuse that was given to me, how much alcohol and drug use was done in front of me that I would end up being a no good alcoholic, drug user and wife/child abuser. Guess what bitch, I have never done a drug in my life and I am not an alcoholic. Oh yeah, my children have never been beat and I have never lifted a finger to any woman in my life. I am guessing that your little counselor handbook failed you.

I teach my children what is right and wrong. I teach then responsibility with chores. I spoil my children as often as possible. My children are always first before me. I treat my wife as if she was my goddess. I love them all everyday no matter what. I teach them that religion is out there and they have a choice. I will not push it and neither will my wife. They can learn it on there own.

Schools cannot do the "Pledge of allegiance", but we can have a teacher preach about creationism and evolution and which one is right and which one is wrong.

That in my eyes, is wrong.

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation, under God indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

Posted in Rant, WTF | Print | 1 Comment »

Sunday, June 22, 2008 by Myke.

The new "Heavyweight Hard drive Champion of the World" is, Western Digital’s Velociraptor 300GB 10K drive. This is a much needed drive since the 150GB Raptor X. Every drive manufacturer out there started to go after the Raptor X but WD never really responded. Well I can speak from first hand knowledge, this drive is awesome and fast.

Before I tested this drive the, fastest drive I had tested was Samsung’s HD103UJ 1TB drive. I understand that these two drives cannot be compared side by side or spec by spec but the only test we ran was speed. The WD drive is only 300GB, but it is selling for about $299 which is the same price as the 150GB Raptor.

So the drive is fast but one other very cool feature is the size of the drive, 2.5". Plus we cannot complain about the price either. The drive is currently selling for $299.99 over at Newegg.com.

Single Drive Test Results

HDTach Burst (MB/s) - 255.1
HDTach Random Access (ms) - 7.1
HDTach Average Read (MB/s) - 104.6
HDTach Average Write (MB/s) - 96.7
PCMark05 Overall - 9457

RAID Test Results

HDTach Burst (MB/s) - 229.9
HDTach Random Access (ms) - 7.2
HDTach Average Read (MB/s) - 100.8
HDTach Average Write (MB/s) - 93.5
PCMark05 Overall - 8471

The one thing that folks need to understand is that this drive is not built to placed in a laptop. This is a desktop or server drive only. The power requirements would trash a laptop.

Of course if you are looking for storage and not speed, then the Samsung is still the top dog.

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