JonCole

I kinda like this idea in a far flung future where voice and behavior analysis software could actually accurately measure someone's asshole quotient. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to implement this that wouldn't produce an unacceptable number of false positives or be totally broken due to a human contribution element. In the case of the latter, take for example the online matchmaking of Mortal Kombat. At the end of matches each player votes for a reputation/respect rating for their opponent, which would theoretically be a great way to rooting out players with skill versus "cheap" tactics. Unfortunately, there's just going to be a boatload of dicks who dole out zeros to every single opponent regardless of a win, loss, exciting match, boring match, etc.

Am I the only one who's reminded of Medal of Honor when I see that three studio collaboration? I've liked Call of Duty pretty much the whole way through, but this is the first title that I'm seriously considering taking a pass on.

Totally agreed. I think my gametime on the DS version was like.. 50 hours, because I completed literally every single thing.

Just got home from watching Bridesmaids and I couldn't help but write something about it as quickly as possible. Judd Apatow's stuff was starting to get a little tiring for me, but I think Kristen Wiig brought a lot of freshness to this one and really proved herself as a leading lady. So hilarious that my face literally hurt for a half-hour after leaving the theater because it was so constantly contorted with laughter. My slightly more longform thoughts: http://bit.ly/kOPAWC

I used to play Kingdom of Loathing for a long time, but after playing for practically five years I got extremely bored with it. Not a bad way to waste time on a budget, but nothing groundbreaking.

I think I recall that Anandtech has pretty good SSD coverage, because Anand is a bit of a junkie. That said, I've heard of issues from practically every SSD manufacturer, so I wouldn't really judge by brand rather by individual product (controller revisions also mean that a brand's quality can jump from generation to generation pretty quickly).

Totally agreed. Kinda reminds me of how practically no sites use HTTPS... which, while I'm no expert, seems like something that should be practically universal.

I watched Limitless and had a pretty good time with it... honestly, I just view it as a superhero movie with a particularly shitty explanation for how the protagonist got the powers. If you divorce the movie from the pills as the explanation, I thought that the way Cooper's character had to grapple with the physical effects of his powers was pretty effective in the whole "you control your powers, don't let them control you" kinda way. De Niro was also great, curbing his shitshow performances in junk like Meet the Fockers part 21 "Focker-est" and bringing back in his mega-intimidating drawl and glance.

Yeah, clearly Jack is homophobic and transphobic. Oh, he's also openly gay. Game Journos is such a piece of shit blog that sensationalizes even the most slightly jokey blog posts. I'm usually okay with IGN shitting, but that whole post was clearly a joke and the crucifying that Jack is getting is totally uncalled for.

I've been working on a pretty budget build, so I can fairly easily think up one... I'll update this post as I research. $134 - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX $70 - MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard $70 minus $20 USD rebate - OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7 $40 - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9S-4GBRL $129 minus $10 promo code minus $30 rebate - HIS H577FK1GD Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity $50 - Rosewill Blackbone Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $22 - ASUS Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM $58 - Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EARS 1TB 5400 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive So, some of those parts obviously have some room to be changed, like switching in a Samsung Spinpoint F3 for the Caviar Green HDD for higher performance or downgrading the Radeon 5770 for a GTX 450 if you don't need multimonitor/high resolution gameplay. Also, I didn't factor in shipping, but then again I didn't factor in shopping at local outlets and hunting down any deals. That build adds up to about $525 and will be able to handle any game you throw at it. As Thompson said, you can also swap in parts from your old computer, though I'd recommend getting a new hard drive and power supply as those parts don't survive so well over the years. I didn't throw in the cost of an OS, as that can vary based on what you want to get/what you care to settle with/how you can get it. Anyways, hope this helped a little.

EA has a lot of good deals on iOS, too. I got Dead Space iPad for $0.99, which was definitely the impulse buy point for me.

That movie really surprised me. It wasn't anything particularly novel or original, but it was just so well executed that I had a blast with it. Not to mention the sheer amount of acting talent packed into it, which definitely helped even if an A+ actor wasn't fully used.

For some reason, I recently rediscovered The Lonely Island's first album, Incredibad. It's probably one of the best comedy music things I've ever listened to, mostly because they're both well-written (thanks, Andy Samberg) and actually are quite good musically. Boombox is a great example... I've read plenty of commentary saying "I almost kinda wish that this was not comedic... the electronic/trance along with Julian Casablancas makes this song something I'd listen to any day." Anyways, dig this old stuff up, it's great!

You can use this to find hardware information - http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Well, the price to performance ratio would be terrible, as most 775 processors still haven't really dropped at all in price/retailers are adamant to sell them at initial value. That being said, you could see some noticeable improvements from upgrading your processor, though not to the E8600 (which I think is the dual core you're talking about). The Yorkfield Core 2 Quads would probably almost double the 3DMark Vantage score of whatever you have now. What I'm actually considering and probably very soon doing is a kinda budget generational jump by switching to AMD. The main motivation is because my girlfriend's computer is on budget 775 (something like a Pentium Dual Core) and by upgrading I can give her my E8600 and RAM. I'd then get something like the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black (easily overclockable to nearly 4GHz), AM3+ mobo, and DDR3 RAM. So, I upgrade to something that competes easily with budget Core i5's but has a cultivated space to the effect of fairly cheap components. For about $300, I'll be able to get the processor, mobo, and RAM and use my old components to upgrade my girlfriend's PC at the same time. No need to upgrade the case, power supply, hard drive, and video card as they're all about one/two years old.

I use Interfacelift for my backgrounds, usually. Also considering using this program for themes and stuff, personally.

It's been quite a long time since I've owned a PSP, so the only thing that really pops into my mind is Maverick Hunter X. It may be my nostalgia for MMX talking, but I really loved this remake. And it was a budget title at release, so it's probably less than $10 nowadays.

I got a tote bag and a messenger bag with my points. Pretty decent quality stuff, for what I earned with a bunch of games I've had sitting around forever.

Good to hear about BG&E... just wanted to make a quick note. It looks like you haven't updated your forum signature in about a billion years, just in case you didn't know.

GOG is selling King's Bounty: The Legend for $5 (from $10) this weekend, just thought I'd throw that out there. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/king%E2%80%99s_bounty_the_legend

I was on an episode of the XBLAFancast this week, check it out: http://www.xblafans.com/xblafancast-episode-7-10937.html

I'll sum it up a bit. Sandy Bridge eliminates something known in computer architecture as the Northbridge. This component was previously separate from the CPU and controlled communications between the CPU and RAM/GPU. In order to decrease the latency between these components and increase performance, the latest generation of processors in Sandy Bridge architecture and AMD's Fusion series integrate the Northbridge into the CPU. In both cases, integrated GPUs are placed on the same die as the CPU, increasing native graphics performance to support 1080p video and hardware acceleration. Long story short, Sandy Bridge/Fusion has about a 20% performance advantage on top of the previous generation of processors. Furthermore, the higher graphics performance means that video processing can be relegated to the integrated GPU rather than a discrete GPU in lower level functions, which in turn leads to more spartan power consumption. I hope that sums things up, as the DRM aspect of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture is probably the least interesting and affecting aspect of the whole ordeal.

This is also true. Though I guess if you still have the system disk for your old computer's version of Windows, you can just use that for the Bootcamp install.

Fair enough, just thought it should be said either way. I managed to dig up some benchmarks on the latest rev of iMac hardware with that GPU. Overall, seems to be pretty competent with contemporary games, though all signs point to it not really being future proofed i.e. you're buying old hardware. If you don't mind cranking more recent games down to fairly low detail levels/resolutions, it should be fine. http://mattgadient.com/2010/08/01/imac-21-5-i3-3-2ghz-with-the-radeon-5670-mid-2010-in-gaming/