things that I have discovered while roaming around the internet
“.Jungleland” live at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Awards 2009.
Note the amazing Little Steven Guitar solo, as he simply wails, and Clarence doing a soulful job on his sax solo soon after. The E Street Band is tight, polished, and plays the daylights out of the finale to one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time, Born to Run.
A little over a year ago I built a $600 gaming machine for my kids, and wrote a post about it. It’s been one of my most popular posts ever, with over 1,000 views, many comments posted, and quite a few emails generated.
I was building a PC for a friend recently, and decided that the original PC needed to be updated. So I rolled up my sleeves and here is the result. I have upgraded to a Quad Core Processor, a Phenom X4, and have added a Creative Labs X-Fi Sound Card, so the machine is better, faster, and has upgraded sound. Here is a direct link to the newegg.com Wish List.
ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard – $79 - Asus makes well received motherboards, and this has great specifications. We saved $50 by choosing an ATX mini motherboard instead of a regular ATX motherboard.
CORSAIR 4GB DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $59 – Corsair is a leader in gaming memory. This 4 gigs kit comes in 2 sticks, which allows you to run the memory in Dual Channel Mode for improved performance. The motherboard will support a total of 8 Gig of memory in four slots, so you can upgrade to the maximum of 8 gig by simply doubling this memory order.
AMD Phenom 9600 Agena 2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor – $95 – QUAD CORE 2.3 gig processor. This Black Edition runs at only 95 low low Watts for reduced heat, and improved performance. The Phenom X4 series is a great series for gamers, as the newer Phenom II processors are three times the price and certainly not 3x the performance.
EVGA GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card – $120 – This is a great, low price point, 512 MB Nvidia 9800 series card. Ihave been eVGA customer for years. Their products are warrantied for life, and the last time I returned a card that died, I received an upgraded card for free!
Here is the one notable upgrade to the $600 Gaming PC: A SOUND CARD!
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card – $91 – This is a great sound card, runs Dolby Home Theater sound, has Toslink Digital SPDIF audio outs, and is the reason I shaved a few dollars in other areas. But we now have awesome gaming sound and improved overall PC performance by taking the sound processing off of the main processor and moving it onto the powerful 24 bit Creative Labs X-Fi audio processor.
Rosewill RP550-2 ATX12V v2.01 550W Power Supply – $50 – This power supply delivers 550 watts, quietly and consistently, with a cool blue lighted fan.
Cooler Master case – $50 – This case has great ventilation, can be set up with almost no tools, and is pretty sharp. It is also roomy and will hold additional drives and equipment if you would like.
SAMSUNG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe – Black – $25 – I like LightScribe well enough, but the only reason it’s here is because its free. This SATA drive is fast, quiet, and mostly cheap.
Western Digital 650 Gig 7200 RPM SATA 3.0 gig HD – $7o . Fast, quiet, and nice amount of storage for just $70.
You can mix this up a bit by adding a better graphics card, bigger hard drive, or a snazzier case if you would like. Remember, the goal here was to build a great gaming machine for $600, and we did that. A PC with an nVidia 9800 series video card, 4 gig of fast gaming tuned RAM, and a QUAD CORE Phenom X4 processor. The total parts list on my newegg wish list was $639, with $40 in mail in rebates. That drops the total price to just $599. What a great deal for a high end gaming PC.
I have built this machine, and it runs every game well on high settings. The parts are all warrantied through the manufacturers, and New Egg has great return and exchange policies.
Let me know what you think, and if you have any questions, or need any help feel free to drop me a line.
Good Luck.
This entire city block is marked for demolition. City crews will come with bulldozers, level the houses, fill any basements, and grade the empty space. This has happened over and over again on the East Side of Buffalo over the past 20 years.
What remains of three city blocks. Most of the remaining houses are abandoned.
Continue reading ‘What economic loss looks like in Buffalo.’
I followed a link to this documentary on Reddit the other day. There has been a great deal of press about medical marijuana lately, with Obama ordering the DEA to stop raids on California medical marijuana clinics this past week. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement that “his boss has told him that ending marijuana raids is now American policy” is a bold statement about the state of the drug war.
Suddenly, pursuing a war against our own people when over 20% admit using marijuana regularly, does not seem to be a popular way to spend people’s money during these tough economic times. The drug war has fed the prison industry, the law enforcement industry, and wasted trillions of dollars, thanks in large part to Richard Nixon’s paranoia about blacks, Jews, and hippies. And we the taxpayer, are paying for it.
The DEA budget for 2009 is $2 billion, and the Federal prison system? Oh, that’s another $5.5 billion. On a side note ladies – The Justice Department slashed the Office of Justice Programs, COPS, Office on Violence Against Women budget by 65%, or 1.5 BILLION in 2009).
80% of the DEA’s budget is spent prosecuting the war on marijuana, quite possibly the most useful plant in the history of, well, the world. All for hemp, a plant that can supply fuel, clothing, food, fabric, as well as cures for countless ailments, including lung cancer.
Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol. It isn’t working now.
I know that it’s a bit long, but watch the video. Even if you don’t smoke pot, and according to statistics, most of us don’t, watch just to see how your hard earned tax dollars are being spent, while everything else seems going to hell in a hand basket.
Reddit