Congress likes free speech, except when they are running for re-election. That much was made clear when they passed the McCain-Feingold bill, otherwise known as the Incumbent Protection Act, that limits political speech during the late stages of an election. Now Congress is saying they hate spam. Except, of course, if that spam comes from them. [Article] What’s interesting about this is that it isn’t just another example of congressional hypocrisy, it shows how abusive Congress is of the power of incumbency, and how willing they are to make law making it harder for someone to challenge their positions of power.
Category: Software & Technology
Google going public, actually making money
Here’s a novel idea: going public with a company that actually earns a profit! Google Raring to Go Public
Now that’s a fast internet connection!
Physicists smash internet speed record – So how do I get one of those connections in my house?
Senators making a little sense; Extreme Stuff; Displays of Suicide not Condoned
Some senators are making an interesting point: it is easier for the recording industry to get information on alleged copyright violators than it is for the Justice Department to investigate terrorism. [Article] And of course we have the ever-clueless Boxer from CA who can’t tell the difference between a company sharing a customer list and forking over specific user details to an organization who wants to sue users.
Just when I thought everything under the sun that could be called “extreme” had been, from underarm deodorant to low-budget TV sports shows, Intel decided on the over-used marketing label for a new CPU: Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading Technology, Extreme Edition. Yeah, the CPU looks nice and all. But if it actually says “extreme” on it, it would just feel silly putting it in my computer. [Article] Well, I’ve been using AMD CPUs for years now anyway.
Here’s an amusing statement for the day: “Obviously, the St. Petersburg police does not condone public displays of suicide.” [Article] Good to know!
My new MoBo
I replaced my motherboard Tuesday night with a DFI LanParty NFII Ultra. This is a great motherboard. The dual-channel memory access makes a noticeable difference in the speed of memory-intensive operations. The board is stylish, too, which is great if you have a windowed case (I don’t – I have a monster full-tower case and I have yet to take a dremel tool to it). It came with a “FrontX” connection box that goes in a drive bay and lets you put USB, FireWire, audio, etc — just about anything — in the front of your case in a clean manner, which is great for a custom computer. This board has some other nice touches, too — such as power and reset switches on the motherboard that you can use before you hook up the case switches, and POST diagnostic LEDs right on the board that let you know what’s going on. And the NForce 2 Ultra is the hands-down best chipset available for AMD CPUs. I rate this mobo 9.5/10.
Changing a motherboard is probably the most labor-intensive computer upgrade task. Everything connects to it — what a pain. It’s better to build a new computer from scratch than to change its mobo, but that wasn’t an option for me at the time.
As for my old mobo, the BIOS chip that went brain-dead can be replaced for $20 (and who knows how long it will take to get here), so it looks like I have a part for a new computer for a kid or something.