Star Trek Images: Enterprise Crew + Nero

Chromium FTW! (Movies)

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I’m excited to see this movie now.  Mini skirts as uniforms in the future FTW!!!

Batman vs Penguin Debate — Is That John McCain I See?

LowCommotion FTW! (Fun, Politics)

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Chris’ Piss: This week I review Apple’s Wireless Keyboard and consequently Apple’s Wired Keyboard as well

Chromium FTW! (Chris' Piss, Reviews)

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I’m pretty much like any other alpha male nowadays, doing my time browsing the aisles of your local Best Buy.  One of the thing that I couldn’t get away from was the undeniable attractiveness of the new Apple Wireless Keyboard.  It’s mini form factor and overall design slickness gave me serious reasons to upgrade(downgrade?) from my Logitech G15.  The original benefit of the G15 was thus: keyboard backlighting meant easier gaming in the dark, the LCD screen meant an additional place to display stats, and the macro keys were programmable for any game.  The reality of it though was this, the keyboard backlighting was useful to a point, but I can already pretty much touch type so thats not so big of a benefit; the LCD screen was an unnecessary diversion because when you avert your eyes from the screen, you die; the only useful app for it I ever found was the teamspeak tracker which simply told you who was talking, not that big of a benefit; and the macro keys I flat out never used – too much work to program and remember what you programmed.

So I bought it. A few things to note: First of all it’s bluetooth, and if you’re computer isn’t a laptop then you’re not likely to have any bluetooth capability out of the box. Secondly it may be fine for Mac users, but its not only missing the number pad, it’s also missing the whole cluster of keys above the arrows. More on this in a bit. So those caveats aside I spent the last month with it under normal gaming and regular cumputer usage scenarios. Here is what I have found.

The Bluetooth adapter firstoff is probably the first big pain in the ass for most people without laptops.  I’m not sure if they were aiming this specifically to replace a laptop keyboard, but that seems kind of silly to me. The only gain is wireless, which now admittedly I really don’t see the benefit of unless it’s being used in a media center.  I also seemed to have some radio interference with the bluetooth portion of the keyboard and the wireless mouse I was using from Logitech, with the mouse randomly nonresponsive. Most annoying, and once I stopped using it, those problems went away.

Secondly the lack of a delete key is pretty much a dealbreaker in a PC keyboard.  I didn’t realize how much I needed this key until I started doing some normal file management and I use the delete key as a quick shortcut to delete files I had sleected.  The backspace key does not work for this function, I tried. Instead of deleting it would go up a directory.  Just weird.  The other time I noticed I needed a delete key was when my PC locked up.  I could not recover because, surprise: control alt delete needs a delete key. WTF. I had to hook up my old keyboard just to enter this key combo.  Also I use end and home a lot when renaming files, so having those keys missing is a big pain in the ass.

Lastly, the unfortunate placement of the FN key puts it traditionally where my left control key is.  As a WoW hunter using control 1 to send my pet into attack, this is the one I missed the most, where I kept hitting FN instead of control wondering why my pet isnt doing diddly squat while I started shooting like I normally do, bringing the big ass Clefthoofs back to me. Ouchies.  Control C for copy and control V for paste also were frequently mistyped. I might add the FN key has absolutely no function on the PC whatsoever.

Problem is I loved the form factor, it gave me space on my desk (in all fairness compared to the G15 any keboard would be svelt) and the design of it was clean and easy to use. Plus it looked great.  So I went and bought the Wired Apple Keyboard and all of the gripes I had with the wireless keyboard are gone now. It has all the keys the wireless one was missing and it even puts the function key at the top putting the control key in its more normal position.  The only difference is the lack of a numlock, but the more that I think about it, the more I realize that I never have numlock off so it’s no big deal. I can’t even remember the last time I used the number pad as arrow keys. (Old PC-XT days?)  I have since moved the wireless keyboard to the media center pc where it works beautifully and looks great even with its limited functionality.

Update: I have found that the clear key above the numberpad is indeed a Numlock key, albeit without the light.  In fact clear is not a windows function either so for all intents and purposes I believe it’s just a Numlock key. So you can still use the numpad as arrows if you like, although the keys are not marked as such.

I’d also like to highlight the prices: The Apple Wireless Keyboard is $79.99 and the Apple Keyboard (Wired) is $49.99. Again for PC usage I’d say stay away from the Wireless and go for the Wired keyboard.   It has all the comforts of a PC keyboard with the slick Apple design.

Top 80 Movie Songs of the 80’s

Zombie16 FTW! (Movies, Music)

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Since there’s no good way to link to this, beacuse of their website, here’s the whole list. You gotta give it up for One Vision by Queen in Iron Eagle, SONG ROCKED! And I can’t forget Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears which will always remind me of waking up at C’s on Sunday morning after a LAN party.

80. America – Neil Diamond (The Jazz Singer)
79. I la-la-la Love You – Pat Travers (Valley Girl)
78. Glory Of Love – Peter Cetera (Karate Kid II)
77. Positively Lost Me – The Rave-Ups (Pretty In Pink)
76. Wild Sex – Oingo Boingo (Sixteen Candles)
75. Bela Lugosi’s Dead – Bauhaus (The Hunger)
74. 9 to 5 – Dolly Parton (9 to 5)
73. No More Lonely Nights – Paul McCartney (Give My Regards to Broadstreet)
72. Back In Time – Huey Lewis & The News (Back To The Future)
71. Is Your Love Strong Enough – Bryan Ferry (Legend)
70. If Anybody Had A Heart – John Waite (About Last Night)
69. Best Man In The World – Ann Wilson (Golden Child)
68. The Heat Is On – Glenn Frey (Beverly Hills Cop)
67. Lunatic Fringe – Red Rider (Vision Quest)
66. Crying – Roy Orbison and k.d. lang (Hiding Out)
65. It Might Be You – Stephen Bishop (Tootsie)
64. Meet Me Halfway – Kenny Loggins (Over the Top)
63. Holiday Road – Lindsey Buckingham (National Lampoon’s Vacation)
62. Are You Ready For The Sex Girls? – Gleaming Spires (Revenge of the Nerds)
61. The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough – Cyndi Lauper (The Goonies)
60. Maniac – Michael Sembello (Flashdance)
59. Looking for Love – Johnny Lee (Urban Cowboy)
58. Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Tears for Fears (Real Genius)
57. Ghostbusters – Ray Parker Jr. (Ghostbusters)
56. Weird Science – Oingo Boingo (Weird Science)
55. Nobody’s Fool – Kenny Loggins (Caddyshack 2)
54. Pretty in Pink – The Psychedelic Furs (Pretty In Pink)
53. Everybody Wants Some – Van Halen (Better Off Dead)
52. Crazy For You – Madonna (Vision Quest)
51. We Don’t Need Another Hero – Tina Turner (Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome)
50. Biko – Peter Gabriel (Cry Freedom)
49. The Neverending Story – Limahl (The Neverending Story)
48. Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) – Christopher Cross (Arthur)
47. Absolute Beginners – David Bowie (Absolute Beginners)
46. The Boys Are Back In Town – The Bus Boys (48 Hours)
45. Just Once – James Ingram (Last American Virgin)
44. One Vision – Queen (Iron Eagle)
43. The Time of My Life – Bill Medley, Jennifer Warnes (Dirty Dancing)
42. On the Dark Side – John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band (Eddie and the Cruisers)
41. Who Wants to Live Forever – Queen (Highlander)
40. Up Where We Belong – Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes (An Officer and a Gentleman)

The rest after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

Dell Mini becomes latest Hackintosh Notebook

Zombie16 FTW! (Hacks, PC Tech)

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Were you let down by yesterday’s relatively high-end notebook announcements? If Apple seems priced out of your league, you may want to consider going for a bargain-priced Hackintosh solution. Uneasy Silence reports that it just successfully installed Leopard on Dell’s $450 Mini 9. Even taking the $129 cost of a Leopard license into account, that’s still a great deal.

McCain is behind the DMCA 8 Ball

Zombie16 FTW! (Internet, Politics)

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YouTube on Tuesday rebuffed a request from John McCain’s presidential campaign to examine fair-use issues more carefully before yanking campaign videos in response to DMCA takedown notices.

“We hope that as a content uploader, you have gained a sense of some of the challenges we face everyday in operating YouTube,” she added.”

HAHA you voted for the piece of shit, vague law now deal!

7 Aging Hollywood Badasses We’ll Miss When They’re Gone:

Zombie16 FTW! (Celebrities, Movies)

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Yup Sly Stallone, Samuel L. Jackson, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery are all one of a kind.

Most Corporations Pay No U.S. Income Taxes

LowCommotion FTW! (Money, WTF?!)

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Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.

The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.

Don Cheadle replacing Terrance Howard in ‘Iron Man 2’

Chromium FTW! (Celebrities, Money, Movies)

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Kinda weak, but Cheadle is good as well. Meh.

TSA Screener Helped Himself To $200,000 Worth Of Your Stuff

Chromium FTW! (Security, WTF?!)

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Just wow.