the west is the best

"Hmmm!" wrote in
c8359e27f4f2.DeleteThis@v36g2000vbs.googlegroups.com:

> ...and the blue bus is calling us...
>
>

Remember when we were in Africa...

--
Verbing weirds language--Calvin

On 2 fév, 13:57, "Mark P. Nelson" wrote:
> "Hmmm!" wrote in
> c8359e27f... DeleteThis @v36g2000vbs.googlegroups.com:
>
> > ...and the blue bus is calling us...
>
> Remember when we were in Africa...
>
> --
> Verbing weirds language--Calvin

I really like your cool face Mark !

Louis

PS: My "from-east" account is no longer existing...Blizzard said so.
Thanks for your time on the maintenance of that list admiral Nelson !

L.

On Feb 4, 2:50 am, "Hmmm!" wrote:
> On 2 fév, 13:57, "Mark P. Nelson" wrote:
>
> > "Hmmm!" wrote in
> > c8359e27f....TakeThisOut@v36g2000vbs.googlegroups.com:
>
> > > ...and the blue bus is calling us...
>
> > Remember when we were in Africa...
>
> > --
> > Verbing weirds language--Calvin
>
> I really like your cool face Mark !
>
> Louis
>
> PS: My "from-east" account is no longer existing...Blizzard said so.
> Thanks for your time on the maintenance of that list admiral Nelson !
>
> L.

I am now using capricorn47 for my hardcore ladder
capricorn46 is non-ladder.
Can't believe I was away for the game for nearly 2 years. Just started
playing again last weekend.
*Waving good-bye to my social life again*

EB

Somewhere on teh intarwebs "Mark P. Nelson" typed:
> US West accounts, good people, no mules.
>
> "9ust4v0[2-4]","SCL","Gustavo"
> "Adrienne200[45][ab]","SCL","Adrienne"
> "agd_echo","SCL","Shadowalk"
> "agd_helper","SCL","Shadowalk"
> "Anadriel ","SCL","Anadriel"
> "AveAtqueVale","HCL","Mark"
> "bzone","SCL","Scott"
> "batron","SCL","Ron & Vince"
> "BelgarathDB","SCL","David"
> "DavidBlewett","HCL","David"
> "Bixen","SCL","Tony"
> "blooper01","SCL","Blooper"
> "bobsteele","SCL","Gene Jackson"
> "brash26","SCL","eric"
> "Bugtub","SCL","Toni"
> "capricorn46","HCL","EB"
> "catchnrelease","SCL","Jason"
> "Cavadure","SCL","Cavadure"
> "ChazFx","SCL","Charlie Fox"
> "count_lebatts","SCL","Ron & Vince"
> "Cthulhu_[1-4]","SCL","Zamboni"
> "custards123[4][5]","SCL","custard"
> "dk2009","SCx","Trammel"
> "D_Shiflet[3-5]","SCx/HCx","Shiflet"
> "darkling[2-3]","SCL","Kate"
> "Doom Raider","SCL","Bob"
> "DR_Who","SCL","John"
> "echobeaver","SCL","Shadowalk"
> "Engram1","SCL","Engram"
> "Enzo_Lars","SCL","Android16"
> "Fishhook","SCL","Don Bruder"
> "Flashaz_[bc]","SCL","Adrienne"
> "Flashlad","SCL","Adrienne"
> "from-east","SCL","Louis"
> "GrandOldPainter","SCL","Robert"
> "hmmm-1","SCL","Louis"
> "ibitsa ","SCL","Ray"
> "Imawus","SCL","Ed"
> "ImperiusDamian","SCL","ImperiusDamian"
> "Ironfan","HCL","Roy"
> "ItchyPoison","SCL","Toni"
> "Jabber","SCL","Chris"
> "Jaffir","HCL","Jeff Bland"
> "JaffirSC","SCL","Jeff Bland"
> "JaffirsHC","HCL","Jeff Bland"
> "Jake_Mysterio[2-4]","SCL","Jake"
> "juicey","SCL","Alana"
> "justinmahn","SCL","Justin"
> "kambat[1-3]","SCL","Ron & Vince"
> "kamvi1","SCL","Ron & Vince"
> "kaytiekat[2,3,_ABM]","SCL","Kaytie"
> "Kinlaw","SCL","Kinlaw"
> "kovweaksauce","HCL","Chris"
> "linuxmagnate[2-n]","SCL","Chris"
> "LordGoober2","SCL","Robert"
> "mailleman","SCL","Steellord"
> "Maniac_Crzy","SCL","Bob"
> "marlaque","SCL","Jason"
> "marlaque-hc","HCL","Jason"
> "meerow[1,2]","SCL/x","Dave Ryan"
> "MouseAttack","SCL","Mickey"
> "misfitnz","SCx","Shaun"
> "mosfet","SCL","Shaun"
> "myrotion","SCx","Dave Ryan"
> "New2LoD","SCx","noneofyourbusiness "
> "New2LoD2","SCL","noneofyourbusiness "
> "notsonice","SCL","Dan"
> "Psyco_Maniac","SCL","RJ"
> "RCWC_0[1-2]","SCL","Raul"
> "ReeseFlash","SCL","Adrienne"
> "rillashan","SCL","Frank"
> "rjhc[1-2]","HCL","Ross"
> "ru42","SCL","RU"
> "Salix","HCL","Anne"
> "shady_lady","SCL","Angie"
> "simont-1","SCL","Simon T"
> "Spook-HC[ADE]","HCL","Ruben-P"
> "Strongfok-HC","HCL","Juan"
> "Strongfok-[One,Two,Three]","SCL","Juan"
> "Strongfokker","SCL","Juan"
> "svenb0","HCL Classic","Todd"
> "svenbo","HCL","Todd"
> "TheShadow7478","SCL","TheShadow"
> "Thisis_4u","SCL","Adrienne"
> "tittyrub","SCL","Gene"
> "Tonij","SCL","Toni"
> "TurboFlash[_a]","SCL","Adrienne"
> "TymmeRMortis","HCL","Mark N."
> "unklbob","SCL","Sean"
> "UnstableUnit","SCL","El Chippy"
> "Vandraedha[3]","SCL","Anne"
> "Vlad-[Ass,Druid,Necro,Pal,Sorc]","SCL","Vernon"
> "Wizardling","SCL","Jamie"
> "wizofwas","SCL","Wiz"
> "wolfman45","SCL","wolfman"
> "Wutzy","SCL","Bruce"
> "Wutzhc","HCL","Bruce"
> "xenobuzz","SCL","Dave S."

And shadyangie

"Cherrie" wrote in

>
> And shadyangie
>

Added.

--
Verbing weirds language--Calvin

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Cherrie wrote:
> Somewhere on teh intarwebs "Mark P. Nelson" typed:
>> US West accounts, good people, no mules.
[snip]
>
> And shadyangie

What she forgot to add was SCL.

Some folks may remember Shady? She's posted here on and off for the last
couple of years and is staying at my home again at present.

That's the reason I don't have access to all four of 'my' keys all the time
now. Shady has 'hers' and I've loaned her a laptop with another keyset
installed. On the 'to-do' list for this afternoon is to dig out another
laptop for me to use (so I don't have to mess with her set-up) so I can use
all of the keys when she's not playing.
--
Shaun.

"When we dream.... that's just our brains defragmenting" G Jackson.

In article ,
"Mark P. Nelson" wrote:

> "Cherrie" wrote in
>
> >
> > And shadyangie
> >
>
> Added.

If'n ya want, you can toss Fishhook2 into the mix - same info as
Fishhook - duh - I wonder why?

--
Email shown is deceased. If you would like to contact me by email, please
post something that makes it obvious in this or another group you see me
posting in with a "how to contact you" address, and I'll get back to you.

"~misfit~" wrote in


> Somewhere on teh intarwebs Cherrie wrote:
>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs "Mark P. Nelson" typed:
>>> US West accounts, good people, no mules.
> [snip]
>>
>> And shadyangie
>
> What she forgot to add was SCL.
>

I guessed!

And of course I remember her.

--
Verbing weirds language--Calvin

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Mark P. Nelson wrote:
> "~misfit~" wrote in
>
>
>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs Cherrie wrote:
>>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs "Mark P. Nelson" typed:
>>>> US West accounts, good people, no mules.
>> [snip]
>>>
>>> And shadyangie
>>
>> What she forgot to add was SCL.
>>
>
> I guessed!
>
> And of course I remember her.

I'm impressed! Pretty good for a guy your age.
--
Shaun.

"When we dream.... that's just our brains defragmenting" G Jackson.

"~misfit~" wrote in
@news.eternal-september.org:

>>
>> And of course I remember her.
>
> I'm impressed! Pretty good for a guy your age.

Hey, a little respect, kid!

;þ~

--
Verbing weirds language--Calvin

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Mark P. Nelson wrote:
> "~misfit~" wrote in
> @news.eternal-september.org:
>
>>>
>>> And of course I remember her.
>>
>> I'm impressed! Pretty good for a guy your age.
>
> Hey, a little respect, kid!
>
> ;þ~

Heh! You most certainly have my respect. I only hope that I'm as in control
of my faculties as well as you are if I reach your age. <g>

LOL, the newsgroup's been a bit quiet these last couple days huh? I mean,
I've been busy[1] the last 24 hours but I've still had time to play a little
and keep posting.

Time to get a little OT I think while the coffee kicks in..... Wait a sec,
I'll start a couple clone-sit games first...... Done.

[1] I 'obtained' another Core*2*Duo T7400 (2.13GHz / 4MB L2 cache) laptop
CPU, (which one of my ThinkPad T60s is already running). The other two were
running T2xx Core(not 2)Duo CPUs, a 2GHz and a 1.83GHz which, apart from
being 20% 'slower' clock-for-clock and only having 2MB L2 lack the Intel
EN64T instruction set which allows you to run a 64-bit OS. Also the T7xx
series run less core voltage per clock which is impressive considering all
the extra transistors on-die for the twice-as-big L2 cache.

I was given a Sony Viao laptop to see if I could fix but it's terminal
(damaged motherboard / scratched screen / keys missing / scuffed case), they
might look all bling and be light and all but they sure as hell aren't
rugged). It had the T7400. I swapped a T2500 (2GHz) in my second 15" T60 out
and fitted the T7400 (above mentioned advantages plus 2.1GHz), then swapped
the T2500 into my 14" T60 to replace the T2400 (1.83GHz) that it had fitted
(all of my T60s have the max RAM, 3GB). Finally I put the T2400 into the
Sony (which does actually boot but not all the way into windows).

So I've upgraded two of my best laptops, I'm quite pleased about that. While
the second upgrade wasn't a significant one (just a small speed increase
rather than going up a 'grade' in CPU) it's still important to me. I'll be
keeping these T60s for the foreseeable future as they're rugged and
relatively powerful, although they don't have high-end graphics (only ATI
X1400 / 128MB VRAM). They're hardly gaming machines, rather built to be
solid reliable corporate workhorses.

(The Txx range was [and still is, although I'm not sure if Lenovo are
keeping up standards since they took over completely from IBM] the top of
the ThinkPad stable and as such were twice the price of the 'consumer'
models. They feature magnesium alloy chassis' and carbon-fibre reinforced
plastic lids and shells. The lids used to be magnesium alloy as well but as
wireless became common and as the anntenna for the wireless are mounted in
the lid they reverted back to reinforced plastic for better wireless
reception. That said I do also have a rather nice *R*51 laptop, it has a
beautiful screen, hi-res [1400x1050] IPS [same as my 15" T60s] but from a
different manufacturer. The colours, clarity and viewing angles have to be
seen to be appreciated.)

I tell ya man, I'm realy impressed with the ThinkPad T60s. They're the last
of the 'standard ratio' screen laptops in the ThinkPad range, although the
last couple variants did have widescreen but were rare (and I dislike
widescreen laptops very much, too much like toys IMO). I fix quite a few
laptops, either for neighbours or buying 'fixer-uppers' from Trademe, NZ's
version of ebay, and the only ones[2] I'm tempted to keep are ThinkPads.

Pretty much every other brand and model I've taken a screwdriver to has been
lacking in one or more respects in comparison. Sure, they might look flashy
or even have slightly more features but they just don't have the feel of a
Txx ThinkPad. A mate of mine told me that, as he was about to walk down the
(carpeted) stairs in his home the other day in the middle of reading email
on his T60 he took a mis-step and dropped it. (He'd closed the lid but it
was running. The lid has little tabs that lock into recesses in the body
making the whole thing very rigid.) He said that it bounced all the way down
the stairs, around the corner and ended up on the tiles of the hallway /
entraceway to their house.

His wife freaked but he wasn't worried. He picked it up, opened the lid and
carried on checking email. They have accelerometers in them that detect if
it's in free-fall (as little as 30cm) or if it takes a knock and almost
instantly parks the HDD read / write heads to prevent damage to the
platters. I believe him (not that he's prone to lying, LOL), I've opened
enough of these babies to see how well-built they are.

Can you tell that I'm a real fan of IBM / Lenovo T60 ThinkPads? (Especially
the ones with the 1400x1050 IPS displays.) There are well-informed people
who are of the opinion that they are / were the pinnacle, the absolute
zenith of laptop design and build. Since the T60 even the ThinkPad range has
succumbed to the cost-cutting and general demise of good design and pride in
build quality that is the result of Joe Public wanting ever-cheaper (and
disposable) consumer electronics. People these days are quite happy to buy
new every two or three years and don't give a rat's arse about longevity or
good design (other than looks).

The best thing about this? My T60s were made in 2007 which means that there
is a relative glut of them on the market at the moment as corporates tend to
have a three-year replacement cycle (at least here in NZ, it's about when
tax depreciation makes it most economic to upgrade as they're worth very
little on the books). The other thing is that they were made at a time when
CPU power was well over-and-above what most people would ever use (with the
obvious exceptions) so there's no reason why they can't be usable for
another decade! I have one running Windows 7 Ultimate and it handles it
easilly, even running a full XP Pro install in it's 'XP Mode' VM. The only
downside (and it's not really a huge one unless you're prone to running
multiple VMs) is that they are limited to 3GB or RAM.

My advice to the wise; Get a good 15" T60 ThinkPad (with ATI graphics [they
were also made with integraed Intel graphics] and the 1400x1050 [SXGA+] IPS
display) and upgrade the RAM to 3GB if it's not already (as DDR2 RAM is
getting more expensive by the week as DDR3 takes over). Hell, do what I've
done and get two or three! You'll not regret it, I give you my word. If
you're young (obviously not you Mark <g>) your peers with their shiny flimsy
bling 'laptops' might look at you askance but you'll be laughing in five
years time when they've had to buy two replacements and your T60 is still
going strong.

If possible buy one with a C2D T7xxx CPU but, if you can get a good one with
the 15" IPS display but only a T2xxx CPU at the right price grab it anyway,
the CPU is (relatively) easilly upgradable and the required CPUs are only
going to get cheaper (for about two years, then they'll get more expensive
and a lot harder to find if past trends are anything to go by). If you have
no intention of running 64bit software then tha T2xxx will probably be fine,
just not as powerful as a T7xxx. Not only is the T7xxx the next gen but it
has double the L2 cache which makes it more responsive again. The T7400
2.13GHz is the best price-point upgrade. There is a T7600 2.3GHz in the
range which is the fastest CPU a T60 will take but they command a huge
premium and frankly the extra bit of speed won't be anywhere near as
noticable over the T7400. It's the '2' part in the Core2Duo and the cache
that makes the upgrade worth it.

<phew> Ok, time for another coffee and to face my Sunday (NZ time...) I was
just so pleased to turn my machines on this morning with their newly-fitted
CPUs knowing that now, if I so desire, I can run 64bit OS' on both my 15"
models and my 14" T60 has a faster CPU that I had to share and you folks
were in the wrong place at the wrong time. <g> (Did I mention that there are
downloadable hardware maintenance manuals available for ThinkPads that makes
working on them a breeze?)

May all your runes be high and all your drops be golden.
--
Cheers,
Shaun.

"When we dream.... that's just our brains defragmenting" G Jackson.

Man, you do not need any more coffee!

I wish I had your expertise in the laptop world. I always avoided them as
overpriced toys, when real men used towers, and that's what I've always
built.

I have had or maintained for PHBs a few laptops over the years, and I always
thought they sacrificed too much just to lose weight. When Lenovo bought the
IBM laptop business, I also figured it was the end for the brand.

Perhaps I have been wrong.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Mark.

--
Verbing weirds language--Calvin

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Mark P. Nelson wrote:
> Man, you do not need any more coffee!

Heh! ThinkPads are something I'm passionate about so I tend to get a bit
verbose and bellicose when I write about them.

> I wish I had your expertise in the laptop world. I always avoided
> them as overpriced toys, when real men used towers, and that's what
> I've always built.

I was the same until a couple years ago, building gaming rigs for mates as
well as my own. Then I started to think about the fact that I was fitting
PSUs with ratings between 700 and 1,000 watts and graphics cards that could
double as leaf-blowers, sometimes two in a box!

Electricity keeps going up in price, I'm on a low fixed income and I
realised that I was surrounded my machines that were pulling ~250w while I
was just reading newsgroups. Consequently I did my research, spoke to some
friends in the IT world about makes of laptop etcetera and the unanimous
consensus was T-series ThinkPads are the best (with an honourable mention to
the R51s and R52s from around '05), even though some of the guy's employers
had changed to using Dell, much to the disgust of the IT folks. Dell have
adopted an extremely aggressive pricing and support regime for corporates
here of late, getting a lot of customers who were loyal to IBM but unsure of
Lenovo.

As for my 'expertise', that's all down to the fact that there is excellent
documentation in the form of 'hardware maintenance manuals' available on
IBM's site as well as communities of others passionate about ThinkPads.
Check out http://forum.thinkpads.com/ , those guys *really* know their
stuff. Also http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki is a handy resource.

Any other brand of laptop I deal with it's just a matter of taking my time
and not getting impatient if it won't come apart, looking for hidden screws
or plastic tabs (they don't go back together well if you break those off).
Also Google is your friend. I've found a few user-documented disassembly
guides with pictures for different models and makes.

It's my opinion that desktops are going to (continue to) become increasingly
rare, reduced to gamers rigs and small business servers. I reckon in 10
years most people will have forgotten what they look like or why they used
such monsterous things.

I still have a Socket 775 tower machine with a 45nm C2D (that I'll upgrade
to one of the best quads I can afford when they're cheaper) that has four
really neat front-loading SATA HDD bays that take a bare drive and are
hot-swappable (and I have USB 'docks' for SATA HDDs hooked up to my
ThinkPads docking stations). It doesn't get turned on often though, mainly
to move data between my stack of HDDs as it's *way* faster doing it via SATA
than it is via USB. 3.5" HDDs are by far the cheapest option per GB for
storage still and likely will be for a while so it makes sense to use them.

Oh, if I have a big batch of video that needs transcoding I use the 'heavy
iron' for that as it's faster at processing than the T60 and much faster
accessing the 3.5" HDDs. That's why I'll ultimately put a quad core in it,
for the raw grunt for the rare times that I need it rather than tying the
laptop up. (I can get a Q6600 relatively cheaply but would like to hold out
for a 45nm processor, preferably one with a lot of L2. They're still quite
expensive for now.

> I have had or maintained for PHBs a few laptops over the years, and I
> always thought they sacrificed too much just to lose weight.

This Sony Viao I have here is an extreme example of that. It has the same
'grunt' as my T60 but is half the weight and you just know that if you
dropped it, even from a metre onto carpet, that it would disintegrate. There
are most certainly laptops and then there are laptops....

> When
> Lenovo bought the IBM laptop business, I also figured it was the end
> for the brand.

Lenovo were basically making ThinkPads for IBM under strict supervision for
a few years before the takeover and there were quite a few IBM designers
in-house. When IBM divested itself of it's laptop and desktop business' the
formerly-IBM team stayed with Lenovo so, by and large, it's still the same
team designing (some of) the laptops. Also IBM still hold rights to the
'ThinkPad' name and have set rules for it's use, hence Lenovo bringing out
their own 'IdeaPad' range. (IBM adopted the slogan "Think!" in the 1920s and
registered it / patented it (?) around the late 1940's. It was one of the
first slogans to be patented [sorry, no cites right now] so they're not
going to let it get dragged into the gutter at this late stage.)

Basically so far and for the near future at least the T series of ThinkPads
are still a good bet. I can't vouch for Lenovo's own model lines (they sell
millions of laptops in China) or even the non-T series ThinkPads (I hear
they're perhaps slipping a bit although the ThinkPad reputation is a hard
one to live up to).

> Perhaps I have been wrong.

Yes and no. Some of the Lenovo ThinkPad range are distinctly 'for the
masses' (as were some of the IBM ThinkPads, but perhaps to a lesser extent)
however the T series remains the flagship and as such is still an excellent
machine.

> Thanks for your thoughts.

Heh! Thanks for reading. I'm pleased that I wasn't just talking to myself, I
do enough of that in RL. <g>
--
Shaun.

"When we dream.... that's just our brains defragmenting" G Jackson.