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[cloasters]

Humans, are we a squabbling lot or what?

[cloasters]

Sometimes a Great Notion should be read by Anglophones, they'll be very glad they did.

[cloasters]

The final thirty pages of "Notion" are breathtakingly well written, superhuman is appropriate.

[cloasters]

Whut the heyell is a Anglephone? Made for folks with bent necks?

[TrevorS]

How about Francophone -- perhaps a connection with Mary Shelley?

[cloasters]

Better her than Franco, the fascist Spaniard.

[cloasters]

Anyone still running an Epox mainboard?

[TrevorS]

I still have one installed, but haven't gone back to that PC since the mainboard seriously misbehaved shortly after changing from DSL to optical internet connection (couldn't even complete POST). I plan to spend more time with it since it was working well beforehand (sometimes these things seem to heal themselves). It's one of only two K7 boards I have and I like my two Athlon XP-M processors. Recently installed a used 64GB SSD on the other (Asrock) and it's proved very beneficial: boot, scan, program launch, and internal file transfer (which I do frequently). It's my daily PC, am using right now !

[cloasters]

Amazing, I guess we can say that Epox lives on? Bought an Asrock mainboard for a pal some years ago, he was quite happy with it.

[TrevorS]

I find the Asrock boards to be very good value. I've three now, one K7 and two AM3+, though only two have been built and are in use. The third will be the basis for a very affordable, flexible, midrange gamer. Had all the parts for awhile now, but have yet to build it -- course, I've yet to pickup a game requiring Win7 and my WinXP AGP gamer still works fine !

[cloasters]

That's interesting, does that mean that recently bought games still run on XP--no Win7 needed?

[TrevorS]

'Fraid not, just means the most recent game I bought was already a few years old ("Crysis"). Previous most recent was "Far Cry"! First built my gamer around 2002 (originally an excuse for another SETI cruncher) and bought a variety of titles during Best Buy sales. Nowadays, I'm inclined to go used, but have yet to buy a game that'll even play on Win7 !

My oldest title is "Half Life" and the box says Win98! Used to have a 98/XP dual boot on my gamer, but there's no '98 compatible driver for the video card I installed last summer -- a shame .

[cloasters]

You are indeed a public minded citizen, good for you! I loaded the SETI prog to make this store bought PC run its case fan for more than five seconds. That program was very difficult to stop, much less uninstall! Unfortunately the ultra kewel graphics that SETI used to have are gone, sigh.
I thought that Half Life was the best game I ever played, it was most excellently designed. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to run in XP. I skipped the new version of some years ago because truth be told I'm a very inept player.

[TrevorS]

The original SETI community was fun, but seemed like the fun got left behind when it morphed into BOINC. I participated for a little while, but was feeling the rising electrical rates and decided it was time to disconnect. I still receive invitations, but between the new program and the electric bills, I'm little inclined.

I've never finished Half-Life. I keep running into anomalous game behavior, the worst occurring while riding the elevator to the surface in the first part of the game. The elevator keeps getting stuck part way up while my character takes continual hits wiping out his energy (no enemies present, but continual red flashes). One time I did get past that scene and I think it was Win98 rather than XP (which the video card now limits me to), but I've had issues under Win98 too. I also tried the associated Blue-Shift and Opposing-Force games, but only on XP and had problems with both. However, I'm also not a stellar gamer and have relaxed expectations . Doom 3 is another challenge to be revisited!

I'd no interest in the later versions of Half-Life because I didn't want to have to deal with a website for game play (STEAM). I prefer standalone.

[cloasters]

Many AOA Members used to run the protein folding prog, and seriously. Don't know if folks still do. Maybe I'm wrong but it seemed to me that the giant Pharma *******s were getting a free ride on the backs of public minded citizens, so I dabbled in SETI instead.
I also disliked Steam. How nosy do they have to get? IIRC, Win98SE played Half-Life all the way through, with no problem. What I mean is that the original version played perfectly well on an OS in the past, I think it was Win98SE. It's a crying shame that you couldn't get past that elevator, there is so much more to the game, you've been terribly cheated. It should go without saying that I used God mode and armament re-ups to the max to be able to get through the whole thing. Yes, yes, cheaters never win--but that game made it worthwhile, it's breathtakingly well done effort!

[cloasters]

Are all soybean items GMO's? At least in the US it's very hard to avoid genetically modified soybean products. And soybeans find their way into a plethora of "food" items on the shelf. How much do I love Syngenta, Bayer and Monsanto?

[TrevorS]

Ah, genetic food modification, something else to be held suspect. Is it really bad? If it results in higher nutrient value, greater crop yield, or at least greater insect/disease resistance, than perhaps not. Guess it depends on how thoroughly the result is researched. In any case -- Happy Thanksgiving, my very best to you and all!

[cloasters]

Hope your feast was tip-top. According to folks that aren't beholden to the agri-mutation and chemical inundation empires genetically modified foods are bad for you in every way. Not one redeeming feature, again it's always something. If we allow the TPP agreement to be ratified by the US, we'll have no future control of our food.
That's the so called "Trans-Pacific Partnership," a NAFTA on you guessed it, steroids.

[cloasters]

An official AOA case badge, postage paid to anyone who knows what the "SKG" in "Dreamworks SKG" means.

[cloasters]

"Supreme Kool Guys?"