Hyperstrike

Just an FYI.

Even if you got rid of all the "farm missions", you'd STILL have more missions in the MA than you could easily scan through.

In short, stuff is STILL going to get buried.

The trades screen

Nah. Oversized forehead and receeding hairline. Lots of surface area for contact.

*FACEPALMHEADDESK*

Note: I'm not saying that RMT'ers are not bad or a ripoff, or dangerous.

What we went off on a tangent with was the notion of if you're actually paying for the inf itself, or the time spent collecting the inf.

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Yeah, I don't think I'm that much of a hardcore geek where I've had an actual server rack in my house before I've had a couple of personal servers at one point or another though.

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Is this what I hear?

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Occam's Razor is on the side of customization.

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You forgot about Occam's evil twin.

Reductio ad absurdum

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Leverage factor 1 would be "transfer to a level 1 mule, delete the mule."

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And we shall name him "Monty Brewster".

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So we should vote for "NONE OF THE ABOVE!"?

Yeah, a few years ago, my buddy's law firm transplanted to a new data center and trashed over 50 server cabinets (not just racks, CABINETS) after they couldn't give them away to employees. He picked up one for himself with his van, but had forgotten that I had access to a box truck, storage and that these cabinets went for hundreds of dollars on the reseller market.

I was so pissed at him. It would have been an easy few grand in EACH of our pockets.

Apartment.

Yeah. Geek. Hardcore geek.
The whine of fans helps me sleep at night.

*Hands Bureaucrat a monolith and a "bang head here" poster*

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You claimed that it was the norm ( Not in those exact words, but the claim was still there ).

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Thanks for putting words in my mouth.

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I'm saying it is a very rare exception to the norm.

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Again, I never claimed it was the norm. Merely what I'd encountered in the limited experience I have and a small amount of exposure to truck drivers.

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Your presence and availability are the service.

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Yep. For which I bill on a scale based on TIME. I don't bill:

Showed up: $10
Sat down: $2
Talked about stuff: $3

I understand what you're trying to say. You're just splitting those hairs along atomic bonds.

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If you were selling your time, you wouldn't be bound to be available

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WRONG!

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perform a service

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Now you're getting it. Unlike you, I bill out SOLELY based on time. Not per-piece, not per-service. TIME.

If I come in and rebuild someone's network from the ground up, I get paid for the amount of time I spend.

If I come in and pick my nose for the same amount of time, I get paid the same amount.

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even if that service is simply being present and available to work whether you actually end up working or not.

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Again, the the service is still time-based. I am paid for X hours of time spent.

Okay, here's a not-so-great picture of my setup.

Pardon the cable mess.

Had a storm that blew out several outlets in my place and had to haul stuff around so the electricians could get at them.

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Hey, Hyper's the one that started basically insulting my intelligence over the matter.

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Ah. So disagreeing with you is insulting your intelligence.

*rolleyes*

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No, he wasn't the first to openly use insult words, but that doesn't make his "tone" any less insulting.

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Translation: You imagined an insult.

You seem to have confused your strength of conviction with your strength of argument.

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Claiming something that I happen to know is patently false is BS.

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Simply because you haven't encountered it doesn't make it false.

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You may know some truckers that get paid to wait on loads, but I assure you that it is far from the norm in the industry.\

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Which is the same as saying that you haven't encountered it.

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They get billed for services rendered during the time, not the time itself.

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Thumb Twiddle 1: $0.01
Thumb Twiddle 2: $0.01
Thumb Twiddle 3: $0.01

Sorry. You're incorrect.

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Good god, man. TIME IS NOT AN OBJECT THAT CAN BE SOLD!

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You're half-right. Time is not an object.

It's a commodity.

As such, it can be quantified and billed for. Again, your work experience is very nice and product-oriented. But it's led you to erroneous conclusions for professions outside of your experience.

I understand his point of view. It's very nice and very blue-collar.

Unfortunately, outside of various manufacturing industries, his example breaks down rapidly. And once you hit full on "services" industries, it's nonexistant.

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What is the point of having more than one monitor?

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Ah. A multi-monitor virgin! Prepare the sacrificial stone!

Okay, if you're ANYTHING like a screen real-estate junkie, you'll know you can only usually go up so high before the monitor gets recockulously huge, expensive, and sluggish. Also, with full-screen apps, you have to alt+tab your way out (if the game allows it) to use something else.

Additional monitors provide:

More screen real-estate in a semi-economical manner.
The ability to have multiple apps open and viewable (when I'm gaming I have Paragonwiki open in a browser on my secondary monitor and CoH on my primary), so it keeps application flipping to a minimum.
E-Peen: You get to laugh at all those poor so-and-sos who have less monitors than you do.

And condolences on that Sonata case.
After going back to a full-sized Coolermaster, I've sworn off the Sonatas (and I've owned one of each of the first three versions). Doing any work in them was just too much of a female dog.

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Name the cards!

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Bottom to top.

Matrox Millenium G200 (IIRC). Great (for it's time) 2D.
3dfx Voodoo 2 (looks like one of the 12MB models)

And my memory may be failing me but the top looks like a Hauppage WinTV card.

Ah: Just zoomed the picture up to full res. Yeah, Hauppage.

Okay, don't have pics right now. Describe it though.
Will post pics so you know it happened.

Main System:
C2Q 2.5 Ghz 8GB RAM, GTX260, XP-64
Dell 24" LCD, Dell 20" LCD

Domain Controller:
P4 1.8Ghz, 1GB RAM, GeForce3 bench tester, Server 2K3 SBS

Web Server:
P4 3Ghz 2GB RAM, 1U Rackmount

Shared Monitor: 21" Dell CRT on a 2 port KVM

320GB NAS device

Compaq open rack

Network Equipment:
Linksys WCG200 Cablemodem
Motorola DSL Modem
Linksys WRT54G Wireless AP
Netgear FVS336G Dual-WAN Gigabit Firewall
Netgear JGS524 24-Port Gigabit Switch (Unmanaged)

Laptop:
IBM ThinkPad T61p
2.53Ghz C2D, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD, 1920x1200 LCD

As to why I have $500-600 in "Prosumer" networking equipment? I got sick of all the lousy stability, low throughput, and screwy quirks of various high-end consumer routers (basically anything that had more than 4 bare ports on it).

Since I put them in last year (part of my tax return), I've had ZERO stability issues.

Throughput? Oh, never mind, it finished downloading while I was typing that.

Quirks? None really. Setting up bridged routing through the dual WAN connections (one cable, one DSL) was a bit hairy, but it works.

LESS DISCUSS MORE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

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So sorry I actually know what I'm talking about and can call you on your BS.

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It's not BS. If you want to be insulting, please take it elsewhere.

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Obviously I overestimated your intelligence.

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And I obviously overestimated your ability to hold up an argument before reverting to ad hominem.

I will state it thus. You work in a manual labor job. So you're focused on action. This is probably why it's so hard for you to wrap your head around it.

I work in a services industry. All my billing is time-based. And I get paid regardless of whether or not I do work. I merely show up and the clock starts.

When I bill, I don't bill for "clicked a key", or "plugged in a network cable".

I bill X number of hours. Whether I did anything or nothing during that time is irrelevant to the bill.

Thus, if I put together a network of 75 computers in 16 hours for Company A, and put together an identical network of 75 computers in 18 hours for Company B, they don't get billed the same.

They get billed for TIME SPENT.

In short. You're wrong. PERIOD.

Now go be insulting to someone who gives a damn about your opinion.

Not that I wanna come down on your buzzword-fest here, but:

1: With multi-core CPUs, physical multi-processor SMP isn't anywhere close to necessary nowadays. ESPECIALLY for a gaming box.

1a: Get yourself a high end dual or quad-core system and you're golden.

2: Cooling. Are you looking to overclock? And what do you know about overclocking? Any experience?

2a: Unless you know what you're doing, liquid cooling is a waste of time and money. Decent air cooling is more than sufficient for modern multi-core processors at stock speeds.

3: Are you going to be playing any games that'll take advantage of SLI/Crossfire? Also, what size monitor and resolution are you talking about.

3a: SLI/Crossfire is fine and dandy. But you're better off spending money on a decent single-card solution if it's already overkill for your needs.

4: The differences between "regular" and best of the best are percentage points of performance most of the time (as in, nothing you're going to notice outside of a benchmark).

4a: Get yourself a decent grade of memory, and stack in 4-8GB of it (depending on OS).

5: SSDs are a mixed batch. You can currently go for SIZE or performance. Finding the right mix of both can be tricky.

6: Spend less time on case aesthetics and more on whether or not the case will support the hardware you want to put in it.

7: With regards to Windows 7. Technically it's not supported by CoH right now. Moreover, to install the final version you have to FORMAT AND REINSTALL FROM SCRATCH. Do you want to have to do that 6 months down the road?

8: And most important. What does your budget look like? Don't tell me "open ended", because all that does is sends people off on a mental masturbation trip. Give me real numbers.

A: The absolute maximum you have available to spend on this (cap budget).
B: The amount you'd prefer to stay below (operating budget).

If you're looking for high end right now something like this should blow your hair back:

COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP: $70
Thermaltake Toughpower 850W PSU: $210
Asus Rampage II Extreme: $370
Core i7 EE 3.33Ghz: $1100
12GB OCZ Gold PC3 10666 (DDR3 1333): $170
EVGA GTX 295: $590
2x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Drives: $200
Plextor 22x Multi-Burner: $50

Rough Total: $2760

If you GOTSTA have an SSD in the size-range you're talking about, here's one I'd recommend:

G.SKILL FALCON FM-25S2S-256GBF1 2.5" 256GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail: $610

Note: the 128GB brother of this drive is $320.

Note: These are 2.5" drives. So you'll likely need an enclosure of some sort for them as well.

The above-listed system, even though it doesn't have dual-vidcards, should scream (at max resolution no less) on just about anything you throw at it today.

As to lasting 3-4 years. My C2Q 2.5Ghz will last me 3-4 years easily. The system I listed above should last longer, barring new DX versions.

If the price doesn't cause you to quail you should be good.

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That is not a "time" job.

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Depends on a lot of things. If it's OTR (over the road) or local. A lot of local route drivers get paid hourly scale.

Also, in some of the cases I'm familiar with, OTR drivers made to wait a certain time on the docks at a shipper get paid hourly scale for the time they're made to wait.