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Do you find yourself sitting a lot lately, maybe watching TV or playing a video game? Because of the COVID-19 public health emergency, many of us are living a more sedentary lifestyle than we may enjoy or are used to. While it may seem relaxing, it's not healthy; studies show that a more sedentary lifestyle has certain dangers.
Even if you've changed your routine to comply with certain safety restrictions, you can make an effort to stay healthy — physically and mentally.
Prevent infection
- Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds, or use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with your hands.
- Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces in your home.
Stay Active
- Push-ups, sit-ups and other floor exercises are great ways to stay fit.
- Yoga provides both physical and mental benefits.
- Go for a brisk walk or jog outside in nice weather but remember to observe social distancing guidelines.
Get recommended preventive care
- Keep appointments for preventive care, like your annual physical.
- Get the immunizations that are recommended for you.
- If you are prescribed medication for a chronic condition, like diabetes or asthma, take it as directed by your doctor.
Reduce mental stress
- Stay connected to friends and family. Talking with people you trust about your concerns and your feelings can help you feel less isolated.
- Take deep breaths, stretch or meditate. If you need to, take breaks from watching, reading or listening to news stories, and avoid social media and television.
Take care of your physical health
- Eat healthy, well-balanced meals and avoid processed snacks or fast food.
- Get plenty of sleep.
During stressful times, it's important to stay as healthy as possible. Consider using the tips listed here to help you maintain your health. Speak with your doctor before starting a new diet or exercise routine.


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We just ran benchmarks on Apple's new iPhone 5S, revealing that, yup, this is the dopest smartphone silicon ever made. This thing freaking churns, crushing every other smartphone out there on both computational power and graphics. But if you look at common specs like core-count and clock speed for the hardware, you'd never know it.
By now, it's no mystery that specs aren't the whole story. Intuitively, we know that the quality of a smartphone is just as reliant on its industrial design and the quality of the software it runs. But it goes deeper than that: the traditional "specs" distract us from what a gadget's guts actually do, and from a technological point of view, they distract us from the advancements that are actually making a product better.
Apple's iPhone design is a masterpiece, and iOS 7 shows that Apple's got a mastery of operating systems as well, more or less. What's not as well-known is that Apple's a leader on guts as well. Here's a look at what the guts can do and how Apple beat the pack.
The fastest chip ever
The benchmarks for Apple's new iPhone 5S are absurd. After running Geekbench 3.0 on the hardware, we got scores that match up with the numbers reported by others, like those in AnandTech's unbelievably thorough survey of key performance tests. Geekbench's score is a nice measurement because it's built from a combination of measurements of computational speed across a variety of real-world processes like JPG compression and decompression. The combined score for the iPhone 5S beats everything else you'd consider buying and even Samsung's insane international version of the Galaxy S4.
The impressive results confirm many of the improvements Apple claimed in its early September keynote.
We ran the iPhone 5S's GPU through the commonly used GFXBench software, using its most-intense on-screen gaming test and compared it to the publicly available leaderboards for existing flagships out there. The chart above the average frame rates the graphics processor of each phone. A faster rates in this test would translate to smoother graphics on the most system-taxing games out there.
And the iPhone's graphics performance is spectacular: 37-frames per second, more than twice the iPhone 5's 14 fps. It'a also significantly than the next-best US smartphone, the Motorola Moto X, which clocks in at 25 fps. In short, the iPhone 5S's graphics powers are ready for the craziest games that'll be coming out in the years to come.
These aren't the only benchmarks out there, but they're reflective of what nearly all tests are finding: The iPhone 5S has the best measured performance of any phone.
The truth about cores, clock speeds, and battery life
Now, if you compare this performance to the specs—unofficially, but dug up by Geekbench —you'll be surprised. The A7's dual-core ARM processor is clocked at 1.3 GHz. Only 1 GB of RAM. Consider that most of Apple's competitors are running quad-core Snapdragon 600 processors, many of them, like the HTC One, clocked at up to 1.7 GHz. All of them pack 2 GB of RAM. What gives?
Here, we check back in with AnandTech, where Anand Shimpi drops knowledge. Turns out the specs we're getting fed by manufacturers are a bunch of bull—or at least only tell a small fragment of the story. "I always thought the transition from 2 to 4 cores happened quicker in mobile than I had expected," he begins, continuing later:
In such a thermally constrained environment, going quad-core only makes sense if you can properly power gate/turbo up when some cores are idle. I have yet to see any mobile SoC vendor (with the exception of Intel with Bay Trail) do this properly, so until we hit that point the optimal target is likely two cores.
In other words, the technology to efficiently power quad-core architecture in a smartphone while also taking advantage of extra cores doesn't exist yet. So all that theoretical power is coming at waaaaaay too high a battery cost, or it would it anyone was crazy enough to try for it. And the muscle that is being used now is not as efficient as it should be.
Worse there's a clock-speed war going on:
Then there's the frequency discussion. Brian and I have long been hinting at the sort of ridiculous frequency/voltage combinations mobile SoC vendors have been shipping at for nothing more than marketing purposes. I remember ARM telling me the ideal target for a Cortex A15 core in a smartphone was 1.2GHz. Samsung's Exynos 5410 stuck four Cortex A15s in a phone with a max clock of 1.6GHz. The 5420 increases that to 1.7GHz. The problem with frequency scaling alone is that it typically comes at the price of higher voltage. There's a quadratic relationship between voltage and power consumption, so it's quite possibly one of the worst ways to get more performance.
And here's where we turn to another piece of the puzzle that isn't covered in those benchmarks above: Battery life—the only spec that your should really read. You'll notice that Apple's A7 CPUs are clocked just above the 1.2 GHz sweet spot Anand describes. The core architecture and clock speed, are optimized for battery life. Consider that the iPhone 5's 1440 mAh battery had similar life to to the HTC One's 2300 mAh battery.
Apple's an early-adopter—of silicon design
So how is Apple getting much better performance than everyone else? With the iPhone 5's A6, Apple turned to custom-designed chips with custom-designed cores based on ARM designs to improve results. With the A7, Apple continues this trend by adopting industry-leading technology.
So let's turn to one spec Apple did announce on stage: The new 64-bit CPU, which replaces the 32-bit predecessor. This is the key, but not in the way you might think it is. As Anand and others point out, 64-bit transition doesn't really start making a difference until Apple starts building phones with more than 4GB of RAM, which based on current trends, won't happen for years.
The reason Apple's 64-bit future-proofing matters today is that it requires Apple to adopt an entirely new underlying processor architecture. A7's CPU ditches the 20-year-old foundation of the ARMv7 "instruction set" (ISA) , and goes with the ARMv8 design, which was released in 2011 and represents an entirely new system. As John Gruber notes, twenty years in the history of computing is an eternity. He points to a passage from the white paper describing ARMv8:
Of course, for compatibility reasons, we still support the entire ARMv7 machine in the new ARMv8 architecture, but when running 64-bit software, this part of the machine is not being used, and the area of complex legacy it had built up does not need to be active when running in the 64-bit ISA, unlike other architectures where 64-bit extension was simply added to the historical complexity and legacy of their 32-bit mode. The new ISA drew upon the years of experience of building different micro architecture implementations, so again it was defined so that these new processors can be more easily optimized for low power operation — an opportunity not really offered since the first ARMv4 machine that resulted in the now legendary low power ARM7 processors.
According to Gruber's frequently reliable sources, switching to ARMv8 is responsible for a 15-20-percent improvement in performance while simultaneously improving battery life.
Apple is the first to implement ARMv8, and it makes total sense that this newer technology is producing better results than the older technology. But you won't see that show up on most spec sheets. Without going down another rabbit hole, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that the new supercharged GPU owes its impressive performance to a GPU no one else has used yet.
Sometimes people like to harp on Apple for stagnating, but the company's progress under the hood shows that it's just not true. For all the huge specs (and huge screens) Apple's competitors like to throw around, Apple remains a year ahead on the only metric that really matters: How well the phone actually performs.

subset: commoncrawl


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Some might be able to build cars that are capable of higher speeds than the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport's 267.856 mph, but we will never know unless Volkswagen occasionally opens the doors to the only place on Earth where they can be pushed that far.
John Hennessey recently proved that his Venom GT supercar can go faster than 270 mph. What he couldn't do was repeat the trick in the other direction for an average speed and the official Guinness record because the Kennedy Space Center only allowed one run on their holy tarmac.
You could try Bonneville, but running on salt is very different. Jet cars use special alloy wheels and even the much more traditional contenders redo their aero for the ultimate top speed. So while you can do 280 mph in a road-legal car at Bonneville, you won't be able to repeat that on tarmac.
For that, you need something like Christian Von Koenigsegg's latest creation, the One:1. He's only making six (plus the prototype) of these with 1 megawatt of power (1,341 hp) and an equal amount of weight in kilograms thanks to almost every part being made of F1-grade carbon fiber.
I talked to Christian at the Geneva Motor Show who believes the One:1 could do as high as 280 mph, but they won't be able to test that because the only suitable place is the Ehra-Lessien proving ground in Germany. We will see other impressive numbers instead as the car is designed to be the ultimate track machine anyway and can pull above 2 gs in the corners on street tires. Very special Michelins, but street tires nevertheless.
And that's the thing. You can do well above 200 mph at the beautiful Nardò Ring in Italy just like the Jaguar XJ220 did back in the early nineties (with disconnected catalytic converters) or Top Gear with current supercars last year.
But if you want to go above that, it's Ehra-Lessien or nothing.
Built in 1965 in a no-flight zone near the East German border to eliminate all prying eyes, it's the world's largest test facility and the only one with a high speed circuit that has a 5.4 mile straight. If you zoom in below, you can see Volkswagen taking advantage of that right when Google has snapped their shot.
The other option would be trying it on public roads, something that has been done before with great results and even greater casualties.
As a Hungarian, it makes me especially proud to know that in 1934, Rudolf Caracciola managed to do 196.721 mph in one mile on a 3.1 mile section of our Road 5 that was build dead straight in the thirties just for that purpose. Four years later, he reached 268 mph over a flying kilometer with his W125 Rekordwagen on the Bundesautobahn 5.
And that record will hold as there's no way anybody could pull a stunt like that ever again. Humanity became more grown up than that, although let's not forget that Shelby Supercars did their base Veyron-beating high-speed runs with the Ultimate Aero in Washington after their first attempts on a closed down 12-mile stretch of U.S. Route 93 in Nevada didn't work out. But 256.18 mph is no 280, so we're back to square one.
The last very fast car that had nothing to do with Volkswagen tested at Ehra-Lessien was the McLaren F1 in 1998. The then five years-old XP5 reached 243 mph with racer Andy Wallace behind the wheel. A BMW V12 screaming at 7,800 rpm.
At roughly the same time, Volkswagen purchased the rights from Bugatti's liquidators and started to work on the world's next speed king.
The Veyron project got a green light in 2001 and the first prototype was ready in 2003, powered by a W16 quad-turbo engine producing 1,001 horsepower. Two years later, Bugatti set a new record by blasting through Ehra-Lessien at 253.81 mph.
An additional 200 horsepower sent the Veyron Super Sport all the way to an average of 267.856 mph in 2010, but it hardly makes any difference since nobody can challenge Volkswagen in their home territory anymore.
The Cold War is over and a private playground is killing the game.
Photo credit: Bugatti and Volkswagen via Møllerarkivet


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|i got the idea from the google site of a pal in google group, gfan. now at the bottom of all sidebars among my sites on be21zh.org's site, there sits all icon with link to all my sites under my google apps sites. finished it didn't cost much effect. now its handy to switch to my different sites on my google apps.
site log >


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Mettler Metrosene Plus in Slate Grey on 164 Yard Spl
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Mettler Metrosene Plus 100% polyester thread is a regular all-rounder. No matter which fabric you use it on, it makes for smooth seams, with its ideal gliding properties. Its beautiful, silk-like appearance improves the radiance of your creations. Also available in 547 yard spools (Art 1145) and 1094 yard spools (Art 1155).~


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A plan by Internet retailing giant Amazon.com to build at least one warehouse in Florida has been scrapped, with the company unable to reach an agreement on when it would have to start collecting state sales taxes, an official in Gov. Rick Scott's office said Thursday.
Scott administration officials declined to offer many details of the scuttled proposal, including where the facility would have been and how many jobs it might have meant had a deal been worked out.
"Amazon officials discussed building a facility in the state by the end of 2015 if the Department of Revenue could reach agreement on their sales tax collections," Scott spokeswoman Melissa Sellers said. "We were not able to reach an agreement in those discussions."
Currently, Amazon doesn't collect Florida sales taxes from state residents who make purchases through the site, but it would likely have to do so if it were to have a physical presence in the state, such as a warehouse.
In January 2012, officials in the governor's office said in published reports that they were "aware" of a desire by Amazon to put warehouses in the state, creating as many as 3,000 jobs, in exchange for a two-year exemption from collecting state sales taxes.
In a statement issued Thursday, Sellers implied that if the Internet company were to locate in Florida and begin collecting taxes, that would amount to a tax increase on Florida residents who use the popular shopping portal. And she said the company could still decide to build here, anyway.
"Gov. Scott does not want to raise taxes in Florida, and we are confident Amazon will invest in our state because of our low-tax, pro-business jobs climate," Sellers said.
Brick-and-mortar retailers in Florida had initially opposed the Amazon proposal. They've long complained that Internet retailers get an unfair advantage.
Officials from Seattle-based Amazon didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday from the News Service of Florida.
Under Scott's direction, state economic development officials have pushed hard for a number of companies to open facilities in the state in exchange for tax breaks and other incentives.
Most recently, state and local officials in southwest Florida lured car rental company Hertz to move its headquarters from New Jersey to Estero. The state has touted what could be a more than $80 million incentive package for Hertz as a good deal because it will create 700 jobs, although many of those will be filled with the company's current employees who would move from other states.
–David Royse, News Service of Florida


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PAULSBORO, New Jersey (Reuters) - A railroad bridge collapsed on Friday over a creek in southern New Jersey, causing a Conrail freight train to derail and spill hazardous chemicals into the air and water, authorities said.
Seven of the 82 cars derailed, and a tanker car that fell into Mantua Creek leaked vinyl chloride into the waterway, which feeds into the Delaware River near Philadelphia, said Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
More than 12,000 gallons (45,425 liters) of the highly toxic and flammable industrial chemical leaked from a gash in the car's side, local officials said.
Twenty-two people were examined at a nearby hospital as a precaution and were doing fine, said Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Ragonese said the health danger and environmental impact were minimal.
"Initially there was a release of gas into the air that affected some nearby residents and people working right in that area," he said.
Air quality monitors in the area did not register any problem, said Lawrence Hajna, also with the DEP. "All the levels are coming in within our safety range."
Exposure to vinyl chloride can cause a burning sensation in the eyes or respiratory discomfort, the DEP said.
The accident took place at about 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT) in Paulsboro. Area residents initially were told to stay indoors, with windows shut, and local schools were closed.
The leak was contained and no longer posed a threat, and authorities were using booms to trap the chemical in the water, Ragonese said.
At the scene, one of the freight cars was nearly vertical, nose-down and partly submerged in the creek. Other cars lay jumbled on the collapsed bridge and the embankment.
"It's part of living in Paulsboro, with refineries and trains. We accept it," said resident John Diamond, 53, who was taking photographs.
The area is thick with chemical plants, and two refineries, PBF Energy's Paulsboro and NuStar's Asphalt, are nearby.
The head of the Gloucester County, New Jersey, Office of Emergency Management, Tom Butts, said the leaking tanker car in the water had a tear in it, and the tank was "breached."
About half of its contents leaked out, he said.
The tank was carrying some 25,000 gallons (94,635 liters) of the chemical, said John Burzichelli, a state assemblyman and former mayor of Paulsboro.
"When you live between two oil refineries, you have a sense that these things can happen," he said.
Locals fish and go crabbing and jet-ski in the creek in the warm months, Diamond said.
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said improved safety procedures, inspection, enforcement and oversight are needed to help prevent such accidents.
"This time it was ... vinyl chloride. What if it was chlorine?" he said, referring to a chemical that is extremely dangerous if inhaled and has the potential to explode.
Also, he said there is no mechanism to alert communities to what kinds of chemicals trains are carrying through the states.
He questioned the integrity of the bridge, which is owned and operated by Conrail, since Superstorm Sandy slammed into New Jersey on October 29, causing surges in area waterways.
The cause of the accident was undetermined. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, and members of the agency arrived at the scene mid-afternoon.
NTSB's chairwoman said four out of the five train cars that were on the bridge when it collapsed landed in the creek, and two other cars rolled onto the embankment.
"We have requested a great deal of information from the railroad" as part of the investigation, Hersman said.
Conrail said the train consisted of two locomotives, 82 rail cars and one caboose.
"We very much regret the impact on the local community," said Conrail spokesman John Enright, who was at the scene. "We will be working very closely with federal investigators to determine the cause."
The bridge underwent extensive repairs after getting damaged in a 2009 derailment of a coal freight train, Burzichelli said.
"That bridge is very old. It's not a good day for Conrail," Burzichelli said, adding that the bridge carries three major freight trains daily.
New Jersey State Senate President Steve Sweeney, also on the scene, said a nearby homeowner reported hearing a "loud bang" from the bridge about two days ago. Burzichelli said Conrail had come out to examine it in response.
Conrail is jointly owned by rail operators CSX Corp and Norfolk Southern Corp.
(Additional reporting by Edith Honan and Ellen Wulfhorst; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Vicki Allen and Xavier Briand)


text: Your Cash Flow Statement The slideshow presentation that you would like to view is too large for your current screen resolution. Click here to view to view the slideshow at full resolution. Launch Presentation » Have A Question About This Topic? Name Email Address Message Thank you! Oops! Related Content Money that Buys Good Health is Never Ill Spent It's important to make sure your retirement strategy anticipates health-care expenses. Is a SEP-IRA Right for Your Business? For some, the idea of establishing a retirement strategy evokes worries about complicated reporting and administration. A Fruitful Retirement: Social Security Benefit Taking your Social Security benefits at the right time may help maximize your benefit.


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The Giants brought Brandon Belt back up from the minors where he was batting .293 with 3 homers in 12 games in July. Last time he was recalled it was the Giants doing their best fill-a-Buster and Belt was a bench bat. The time before that he was promoted and forgot his game back in Fresno. "A box of sparklers, a Groupon to the Macaroni Grill, Brandon Belt's game." That's someone going through a lost and found in Fresno. So those two negatives led to two (stutterer!) positives. Bochy started Belt at first and he homered. I'd look at Belt in all leagues for his sweet, sweet upside, but don't drop anyone too good or it could end up smacking you upside your head. Anyway, here's what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Psyche! Before we get into today's roundup, wanted to mention that the fantasy football leagues are signing up over at our sister site, and I'm using the word sister like in Oz. You click that linkie-ma-who and it'll take you there. It's magic! Anyway II, here's the roundup:
Jeff Keppinger – Of course, Sabean acquired Keppinger. Rogers Hornsby was unavailable. Keppinger is a defensive upgrade on the usual flat-footed vet Sabean brings over like Burrell, who plays the mannequin defense. Most times the defense alignment means moving guys in and out, right and left. The mannequin defense requires them deciding if they want to play their fielders with their gloves in the air for a fly ball or on the ground because once the ball is hit there is no time for them to move their arms.
Jose Altuve – His last name is pronounced like Idon'tknowaltuve with the "Idon'tknow" being silent. With Blanco Polanco headed to the Giants, Altuve is the odds on favorite for the starting 2nd base job. As the Astros' field general Mills said, "He's my second baseman. We didn't bring him here to sit him. And please don't call me General Mills. And no my favorite player isn't Coco Crisp." Someone sounds like Cap'n Grouchy. Altuve was tearing up High-A and Double-A this year — .389 average and a 1.017 OPS. Not bad for a guy who is 170 pounds soaking wet while carrying Juan Pierre. He also has speed — 19 steals in 52 games in High-A, and 5 steals in Double-A. If you're wondering why I'm giving you his low minors stats, it's because Ed Wade's Toupee is promoting very raw prospects now. Just how raw is he, you ask like you're in the audience at The Match Game. He's 21 years old and has only played 34 games at Double-A. I'd take a flyer on him in NL-Only and deeper mixed leagues to see if he can translate his speed and power to the majors. Best case scenario — a few homers and twelve steals. I'd pursue aggressively in keepers.
James McDonald – 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks. Though he was the most interesting Pirate starter coming into the season, I've abandoned hope for him and wouldn't go back just because of this start. He was solid in 2010's 2nd half, so I would watch him. BTW, how about those Pirates? Can't wait for the Indians/Pirates Fall Classic. Just when Rupert Murdoch thought things couldn't get worse, Fox gets that series. You know what the weather was in London yesterday for Murdoch's Parliamentary hearings? Hot and sticky with 100% humility.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia – Now has homers in back-to-back games and mentions in back-to-back roundups. Eff me if I have to keep spelling this guy's name.
Derrek Lee – 1-for-4 with a home run. Has now hit in 8 of his last 9 games with 3 homers. He was also mentioned in last week's post about 2nd half hitters. Prescient isn't just a word I can't spell without Google!
Jim Johnson – Got the save yesterday because Gregg is serving a suspension. If you're thinking about going with Jim Johnson, don't drink the Kool-Aid.
Joel Peralta – Got the save yesterday because the Rays closer worked the previous two days, for what it's Farnsworth.
Jeremy Hellickson – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks, 3.17 ERA and 1.13 WHIP on the year. Actually having a really solid year, too bad when it comes to young AL East pitchers I'm like Ludacris and too scurred.
Carlos Guillen – 2-for-3 with a home run. Honestly, I thought he was retired. Guillen is obviously Spanish for sneaky. He tends to hit when he's healthy. Though that 'when' is the size of your grandmother's gams.
Yovani Gallardo – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks. He's good, he's bad, he's good. YoGa's inconsistency can really stretch your patience.
Yuniesky Betancourt – 3-for-5, 4 RBIs and 2 homers. As I said in the preseason, "He's not a good option in mixed leagues. His 16 homers last year was taking the ceiling off his ceiling and making a new ceiling with duct tape. In OBP leagues, he's even worse." And that's me quoting me!
Cameron Maybin – 2-for-4 with 2 steals. That's so Maybin! With 5 homers and 16 steals, Maybin's been like a poor man's Shane Victorino. It's Feign Victorino. The Padres just make me so unexcited to own one of their hitters.
Tim Stauffer – 6 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks. The Padres pitchers, on the other hand… Chop me up and call me a Cobb salad! Or some other expression of excitement that makes sense.
Alexi Ogando – 8 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks as he continues to FIP off the Fangraphs Database.
Chris Perez – Blew yesterday's game after giving up a run in the previous one. He's an embarrassment to mullets everywhere (and that's saying a hell of a lot). He's not going to lose the job this quickly, but Pestano is a decent handcuff since the Indians are actually in contention. The Indians fan, who's been comatose since April, just woke up to see his Indians in first. Comatose Indians Fan, "Wow, Grady Sizemore and Shin-Soo Choo must be having great years!"
Matt Garza – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks with his 2nd no decision in a row because of his bullpen. Maybe next time when the bullpen wants to watch So You Think You Can Dance?, Garza won't turn the station.
Sean Marshall – 2 IP, 3 ER. Carlos Marmol, "See, it's not so easy!"
Brett Cecil – 7 IP, 5 ER, 10 baserunners, 2 Ks vs. the Mariners. Like the 70's pinup that Brett Cecil sounds like he's named after, he both blew and sucked yesterday. Without looking it up, I think five runs is the most the M's scored this year. That gets me Gordon Ramsay mad. This start was one pathetic scallop!
Michael Pineda – 6 1/3 IP, 5 ER. Since the All-Star selection and game, he's given up 12 earned in 11 1/3 innings. It's the Curse of Atlee Hammaker.
Dexter Fowler – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and a steal. Was oh for his last nine prior to that, so I'm not sure it's the start of something, but it's worth monitoring.
Dan Uggla – 2-for-4 with 2 homers. Good to see his bats finally arrived after his offseason trade.
Brandon Beachy – 4 2/3 IP, 6 ER. It's of little consolation, but you really shouldn't have started him in Coors anyway.
Ike Davis – He said he might be done for 2011. The Mets said he's due back two months ago.
Jason Isringhausen – Looks like I was right about the Mets trying to raise Izzy's trade value by making him the closer for now, after I was wrong about saying Parnell should be the closer. I'd hold Parnell for at least the next week to see how things unfold. Or in the Mets case, just fold.
Brandon Allen – In his two starts since he's been called up, he's hit two homers. He's also been benched 4 times. Maybe if he fist pumps around first after every homer, Gibson will play him every day.
Aaron Heilman – The Diamondbacks released Heilman after he put up Byung-Hyun Kim in the World Series-like ERA of 6.88. Guess they signed one too many Putzes this offseason.


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Having spent most of my life in oil boom towns, I am not unfamiliar with the sight of torn and mangled humanity. Oftener than I like to remember I have seen men suffering, bleeding and dying from machinery accidents, knife stabs, gunshot wounds, and other mishaps. Yet I believe the most sickening spectacle of all was that of a crippled cat limping along a sidewalk, and dragging behind it a broken leg which hung to the stump only by the skin. On that splintered stump the animal was essaying to walk, occasionally emitting a low moaning cry that only slightly resembled the ordinary vocal expressions of a feline.
There is something particularly harrowing about the sight of an animal in pain; the desperate despair, undiluted by hope or reason, that makes it, in a way, a more awful and tragic sight than that of an injured human. In the agony cry of a cat all the blind abysmal anguish of the black cosmic pits seems concentrated. It is a scream from the jungle, the death howl of a Past unspeakably distant, forgotten and denied by humanity, yet which still lies awake at the back of the subconciousness, to be awakened into shuddering memory by a pain-edge yell from a bestial mouth.
Not only in agony and death is the cat a reminder of the brutish Past. In his anger cries and in his love cries, the gliding course through the grass, the hunger that burns shamelessly from his slitted eyes, in all his movements and actions is advertised his kinship with the wild, his tamelessness, and his contempt for man.
Inferior to the dog the cat is, nevertheless, more like human beings than is the former. For he is vain yet servile, greedy yet fastidious, lazy, lustful and selfish. That last characteristic is, indeed, the dominant feline trait. He is monumentally selfish. In his self love he is brazen, candid and unashamed.
Giving nothing in return, he demands everything--he demands it in a raspy, hungry, whining squall that seems to tremble with self-pity, and accuse the world at large of perfidy and broken contract. His eyes are suspicious and avaricious, the eyes of a miser. His manner is at once arrogant and debased. He arches his back and rubs himself against humanity's leg, dirging a doleful plea, while his eyes glare threats and his claws slide convulsively in and out of their padded sheaths.
He is inordinate in his demands, and he gives no thanks for bounty. His only religion is an unfaltering belief in the divine rights of cats. The dog exists only for man, man exists only for cats. The introverted feline conceives himself to be ever the center of the universe. In his narrow skull there is no room for the finer feelings.
Pull a drowning kitten out of the gutter and provide him with a soft cushion to sleep upon, and cream as often as he desires. Shelter, pamper and coddle him all his useless and self-centered life. What will he give you in return? He will allow you to stroke his fur; he will bestow upon you a condescending purr, after the manner of one conferring a great favor. There the evidences of gratitude end. Your house may burn over your head, thugs may break in, rape your wife, knock Uncle Theobald in the head, and string you up by your thumbs to make you reveal the whereabouts of your hoarded wealth. The average dog would die in the defense even of Uncle Theobald. But your fat and pampered feline will look on without interest; he will make no exertions in your behalf, and after the fray, will, likely as not, make a hearty meal off your unprotected corpse.
I have heard of but one cat who ever paid for his salt, and that was through no virtue of his own, but rather the ingenuity of his owner. A good many years ago there was a wanderer who traversed the state of Arkansas in a buggy, accompanied by a large fat cat of nondescript ancestry. This wayfarer toiled not, neither did he spin, and he was a lank, harried-looking individual who wore the aspect of starvation, even when he was full of food.
His method of acquiring meals without work was simple and artistic. Leaving his horse and buggy concealed behind a convenient thicket, he would approach a farmhouse tottering slightly, as if from long fast, carrying the cat under his arm. A knock on the door having summoned the housewife with her stare of suspicion, he would not resort to any such crude and obvious tactics as asking for a hand-out. No; hat in hand, and humbly, he would beg for a pinch of salt.
"Land's sake," would be the almost invariable reply. "What do you want salt for?"
"M'am," the genius would reply tremulously, "I'm so terrible hungry I'm a-goin' to eat this here cat."
Practically in every case the good woman was so shocked that she dragged the feebly protesting wayfarer into the house and filled his belly--and the cat's--with the best of her larder.
I am not a victim of the peculiar cat-phobia which afflicts some people, neither I am one of those whose fondness for the animals is as inexplicable and tyrannical in its way as the above mentioned repulsion. I can take cats or leave them alone.
In my childhood I was ordinarily surrounded by cats. Occasionally they were given to me; more often they simply drifted in and settled. Sometimes they drifted out almost as mysteriously. I am speaking of ordinary cats, country cats, alley cats, cats without pedigree or pride of ancestry. Mongrel animals, like mongrel people, are by far the most interesting as a study.
In my part of the country, high-priced, pure-blooded felines were unknown until a comparatively recent date. Such terms as Persians, Angoras, Maltese, Manx, and the like, meant little or nothing. A cat was a cat, and classified only according to its ability to catch mice. Of late I notice a distinct modification in the blood-stream of the common American alley-cat; thoroughbred strains are mingling with the common soil, producing cats of remarkable hue and shape. Whether it will improve the democratic mongrel population or not, it is a question only time can answer.
For myself, give me an alley cat every time. I remember with what intense feelings of disgust I viewed the first thoroughbred cat I ever saw--a cumbersome ball of grey fur, with the wide blank stare of utter stupidity. A dog came barking wildly across the yard, the pampered aristocrat goggled dumbly, then lumbered across the porch and attempted to climb a post. An alley cat would of shot up the shaft like a streak of grey lightning, to turn at a vantage point and and spit down evil vituperation on its enemy's head. This blundering inbred monster tumbled ignominiously from the column and sprawled--*on its back*--in front of the dog, who was so astounded by the phenomenon that it evidently concluded that its prey was not a cat after all, and hastily took itself off. It was not the first time that a battle was won by awkward stupidity.
I once lived on a farm infested by rats beyond description. They broke up setting hens, devoured eggs and small chickens, and gnawed holes in the floor of the house. The building was old, the floors rotten. The rats played havoc with them. I nailed strips of tin over the holes they gnawed, and in the night I could hear their teeth grating on tin, and their squeals of rage. Traps proved ineffectual. Rats are wise, not so easily snared as mice. The natural alternative was cats--eleven of them, to be exact. Thereafter the old farm was a battleground. The big grey wharf rats, as we called them, are no mean foes for a cat. More than once I have seen them defeat a full-grown feline in pitched battle. The ferocity of the cornered rat is proverbial, and unlike many such proverbs, borne out by actuality. On several occasions, my cousin and I hastened to the aid of our feline allies with bricks and baseball bats.
The most valiant of all the crew was a grey cat of medium size called, through some obscure process, Fessler. Despite the fact that he was at once ignominiously routed by a giant rat in a Homeric battle that should have formed the base for a whole cycle of rodent hero-sagas, he was a cat among cats. In fact, fantastic as it may seem, I sometimes seemed to detect a fleeting shadow of an emotion that was almost affection.
He had poise and dignity; most cats have these qualities. He had courage--for which, despite legends to the contrary, the feline race in general is not noted. He was a mouser of note. He was intelligent--the most intelligent cat I have ever known. In the end, when all the cats but one died of one of those unexplainable plagues that strikes communities of felines, he dragged himself back to the house to die. Stricken, he had retired to the barn, and there he fought out his losing battle alone; but with death on him, he tottered from his retreat, staggered painfully through the night, and sank down beneath my window, where his body was found the next morning. It was as if, in his last extremity, he sought the human aid that mere instinct could not have prompted him to seek.
Most of the other cats died in solitary refuges of their own. One, a black kitten, recovered, but was so thin and weak it could not stand. My cousin shot a rabbit, cut it up, and fed the cat the raw meat. Unable to stand, it crouched above the warm flesh, ate enough to have burst a well cat, then, turning on its side, smiled as plainly as any human ever smiles, and sank into death like one falling asleep. It has been my misfortune to see many animals die, but I never saw a more peaceful, contented death than that. My cousin and I interred it beside its brothers and sisters who perished in the plague, firing over it a military salute. May my own death be as easy as that cat's!
I said one cat lived. For all I know, she may be living yet, populating the mesquite-grown hills with her progeny. For she was a veritable phoenix of a cat, defying death, and rising from the ruins of catdom unharmed, and generally with a fresh litter of squalling young.
She was large of body, variegated of color--a somewhat confused mixture of white, yellow and black. Her face was dusky, so she was named Blackface. She had a sister, a smaller cat, who seemed borne down by the woes of the world. Her face was the comically tragic mask of a weary clown. She died in the Big Plague.
But Blackface did not die. Just before the cats began to fall, she vanished, and I supposed that she had been stricken and dragged herself away to die in the bushes. But I was mistaken. After the last of her companions had been gathered to their ancestors, after the polluted gathering places had been cleaned by time and the elements, Blackface came home. With her came a brood of long-legged kittens. She remained at the farm until the youngsters were ready to wean, then once more she disappeared. When she returned, a few weeks later, she returned alone.
I had begun to accumulate cats again, and as long as I lived on the farm, I enjoyed periods of cat-inflation, separated by times when the mysterious plague returned and wiped them out. But the Plague never got Blackface. Each time, just before the slaughter began, she vanished mysteriously, nor did she return until the last cat had died, and the danger of contamination had passed. That happened too many times to be dismissed as coincidence. Somehow, the she-cat knew, and avoided the doom that struck down her companions.
She was taciturn, cryptic, laden with mysterious wisdom older than Egypt. She did not raise her kittens about her. I think that she had learned that there was danger in populated centers. Always, when they were able to defend for themselves, she led them into the woods and lost them. And however impossible it may be for a human being to "lose" a cat, none of them ever came back from the farm from which Blackface led them. But the countryside began to be infested with "wild" cats. Her sons and daughters dwelt in the mesquite flats, in the chaparral, and among the cactus beds. Some few of them took up farmhouses and became mousers of fame; most of them remained untamed, hunters and slayers, devourers of birds and rodents and young rabbits, and, I suspect, of chickens.
Blackface was cloaked in mystery. She came in the night, and in the night she went. She bore her kittens in the deep woods, brought them back to civilization for a space that they might be sheltered while in their helpless infancy--and that her own work might be less arduous--and back to the woods she took them when the time was ripe.
As the years passed, her returns to civilization became less and less frequent. At last she did not even bring her brood, but supported them in the wilderness. The primitive called her, and the call was stronger than the urge to slothful ease. She was silent, primordial, drawn to the wild. She came no more to the dwellings of man, but I had glimpses of her at dawn or twilight, flashing like a streak of black-barred gold through the tall grass, or gliding phantom-like through the mesquites. The fire in her elemental eyes was undimmed, the muscles rippling under her fur unsoftened by age. That was nearly twenty years ago. It would not surprise me to learn that she still lives among the cactus-grown valleys and the mesquite-clad hills. Some things are too elemental to die.
Just now I am uncertain as to the number of cats I possess. I could not prove my ownership of a single cat, but several have come and taken up their abode in the feed shed and beside the back step, allowed me to feed them, and at times bestowed upon me the favor of a purr. So long as no one claims them, I suppose I can look on them as my property.
I am uncertain as to their numbers, because there has been an addition to the community, and I do not know how many. I hear them squalling among the hay bales, but I have not had an opportunity to count them. I know only that they are the offspring of a stocky, lazy gray cat, whose democratic mongrel blood is diluted with some sort of thoroughbred stock.
At one time there were five. One was a black and white cat whose visits were furtive and soon ceased. One was a grey and white female, undersized, as so many good mousers are, and like a good killer, possessed of a peculiarly thin whining voice. Because of her preference to the sheds and feed stalls, she bore the casual name of Barn-cat. Another was a magnificent image of primitive savagery--a giant yellow cat, plainly half-breed, mongrel mixed with some stock that might have been Persian. So he was referred to as "the Persian."
I have found that the average yellow cat is deficient in courage. The Persian was an exception. He was the biggest, most powerful, mixed-breed I ever saw, and the fiercest. He was always ravenous, and his powerful jaws crushed chicken bones in a startling manner. He ate, indeed, more like a dog than a cat. He was not indolent or fastidious. He was a lusty soldier of fortune, without morals or scruples, but possessed of an enviable vitality.
He was enamored of Barn-cat, and no woman could have acted the coquette with greater perfection. She treated him like a dog. He wooed her in his most ingratiating manner, to be rewarded by spitting abuse and scratches. A lion in dealing with members of his own sex, he was a lamb with Barn-cat.
Let him approach her in the most respectable manner, and she was transformed into a spitting, clawing fury. Then when he retired discouraged, she invariably followed him, picking at him, teasing him, and giving him no peace of mind. Yet if he took hope and attempted any advances on the ground of her actions, she instantly assumed the part of an insulted virgin and greeted him with bared teeth and claws.
Her treatment of him was in strong contrast with her attitude toward Hoot, a big black and white spotted cat whose coloring made him look as if he were wearing the nose guard of a football helmet. Hoot was too lazy to woo Barn-cat, and she tolerated him, or rather ignored him entirely. He could push her off his chosen napping-spot, step on her ear on his way to the feed pan, or even appropriate choice morsels from her personal meal, and she showed no resentment, whereas if the Persian attempted any of these things, she was ready to rend him. On the other hand, her contempt for Hoot was apparent, and she never accorded him either the teasing or the resentment she accorded the Persian.
Their romance was not so very different from some human romances, and like all romances, came to its end. The Persian was a fighter. So much of his time was spent recovering from wounds, that he was always gaunt, and there were always several partly healed scars on his head and body. Finally he limped in with fresh wounds and a broken leg. He lay around for a short time, refusing assistance, and then disappeared. I think that, following his instincts, he dragged himself away somewhere to die.
Barn-cat's career was short. Soon after her lover met his end, she appeared one morning with her tail almost chewed off close to her body. Doubtless she had internal wounds. She was the only one of the crew worth her salt as a mouser, and while she normally avoided big grey rats, I believe they were at last responsible for her doom. And any rate, she too vanished with her wounds and did not return.
The grey cat and her kittens remain, with Hoot, who still sleeps in the sun, too lazy to even to keep himself clean. He is the only cat I ever saw which allowed its fur to remain dusty. After a sandstorm he is a disreputable sight for days. Perhaps he catches mice at night, but he shows no enthusiasm for anything but loafing during the day.
The life of a cat is not numbered by nine. Usually it is short, violent and tragic. He suffers, and makes others suffer if he can. He is primitive, bestially selfish. He is, in short, a creature of awful and terrible potentialities, a crystalization of primordial self-love, a materialization of the blackness and squalor of the abyss. He is a green-eyed, steel-thewed, fur-clad block of darkness hewed from the Pits which know not light, nor sympathy, nor dreams, nor hope, nor beauty, nor anything except hunger and the satiating of hunger. But he has dwelt with man since the beginning, and when the last man lies down and dies, a cat will watch his throes, and likelier than not, will gorge its abysmal hunger on his cooling flesh.


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SITTWE, Myanmar (AP) — When the kicking stopped, Zura Begum suspected something was wrong with the twins she was supposed to deliver that month. When the pain started shooting through her body, all doubt was erased.
She needed help, but had nowhere to turn. She was trapped with thousands of other Muslim Rohingya in a squalid, dusty camp in western Myanmar's Rakhine state.
The foreign aid workers she had relied on early in her pregnancy were gone — forced out by a distrustful government and extremist Buddhist mobs. Getting help outside the camps, in hospitals run by the Buddhist Rakhine majority, requires special permission that is harder than ever to obtain.
And there is one more obstacle: The fear that has grown over two years in which ethnic violence in Rakhine, mostly by Buddhist mobs against Rohingya, has left up to 280 people dead and forced another 140,000 from their homes. Rohingya worry Buddhist doctors and nurses will hurt or even kill them, though aid workers, now just beginning to return to Rakhine, say there is nothing to suggest that the rumors are true.
All those factors weigh on Rohingya who need medical attention — especially pregnant women like Begum. Her family said that instead of getting the treatment she and her twins needed, the 20-year-old lay at the camp in a "long house" — a shelter of bamboo and corrugated metal where multiple families live. Her mother stroked her hand and placed packs of ice on her huge belly between screams.
Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million, has been gripped by ethnic and religious violence — mostly in Rakhine — since it began its bumpy transition to democracy three years ago.
Though many Rohingya here are from families that arrived generations ago, the government considers them all illegal migrants from Bangladesh and has denied them citizenship. Many of those displaced by recent violence live under apartheid-like conditions on the outskirts of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine.
There are reports almost daily about deaths, many of them pregnant women experiencing complications that could have been prevented, according to aid workers and Rohingya in the camps. Before Doctors Without Borders was kicked out of Rakhine, pregnant women made up a quarter of the group's emergency referrals.
The government expelled the group in February. It had angered officials by hiring some Rohingya staff, and by saying it had treated victims of an attack on a village in northern Rakhine state early this year. The United Nations has said more than 40 people may have been killed in that attack, but the government says the only death was that of a policeman.
Weeks later, more than 700 other foreign aid workers were forced to flee after their guest houses, offices and warehouses were attacked by Buddhist mobs.
The government insisted it could fill the gap, though the health care system across the country is still rebuilding after years of neglect. The former military government spent around $1 per person on medical care annually before it was replaced in 2011.
The state deployed dozens of its own doctors into Muslim camps, but some initially refused to go, saying they felt unsafe. Now they show up several times a week, but only for a few hours.
Long lines form with hundreds of patients, each getting only a few minutes of attention. Some suffer from respiratory infections and diarrhea, the two biggest child-killers worldwide. And experts fear cholera or other waterborne outbreaks will flare when the sprawling camps, now blanketed by choking clouds of dust, turn to mud when the rainy season starts.
The government also promised to let aid workers from Save the Children, Oxfam and other humanitarian groups return to Sittwe within days, but few staff have returned so far.
Most are working out of hotel rooms with cardboard boxes turned into makeshift filing cabinets. While a few started visiting camps this week with supplies, they say the must operate under greater restrictions than they had before.
They point to the Emergency Coordination Center as one of the most worrying signs. Comprised of state and central government officials, as well as representatives from the United Nations, nonprofits and members of the local Buddhist Rakhine community, its role initially was to be an information-sharing mechanism.
But last week, one of most influential members, Than Tun, told aid workers their terms of engagement had changed. Now aid groups' activities must be approved by the center, and must give Buddhists and Rohingya equal amounts of aid.
"They have to create a situation that both communities can accept," Than Tun said in an interview. "If they keep working the old way, I'm sure there will be more conflict in our state."
It is clear to aid workers that Rohingya in Rakhine state require much more aid than Buddhists, who can get help at government clinics and hospitals with none of the obstacles Rohingya face.
Begum married Mohamad Rafis two years ago, just as their world was being turned upside down by hatred. They entered the camp after Buddhist mobs destroyed their village.
Like most men in the camps, unable to leave without paying hefty bribes, Rafis was not working.
But Begum managed to hold onto hope. Though many of her friends already had several children by the age of 20, the twins in her bulging belly would be her first and she was thrilled.
She was also getting the prenatal care she needed — until Doctors Without Borders was forced out in February. As her due date neared, something went wrong with her pregnancy, and when the pain came it was obvious that she needed a doctor.
On April 13, Begum's family took her to a small hospital in Dapaing village, but the doctor wasn't there. He told the nurses by phone that she should go to Sittwe General Hospital.
Like others in the camp, Begum had heard rumors that several Rohingya admitted into the hospital did not make it out alive. Foreign aid workers have not seen evidence of Buddhist doctors treating Rohingya improperly.
A more certain risk was not getting medical help. If a hospital cannot be reached for a cesarean section, the risk of death for moms and babies is greatly increased.
Begum went home. Her husband and parents took turns holding her hand, rubbing her stomach with ice, trying to console her.
"She was screaming, 'I'm dying! This is so painful! The pain comes from the belly! Help me!'" said Abdul Melik," a friend of Begum's family who stayed with them through much of her ordeal. "She screamed so loudly that about 10 long houses could hear her."
When the International Red Cross, which has managed to maintain a tiny presence in Sittwe, learned about Begum's case, the group was able to convince her that Sittwe General was the only option she had.
She went to the Sittwe hospital three days after she had gone to the one in Dapaing. One baby was believed to have died several days before the other, and sepsis may have set in by the time she was admitted. But after her surgery, Begum appeared to be in stable condition. She spent a week in recovery and was supposed to be released April 25.
Begum's aunt Mastaba Khatu, who stayed with her in the hospital, said that hours before her niece was due to go home, a doctor led her to another room, saying he just needed to give her one final injection.
Twenty minutes later, pain started surging again through Begum's stomach. And moments later, she was dead.
Tin Aung, an obstetrics doctor at the hospital, would not comment about Begum's case but said Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine patients are all treated the same.
"We have so many patients here. ... Whether we can help them depends somewhat on what condition they were in when they arrived," he said. "We do the best we can."
Word about Begum's death spread quickly among Rohingya, adding to the rumors and fear that deterred her from seeking help in Sittwe.
On Tuesday, another Rohingya woman died in childbirth, 27-year-old Alima Khatu. She, too, went to the Dapaing hospital, but her husband initially refused to have her transferred to the hospital in Sittwe because he was concerned about her wife's safety.
Begum's father, Abdul Lamin, is simply struggling to understand. "When I was told that she died in the hospital, I felt like the whole world was broken and my heart too," the 50-year-old said, sobbing.
"I keep hearing people say, 'She was killed. She was killed,'" he said. "But I didn't see anything with my own eyes. I don't want to blame anyone. I just want my daughter."


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WASHINGTON -- With President Barack Obama's signature of the annual defense policy Friday, the Fairness for Veterans provision becomes law.
The Fairness for Veterans Act was featured in the TEGNA investigative docu-series, Charlie Foxtrot. The bill requires military discharge review boards to consider post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
More than 12,000 people signed a petition calling for Congress to pass the provision after watching the series. The provision was included in the National Defense Authorization Act.
Earlier this month, Charlie Foxtrot was shown on Capitol Hill as part of a discussion with participants of the docu-series, as well as several bills aimed at safeguarding veterans' mental health.
As a result of the passage of this bill, the military will now be required to consider mental health conditions for troops who receive less than honorable discharges. If a service member does something the military considers undesirable, their mental health will now factor in to any discharge review. Now, thousands of veterans will now be eligible for at status upgrade and VA medical care.
You can watch the entire Charlie Foxtrot series at MissionCharlieFoxtrot.com.


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NVIDIA's New F2P Bundle: The First Hit Is Freeby Jarred Walton on February 11, 2013 1:35 PM EST
Last week AMD announced their Never Settle Reloaded gaming bundle, with several high-profile games available with the purchase of AMD GPUs. This week, NVIDIA follows suit with their own announcement...except this is a "gaming bundle" that's quite different from what we've seen in the past.
We've seen the transition from traditional gaming models to Free 2 Play (F2P) over the past few years, with many MMOs reporting increased revenue from the "free" model compared to monthly subscriptions. F2P has been so successful that quite a few high-end games have skipped the traditional model completely and launched as F2P. NVIDIA's latest bundle targets three of these titles: World of Tanks, Hawken, and Planetside 2.
Part of the reasoning behind the latest bundle is to convince gamers with lower end hardware to upgrade. Based on figures from Valve's latest Steam hardware surveys and NVIDIA's recommended settings for the above games, 36 million gamers don't meet the required hardware specifications for the above three titles. NVIDIA provided some numbers showing performance with their newer GPUs compared to an old 8800 GT as a reference:
In order to open up access to these and other games on NVIDIA hardware (note that Hawken and Planetside 2 both support PhysX while World of Tanks is a 3D Vision title), NVIDIA is offering up to $150 of in-game value with the purchase of a new GTX series GPU.
For GTX 650 and GTX 650 Ti purchases, buyers will receive a $25 credit for each of the games. Purchase a GTX 660 or above and the amount of in-game currency bumps up to $50 per title. While all of the games are technically free, the $25 or $50 credit is enough to get you jump started, and clearly the game manufacturers are hoping that after the initial taste gamers will be interested in forking over additional funds.
Putting things in a different light, the least expensive GTX 650 currently goes for $100 (with a $10 mail-in rebate available right now), so if you're actually interested in playing the above games that's potentially $25 towards the hardware and the rest towards the games. The GTX 650 Ti starts at $140 (with a $20 MIR available), and it offers twice as many CUDA cores with increased memory bandwidth for a fairly sizeable increase in performance. The base GTX 660 starts at $220 right now ($10 MIR), so that would be $70 towards the hardware and $150 towards the games. It increases the number of CUDA cores yet again and also comes with a 192-bit memory interface, effectively more than doubling the performance of the GTX 550 for a comensurate increase in price. (Note that it appears the above promotion also applies to new laptops with GTX 650M or higher GPUs.)
Keep in mind that both the AMD and NVIDIA bundles are delivering new games with hardware that is now several months old at best--in fact, AMD's bundle with the 7800 and 7900 uses hardware that's roughly a year old, and the GTX 680 is from the same era. This is one more way to try and entice users to upgrade, and there's the potential for new hardware to come out in the next few months that will make the current offerings look just a little less shiny. But that's always the case. If you've been sitting on the fence for a few months, this might be enough to push you over and get you to upgrade; at least, that's the hope. The full set of slides are included below for reference.
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xaueious - Monday, February 11, 2013 - linkWould much rather have a lower price on the cards themselves.
Skidmarks - Monday, February 11, 2013 - linkI couldn't agree more. None of these titles are up my alley anyway so it's not much of an upgrading incentive to srart with. I'm still quite happy with my GTX 570. It plays all of the later releases @ 1080p with no sweat even with all the eye candy turned all the way up. I'll give the 6 series of card a skip & wait to see what the 7 series brings.
A5 - Monday, February 11, 2013 - linkThey aren't paying anywhere near full price for the IGC bundled.
JarredWalton - Monday, February 11, 2013 - linkI wouldn't be surprised if most of the F2P companies would be happy to give away $25 of in-game content just in the hopes of getting someone hooked.
A5 - Monday, February 11, 2013 - linkThat's true as well. Sony does 3x IGC days/weekends (aka get "$15" worth of IGC for $5) every 2-3 months, so this probably isn't much different.
Proxicon - Thursday, February 14, 2013 - linkEspecially when it costs you essentially nada to do it..
heck, give them "50 dollars worth" of goods if it gets em hooked!
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - linkI agree; a game bundle has never factored into my purchase decision, even if I want the game. Give me $30 off the price (no mail-in rebates please) instead of a $60 game.
Bob Todd - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - linkWhile I think at a high level almost everyone would generally prefer a) direct discount, b) rebate, c) bundles like these, in that order, I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that they can't heavily influence a purchase decision if the games are good. This is especially true for pre-release games that people won't already own. I was casually looking at a 7870. I want Bioshock. The same thing that would have cost me $285 is now going to cost me $215, and I get another decent game for free (might have been a Steam purchase a year later for $10). If you know you are going to buy the game shortly after launch anyway, the bundles are absolutely a good value. And I'd rather have Bioshock (even without Tomb Raider) than $30 off the card since it would indisputably keep another $30 in my pocket. The key is the game selection. Usually the free games suck and you end up stuff like Nexuiz and very little in the way of buyer motivation. The Never Settle Reloaded bundle on the other hand is going to move some serious merchandise. And finance wise, AMD/Nvidia are only paying a fraction of the retail cost for anything they are bundling, so these make way more sense for them than sizable discounts.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, February 14, 2013 - linkThe penny pinching professional whining red tampons cannot add two single digit whole numbers together and get an answer they comprehend, so forget it.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, February 14, 2013 - link
Any card for 120 as good as the nVidia 650ti out there ?
How is just the card even at 140 not good bang for the buck ?
It kills all eyefinity amd crap anywhere near that price point.


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MANCHESTER, N.H. — A New Hampshire man convicted of hacking to death a woman and maiming her daughter in a 2009 home invasion was sentenced once again Friday to life in prison without parole, plus 76 years.
Steven Spader was required to be resentenced under a US Supreme Court ruling last June that threw out mandatory life in prison with parole for juveniles. The court held that children cannot be automatically punished the same way as criminal adults without considering their age and other factors.
Spader, who was a month shy of turning 18 when he killed Kimberly Cates in Mont Vernon in 2009, did not appear in court for a hearing Monday or for Friday's sentencing and had instructed his lawyers to present no evidence in support of a reduced sentence. In a letter to the court, he apologized to the Cates family and said he accepted responsibility for his actions.
In her ruling, Judge Gillian Abramson said she gave no weight to that apology, noting that Spader earlier had said his main regret was not choosing better coconspirators. She called his letter ''self-serving, disingenuous, and inconsistent with the defendant's true regret,'' as well as his ongoing obsession with killing and torture.
''The circumstances of these horrific crimes and the extent of the defendant's planning and participating warrant the imposition of life without parole and maximum consecutive sentences,'' she wrote.
Abramson said there was nothing in Spader's background that might have contributed to his commission of the crimes — he had a ''childhood filled with advantages and opportunities.'' And unlike the 14-year-olds at the center of the Supreme Court case, Spader was neither pressured by others nor immature. Instead, he was the ringleader.
''The defendant's participation in the attack was integral: defendant planned the assault, brutally murdered and maimed the victims, and as captain of this amoral team, intended to savagely kill them,'' she wrote. ''He reveled in his senseless crimes.''
''It is not a lack of maturity impoverishing his judgment, but rather a profound and disturbing lack of humanity,'' Abramson wrote.
Spader's lawyer, Jonathan Cohen, said the sentence was what he expected given that he was not allowed to present arguments for a reduced sentence. Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin, who called Cates's husband, David, just after the judge's ruling, said it was appropriate that Spader was again given the maximum sentenced allowed under the law.
''Given what the Cates family has suffered, it's not fair, but the system isn't set up to give people fairness in circumstances like this when they lose a loved one. All we can do is give them the justice the system allows, and that's what we've done here.''
Spader was the first person to go on trial in the attacks. Codefendant Christopher Gribble also is serving a life sentence. Three others in prison accepted a plea deal and testified against Spader.


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Conservative talker Ann Coulter appeared Thursday on Fox Business Network's "Stossel" to do battle with the show's Libertarian host -- and his 1,400+ Libertarian guests.
Their biggest point of contention? Social Conservatism versus the Libertarian "Individuals Should Be Left Alone" approach.
The evening began pleasantly enough, the two discussing whether the U.S. should've invaded Iraq following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Coulter believes military action was justified because Saddam Hussein was "definitely looking for uranium from Niger."
But then things became a little more heated when Stossel decided to shift gears and brought up legalizing drugs.
"Libertarians and pot," Coulter laughed. "This is why people think libertarians are pu**ies."
Now although Fox censored the word, Mediaite's Andrew Kirell was on the scene and can testify to Coulter's language.
She continued:
We're living in a country that is 70-percent socialist, the government takes 60 percent of your money. They are taking care of your health care, of your pensions. They're telling you who you can hire, what the regulations will be. And you want to suck up to your little liberal friends and say, "Oh, but we want to legalize pot."
You know, if you're a little more manly you would tell them what your position on employment discrimination is. How about that? But it's always "We want to legalize pot."
Stossel went all in Libertarian versus Social Conservatism: "Why can't gays get married?"
"Well, they can," she answered. "They have to marry a member of the opposite sex."
The 1,400+ Libertarian students, who were there as a part of Stossel's annual taping at the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C., became increasingly hostile, jeering and booing Coulter along the way.
"This is another one where you're just sucking up to liberals when there are big fights," Coulter continued.
"No, we believe the individual should be left alone," Stossel responded.
"Marriage is the most important institution to civilize young people. I make divorce a lot more difficult," she said. "Liberals want to destroy the family."
She explained that the left wants to destroy the family so that people will become totally dependent on government.
More jeers and boos.
"How is it any of your business what I choose to put in my body if I'm not affecting anyone else?" one student asked during the Q&A session, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd.
"First of all, for alleged individualists, you're very mob-like," Coulter said. "Second of all, it is my business because we are living in a welfare state … Right now, I have to pay for, it turns out, coming down the pike, your health care. I have to pay for your unemployment when you can't hold a job. I have to pay for your food, for your housing. Yeah, it's my business!"
Now to be clear, Coulter is no stranger to hostile environments and she and Stossel have long been on good terms. So it was not surprising to see the segment end amicably as the Libertarians students gave her a respectful send-off.
Still, that's not to say that Coulter versus Libertarianism wasn't something to see:
Editor's note -- We'll be discussed this story on Friday's BlazeCast:
Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter
Featured images screen grab.


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B.C. ski cross racer wins Olympic gold
Kelowna's Kelsey Serwa wins the gold medal in thrilling fashion in PyeongChang
Ben Stewart to replace Christy Clark in Kelowna West
The byelection to replace the former premier in the Kelowna West riding is over
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Boundary Brewing is on the receiving end of hate attacks after posting a video supporting peace
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Fire crews have set up an incident command at the Penticton airport for blaze, south of Kelowna


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A Utah restaurant where a woman unknowingly drank iced tea mixed with chemicals, and nearly died, was cited seven months earlier for improper food labeling.
County officials issued seven violations to Dickey's Barbecue in South Jordan following a January inspection, Salt Lake County Health Department records show. The year before, the restaurant had six violations.
Dickey's Barbecue has had no violations for improper chemical labeling since opening in 2012, records show.
Authorities say a worker at the establishment unintentionally put a chemical cleaning compound in a sugar bag last month. The substance ended up in a Sandy woman's glass of iced tea Aug. 10 after an employee mixed it into a beverage dispenser.
Prosecutors are reviewing a police investigation of the incident to determine if anyone should be charged.
In January, the restaurant was cited for two critical violations: employee beverages being too close to food prep areas and a dirty can opener, records show. Mislabeling of food is considered noncritical and is a common violation, health agency spokesman Nicholas Rupp said.
Overall, this Dickey's has maintained a better-than-average health rating since opening, he said.
In February 2013, the citations against the restaurant included incorrectly storing foods that can spoil; an employee not washing hands before putting on gloves; and a dirty ice machine.
Health officials visited the restaurant Aug. 11, the day after Jan Harding unknowingly drank the tea, and found a bag of sugar was not labeled. Rupp said the restaurant threw out all the sugar in the establishment after the incident but neglected to label one of the new containers with sugar.
The Salt Lake Tribune first reported the health violations.
Harding remains hospitalized but was upgraded from critical to serious condition this week. The 67-year-old can now talk with some effort and is breathing on her own, family attorney Paxton Guyton said.
Doctors last week determined she suffered deep, ulcerated burns in her upper esophagus and burns to her mouth.
The cleaning product in the tea was meant for degreasing deep fryers and contained the odorless chemical lye, the active ingredient in drain cleaners.


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1. Tulsi Vivah is the ceremonial marriage of the Tulsi plant (holy basil) to the Hindu god Vishnu or his Avatar Krishna. This ceremony can be performed any time between Prabodhini Ekadashi - the eleventh lunar day of the bright fortnight of the Hindu month Kartik to the full moon of the month (Kartik Poornima) but usually it is performed on the eleventh or the twelfth lunar day. The day varies from region to region. The Tulsi wedding signifies the end of the monsoon and the beginning of the Hindu wedding season.
2. Tulsi is venerated as a goddess in Hinduism and sometimes considered a wife of Vishnu, sometimes with the epithet Vishnupriya, "the beloved of Vishnu". The legend behind Tulsi Vivah and its rites are told in the scripture, Padma Purana.
3. According to Hindu scripture, the Tulsi plant was a woman named Vrinda (Brinda; a synonym of Tulsi). She was married to the demon-king Jalandhar, who due to her piety and devotion to Vishnu, became invincible. Even Shiva—the Destroyer in the Hindu Trinity—could not defeat Jalandhar, so he requested Vishnu - the preserver in the Trinity - to find a solution. Vishnu disguised himself as Jalandhar and tricked Vrinda.
4. Her chastity destroyed, Jalandhar lost his power and was killed by Shiva. Vrinda cursed Vishnu to become black in colour and to be would be separated from his wife, Lakshmi. This was later fulfilled when he was transformed into the black Shaligram stone (actually a fossil), and in his Rama avatar, was separated from his wife Sita, who was kidnapped by the demon-king Ravana. Vrinda then drowned herself in the ocean, and the gods (or Vishnu himself) transferred her soul to a plant, which was henceforth called Tulsi.
5. As per a blessing by Vishnu to marry Vrinda in her next birth, Vishnu – in form of Shaligram - married Tulsi on Prabodhini Ekadashi. To commemorate this event, the ceremony of Tulsi Vivah is performed.
6. Another minor legend narrates that Lakshmi slew a demon on this day and remained on earth as the Tulsi plant.
7. The marriage of Tulsi with Vishnu/Krishna resembles the traditional Hindu wedding.[3][4] This ceremony is conducted at homes and also at temples. A fast is observed on the Tulsi Vivah day till evening when the ceremony begins. A mandap (marriage booth) is built around the courtyard of the house where the Tulsi plant is planted. The Tulsi plant is usually planted in centre of the courtyard in a brick plaster called Tulsi vrindavana. It is believed that the soul of Vrinda resides in the plant at night and leaves in the morning.
8. The bride Tulsi is clothed with a sari and ornaments including earrings and necklaces. A human paper face with a bindi and nose-ring - may be attached to Tulsi. The groom is a brass image or picture of Vishnu or Krishna or sometimes Balarama or more frequently the Shaligram stone - the symbol of Vishnu. The image is clothed in a dhoti. Both Vishnu and Tulsi are bathed and decorated with flowers and garlands before the wedding. The couple is linked with a cotton thread (mala) in the ceremony.
9. In Maharashtra, an important ritual in the ceremony is when the white cloth is held between the bride and the groom and the priest recites the Mangal Ashtaka mantras. These mantras formally complete the wedding. Rice mixed with vermilion is showered by the attendees on Tulsi and Vishnu at the end of the recitation of the mantras with the word "Savadhan" (literally "be careful" implying "You are united now". The white curtain is also removed. The attendees clap signifying approval to the wedding. Vishnu is offered sandalwood-paste, men's clothing and the sacred thread. The bride is offered saris, turmeric, vermilion and a wedding necklace called Mangal-sutra, worn by married women. Sweets and food cooked for an actual wedding are cooked for Tulsi Vivah too. This ceremony is mostly performed by women. The prasad of sugar-cane, coconut chips, fruits and groundnut is distributed to devotees.
10. The expenses of the wedding are usually borne by a daughter-less couple, who act as the parents of Tulsi in the ritual wedding. The giving away of the daughter Tulsi (kanyadaan) to Krishna is considered meritorious to the couple. The bridal offerings to Tulsi are given to a Brahmin priest or female ascetics after the ceremony.
11. In two Rama temples in Saurashtra, the ceremony is more elaborate. An invitation card is sent to the groom's temple by the bride's temple. On Prabodhini Ekadashi, a barat bridal procession of Lalji - an image of Vishnu - sets off to the bride's temple. Lalji is placed in a palanquin and accompanied by singing and dancing devotees. The barat is welcomed on the outskirts of Tulsi's village and the ceremonial marriage is carried at the temple. At the bride's side, Tulsi is planted in an earthen pot for the ceremony. People desirous of children perform Kanyadaan from Tulsi's side acting as her parents. Bhajans are sung throughout the night and in the morning the barat of Lalji returns to their village with Tulsi.


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New member
We have always known that. Even HLN's JVM who has come to speak better about MJ thought his asking for meds was something addicts like she use to be did to get high. It is the difference btw thinking you know and knowing. It is why it is so important the Media tells the truth and not some made up story by someone looking for attention.
"Los Angeles (CNN) -- Before Michael Jackson asked a doctor to treat his insomnia with propofol, he tried falling asleep to the physician reading him bedtime stories.
The pop star's desperate decades-long search for sleep ultimately led to his death when he overdosed on the surgical anesthetic on June 25, 2009.
The trial to decide if Jackson's last concert promoter is liable for his death is nearing an end after more than four months of testimony.
AEG Live's lawyers plan to rest their defense case this week, with Jackson lawyers presenting several rebuttal witnesses. Closing arguments are likely the last week of September.
Dr. Barney Van Valin, whose video testimony was shown to jurors Friday, refused Jackson's request for propofol infusions in 2003, but six years later -- in Dr. Van Valin's words -- another physician "put him to sleep like a dog."
Jackson's mother and three children contend AEG Live is liable for his death because the company hired, retained or supervised Dr. Conrad Murray, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for Jackson's propofol overdose. Murray told investigators he gave Jackson nightly infusions of the drug to treat his insomnia the last two months of his life.
AEG Live lawyers argue Jackson, not their executives, chose and controlled Murray and that the company had no way of knowing about the dangerous treatments in the privacy of the singer's bedroom.
The producers ignored warning signs that Jackson's health was deteriorating, and instead of finding another doctor to intervene, they kept Murray and made him responsible for getting Jackson to rehearsals for his comeback concerts, the Jacksons contend.
MJ and doctor were "best friends"
Dr. Van Valin's practice is near the Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California, where Jackson lived until his acquittal in a child molestation trial in 2005.
"We were best friends, you know," Dr. Van Valin testified. "I didn't have a better friend and I don't think he did."
Jackson "would just show up" at Van Valin's home every week or so without warning, he said. The doctor would open his door to leave for work in the morning "and he would just be standing there."
His driver told him once that Jackson had been waiting at his door for 35 minutes, not wanting to knock because he thought that was impolite.
Van Valin's children would stay home from school some days Jackson visited.
"I'd come home from work and there's Michael there at the house and they're watching cartoons or, you know, eating pizza," Van Valin said. At first it was a novelty, but after several years it was routine, he said.
The doctor was asked under cross examination if Michael Jackson a good father.
"No, he is an amazing father," he answered. "Because I'm a good father and he was better than me. He respected them and as they respected him and he would correct them gently."
Doctor: Jackson didn't fake pain to get drugs
AEG Live's defense includes the contention that Jackson cultivated friendships with doctors to gain access to drugs to feed a secretive addiction. But Van Valin denied Jackson ever used their friendship to get prescriptions to medication that were not clinically indicated.
Although he was compelled to testify as a witness for AEG Live, Van Valin's testimony boosted the Jackson case by showing that Jackson's use of painkillers was medically justified by chronic pain suffered in a 1997 stage accident, Jackson lawyers said.
The doctor said Jackson showed the "classic symptoms of lower back pain" and an MRI study confirmed a bulge in a disc in his lower spine consistent with where his pain was.
Dr. Van Valin said he never suspected Jackson was faking his pain to get painkiller shots.
"I looked for that because there are plenty of people that come in and try to scam me, so I'm always looking for that," he testified.
While the doctor said "nothing implied" that Jackson was abusing painkillers, there was one incident during house call in 2002 that caused him to suspect Jackson might be getting additional shots of the powerful opioid Demerol from another doctor. He noticed "a little blood spot" on Jackson's T-shirt after he gave him a shot, he said.
"I lifted it up and there's a little Band-Aid over it and I said, 'Michael,' I said, 'you have another doctor that gave you a shot.' I said, 'You realize what risk you put yourself and me at by doing that? Who came and gave you a shot?' 'Oh, no, I didn't -- it was not a shot.'" Van Valin said. "But it was. He was lying."
AEG Live contends Jackson kept doctors in the dark about other doctors' treatments. The argument is important to their contention that his dangerous drug use would have shortened his life even if he had not died in 2009. The shorter his life expectancy, the less money they might be ordered to pay in damages if found liable in his death.
"I told him, I said, 'You know what, I can't do this, okay, 'cause if you're doubling up, you know, I give you a shot and then you've already had one,' I said, 'I could kill you,'" Van Valin testified.
Van Valin remained close friends with Jackson even though he stopped treating him soon after that incident, he said.
Bedtime stories versus Diprivan
The doctor's testimony revealed more about Jackson's relationship with the drug that killed him -- the surgical anesthetic propofol, also known as Diprivan. AEG Live lawyers contend it was a drug Jackson knew a lot about, but that their executives had no knowledge of.
Debbie Rowe, Jackson's former wife, testified earlier that German doctors infused the singer with it in a Munich hotel on two nights to help him sleep between "HIStory" tour shows in 1997. Jackson lawyers pointed out that Paul Gongaware, who is now the AEG Live co-CEO, was Jackson's tour manager then.
Five years later, Jackson asked Van Valin to help him go to sleep.
"Sometimes, he'd say, 'Barney, do me a favor, see if I can sleep, I'm going to get under the covers on that rollout couch,' and he said, 'Just read me out of a book,'" Van Valin testified. "I'd find a book that looked interesting and I'd just start reading or I'd tell him stories. That didn't work because often times he got excited about the story and say, 'That really happened?' or something. Anyway, I'd read to him -- and when it seemed like he was asleep I'd slip out, you know, kind of hard because the door made a little noise. If I thought he was asleep I'd leave, and once in awhile he'd say, 'Good night, Barney,' and when I got to the door, he wasn't asleep at all."
Dr. Van Valin also tried to help Jackson sleep with sedatives, including Xanax, without success, he said.
Jackson, however, revealed to him in 2003 that he had a stash of propofol in a closet of his Neverland Ranch bedroom, Van Valin said.
"He said, 'Would you put me to sleep, I haven't been able to sleep for four days,' and I said, 'With what?' And he goes, 'Well, I have this stuff,' and I said, 'Mike, I don't do I.V. sedation. You need an anesthesiologist to do that.' And he said, 'Oh, it's safe, man, I used it for all those years between shows and I got put to sleep.' I said, 'I can't imagine that was good sleep." You know, he said, "No, it works really well."
He said Jackson told him that during his world tours him a doctor "would put in the I.V. and put me to sleep, and he'd stay there for eight hours and wake me up 'cause I would go -- if I had three days between shows, I would have three days I didn't sleep and, you know, that I couldn't put on the show I wanted to have, you know, I mean, I want my shows to be, you know, as high end as possible."
"Sounds like a doctor who did his job, not like this other guy, who just started the drip and left the room and basically put him to sleep like a dog," Van Valin said.
Jackson was "pretty complacent" when he rejected his request for help with propofol and he never asked for it again, Van Valin said.
Dr. Conrad Murray told CNN's Anderson Cooper in April that Jackson had "his own stash" of propofol in his home before he began treating him with it in 2009.
"I did not agree with Michael, but Michael felt that it was not an issue because he had been exposed to it for years and he knew exactly how things worked," Murray said. "And given the situation at the time, it was my approach to try to get him off of it, but Michael Jackson was not the kind of person you can just say 'Put it down' and he's going to do that."
Jackson lawyers argue that AEG Live was negligent for not checking out Murray's distressed financial situation before agreeing to pay him $150,000 a month. It created a conflict of interest that led Murray to ignore safe practices and his responsibility to Jackson's health, they contend."
Source: CNN Alan Duke Sep 9, 2013


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Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, morphine, SecretSquirrel
axeman wrote:You deserve a cookie! That was irritating me, hopefully they will make it easier to set properly in the future.
Shizoku wrote:Hi c0d3h4x0r, I've tried your solution as well as the one initially posted in this topic. Unfortunately when I use the Basic method it greys out "GO" and tells me to use the Advanced settings. When I use the Advanced method as described here, the scaling options are greyed out as well
Shizoku wrote:Finally I can play starcraft and tf2 with the proper widescreen.
Shizoku wrote:Hi c0d3h4x0r, I've tried your solution as well as the one initially posted in this topic. Unfortunately when I use the Basic method it greys out "GO" and tells me to use the Advanced settings. When I use the Advanced method as described here, the scaling options are greyed out as well.
I'm running an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330, on a Dell Inspiron 1545.
Welch wrote:Morphine...... lol "CATCHA RIDE..... You can paint it all kind of purty colors to BOOT!" I am going to call you Scooter from now on .
Welch wrote:*PS* I used your link there to post the issue to AMD.... I'd recommend everyone else take the 1 minute to do so also. This thread has been submitted for AMDs reference.
morphine wrote:This fix will not help you in legacy drivers, it only applies to recent Catalyst versions. You should use Mobility Modder and the latest drivers to first get a much updated driver, then second get the scaling working
Welch wrote:I don't believe they have failed at delivering the quarterly updates they promised... they just didn't fix a few of the large issues like this that they should have. They released 9.12 in December of this last year. The next update would be April, but im hoping they will come to their senses and add a quick hotfix for this issue before then, they might not though.
Welch wrote:I stand corrected, i thought we were talking about legacy drivers PERIOD. I'm using a HD2600 Mobility card hence my DX10 Legacy drivers.
Welch wrote:they don't really split their driver support up based on the cards supported DX version.
c0d3h4x0r wrote:I would suggest they rename the "legacy Catalyst" drivers to "Catalyst for DX9 Devices", and leave the major version number as "9.xx"
Then they should rename the "non-legacy Catalyst" drivers to "Catalyst for DX10 Devices" and change the major version number to "10.xx".
Then it would all be much clearer.
Welch wrote:I'm even more mixed up since i've been installing drivers for XP/Vista/Win7 for my Mobility 2600, my girlfriends AGP x1650Pro and then her AGP x3850Pro..... All different series, AGP to confuse it more and different DX versions.
Zoomastigophora wrote:I agree with the name change, but not the versioning. The versioning is based on year and month, which I think is pretty easy to follow.
Zommastigophora wrote:It's just that keeping both the legacy and non-legacy drivers named Catalyst causes undue confusion for everyone, exacerbated by AMDs terrible website organization.
Zommastigophora wrote:Yup, AMD's graphics driver structure is a goddamned mess at this point. AGP users need to use separate AGP hotfix drivers as regular Catalyst drivers don't officially support AGP cards past the HD2600 series. Mobility drivers are non-existent for Vista and later and XP users need to download and run the verification utility, and only if you are using a laptop from one of the supported vendors are you allowed to download a 10-month old driver. On the desktop, driver support has been fragmented between DX9 and DX10+ cards, with DX9 cards starting with X1k series and going back being put on the so-called Legacy drivers. This also means that laptop users with mobility versions of the DX9 cards need to run Mobility Modder on the legacy Catalysts, NOT the regular Catalysts on the AMD GAME site. And then, bizarrely enough, AMD puts their chipset and RAID drivers in the Motherboard/IGP Catalyst section, despite having a separate AMD Chipset Drivers section.
Zommastigophora wrote:What I don't understand is what changed in Windows 7 to suddenly break scaling for both nVidia and ATI (I wonder if Intel is affected). I hope the vendors get this fixed. I'd honestly prefer it if vendors would have a few driver revisions periodically dedicated solely to bug fixes.
c0d3h4x0r wrote:That's very non-obvious; I never realized that was there scheme. If they want it to be clear that's the versioning system, then they ought to change the versioning to "YYYY.MM.DD", e.g. "2009.11.25".
c0d3h4x0r wrote:There ought to be monthly driver releases on a regular schedule, to make sure no bug ever drives customers nuts longer than a month.
To get a Microsoft WHQL certification for a video card or driver, a vendor should have to be contractually obligated to Microsoft to provide driver updates directly to end-users (not indirectly through laptop manufacturers) monthly.