So what do the experts at SPCR think about Apple's claim that the asymmetrical fan design in its new MacBook Pro will make the fan less annoying by spreading out noise across a wider range of frequencies? Is it just a marketing gimmick or could Apple really be on to something here? Are there any oth...

I just recently purchased a Asus E35M1-I. It's surprisingly fast, and runs cool (I think a completely fan-less system would be doable). However, I have noticed an electric "whining" sound in some instances - for example when I am looking at certain web pages that contain lots of flash content. I'm n...

If Mike's chart were more fine grained, would it be able to indicate the 'rate of emission growth' by the steepness of curve? Or is another value on the chart needed? Growth rate can be roughly inferred by looking at the chart. It's not the slope of the curve alone, though, that indicates growth ra...

The issue that I have with Naomi Klein's article and with with Neil's subsequent posts is, from what I perceive, a huge, glaring, non-sequitur. I feel kind of like I'm watching that episode of South Park where the underpants gnomes outline their business plan: 1. Steal underpants 2. ???? 3. Profit (...

Thanks for the info Vicotnik.

One more question regarding Blu-ray / DVD playback... most of the movies I download are subtitled, do you know if it's possible to view subtitles on Blu-ray discs without proper menu support?

I have a lot of ripped DVDs and Blu-rays in my collection, which are either stored in ISO format or in an expanded format (basically just a directory structure with VIDEO_TS files, etc) on my hard drive. I can play these on my HTPC by mounting the ISO image with Deamon Tools, or by choosing the "Ope...

Back when I was a student I battled with a severe bout of depression, which was largely brought on by a sense of purposelessness in life. I confronted those feelings by spending a lot of time reading a lot of "classic" novels. Kurt Vonnegut, an atheist with simple, pragmatic approach to the problem ...

I got to about halfway through the second page before I realized where this was going: So in a way, Chris Horner was right when he told his fellow Heartlanders that climate change isn't "the issue." In fact, it isn't an issue at all. Climate change is a message, one that is telling us that many of o...

We just recently had a heck of a time finding a qualified person to fill a software QA position at my company in the SF Bay Area. We would have taken a bright college grad with a somewhat technical background - no experience necessary - in an instant if any had bothered to apply. My point here being...

Out of curiosity - what is your goal in moving to a more power efficient system? To save money? Upgrade to a more powerful processor? Have a little fun building a new system? Or all of the above? If it is with the goal of saving money, you might want to crunch some numbers first to see if your plan ...

I discovered this site relatively recently - probably within the past year - but it quickly became my favorite review site on the internet because of the outstanding quality of the reviews. Call me crazy, but I can't even begin to describe the surprisingly large sense of satisfaction I still feel ev...