...and then there are snobs that will tell you any compressed media sound like sh*t and only vinyl is true high fidelity. That's the thing with these part-mystical things: there's always a geekier geek who proclaims he can detect even more fidelity. Or people who in light of all the double-blind stu...

I hesitate to even discuss what I called the experience of God (...) language itself meets its limit. As for telling you what you have to do to "get it," I'm at a total loss. I can't claim to "know" God. I don't. I can only say that I have experienced a sense of a higher reality when, for example, ...

The current price in Germany for an i5 3570K is about 200 Euros, while an i7 3770 is just 60 Euros more. If you shop at reputable shops you will find that the 3770k is pretty much 95€ more expensive than the 3570k. That's about 120 US$. A lot of money for a CPU, that's only faster if you use heavil...

By way of definition: "The characteristic theses of positivism are that science is the only valid knowledge and facts the only possible objects of knowledge... Positivism denies the existence or intelligibility of forces or substances that go beyond the facts and the laws ascertained by science. It...

As opposed to the positivists, who say the universe just is and any discussion about a higher being is wasted time That's not what Positivists or Scientists say. Scientists say: a higher being would be part of the Universe too. If it transcends our known laws of physics, they have to be adapted. If...

The Wikipedia article is misleading Is it? Well then, I quote you from the Old Testament passages footnoted therein: Leviticus, 25: 39 “‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves. 40 They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary ...

Hebrew slaves were more like contracted employees: they could own property, had significant legal protections, and had the right to purchase their freedom at any time. A few even rose to wealth and prominence while they were enslaved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism_and_slavery What you say on...

I for one vehemently oppose integrated codec chips. Such I/O space hogs, and even my cheap Logitech USB sound card has beat the chips on two decent recent motherboards in sound quality and interference shielding, not to mention functionality (mic works off the bat). A good sound card or DAC is even...

Future proofing usually means you spend a disproportionate amount of money on day 1 for horsepower you don't yet need, and down the line you end up with a PC that barely cuts it when you do need the power. Had you "future-proofed" a build in 2008, you'd be now having a Core 2 Quad with a Caviar Blac...

Just because you can't prove the things you claim to be true doesn't make everything meaningless. Oh I can prove the things I claim to be true. It's just you wanna label everything a belief-system. And if everything is just a belief-system, nothing matters anymore. Science is the only way to test s...

Could you provide a quote (translated from German to English) from Kant to substantiate that? I was paraphrasing heavily to make a point. You are partially correct. The scientific method can be repeated (in theory), but your assumption that repeatability is preferable over non-repeatability is part...

Any demand that reason alone be used to decide whether God exists is as much an unproven "belief" as any unproven believe that some people have that God does exist. SCIENCE IS NOT REASON (=Philosophy). It's not Kant's idea that we can only trust our own senses. He just eloquently said "I have to se...

I trust Truecrypt because it's open. Seconded. Open Source, very popular and more than 10 years old. This means that almost everybody who's been interested in encryption will have taken a look at it, trying to expose weaknesses. There are no backdoors, as sometimes found in proprietory software. It...

With what you describe I'd say buy one of the Sandy Bridge Dual-Core Celerons and 4 GB RAM. You don't need any horsepower as it seems, so you'd just be wasting money buying an i3. Put a Thermalright HR-02 on it, vertical orientation, and you're good.

Everyone thinking Win8 is okay because you can ignore Metro for the most part should be aware that this won't be the case with Win9. Buying 8 tells MS they're getting away with it. It also tells App Developers to just go ahead an develop one Metro interface for everything. If you don't like Metro yo...

Metro is useless on a big screen. Not just the start screen. The actual Metro Apps are worse. Too much wasted space all around, the fonts are too large. I'll be boycotting 8 just to send the message.

Only you can choose CPU and GPU. The lower TDP they have the better, but only you can say how much processing power you actually need. A 7750 should easily play all games at 1680x1050. And if you can live with a Dual Core (most people could), then it's better than a Quad Core. If you want to go real...

Running passively is possible, but you'll run into problems. On hot days -and that can be quite a few, depending on where you live- you'll likely run into overheating issues when you stress the system. The best scenario is running SEMI-passively. During normal usage like websurfing, listening to mus...

This thread would have made Franz Kafka proud.

The concept of a "Republic" has several different meanings. In the context of the US Constitution, one of the primary meanings is that the Federal government has limited powers, and the states (or the people) retain rights not specifically granted to the US Government in the Constitution. Not all d...

I have to answer late, because I was enjoying a vacation for the last couple of days. On the contrary, the Founders believed that the rights of men were only guaranteed by the law, and not by the whim of the people who decide things by election Which law of the United States, which Article of the Co...

The Founding Fathers shouldn't be a reference for a lot of things. They thought the atom was indivisible. I'd be hard-pressed to tell which democracy the Founding Fathers could have referenced with their "rule of the majority". Do you know of any historic (or even contemporary) state that would fit ...

the US is a republic, not a democracy. Those two are the same - outside of crude websites who try to build ideologic rhetoric. And episodes of "The West Wing". Republic, from the latin "res publica" - public matter - means the land belongs to the people and is governed on their behalf. It has there...

Seems that everyone has missed the mark, especially C_A_Steve. Just for future reference: if you're looking for specific answers, you should ask specific questions instead of writing a half-assed sentence listing two components and asking "any thoughts". Are you by any chance my ex-girlfriend Jessie?

The Macbook Air 11" from late 2010 - that is the Core 2 Duo version - is running nearly silent most of the time. The newer models are said to have the same noise characteristics. During regular usage, i.e. web surfing, listening to music, watching videos, the fan stays on low, which means it's nigh ...

Another thing, which you may run into if using the 5-in-3 drive racks is that with many cases each 5.25" drive bay has (four) metal tabs for supporting an optical drive. You'll need to either bend them all out of the way or remove them with a Dremel too. Are you sure? I'd expect the 5-in-3 things t...

The article you linked is so 'unbiased' that it only quoted staunch supporters of the suspended President. They represent only 12% of the Romanian people, while the other 88% are silenced in the article, that's fair isn't it? As I understand it's 88% of 46%, so 40% are "silenced" in this article. A...

British newspapers corroborate the reporting of Der Spiegel. I don't speak Romanian and I won't learn to do so, but trusting that various Western newspapers are having it wrong because some dude without credentials said so on the internet is a little too much for me.

Hm, reading this article from German news magazine Der Spiegel, I get a different view. Apparently, the chief justice of the Romanian supreme court/constitutional court, Augustin Zegrean, has called on the European Commission, because the Ponta government is putting a lot of pressure on the court. A...

This is a great mod. I was thinking about this myself a while ago, but didn't actually think just zip-tying the cooler to the GPU would work. Now there is a dude on overclock.net called Dwood who is selling brackets for the Antec Kühler at very reasonable prices, 5$ for a simple version, 8$ or so fo...