Archive for April 2010

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Extreme addiction

Tragic story from Russia: A 14 year old boy kills his sleeping father with a sledgehammer after his parents took away his keyboard because he was spending too much time gaming. After he killed his father, he made his mother give him back the keyboard so he could game some more. His mother called relatives after the boy finally fell asleep. The boy, a resident of Tuapse, a town in the Krasnodar district is faced with a 10 year sentence.

“On the evening before the murder my brother was behaving as usual, speaking little and playing on his phone”, says the 25-year-old sister of the young murderer. “Then he watched some comedy on TV with my father. He kept on asking when we would all go to bed.” Before everyone left for bed, mother and father said to their son that he was not to play on the computer again that night. It was when Yaroslav began to protest that his mother was forced to remove the keyboard from the computer and hide it in her room. The boy made as if he had accepted the decision and went to bed. Then in the dead of night the teenager decided to deal with his “wrongdoers”. Taking a sledge hammer, he crept into his parents’ bedroom and attacked his father right there in his bed. “The teenager delivered the blows through a plastic bag, prepared in advance in order to prevent himself being splashed with blood”, explained the investigating officer Boris Frolov. “He admits to having planned at first to murder his mother, but then feared he would not be able to deal with his father”. via: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/crimes/16-04-2010/113053-computer_game-0

After getting the keyboard back the boy continued to play the game "Gothic", which has a correspondingly sinister plot: the characters of the quest fight with the aid of various kinds of weapons – axes, clubs, hammers, swords, and so on.

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Which monitor should I get?

I'm thinking about it, but do I want to spend the money? It's the Acer B273HU 27" monitor and it's one BIG behemoth! It's a TN panel with a max resolution of 2048 x 1152! Yep, that's alot of reso! Some of the key features are:

• 2048 x 1152 Resolution
• 40000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio
• 4 USB ports
• 160 degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles
• 2x 1.5W Integrated Speakers
• VGA, DVI and HDMI Inputs
• 5ms Response Time

See larger image ACER ET.HB3HP.001 27-Inch LCD Monitor (Personal Computers) List Price: $474.99 USD

Now I could care less about the speakers and I have no hopes whatsoever of anything remotely decent from them and no one should have hopes for speakers intergrated into a monitor. If you do, well, that's just sad. This Acer monitor has pretty much everything I am looking for in a new monitor, but.............and I always have to complain about something.............I would prefer a 2ms response time, a little more brightness than 400 cd/m, and the coup de gras: 120 Hz for you know what! But, WOW!!!! this is a BIG monitor!!! And the highest resolution you can find on a monitor at this price level! Reviews: Newegg GCN (Government Computer News) PC Mag

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And since we're here talking about monitors......this is my other choice: Acer GD235HZ. This is a 23.6 inch monitor but it's 120Hz so I would have something ready to play 3D content on! Some of the key features of this monitor:

• 1920x1080 resolution
• 120Hz max. refresh rate
• 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
• 2ms response time
• Supports 3D graphics
• Flexible input options

Acer GD235HZbid Widescreen 23.6" 3D LCD Display (Personal Computers) List Price: $399.99 USD New From: $299.99 In Stock Used from: $250.00 In Stock

As you can see I have quite the dilemma......on one hand I can have this huge 27" monitor with 2048 x 1152 and pretty much be the big dog on the porch. Or, I could go with the smaller 24" monitor that is 3D ready and be the coolest dog on the porch! And I don't want to hear anyone start getting all Freudian on me....this isn't about compensating for something or wanting to fit in! Reviews: Tom's Guide Newegg

See larger image ACER ET.HB3HP.001 27-Inch LCD Monitor (Personal Computers) List Price: $474.99 USD

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