McPhee

I wasn't really talking about the media, more the accused rigging of the 2000 and 2004 elections (some even say John Kerry was in on the 2004 one!). Read up on it, interesting stuff. Wait... i'm not the only person on this forum who doesn't believe Russia are the bad guys?!?!?!

Leave it O_W and start discussing the topic. Back on track now people. There could be some good discussion in here, but it's not the place for religious debate.

If it's a close call then McCain will win. He'll win it the same way Bush did in 2000, and then again in 2004. The election will be rigged. Again.

LittleBigPlanet discussion, or infractions. The choice is yours. Decide now. I've warned some of you before about this kind of behaviour, you won't get another warning.

DDR2 is perfectly good, 3 aint really worth the monnies

I don't think anyone knows yet. IIRC they are releasing the high end parts this year and then the mid-range in January/February '09. There's no reason why they should be mega expensive, it's just a tweaked Core2. They've added a memory controler, brought back hyper threading, made a few other tweaks and made DDR3 standard. I would expect the parts will be the same as their current gen counterparts. I'm not sure how much difference i7 will make, nobody really knows until the parts make their way to reviewers and undergo proper independant testing. Early reports say they crunch numbers a lot better than Core 2, but that might not make much difference to video games. As for dual core vs quad core, if the game is optomised for 4 cores or you are running a few background applications (music, fraps, teamspeak etc.) whilst gaming then the quad will win out. Otherwise the dual core will edge it. Right now the dual core is probably a better chip to have, but the quad core is going to be more usefull in the future as more games are written to use the extra cores.

I'm on 2GB with 32-bit Vista Ultimate, but i didn't have any choice on the version of Vista (it was free). When i overhaul in the new year i'll be adding 64-bit Vista and 4GB RAM. If this rig is primarily for gaming then it'd be more sensible to drop the CPU down to something like the Q6600 and spend the extra on a better graphics card (assuming there's a fair price difference). Likewise, you'd get better performance by buying 2GB RAM and spending the extra £100 on the graphics card. Also, you do know Intel have a new architechture due out in like 2 months, right?

They did mention him, right at the end of the film. There's then a few months between Begins and TDK where The Joker is growing in prominence in Gotham City. His "origin" probably happened at the same time as Batman Begins was happening. By the end of that film he'd created enough trouble to get Gordon to take note of him and as him to look in to the situation. By the time The Dark Knight rolls around The Joker has grown to be a significant force in Gotham City. We don't see an origin, but we do see his rise to power. He goes from not being worth mentioning, to being a minor problem for Batman to deal with, to ripping off banks and finally becomes the guy the criminal underworld look to to deal with thier Batman problem.

Will pick this up 2moz if town's prices are reasonable, looking forward to it!

Call Of Duty 4 The Orange Box (Half Life/Portal for single player, Team Fortress 2 for multiplayer) Rainbow 6: Vegas (both the first and the second) Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (second is better and more refined that the first, but both are good) The Darkness (only good in single player really) Bioshock (single player only, no multiplayer modes at all!) There's probably a lot that i've forgotten, but thats the list off the top of my head.

A hundred quid?!?!? Who are you buying this from? Vista 64 packages retail at the same price as their 32-bit counterparts! Normally i'd say get 64-bit regardless of the amount of RAM, there's no disadvantage to using it over 32-bit Vista. In this instance though i'd say stick with 32-bit (assuming that £100 isn't including the extra 2GB RAM). You won't actually need 4GB anyway and the £100 would be better used elsewhere in the system.

Nobody actually knows yet. I'll be supprised if Europe actually sees it this year, but the Arcade version is already out and Capcom have said they'll be releasing the console version this year.

They'll lose out more, but they'll still have majority share. I seriously doubt even Google can push IE below the 50% mark. By 'IE will lose out to enthusiasts' i was refering to the low number of people in communities like this that still use IE. Most of us use Firefox, Opera or Safari and some will migrate to Chrome. The majority of us DON'T use IE, but the majority of Windows users DO. As a result it stands to reason that we make up a significant portion of that 25% non-IE share of the market and thus the number of people outside of the enthusiast market don't use IE is actually a lot lower than 25%. It's more likely to be Firefox that looses share than IE, most Firefox users are aware of the browser choices that they have wheras most IE users aren't or are too scared to migrate.

IE? That browser can't 'lose', it's impossible unless the EU actually succeds in stopping MS from bundling it within Windows. The majority of Windows users won't even know Chrome exists, just like they know nothing of Firefox or Opera. IE will lose in the enthusiast market, but there's no way it'll lose overall

Where is this shop? Because it sounds awesome!

Dan, Fei-Long and Cammi are in the console versions, but not the Arcade

i need to get to grips with this release list business, i didn't know VP2, Spore and Infinite were all out tomorrow?!?!?! Just looking on Gameplay there's Force Unleashed next week, Brothers in Arms, Crysis: Warhead + Batman the week after. Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Fable 2, Red Alert 3, Endwar and Naruto in October and Gears 2, Banjo, Mirror's Edge, Sonic, CoD5, Street Fighter 4 and Left 4 Dead in November! Thats crazy! A lot of those launch on the same damn day! Then again the only must-buys for me there are Fallout, Fable, Gears, Banjo, Street Fighter IV and Left 4 Dead. The rest will probably be bargain bin jobbies! Might get Spore tomorrow though, will see what prices are like. On the plus side it'll pull me away from PC gaming for a while. Fallout, Red Alert 3 and Far Cry will be PC and maybe L4D (depends if my 360 owning mates buy it or not), the rest are 360 purchases.

Im beginning to HATE shopping for phones. Decided to look at alternatives to the iPhone because i'm not 100% sure it's the right phone for me but i've run in to a fiar few snags: Samsung Omina - Good phone, but there's a few niggles with it that'll bug me. It's also COMPLETELY unusable in direct sunlight. HTC Touch Pro - Official firmware is still getting there. I can't find it on ANY networks apart from Orange and Vodaphone Business. Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 - Not out yet, no release date listed Nokia N96 - Apparently a waste of time and money, reviews have been saying build quality isn't up to scratch and it isn't enough of an improvement over the N95 to warrant the inevitable price hike iPhone - £35/month has me a bit Lacking a few key features and ultimitely limited in scope. I'm not too bothered about the camera so that rule out the Sony i8510.

This is beyond anticipation for me, it looks SO SO good! Really, really cannot wait for Street Fighter IV

The settings that you can run various games on and how smooth they flow will do me nicely. Basically i just want to know how hard you can push it before you find the machine starts to choke

Let me know how you get on Oli, i'm due an upgrade fairly soon and i'm trying to decide between sticking with my existing Mobo and popping a Phenom in, or going with the new Intel chips. If the system runs well with the Phenom then i might go with that and save myself the £80 it'd cost me for a new mobo.

I find the opposite, my local shops rip people off. PC World are pretty good value if you know what you're looking for, it's common to find a bargain thats actually sold at less than it'd cost me to build it! Same goes for Dell. My local computer shops on the other hand WILL screw people over properly. PC World might oversell, but the locals will sell you out-dated product at the price it retailed at 3 years ago

If it's a scheduled shutdown you want then Windows can already do that: http://www.winxptutor.com/schsd.htm I assume it should be able to do standby and sleep as well.

The Russian economy is stronger than you think, their GDP (PPP) for 2007 ranks them 6th in the world. That is by no means a weak economy, and it's one that is growing quite quickly (faster than most European economies, thats for sure). Russia don't have 'illusions' of greatness, the illusion only exists in the minds of those who wish that Russia would just go away. They are still one of the most powerful nations on the planet, and sadly on the 8th August 2008 Georgia decided to wake them up. This conflict won't end well. Russia now want the whole thing resolved and are using their full weight to make sure things are done in their favour. The west are fighting against them every step of the way, and tbh i don't understand why? Georgia are completely inept at dealing with South Ossetia and Akbhazia so someone needs to call an end to the whole thing. If Georgia can't keep those two regions under their control peacefully then how and why are they still part of Georgia? Is it their fate to be slaughtered by the Georgian military every 5 years?

You're Portugeese and trying to insist the Russia is irrelevant? That either takes balls or blind stupidity... Russia still have a very powerful military despite what some might try and make out. They have a lot of old weapons stock piled, a HUGE army available when needed and are 3rd in the world for military investment (after the US and China). Money also goes a lot further in Russia and China, if we were talking about military value then they aren't all that far behind the US and are both WAY ahead of ANY European country. A combined EU force is worth taking note of, but seperated we are small fry (hence why our gouvernments are trying to push us together). Then there's also the "small" matter of nukes. It is estimated that Russia have significantly more than anyone else, along with the surface areas to store them far apart, making it impossible to remove them. A nation with a military that is the second strongest in the world (China's is still growing) and controls most of Europe's fuel supplys is irrelevant? Get over yourself.