I’m just posting this so I don’t loose it. I need to build a new machine… this seems as good a place as any to start.

The DIY $1000 Athlon XP Gaming Rig Build It: A couple of weeks ago, we built a Pentium 4 gaming PC for $1000. We’ve constructed another one for the same price, this time based on the Athlon XP. Find out which do-it-yourself rig is faster.

[via Extremetech]

I’d burn it up within a week…

I’m having a total geek moment right now. Yes, this is nothing new, but I really love the idea of real digital paper. Tablet PCs seem to be the avenue to this for me, but I wish they weren’t so big. We need something half-way between a large PDA (like an iPaq) and a full-blown laptop; portable yet big enought to write on. Geek moment over.

Link to Gateway’s entries in the Tablet PC market

This furor over RFID tags got me thinking; what if we could come up with a way that RFID tags could be inserted in a common place. If the tags were always in the same spot, the tin-foil hatters could remove them from the product and toss it, fry it, burn it, whatever.

We could even make it something that people are used to seeing on packaging already, something like the proof of purchase. Putting the RFID tag on the Proof of Purchase also lets the manufacturer get an end-to-end picture of where that product went. They would literally receive the RFID tag back in the mail when someone cashed in a refund (think Best Buy or Fry’s).

Just a quick thought here at lunch; obviously there are huge holes in this idea (how would such a process work for clothing, for instance). But this might be worth exploring.

Study: MP3 Sharing Not Serious Threat To CD Sales

I remember spending hours in the car with my folks, either going to the store or driving to vacation (like we ever flew!) and listening to beach songs. Jan and Dean featured prominently in this. Jeez, I even remember having a Jan & Dean casette tape of my very own.

Jan Berry dead at 62.

Link

This is pretty cool stuff. I wonder how much it would cost to make a room with in it.

Yeah, I think this craze has about burned itself out, hasn’t it?

Ever wonder which Johnny Depp character you’re most like? Take this quiz to find out. (via DaddyD)

Link [via monochrom]

Michael J. Totten is one of those great people who blogs about politics and takes on everyone. His take on the Clarke “thing” summarizes my feelings pretty well.

I’m behind the curve on this one, but I suppose I should weigh in on the Richard Clarke “scandal.” Clarke’s ability to undermine his own self with his own words is astonishing. I’m sure he’s telling the truth in there somewhere.

Link

I like this a lot; a site devoted to highlighting, pointing to, and getting out music that are being censored by a dying industry.

And if you go here, be sure to check out the Double Black album; it’s awesome!

Banned Music [via Popdex – the website popularity index]

From the Creative Commons website:

SoundShelf.com hosts free music of various genres and makes it all available under the EFF Open Audio License, or a Creative Commons license. This was taken directly from their FAQ:

2. When is free music legal?
Free music is legal when the artists want it to be. Until recently it was near impossible to know the artist’s feelings and intentions as all works were automatically copyrighted. Today with the emergence of the Creative Commons License and the EFF Open Audio License the artist’s desired intentions are expressed by the license that they choose to publish their works under.

I particulary liked this track No More by Neoismo, a group based out of Italy. It’s under an Attribution-ShareAlike license so you can even remix it!