ORIGINALLY AIRED: 11/4/2004

Hoverboard, Static Discharge Devices, Doom3 Tweaks

Episode #2784

In tech topics, the first people to be convicted of felony spamming charges were sentenced to nine years in prison – a stern lesson to those emailing spam, to be sure. “The upside is that it was sent through AOL servers to AOL customers, so it didn’t affect real Internet users,” said Kevin.

In other news, Apple has added consumer ratings to its online store – only it doesn’t allow customers to rate its own products. Furthermore, the company goes even further by awarding all of its own products a “five-apple” rating. “Now that’s some useful consumer information!” said Alex.

For years, it’s been accepted wisdom that you must ground yourself whenever handling your computer’s RAM chips in order to avoid a discharge of static electricity. Thus, manufacturers issue those weird strappy things that you’re supposed to wear when installing RAM. But Kevin and Alex were wondering if this was still true today with our more modern, improved manufacturing processes.

“Does static electricity really damage components?” Kevin asked, and proceeded to find out. The guys powered up a Van de Graaff generator and Kevin held a RAM card in his hand while repeatedly shocking himself. “We have officially shocked the crap out of it,” he announced and plugged it back into the PC. And what do you know: Half the RAM didn’t work.

Next, Kevin pulled out a Taser gun, and proceeded to directly shock another card. Reinstalling it into the computer, they flipped on the power and discovered they had pretty much destroyed it. “Dude, it’s actually smoking!” Kevin observed.

“Okay, maybe you do need the wristband thing,” Alex summed up.

Read this article at pcworld.com for their take on the static electricity old wives’ tale, and other computer myths.

We all can’t have the very best computer to play our favorite games. Who has the time and the moolah to be on top of all that? Sometimes we can only take a few baby steps to upgrade our computer. Doom 3 is only a few months old, yet it is already going to be one of the most played games of all time. But who can truly play the game the way it was intended by its makers? That’s where [H]ard OCP comes in. Kyle Bennett who was on the show today and his teams have compiled a very intricate Doom 3 Hardware Guide. That will tell you every component you will need to make sure your Doom 3 gaming experience is the very best.

Kyle’s recommendations on the show: a GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics card (“Absolutely, positively will give you the best performance for Doom 3.”), an AMD Athlon 64 (“If you’re building a gaming PC, this is the processor to get.”), and at least a gig of RAM (“Corsair tends to be our favorite.”).

Julio Torres, associate producer of LucasArts’ Star Wars Galaxies, came by to show neophyte player Alex some of Jump to Lightspeed’s new space-fighting capabilities. In fact, he had access to the one and only Millennium Falcon, and he jumped onto the laser turrets and started blasting away.

Meanwhile, members of Powerman 5000 joined the Jump to Lightspeed LAN Party. “It’s awesome, but the Force is definitely not with me,” said singer Spider One. Look for more info on the band at www.powerman5000.com.

And if you want to find some of The Screen Savers crew in the Star Wars Galaxies universe, look for the following I.D.s on the Intrepid server:

Joshua Brentano (Series Producer): Mantelo
Dan Huard (Associate Producer): thebeast
Alex Albrecht (Host): DrSleak

For game info, go to www.starwarsgalaxies.com.

Every boy who watches Back to the Future envied Marty McFly not for his orange vest, but for that rad hoverboard. So The Screen Savers put their best minds to work on the problem of constructing an affordable personal hovercraft, and they came up with a shop vacuum bolted to a piece of plywood. Not pretty, but it worked! If you’d like to build your own, read this article at Science Hobbyist. Or, if you’d prefer a professional model, then Future Horizons has one.

Miles from Middletown, Conn. wants to journey to LAN gaming competitions, but his system is too huge to cart around. What can he do?

Kevin says to check out Shuttle’s SN95G5, a small form factor PC that’ll accept your components so you won’t have to buy everything new. Also, go to geargrip.com to find some handy tote bags and backpacks for your system. Finally, Alex recommends dumping the CRT monitor for an LCD – prices are dropping, and your back will thank you.

You’ll see the world in a whole new light with World Wind.

Read  up on erroneous song lyrics at Kissthisguy.com.
 
Read great movie scripts and get writing tips at Script-o-rama.com.