Ray!

Done! Look after yourselves. I won't be looking at the forum any more, so posting anything and thinking that I'll respond will be pointless. Cheers Ray

Missing me yet? Cheers Ray

...I'm simply keeping the majority happy and so I'm only going to post on topics relevant to 4WDs as requested (if I have anything meaningful to contribute that is). You wanted a change, now you have it. Cheers Ray

I've been refraining from raising political issues aka Labor/Libs etc, but this topic wasn't so much political as an observation as to how distorted our aid programs can be. Next time Oxfam comes knocking on one's door looking for donations to save some poor African village, you can ask them if the donation is going to provide the basic things that we enjoy, or more buckets with strings attached. But I also get bagged for raising threads about technology, trying to provide information that might be useful and which isn't directly 4WD related. This will end up being like most 4WD clubs I've been in; a whole bunch of people who sit back and never say or do anything, a committee that dictates everything according to their views, and a few vocal people who contest those views and have a desire to bolster the club, but who eventually leave in disgust because the it's not what the committee wants to hear. Cheers Ray

You definitely benefit from a larger SSD, I can open Photoshop on my tablet as fast as I can on my PC (which doesn't have an SSD). The Samsung 830 and Intel 330 are reasonably good value for 120GB drives. Here's a link to some interesting stats about SSD failure rates (it doesn't include the Samsung) and the overall rates may appear small and it's only collected, but they can still be significant: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4202/the-intel-ssd-510-review/3. This is the original source: http://www.hardware.fr/articles/810-6/taux-pannes-composants.html, with interesting figures on regular hard disk drives. Cheers Ray

I wasn't justifying myself, but more responding to the backtracking that happened after I put the challenge. This forum is dying in the arse for lack of input, if I post things that some feel are controversial, that may be partly to see if anyone is awake as well as seeing if anyone is thinking about more than the latest mud tyres review. I might as well refrain from posting anything, as each item seems to piss someone off. I've run out of ideas, over to all of you. Cheers Ray

Your call. I make no bones about the fact that I can be controversial, and I actually enjoy the fact that I'm not meek and mild or conform to anyone's norms. That has caused many a confrontation over the years in both work and play, as a number of my friends can attest, but I refuse to back down on what I believe in. However, I'm not locked in my ways; convince me that my views are wrong and I'll change my views and support you to the death. I've said exactly that to several of my past bosses, and my bosses bosses, with whom I've had violent disagreements. My attitude and views on life also creates confrontation on forums, but if I'm prepared to call my boss a cock, I'm hardly likely to worry about expressing my views on any forum. You judge me not knowing what I've actually done and what I know, but by what you assume. You don't like what I say, but you don't debate the facts or issues that I present. I put time and effort into everything that I post, give yourself credit and do the same. Cheers Ray

SSDs are suitable for any device that supports a hard drive, unfortunately, every tablet that I know of, other than my Gigabyte, will not support a 2.5" hard drive. Anything Android or iPad will have no upgrade ability. Anything Windows based may have upgrade ability. The thing is that Android and iPad have been designed as social networking devices, as is the forthcoming Windows 8 RT, so there's no need to support system upgrades of any of these devices. Cheers Ray

This forum, like every other, has a General section where any topic, within the forum rules, can be discussed. It's not for you, me or anyone else (except for the admin/s) to decide what is appropriate or not. If one does not like a particular topic or has no real interest in it, ignore it; or if you can't ignore it, at least contribute in a meaningful sense and bring value to the discussion. When I raise a post, it's because it genuinely means something to me and may mean something to many others. A forum like this, as well as the Patrol4X4 forum, brings together a wide range of people, viewpoints and even cultures. These are the types of forums where you can express views and get contrarian views which you can debate and agree on or not. It's the campfire experience that you have when you're not around the campfire. The very reason that I raise some of these issues is because I want to hear what others think, discuss and raise awareness of issues that affect us all. We have a common ground, but we can still have opposing views. Sometimes, immediate 4WD issues and the like are the least of our long-term worries. And honestly, if all we ever want to think or talk about is the latest 4WD modification or accessory, then we're all brain dead. Cheers Ray

Tell you what. All that's required is for two other people to confirm that I'm nothing but a troll and that I should piss off from this forum, and I shall be gone forever. What do you offer? I'll make a completely separate post shortly, so that no one on this forum misses this challenge. Let the voting shortly begin. Cheers Ray

Your latest post addresses some of the subject matter, but once again you lose touch by exaggerating things. The third world does need reliable services, as well as modern equipment to provide what we take for granted. It won't happen overnight, but it's a fact that progress has been resisted by aid organisations for years. I'm not just talking about Africa, but other countries as well. India, for example, is now actively working to bring themselves out of that third world state, but many associated with the Greens (I use 'Greens' to represent any environmental or similar group opposing progress or what may affect their profits) condemn activities that may modernise the third world. Here's an extract from a UK Channel 4 broadcast of 1997: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/prog2.htm. There are many other examples about, but the basic Green's tenet is to keep the third world in its current state, progress is to be avoided at all costs. However, it appears that you've revealed your colours. Cheers Ray

There must be something in the water up your way. Cheers Ray

This is another example of why I hate the Greens and the general green movement: http://inhabitat.com/up-stream-is-foot-powered-washing-machine-made-from-recycled-materials-that-costs-just-4/. Greens just love to come up with ideas to help third world countries, to stay third world countries, by developing manual tools for the poor, suffering, people, rather than pushing for electricity, motorised tools and equipment etc. The noble savage must retain their dignity. Cheers Ray

And on que: http://www.theage.com.au/national/car-pollution-puts-child-health-at-risk-20120721-22gyt.html. I read a report somewhere that suggested kids were becoming more prone to all sorts of problems because they live in virtual clean rooms for most of their important developing life and fail to get immunity like kids of yesteryear did. Cheers Ray

The iPad is probably the best for that at the moment. I believe that a lot of photographers use it for a lot of what you want to do. But you may be better off looking at some of the lightweight netbooks, Macbook air or any Windows flavour. Cheers Ray

Given that everything else on your PC is at its fastest, then an SSD will provide substantial gains in work performance. Check out your Windows performance index first and see which components are the slowest and that will determine to what extent an SSD will improve overall performance. The main thing at the moment is that SSDs are still bloody expensive, so you might be better off with a hybrid system like the Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive, which is like a combinatiion of a hard drive and SSD. You'll get excellent transfer and operational speeds and large storage capacity. I would have bought one of these, but they don't come in 7mm form factor. It comes in a 2.5" form factor, but caddies are a dime a dozen. http://www.pccasegea...oducts_id=14722. SSDs are really designed to be written to constantly. I haven't really looked into why this is the case, but it seems to pop up all the time in reviews etc; however, I believe that they are significantly bettter than what they used to be only a few years ago. If you were going for an SSD, then the best consumer model available is probably the Intel 520 series. Printing speeds won't improve with an SSD, but increasing the RAM in the printer will. You can't use an SSD as a substitute for RAM. Update: This is a good rundown on getting more out of your SSD and also gives some insights as to write issue: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911.html. Cheers Ray

The SSD usually stores the OS and applications, or the most used applications at the very least to gain the performance improvements. You also need to consider having an SSD that exceeds your OS/applications requirements, so that it has capacity for temporary storage during read/write operations etc, depending on application requirements. SSDs are typically much faster at reading than writing (and lots of writing reduces an SSDs life to some extent), so it depends on applications that require reading/writing as to where they reside or should reside. Whatever your current OS/application's storage requirements are, I'd consider getting an SSD that has at least 50% greater capacity, but since SSD come in rather big leaps, you're likely to end up with one that is twice the size of what you may need. My current C:/ drive is 150GB, if I were to consider an SSD, I'd probably have to look at a 256GB drive. Cheers Ray

No, I have Nankang Mudstars (made in Taiwan). But as long as they aren't made by Mickey Thompson or Cooper (same company), they might be OK. Cheers Ray

That wasn't what I was implying. There are genuine medical reasons why some simply can't overcome weight issues, high cholestorol, heart issues, etc; but they are not the people being discussed in these conferences, media reports etc. What my concern is that this is becoming another excuse to control the lifestyle choices that people choose to take. It's increasingly becoming a world where so called 'experts' know what's better for the dumb masses. If this is genuine concern, ban it all; cigarettes, alcohol, fast foods, cars, anything that's deemed bad for us. Will they? No! All it will be is an excuse to impose more sin taxes. The mayor of New York is addressing these issues by direct action, in a half-hearted sort of way, for example: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/nyc-mayor-bloomberg-seeks-ban-on-super-size-soft-drinks.html. But why stop there, ban sinful products entirely. I believe that we should ban mobile phones for kids, facebook, computer games etc; that way today's obese youth would actually get off their fat arses and do what kids did before technology made them immobile. Cheers Ray

I'm not at all sure where you got that from, however: 1. I don't build computers and have never said/implied anything of the sort. 2. The analysis was quite self-explanatory, with caveats stating the limitiations of the analysis. 3. The link was posted purely for those who may be interested in such research. 4. I said make of it what you will; so if anything, direct your criticism towards the message, not the messenger. 5. Read the last para of this link: http://pjmedia.com/blog/tips-for-not-appearing-crazy-on-the-internet/2/, it addresses your post quite succinctly. Cheers Ray

I'm not sure exactly what you agree with; the part that individuals aren't responsible for their own weight, aka health? I also don't think this is a media beat-up. It's another wedge being pushed into society, where do-gooders feel that people need to be looked after, because they believe they can't look after themselves. And of course to do this, government needs to fund the do-gooders that will be required to do all of this looking after. Cheers Ray

I thought it was the other way around? Cheers Ray

Yep! I can blame CUB for the beer that I keep drinking. I can blame Nissan for driving a car rather than walking or riding a bicycle. Cheers Ray

You're not making sense once again. That's crazy. Cheers Ray

http://www.news.com....1-1226431238369 You aren't responsible for your actions, someone else is! Cheers Ray