Hence why when you sign up for a massive service like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, etc. you should always use a garbage username and password that you don't use anywhere else.  My banking and PayPal information is COMPLETELY different from my Google and Yahoo accounts, so if they stole the information in my Yahoo account, no big loss.  The problem is, most people use the same darned password for EVERYTHING including their bank accounts, which makes it easy for crooks like this to make hundreds of millions or even BILLIONS of dollars by doing a hack like this.  

Another thing that's important is that your RECOVERY email (the email you use if you "forget" your login details) for your bank and PayPal accounts should NOT be a Gmail, Yahoo, or other "free" email service.  Otherwise if they get access to your email account, it's easier for them to claim they "lost" your bank account login details and have the bank send them a reset password link through your email.

All of my important stuff is routed through my @austinscomputers.com email addresses.  The only thing I use a Gmail, Yahoo, etc. account for is when I sign up for whatever garbage to get a "free" something or other.  It's not that @austinscomputers.com is unhackable.  It's just that my email server isn't of much interest to hackers because it's not used by MILLIONS of people.  Handing over your "real" information and "real" password to Google or Yahoo is just asking for trouble.  If anything, sign up for a paid email service.  It may cost money, but few people use it compared to all the freebies out there, which make it less attractive to hackers.

The new episode was pretty good.  I liked the episode itself, but Quibble Pants was annoying.  He was just your average annoying fanpony with absolutely zero depth.  Here's to hoping we never see him again, and that the fans don't obsess over his character like they did over Derpy.  I hated Fluttershy's brother more, but not much more.  It's sad that they keep introducing these annoying characters.  Before this season, the only character that was even mildly annoying was Cheese Sandwich (and maybe Discord, but only at a few moments).  But they weren't annoying ALL THE TIME, unlike these new characters (Quibble Pants, and Zephyr).

Internet in the United States absolutely sucks.  There's been absolutely NO innovation in the last 10 years.  I get worse numbers now than I did 9 years ago in 2007:



I'm paying $60/month just for internet.  I don't have a home phone or cable TV (I have Netflix which I download movies from and I also pirate whatever Netflix doesn't have).

Quote

I *might* consider it if it were around $700, but not a penny more.

I'm with you. At about $1200 CAD I'd be seriously considering that 6950x because it's a MASSIVE upgrade (about a 90% performance boost from my current system, holy crap!) and fits my use case exceptionally well. That would put it at 2x the price and x2 the performance of my current CPU. I could justify that.

At $2200 though, it's just getting a little silly. I'd honestly be scared to build a computer worth $6-7000. I'm sad enough when a $250 graphics card or $100 hard drive blows up, let alone a dead $400 motherboard that kills a $2200 CPU. I don't think I want to be part of that world.

I don't really like the thought of spending more than about $3500 on a computer. After upgrades, that's about what this one cost me and that's the upper end of where I'm not scared sh!itless of things dying. Any more than that and I think my life would be too full of anxiety.  

Oh, LBTLover: You mentioned earlier you weren't considering an upgrade until you could bump up to 128 GB of DDR4.
The low-end enthusiast i7 (the 6800k) supports up to 128 GB of RAM now if you're still considering an upgrade and not wanting to drop insane amounts of cash on a CPU you don't need.

I've built quite a few $5,000+ machines in my time, and yeah it's scary.  If you make a mistake or screw something up, that's a BAD deal.  

I recently had a customer that tried to build his own computer.  He bought 4x 780ti graphics cards, a sick CPU and motherboard, and a bargain basement case.  The problem is, he tried to run all that on a cheap 700 watt PSU.  The PSU blew up the second he turned it on and it took out his motherboard and 3 of his 4 graphics cards.  And get this....he bought some $60 Crucial memory to go with his sick setup and put the whole thing in this horrible cheapo case.  

You do NOT want to spend a premium on some parts, then cheap out on others, throw it all together, and expect to get a good stable system.  It just doesn't work that way.  So after spending like $6,000 already, he had to pay another $3,500 and paid me to rebuild it all in a decent case.

Needless to say, next time he wants to build his own computer or do any upgrades, he's just going to take it to me.

As for upgrading my current system, I could do that but I'd also have to get a new motherboard.  I'm not in the mood to drop $1,000 for a modest performance increase.  I'm going to wait until the next socket type comes out.  My highest end computer has an LGA2011 socket, but I also have a system with an LGA1150 and an LGA1155.  I'm going to wait until the next socket type comes out, then I'm upgrading the motherboard, processor, and memory on all 3 of my main desktops.  I use a Corsair AX1500i power supply on my main system, and an AX1200i on my other 2 systems.  This is my main rig that does 4k gaming and connects to my 4k TV:





I built it about 2 years ago and it's been a great computer.  It currently supports up to 64GB of RAM with the current motherboard, but it's DDR3 3100Mhz.

One of the best things about doing computers for a living is when I upgrade my motherboard, processor, and memory, I can build another system around those parts and sell it.  Just get a decent case, a good quality power supply, and a mid range graphics card and you're good to go.  Throw in a cheap SSD and you're rocking a pretty nice system.  In the end, I usually only end up paying about $100 to upgrade my system after I sell off the old parts that I build a new system around.  It's great.

This insane CPU is finally on the market at retail stores.

Check out that wicked pricetag! Yikes!
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX62180

You've just gotta shop around for the best price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...AQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

Just wait a few months and it will be down to the standard $1,000 it normally is for Intel's flagship CPU.

The episode was funny and overall enjoyable to watch.  It lacked the spark that I've come to expect from earlier episodes, but it was acceptable.  There have been quite a few stinker episodes through seasons 2-5, but almost every episode of season 6 so far has really been low quality.  I'm hoping this episode will reverse that trend.

In all honesty, I think this whole season in general just hasn't been very good so far. Don't get me wrong, the episodes aren't terrible or anything, they're just nothing very noteworthy either. I'm not sure if I'm just becoming jaded with MLP or what but I haven't enjoyed these episodes as much as I've enjoyed past ones.

One problem I had was actually with one of the earlier episodes of this season. The one with Maud Pie. I don't dislike Maud but I do think she's a pretty one dimensional character. So much so that it almost feels intentional. Her obsession with rocks was cute and even kind of funny at first but now it's just tiring because that's really all there is to her. Rocks. Every sentence that comes out of her mouth has something to do with rocks and it's just really not that funny anymore. I've noticed the same thing with Twilight being so obsessive compulsive about making sure everything is just so. It used to be a cute quirk of hers that gave her more character but now it's starting to feel like that is her character. We see this in the season six opener and we even saw a little of it in the latest episode.

Characters like Pinkie and Spike also fell into this trap albeit a bit sooner than a character like Twilight did. Pinkie used to be the lighthearted jokester who wanted to make others laugh and be as great a friend as she could be. In the first season, we see that even though Pinkie loves pranks, she still knows when a prank goes too far such as when she decides not to prank Fluttershy because she thought it might hurt her. That really showed depth on Pinkie's part and made her that much more likable.

Then three seasons later, we have Pinkie just completely unaware of Fluttershy's feelings in Fili Vanilli. She scares Fluttershy so much with her insane what if scenarios that she, on numerous occasions, drives the poor pony to tears. And THIS is the same pony who didn't want to pull a prank on her friend because she was afraid it would hurt her feelings?

Spike, while I don't think he's necessarily been flanderized, I still think he's been getting worse treatment over the course of the show. In the beginning he was pretty much the little brother of the Mane Six. He could be a brat, laughing at their misfortunes (i.e after the poison joke messes with them) but he still clearly cared about them and they still clearly cared about him. By season four, it seemed like he had become the punching bag of the series. Most of the jokes that involved Spike were usually done at his expense.

But my biggest issue with MLP right now is that when it comes down to it, MLP just doesn't take any risks. I'm not saying it should be like Animaniacs and include more subtle adult humor or be like say, Batman the Animated Series and have dark, depressing storylines but just something a bit different. Lauren Faust once said that she originally wanted the characters to have more adventures so why not do something like that? Have them go on adventures, have them fight villains more often than just at the beginning and/or end of the season, have them go to other parts of Equestria(they've started doing this a little more which I think is pretty cool). I don't think slice-of-life stuff is bad, per se but I liken it to cake. It can be good and anyone can enjoy it but it's not something you should always have. It's good as a once in a while thing.

And maybe have an episode where not everything is wrapped up neatly with a pretty little bow on top. One thing I loved about the Reflections Arc in the comics was that not everything worked out perfectly in the end. A sacrifice had to made and there was no deus-ex-machina to reverse it. The arc had plenty of plot holes (one of which relates to the previously mentioned sacrifice) but I still enjoyed it. I won't spoil anymore but I thought it was a good read. Not outstanding, but good.

Anyway, point being, the series did use to do this with the ponies entering a competition and not always winning in the end (although that's changed too) but why not do that with more scenarios? Maybe have a friendship problem that starts to be resolved but isn't fully resolved at the end of the episode? That would be a great lesson for kids too that sometimes problems aren't solved right away and it can be a gradual process.

Even with all that said though, I do still enjoy this show and I do still love these characters. I just want to see more done with MLP. The series still has so much potential left in it and I just want to see that potential utilized.

I too think the quality of the series is going downhill very quickly.  I still think the best season BY FAR was season 1.  Each season has gone down a little in quality.  I can't even remember any episodes from season 5 off the top of my head.  They're just not special or memorable.  The fact that they've introduced Starlight Glimmer proves that they've run out of steam/ideas.  I don't like Starlight Glimmer.  Never have, never will.  She's worse than a background pony and is flatter than Derpy (who really has no canon character development).  I wouldn't care if she died.  That's pretty bad.  Why?  Because they have made absolutely NO effort to get me to care about her.  It's just been a "well, we're shoving this character down your throat whether you like it or not" kind of thing.

MLP has been turned into nothing more than a massive cash grab.  It's like they don't even care about the quality they crap out so long as they produce something by the deadline.  Many characters are acting out of character, and no respect is paid to the earlier episodes.  I was really hoping MLP would mature gradually and that we'd get a dozen seasons or so before it was retired gracefully, but it seems that they're just going to beat this dead horse / squeeze this rock until they can't get any more blood out of it.

I was bullied pretty harshly when going through school.  But I never let it get to me.  Why would I care what others think about me?  I certainly would NEVER try to change myself to live up to everyone's expectations.  When I stopped responding to the harassment and the bullying, it was reduced quite a bit.  And I learned to only hang out with people that I liked and not to care what anyone else thinks.  If you have to change yourself in order to be around someone or to have them like you, then they're NOT your friend.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say they're an enemy.  For someone that tries to make you betray yourself and who you truly are is someone to be avoided.

Petrie:  "They have it in stock, they have it in stock!"

Rest of the gang:  "What?"

Petrie (very softly):  The new Little Pony figurine that's been sold out everywhere for so long.....

Rest of the gang:   :blink:

I was NOT impressed with the most recent Pokemon game for 3DS.  Let's hope they get rid of those damned skates (or at least make it possible to remove them or avoid getting them altogether).  And having a group of 5 "friends" was super annoying.