h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What are you planning on doing once you've finsihed then?

Sleep for a week

Can't say I blame you. I'm currently having a bvreakform blobbing and looking at bits for my new computer and wishing i could afford them!

So why buy a new computer?

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Cos this doesn't do what I want. Too slow, you should see it running GIMP sometimes, very slow

Incidentlaly how much RAM would you recommend for doing basic image editing (blobs for hooto)and mesh making (modding for morrowind)? I've got a gig at the minute if that's any help.

Definitely depends on which OS you're using...

erm mainly linux for GIMP and probably windows for blender as i'm not sure if the .nif file plugin is available for linux. But I could also save it as blender file abnd resave it in windows. Probably linux for both then

Yes, but which windows? Vista is an evil resource hog. XP less so, and Linux even less.

I was doing 3D rendering with 768 on an XP machine for a while - and only 512 on the laptop. It took ages, though, and Photoshop couldn't really handle large files.

I've got XP pro on the desktop now with two gigs and a dual core because I multitask a lot. I've driven that to its limits when doing layout, with ArchiCAD in 3D mode, InDesign, and Photoshop open at the same time, as well as Opera with multiple tabs and a music player. Three gigs might be nice for that, but two work ok.

Not tried anything on the new laptop yet, really, but because of vista that's noticeably slower despite four gigs (of which only three are recognised, of course) and a quadcore. I'm hoping win 7 will help there.

If you're doing graphics, make sure you have a good graphics card - none of that onboard nonsense - with at least 512 dedicated memory, preferably a gigabyte, and a good processor. Then you'll be fine with two gigs of RAM, but make sure they're a good matched pair of at least DDR2 Four gigs won't be much use unless you're using a 64 bit OS, and leaving one slot empty just slows things down, too.

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Windows 7 is like vista, its quicker but not as quick as xp, I've run the beta and its not perfect. Vista only sees 3.5 gig to due to something being wrong with the kernel, but they said they would fix it, service pack 1 doesn't help with this.

erm new processor is an AMD dual core 2.7ghz (wouldn't mid a tri-core though), sapphire hd 4670 graphics card 512mnb* and two gigs of ram (ddr2) but only one stick so in the future it'll be easier to upgrade to more. I think that leaves 3 slots free for ram.


*apparently its not worth a gig of memory on that card.

<<(of which only three are recognised, of course) and a quadcore. I'm hoping win 7 will help there.>> just remembered why this is. Some of your RAM is used by windwows to boot from and some is also used for various processess and services. So it should actually be using all 4 gig of it. Windows 7 will probably be the same.

And graphics cards ansd stuff sometime use some of it i believe but i don't think that'll happen on your system

Well, it sounds like you know what you're talking about, so good luck

Still got to save up first. Feels like it's taking forever though. Shouldn't feel like its taking so long when I get EMA though.

Wozzat?

EMA - Education Maintainece Allowance. If your family income is under a certain amount the government give you money if you go onto higher education. i don't know the exact figures but for me its 30 quid a week.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/14To19/MoneyToLearn/EMA/DG_066951

Table about halfway done

Oh, right. We have that too, ours is called BAföG. I never got any because they calculate it from your parents' income five to seven years ago and my father earned more then

Unlucky. i don't think they take my dads income into it cos my mum and dad are divorced otherwise I'm fairly sure i wouldn't get any!

Brilliant name though! What's it stand for?

So're mine, but they take both into account anyway

Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz. Yes, it's one word

Has there been some sort of study done on german lung capacity or something? Surely with words that long you all must have huge lungs to say it one breath?

German is a wonderful language. You can build words to any length.

Weserdampfschiffahrtskapitänsmützenknopf - the button on the hat of a captain employed by the Weser steam ship company. And one could extend it to something like Weserdampfschiffahrtskapitänsmützenknopfpoliturherstellerausbildungsplatzinseratlesermutter.

That's the mother of someone reading an ad offering an apprenticeship as a producer of polish for the button on the hat of a captain employed by the Weser steam ship company...

And so on

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Or in my cause say the wrong thing in my German speaking exam. I thought I was asked how many pupils are there so I said six hundred, at which point the examiner repeated this to me with a tone of suprise. I couldn't work out whether the figure was meant to be higher or lower so i stuck with six hundred. I think the question I was actually asked was how many subjects did you take/learn. Still with me learning six hundred subjects i should get some decent gcse results!