E. Zachary Knight's Profile

Name: E. Zachary Knight
Member since: 2009-03-03 16:40:46
 

E. Zachary Knight's recent comments

Saving Sense Quick Tips: Saving Energy (and $$)

April 21st, 2009 at 3:54 pm

Shoot. Just buying the florescent bulbs will save you a lot in the long run as well. Not as much as LED but still a lot more over incandescent bulbs.

I wish I could leave my laptop unplugged. But if I unplug it, I will be without after 30 minutes.

New DVD Releases: April 21

April 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm

Not really anything here that I am interested in. I have the X-Men trilogy already on DVD no need for Blu-ray. The rest just don’t sound that interesting.

New DVD Releases: April 14

April 15th, 2009 at 8:18 pm

I have added the Spirit to my netflix queue. I forgot about this one. THanks for the reminder.

New Game Releases: April 14th

April 15th, 2009 at 11:28 am

Demigod looks really cool. I would love to get it if I had a PC that could play it.

FTC vs DRM: Fight!

April 6th, 2009 at 4:20 pm

The ECA has an update and a petition for those who want to fight DRM and EULAs:

http://action.theeca.com/t/2858/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=562

AS for the DTV transition helping HD, it probably helped a little, but not much. Most people when finding out that their tvs won’t work will go to the store, see a $500 tv that let’s them watch tv again and a $50 box that does the same. Most people will buy the box. At least that is what I think.

FTC vs DRM: Fight!

April 5th, 2009 at 10:13 am

For bluray, I made a comment on another site in a discussion about PS2/PS3 and their respective formats. I think it fits in quite nicely here:

You’re right. the PS2 was not a boon to DVD. It was the other way. DVD was a boon to the PS2. Why? Because people actually wanted DVD. It did not require a new tv to take advantage of it. It brought a noticeable increase in resolution to the viewer and it was easier to store. It was a desired step up from VHS. Since people wanted DVD, they saw no problem getting a gaming system that offered a DVD player. I still use mine as my primary DVD player.

Blu-ray on the other hand has really been forced on the viewers. People need to upgrade their tv to take advantage of it. Most tvs (720p ie the ones that people are most likely to buy) will show little noticeable difference between Blu-ray and an upscaled DVD for those who are not videophyles. They are more expensive that DVD. The Players are more expensive to DVD. Most of the people in the world are still using SD television sets. For the average electronics consumer there is no reason to get Blu-ray and thus the need to get the most expensive console on the market is lowered substantially because of that.

FTC vs DRM: Fight!

April 3rd, 2009 at 7:23 am

I don’t think you will ever get the music industry to agree on a DRM standard. Appl for one would fight such a standard tooth and nail. iTunes is a gold mine for them. The ability to lock the owners of their mp3 players into a specific store is what has made them so much money. For someone to come in and tell them that their customers would be able to buy music from other sources, they would not be happy.

AS for DVD’s and PC games, I agree as well. We should be able to make backups and be able to use those backups. There is no reason we should be forced to buy a new copy just because there was an accident with our original. This is important with kids. My kids have destroyed several of their movies. They take the movies out of the cases, carry them around, and drop them. It sure would be nice to not have to buy them again.

Saving Sense: Stretch Your Grocery Dollars

April 2nd, 2009 at 12:14 pm

One thing that I would like to add is to check unit prices. Simple math. If the shelf tag does not list the unit price just use this formula:

price/size in units = unit price

So diapers for instance. You have two packages of diapers. One is 44 diapers for 12.97. The other is 50 diapers for 14.97. Which is the better deal?

12.97/44 = $0.295 per diaper
14.97/50 = $0.299 per diaper

It is cheaper to buy the 44 pack than the 50 pack.

Keep in mind too, some times you may be tempted to buy more than you need because it is cheaper when looking at the unit price. Don’t do that. If you don’t need 200 of something, don’t buy it just because the unit price is a better deal than the 50 you do need.

Saving Sense: Stretch Your Grocery Dollars

April 1st, 2009 at 5:14 pm

#8 is so true. Especially for sweet cereals. There is no difference at all. Cheerios, I can usually taste a difference between name and off, but most sweet cereals have no difference.

Vegetables are the same. Why pay 50-75 cents a can when you can pay 33 cents.

Scheduled Maintenance tonight, March 31st

April 1st, 2009 at 11:52 am

Another thing, When I click on my profile, the login utility asks me to connect to facebook. When I navigate back to the home page, it changes back to my logged in status. Same thing happens when I look at other people’s profiles.

Scheduled Maintenance tonight, March 31st

April 1st, 2009 at 11:39 am

Yep. Same for me. Any visited link is now virtually white. It makes more since now that it is being discussed here. I had this problem this morning. I hope it get’s fixed soon.

Future of Gaming in the Clouds?

March 31st, 2009 at 10:23 pm

The main problem I see with this service is the bandwidth needs. From what I have gleaned, the minimum requirement is a 5 Mbps connection. I have heard as low as 3 Mbps. That is not a good starting point. Considering 75% of the US is still running 3Mbps or slower, they have alienated a huge chunk of the potential customers.

Personally, a 3 Mbps connection for me runs me about $60 a month. That added with whatever they are going to charge for the service, I might as well have just bought a new console.

While I like the idea and have even toyed with the thought in the past, I don’t think the world is quite ready for this kind of service.

Scheduled Maintenance tonight, March 31st

March 31st, 2009 at 9:20 pm

I hope the change over goes smoothly. I would hate to see this site down for even a second.

Oklahoma City flight attendants rule

March 29th, 2009 at 4:05 pm

That was an interesting video. Never had anything like that on any flight I was on. It probably would have made the flights a little more interesting.

The Metroglow Store is now open!

March 29th, 2009 at 3:52 pm

Also, I am not sure if missed that link. Do you think you can post it a couple more times.

The Metroglow Store is now open!

March 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pm

So will the store be monitored in any way? I mean to prevent people from racking up points by simply going into every article and posting “Cool.”

Don't Hurt That Dog! It's Only Trying to Kill You.

March 24th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

No. PETA saw that they were beaten to the punch by a high school group and had to do something even more ignorant to steal their thunder.

EA doubles Mass Effect, uses catch-phrases

March 23rd, 2009 at 4:56 pm

Right now I am working my way through the Metroid Prime Series back to back. It is a blast. After this it will be the Kingdom Hearts games. So by the time I am done with all three, I will be done just in time for Mass Effect 3.

EA doubles Mass Effect, uses catch-phrases

March 18th, 2009 at 1:12 pm

One of these days, I will own something that will run Mass Effect. Whether that is a new PC or a 360, I am not sure.

The Giving Tree

March 17th, 2009 at 11:41 am

This is one of my Wife’s favorite books as well. It is a really moving read.

Interesting note, Shel Silverstein also wrote a lot of music lyrics. On of my personal favorites of his is a song called “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” performed by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show.

Resident Evil 5 'Versus' DLC confirmed

March 16th, 2009 at 7:36 pm

Well, you know that once it does come out, people are going to buy it anyway and no one will be complaining.

But I do see why people are complaining since they just got the game to begin with.