1/6 - Kahuna notes: Man, it was frigid this morning, but now the temp has climbed to 26°. Huntster called to say he pulled the trigger on a new Gibson Limited Edition Robot SG Special. There are very few of the Ltd Edition models left - Gibson only made 4,000, 1,000 each of four metallic finishes. In fact the Gibson website now only shows the Robot SG Special (regular production, 2 finishes only). You can get a look at the Ltd finishes here (trapezoid fingerboard inlays, head stock inlays, neck and headstock binding, and metallic finishes - I have a Silverburst).  ...  Tonight, the #8 Michigan State basketball team (11-2) hosts Ohio State (10-2) on ESPN2 at 7:00pm. MSU will need a decent performance to win against Ohio State who is  without their experienced junior swingman David Lighty (broken foot). Go State !
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Gaming Scene News:.
Call of Duty: World at War review -  9/10  Oooh !
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Street Fighter IV preview.
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Q&A - Red Faction: Guerrilla.
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2008: The Year in Lists...  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25   Blue's News puts together some nice lists - Best Games of 2008, etc.
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Looking Forward at 2009...  1  2  3   Blue's News puts together some nice lists for 2009.
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World of Goo review -  8/10  Hmmm...
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Hardware Scene News:.
Microsoft LifeCam VX-5500 review -  9.7/10  Wow !
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New HP ultraportable first to use AMD Neo chip.  No, it's not exactly another Netbook. HP's new Pavilion dv2 is an ultraportable. And the new AMD Athlon Neo silicon inside will try to prove that point. Examples of Netbooks are: Apple's MacBook Air, the Toshiba Portege, and the Sony Vaio TT series.
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Toshiba unveils 500GB portable external hard drive.  New $180 model is the company's highest-capacity model yet.
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AMD Yukon, Via's dual-core Nano, coming.  AMD will launch Yukon mobile chips on Tuesday that it hopes will make thin laptops cheaper. Meanwhile, Via disclosed plans to release a dual-core Nano processor produced using a 45-nanometer process, saying the chip should be ready by the end of 2009.
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Xbox 360 sales hit 28 million.  That was by the end of 2008, a year that the company described as the console's "biggest ever." MS also made the dubious claim that it has "expanded the product's lead" over rival Sony PlayStation 3 - obviously ignoring market leader Nintendo Wii, which has a wide and unassailable lead over the other two consoles. Yep, another load of crap from MS.
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DDR2 memory price goes up.  The reason for the sudden boom in prices is the fact that Taiwanese DRAM vendors slashed back on production and kept a large number of chips out of the shops.
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Samsung NC10 Netbook review -  8/10  Hmmm...
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Tech Scene & Miscellaneous News:.
Comcast is throttling traffic again.  Comcast's throttling implements a two-tier packet queueing system at the routers, driven by two trigger conditions: 1) Using more than 70 per cent of your maximum downstream or upstream bandwidth for more than 15 minutes. 2) The Cable Modem Termination System you're hooked-up to gets congested, and your traffic is somehow identified as being responsible. Either trigger results in throttling for at least 15 minutes, or until your average bandwidth utilization rate drops below 50% for 15 minutes. That sucks.
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Apple inks deals for all DRM-free iTunes, 3G downloads.  In what could be a significant victory for its online music store, Apple is believed to have landed agreements not only to remove copy protection from the music of all major labels but to also allow direct music downloads to iPhones over cellular networks.
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Microsoft desperate, talks 'Apple Tax'.  With their market share dwindling, and their "I'm a PC" advertising campaign down in flames, MS is desperately pimping their idiotic 'Apple Tax' rhetoric. You know, that load of crap about 'Apple is more expensive, so going with Apple products is going to cost more money'. MS also lamely adds, "Around the globe, people need to balance the interests they have with the realities of the economy. Windows PCs are a better value than Macs, and that's true at every price point." Now that's desperation.
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Hackers hijack Obama's, Britney's Twitter accounts.  Hackers hijacked the Twitter accounts of more than 30 celebrities and organizations, including President-Elect Barack Obama, Britney Spears, and Fox News.
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