Mythbusters

John Allain wrote: ...however, I can see how this myth was created. My father ran on a 486/66 with modem from 1995-2001. In 2001 he got cable modem broadband, but his 486/66 was so slow that it couldn't process complex web pages much quicker than it already was, so he saw no actual speed benefit. So he went back to the modem, at which point I almost lost it ("How can you *want* to go *slower*?!") Later he upgraded to a Pentium 3 @ 450MHz, and could finally perceive the modem as a bottleneck. OT: Ironically, two years later, I did the same thing. Through a telephone conversation mix-up, I agreed to reserve and purchase a Yamaha snowblower -- and when I got there, I had reserved the wrong one. What I thought was going to be a $600 18- or 24-inch blower was actually a $1300 36-inch semi-industrial model. I was coerced into buying it because renigging on the reservation meant I would be charged $50 because these things were in demand in the middle of winter. So I bought it to avoid the fee, took it home, opened the box, took one look at it and knew I could never use it for my tiny driveway without being embarrased (it wouldn't even fit in my garage with both cars), and proceeded to box it up and return it. On that day, a snowstorm began. As I'm returning this monster snowblower, I get a goofy look from the kid helping me; when I inquire, he says, "I've just never seen anyone return a snowblower in the middle of a snow storm!". -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/