MaximumPC 2004 06

Geekus Erectuses don’t call IT—they are IT.

Note how the diet has completely devolved into

energy beverages and protein pellets delivered

in the simplest forms possible. G.E.s acquire

games and flight simulators faster than they

can play them; the game packaging eventually

stacks along the wall until it resembles a make-

shift blast shield. Erectuses can often be found

dabbling in the black art of case modding and

overclocking on holidays when the rest of the

office is away.

TIVO SELECTIONS: Babylon 5 (will not

erase episodes of the discontinued series),

SpongeBob Squarepants

GAMEPLAY: Everquest (with the occasional

all-nighter); replays Deus Ex

1) The latest ATA

command set is dubbed:

A ATA/5

B ATA/6

C ATA/7

D ATA/8

2) RAID 0 is not techni-

cally RAID because it

lacks:

A Four drives per array

B Error-checking data

C Redundancy

D CRC checks

3) Which is not a video

compression standard?

A DivX

B Xvid

C H.264

D AVI

4) Intel’s EFI stands for:

A Extensible firmware interface

B Extensible firmware interrupt

C Extendible firmware interface

D Extendible firmware interconnect

5) A speaker system’s

RMS rating conveys that

system’s:

A Sustained power output

B Number of watts per channel

C Ohms of resistance

D Wattage it can produce before

damage occurs

6) Which number is

closest to the capacity

of a standard DVD-9

DVD Video disc?

A 4.7GB

B 8.5GB

C 9.4GB

D 12.32GB

7) Public key

cryptography is

also known as:

A Symmetric key cryptography

B Concentric key cryptography

C Eccentric key cryptography

D Asymmetric key cryptography

8) The term “giant

magnetoresistive”

refers to a hard drive’s:

A Read head

B Media

C Capacity

D Substrate

9) How many wires

carry the signal in an

Ethernet cable?

A Three pairs

B Four wires

C Two wires

D Four pairs

10) Why is it important

to have more bandwidth

between the north

bridge and south

bridge chips?

A To help feed I/O intensive

devices plugged into the

south bridge

B To reduce the latency of

network traffic across the

memory bus

C To remove the performance

bottleneck for optical drives

D To support next-generation,

low latency applications such

as Voice Over IP

50 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2004

STAGE 3: If you can answer nine of the following 10 questions

correctly, consider yourself better than the mere Geekus Erectus

ANSWERS 1=C, 2=C, 3=D, 4=A, 5=A, 6=B, 7=D, 8=A, 9=B, 10=A

Geekus Erectus