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Not parallel (except in the sense as the original article's author's: "Any DB25 must be a parallel port")... but there's this. Old-sk00l Macintosh DB25 SCSI to 10Base2 or 10BaseT. I use one on my Mac SE for TCP/IP and Ethertalk on my LAN at home. It works quite well.

Not parallel (except in the sense as the original article's author's: "Any DB25 must be a parallel port")... but there's this. Old-sk00l Macintosh DB25 SCSI to 10Base2 or 10BaseT. I use one on my Mac SE for TCP/IP and Ethertalk on my LAN at home. It works quite well.

There are a two workarounds for those kinds of installers which may be more convenient...

If the installer only works with files (ie. copies or created them on the disk) then you can use Disk Management to assign another volume's drive letter to A:. For example, if you have a USB key mapped to E:, you would open disk management (diskmgmt.msc), right click on the USB key's partion, and use "Change drive letters and paths" to remap E: to A:. You can also use the "subst" command to map a folder to A: as well.

If the installer writes raw blocks of disk information then you need to use a virtual floppy disk driver which uses am image file instead of a physical floppy disk.

Freedom. In 32-bit versions of Windows, if you want to do something that requires kernel-mode programming, you can write your own drivers. In 64-bit versions, you have to pay Microsoft to get their approval for your driver, or else it will only load if you boot Windows in a test mode where multimedia functionality is crippled.

Fuck that totalitarian bullshit. 32-bit forever.

(And yes, there are legitimate uses for writing drivers even though you're not a hardware maker. Some examples: Process Explorer, Process Monitor, Sandboxie, VDK...)

VLC (VideoLAN Client) media player was good up to the 0.8.6 releases and after that it took a bit of a tumble in design and lost popularity because of its tendency to crash or freeze at any minor error or corruption in the media files.

Media Player Classic Homecinema stepped in and took the reigns after that. This player includes internal decoder filters for MPEG-2 (DVD), MPEG-4 (XviD, DivX), H.264 (Blu-ray), and VC1 (Blu-ray) along with audio decoders for AC3 (Dolby Digital), DTS (Digital Theater Systems), AAC (Advanced Audio Codec), etc. It also includes native support for MKV (Matroska) and AVI (Audio Video Interleave) file formats.

The most important feature of MPC-HC is the hardware accelerated DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) decoder filters for the H.264 and VC1 Blu-ray codecs allowing this player to leverage ATI, nVidia, and Intel graphics cards to handle the work load with complex 720p and 1080p movies. The difference in CPU usage goes from 70-100% on software decoding with dropped frames to 5% on DXVA decoding and no dropped frames, of course this is relative to the CPU being used.

DXVAChecker is the best tool to use to determine if your video card and latest drivers support hardware acceleration. It will list the list of video streams that are accelerated such as MPEG2, WMV9, VC1, H264 along with DXVA1 (XP DX9) or 2 (Vista DX10) for the version along with the resolution such as 720x480, 1280x720, 1920x1080 that is supported.

FFDshow Tryouts is another codecs to look into is that is based on libavcodec and ffmpeg-mt (multi-threaded) and handles pretty much all audio and video codecs in software using CPU decoding and includes a lot of filters for audio 2.0->5.1 up-mixing, real-time AC3 encoding for surround sound, noise filtering, and video filters for noise, sharpening, and subtitle support.

CoreAVC Pro codec is the most efficient software and hardware nVidia CUDA accelerated H.264 (Blu-ray) decoding. In hardware CUDA mode it users ~15% CPU to perform decoding and in software mode it users 50-70%, relative to the CPU being used of course. This codec a bit more efficient than FFDshow in software but a lot better in CUDA mode, nVidia video card required.

Haali Media Splitter is the preferred splitter for MKV (Matroska), MP4, and AVI files. This is the recommended splitter for these file formats over the internal splitters that usually come with the players.

MPlayer Media Player is also a complete alternative that now has hardware acceleration support for nVidia video cards with the latest SVN releases.

Well you can just convert FLACs to Apple Lossless with no quality loss, since they're both lossless.

Good point. Your post inspired me to get XLD and convert all my FLACs to Apple Lossless. It can do the reverse, too, so it's good to know that one day if I decide iTunes is FTL, I can convert the whole library to FLAC in 4 hours of processing (it runs at 60x).

FLAC and ALE (Apple lossless Encoding) are both lossless formats, so you won't lose any audio information on the conversion.

Looking for tools there is:
    - XLD: http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html
    - xAct: http://xact.sourceforge.net/

If there are any other please reply to this post.

Airplane terrorism really isn't all that effective. In contrast, blow a series of holes in the Colonial Pipeline -- 5500 miles of target -- and the eastern seaboard is out of gas: http://kaznak.web.infoseek.co.jp/big/colonialpipeline.jpg

You really don't understand terrorism, do you? The true goal of terrorism is not the actual damage inflicted, its the subsequent threat of future damage (terror, if you prefer) instilled in the populace. That's why it's called terrorism.

Anyway, our response to the "attack" was to attack ourselves, our freedoms, and unrelated countries. We chose to do nothing to actually enhance security, but we have managed to spend ridiculous sums of money and create huge annoyances for ourselves.

All that because "Realistically, 9/11 affected a small number of people and the stock market"? Wow!

Many people already have a (probably irrational) fear of flying. Add a random, uncontrollable element, such as suicidal foreign extremists into the mix, and you can absolutely instill maximal fear for a comparitively small amount of initial damage. No, I'd say airplane terrorism is extremely effective!

Airplane terrorism really isn't all that effective. In contrast, blow a series of holes in the Colonial Pipeline -- 5500 miles of target -- and the eastern seaboard is out of gas: http://kaznak.web.infoseek.co.jp/big/colonialpipeline.jpg

Realistically, 9/11 affected a small number of people and the stock market. If the terrorists had taken out a significant portion of the energy infrastructure, America would have simply withered. In other words, the "terrorists" are just media junkies -- it's plain they don't actually want to hurt America at all because if they did, their targets would NOT be airplanes.

Anyway, our response to the "attack" was to attack ourselves, our freedoms, and unrelated countries. We chose to do nothing to actually enhance security, but we have managed to spend ridiculous sums of money and create huge annoyances for ourselves.

If you brute-force a translation, "Foolishness and wisdom". Or "Let's fool them all."

But more likely, a national park.

If you brute-force a translation, "Foolishness and wisdom". Or "Let's fool them all."

But more likely, a national park.

According to this: http://marilab.hp.infoseek.co.jp/buildfx/index_en.html I've been using 3.0.2pre since the 4th, which leads me to believe it was released shortly before that day.

May I ask what software used this previously?

My best guess for "first" is SGI's 4dwm window manager, which provided a (relatively powerful) pager app that displayed a "mini view" of the desktops, along with rectangles to scale (no snapshots of window contents, though. I think it gave window titles on mouseover) which you could drag around, etc. I used the SGI workstations back in 2000 or so, and they had already been around for years before that. Scaring up a screenshot of 4dwm itself is a bit tough, I don't think anyone cared about this stuff back then, but here's a shot of "windows like 4dwm" shell for windows that has the pager displayed: http://members.at.infoseek.co.jp/semishigure/images/4dwm.jpg That virtual desktop manager for windows seems to be the one here which was last updated this year, but has links to reviews from 2003/2004. http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/CDE/_MOTIF.GIF shows the "SCO Panner" which operated in a similar fashion.

OK, so the Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam. Which Ministry is in charge of Gundam?

The Ministry of Defense and it's Self Defense Force, of cause. They have displayed Gundam at their air force show in the past. Yes, I do have citation (warning: Japanese page).

Well, that and Gilgamesh Night. (Not work safe).

I used to use Explorer Breadcrumbs, but I have since switched to QTAddressBar, which I think is better (and equally free):

http://quizo.at.infoseek.co.jp/freeware/indexEn.ht ml#qtadr

No offense to the author, but the linked article is barely informative. I don't even know how this made it to the front page. But

the subject is interesting, as there is a bunch of cool freeware software to make XP be like (or even better than) Vista. You

don't need to spend a single dollar. So this is my real list of programs to Pimp your XP:

1. Lauchy: www.launchy.com
Some may say that this is the poor man's QuickSilver. Maybe it is, but in the Windows world there are few programs as useful as

Launchy. Install it and you won't need to access your start menu anymore.

2. Quizo's Explorer toolbars: http://quizo.at.infoseek.co.jp/freeware/indexEn.ht ml
These are 2 free toolbars that make Windows Explorer as good as Directory Opus (IMHO) for free:
* QTTabBar: Adds firefox-style tabs to windows explorer. It also adds a cool incremental search feature, and a customizable

toolbar where you can add folder shortcuts, etc
* QTAddressBar: Explorer breadcrumbs!

3. FileBox eXtender: http://www.hyperionics.com/files/index.asp
This is one of the most useful little pieces of software that I've used. I adds 2 buttons to the title bar of every windows dialog

and of every windows explorer window. One button gives you access to your "favorite folders" (which you can easily change) and the

other one gives you access to your "folder history". With these, going back and forth between folders to open or save files

becomes a snap. The only problem is that the default button icons a kind of ugly, but they can be easily changed.

4. Findexer: http://tomseffect.com/
Substitutes the windows explorer sidebar for a place where you can put links to your preferred folders. If you use FileBox

eXtender (see above) this might not be as useful, but I still like to use it.

5. TaskBar Shuffle: http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.ht m
Another really useful program. With it you can reorder the window buttons in the windows taskbar. It can even automatically group

windows from the same program without collapsing them. You can also reorder the tray icons in the system tray.

6. Free Launch Bar: http://www.freelaunchbar.com/
Make the windows Quick Launch bar much more useful with this free replacement. It adds the ability to have folders inside the

quick launch bar, and have shortcuts within those folders.

7. LClock: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhancements/ Clocks-Time-Management/LClock.shtml
A nice replacement to the windows clock in the system tray. It looks much better and is more useful as it shows a calendar when

you click on it. But the reason I recommend it is that it can also hide or reduce the size of the start menu button! Once you

start using Launchy (see above) you will not use the start menu very often, so I like to recover the taskbar real state that it

uses unnecessarily. To do so, with LClock you can reduce it by substituting the start menu image with a much smaller one.

8. MenuApp: http://www.freewaregenius.com/2006/11/02/menuapp/
Customize the explorer context menu with this tool. It comes with a lot of built-in actions, such as Command Prompt here, Create a

Folder, copy filename to path, etc.

There are other tools that you can use, but which I personally don't (although I've tried or used them in the past):

1. RocketDock: http://www.punksoftware.com/rocketdoc

Strangely compelling indeed. But they didn't have a "cool" mascot list this issue so they put them in the "lame" mascot list... What the fuck is Wired, PC Gamer now?
Click here for more OS-TAN goodness (SFW)
Original Japanese site (some links inside NSFW)

I learned about the modela on this page about a model train.

Here's a 3D miller/scanner being used to build a model steam locomotive.

Elmo (Red): Flights from the UK
Ernie (Orange): All commercial flights
Bert (Yellow): Everything else

Firefox is based on GTK

No, it's based on XUL. This is why it doesn't look like anything else and that's why it is so goddamn difficult to make it look okay: you have to program your own skins, unlike Opera, where it's done with .ini files and PNG images like people are used to since the age of Winamp.

Opera won't fit in on my gnome destop at all.

Shift+F12 -> Appearance -> Skin -> Native. If you want then also a GNOME icon set: http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info /?id=3465

And on windows you get things like this: http://www.opera.com/img/products/desktop/screensh ots/bittorrent.jpg

Switch it off. Good so?

http://noz.hp.infoseek.co.jp/diary/20051122OperaSk in002.png

http://images.google.com/images?q=opera+native+ski n

As soon as I saw the title of this story, I thought "it would be a crime if Guilty Gear wasn't mentioned." Although I can't access the article, it's great to see that this amazing game is getting some mainstream recognition. Guilty Gear XX Slash, the latest installment, is by far my favorite game ever. It's pretty popular in Japan (their arcade scene is orders of magnitude larger than the US's) and has an underground following in the States. In fact, a rather large tournament, Midwest Championships, is being held today.

Here are some links to a couple of videos of obsessed Japanese showing off what the Guilty Gear engine is capable of [Warning: large files! But cool if you like 2d fighters!]:
Sunrise
And two on this page: Lamentation of a Soul and Jam Combos.

You say that VBScript is bad, but please note that the ASP object model is pretty nice, and that you can access it through any ActiveScript language. Windows comes by default with VBScript and JScript, but you can also use PerlScript, ActiveRuby, and Python (with the Win32 extensions). That also means you get to use the libraries of those languages, which are a lot better than what VBScript itself has to offer.

Already done (not work safe): http://ildrag.at.infoseek.co.jp/syosa/syosa_vs_os_ english.html

Before OSX, the mac had the reputation of the machine that crashed all the time.

True. The Japanese-style mascot for OS 9 is a bipolar girl holding a bomb. One minute, all happy, the next, blowing things up

I put stickers and plastic doodads on my Nintendo DS to increase its speed and 802.11b range. It works on cars too!

This seriously riced out link goes out to all the people who don't know what the parent post was talking about.

Ever play with the toys and the toy-related videotapes?

I always wanted the Captain Power ship, but I got stuck with Lord Dread's Interlocker (a blocky VTOL with a huge gun/cockpit for a snout). On the bright side, the Captain Power ships always looked a little difficult to hold.

The cartoons were really only good for the toys, so I got quite good at swinging my toy away from the screen at just the right time. I also managed to hit some of the more difficult shots. (e.g. A tiny sliver of flashing lights.) The toy also worked with the television show, thus explaining why all the bad guys had a flashing chest.

If your score ever reached zero (you started at 5), the cockpit would eject, making a horrible buzzing noise and gracelessly flinging your Captain Power action figure out onto the floor.

Of course, more often than not the character would get stuck in some weird position rather than ejecting. I eventually just popped the character out and played without him. :-)

You have to wonder how many kids had epileptic fits watching those tapes, though!

I've always wondered the same thing. Then again, I've also wondered about players of Yars' Revenge...

Check this video out - solved in 10.95sec

http://www.xpert.co.kr/1enjoy/2game/cube/pds/1095. wmv

Some amusing well-deserved gleeful cackling at the end!

Link posted in the "chatter" section of Macky's page:

http://cubefreak.hp.infoseek.co.jp/

Wonder what happened to that Japanese kid who solved it in 12 seconds in 2003 (2004?) There's a really cool video of it here somewhere. http://cubefreak.hp.infoseek.co.jp/

VMWare Player tools for fun (and profit???)

Blank VMWare disk image
FreeDOS boot/install CD and/or FreeDOS boot floppy image
Daemon Tools (virtual CD drive) and/or Virtual Floppy Drive

I'm in, as long as they've got games with as crazy names as the GP32.

(the link is a screenshot of the title screen of "Dyhard With Infinite Stairs")

Sorry about that, I should have used the preview button!

http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html

Something VERY useful I found for dealing with stupid Windows stuff: http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html
It's a virtual floppy disk drive for Windows so you can take your retarded compressed floppy images (or Ghost's boot disk wizard) and have it go directly to an image file without having to find a working floppy drive and disk.

- RustyTaco

I posted above with my experience flashing a video card bios from a USB disk. The hardest part there was that the distribution wanted to create a bootable floppy, so I couldn't just copy the files onto a flashdisk - I had to find a virtual floppy drive to get the job done.

grub4all and vfd can help you do that. i actually constantly use this for bios updates on my machines

Most Japanese phones already come with a small Java application to turn the phone into a remote control. My old phone had this function, and the new one does too. The application in both phones shows a list of well-known TV/video manufacturers to choose from (I guess each company uses its own IR codes/protocols/whatever). It's not a feature that I use often because I don't watch much TV lately.

In any case, if your phone doesn't come with a remote control applet, you can always download one (links in Japanese).

http://multilockon.hp.infoseek.co.jp/
The "asian" writing is Japanese.

Yum.

With.

How do you like them apples?

WHAT?!! FFXI is even worse in just about every point the grandparent poster mentioned.

1) Vastly more opportunities to develop a character's talent tree post 60.

FFXI: No difference between characters of a given level. About the only thing you can do to be different is to not have a spell. And before you mention subjobs, remember that basically, only one combination will ever work. I can already tell you're planning on saying as much with your "cookie cutter" thing, but please, don't kid yourself: NA players use "cookie cutter setups" because they're all that works.

Yes, you could play a Warrior with a White Mage sub to be a mixed DD/healer. Of course, most people would rather actually get XP, so will instead go with Warrior with Ninja subbed or Thief if they haven't unlocked Ninja yet.

2) A way to 'uber-up' such that if you spend enough time training your character, you could take on 2 or 3 lvl 60s by yourself based on how elite your talents are.

FFXI: You can't take 2 or 3 lvl 60s, because there's no PVP, except for that ball game thing. And as for the merit point thing, it's a complete freaking waste. If you earn 90,000 XP you can get +3 to a stat. This is so little as to be basically worthless. It's "something to do", but only barely. From what I understand, at that point in the game, the most XP you can reasonably hope to get is about 150XP per mob - because there aren't that many mobs that are high enough in level to give large amounts of XP.

3) Better character avatars, more personalization detail, better looking models, clothing, etc.

FFXI: Eight "races" (counting genders, five races total - two only have one sex). Eight heads per race (except for the Taru - both sexs only have four). Two hair styles (Taru have four, they lose four heads to gain additional hair styles).

Since everyone uses the same equipment, and most of the equipment looks the same, basically everyone looks freaking identical to everyone else. Square blames this on the lack of memory in the PS2, so there's probably a valid reason.

In short: FFXI is worse in every regard than FFXI in what the grandparent was talking about. I'm not going to debate the game or which is "better", but come on - there's absolutely no way the grandparent would find FFXI an improvement over WoW in the categories listed.

Actually, the Lexus keys just use a reverse cut. The photo posted is of a blank (uncut) key. Here is a photo of a key that's been cut; note that it has a pattern that can be viewed/impressioned easily. It's still more secure, though, as it's an asymmetrical cut with pins on BOTH sides of the keyway.

Some of the newer Lexus keys do use RFID exclusively for starting the car. The key has a battery in it, and is designed to be queried from a significant distance (several feet), as it does NOT need to be in the ignition to operate. The car also refuses to lock if the key is in the passenger compartment, and the trunk won't close if the key is inside. There's a light on the key that illuminates when it transmits. Based on observation, it looks like the key won't respond unless it's queried directly, so capturing data from one of these keys would involve a small bit of additional complexity. I suspect that the presence of the battery allows much more robust encryption, as well.

Phil

IGN was trying to take a potshot at GameSpot with that statement, for their revealing test that showed that the PSP lasted for as little as 90 minutes when playing Ridge Racers, when in single-player mode only. Playing in multiplayer mode _lessens_ that number.

I agree with you; this is what I'd be using the PSP for, if I bought one - playing games on the go for as long as my trips last. And it seems that the PSP's battery life is just too poor when you're playing the pretty-ish games that people might actually care about, as opposed to "Mahjongg Load Time," "Mahjongg Chest Pain," "Minna no Mahjongg," "Card Game Acid," or any of the other similar PSP gems.

And when the reported failures of the first measly 200,000 units start to surface, you know there's something wrong compared to Nintendo's problem-free DS launch (where they even cut off any doubts of build quality when they preemptively announced their no-tolerance dead-pixel guarantee program).

It could be worse. Here come the Trouble Windows girls

You're thinking of Makoto Shinkai.

"She and Her Cat" was his first award-winning short film. Just featured his animations, he and his wife's voices.

"Voices of a Distant Star" was his second. Same deal on the voices. Some cleanup was done on the animations, but that doesn't change the fact one guy put the film together.

Great films, both. Here's a fan site: http://daike.hp.infoseek.co.jp/

I feel I should also plug Animation:Master (http://www.hash.com/) because those guys are doing everything they can to put a full studio on your computer. I used it all through art school.

A virtual floppy drive for windows. You set it as your A: drive, and run the Maxtor disk tool (or any number of disk creating tools that write to the floppy drive only) and it writes to the virtual floppy drive. Then use that image on a bootable CD. Ta-da!

kuro-box

21st item down the page. (Apparently can't link directly.)

Add HD and you have a NAS. Price of the box is JPY 15,540

Runs Linux, so you can (theoretically) make it serve what you want. Now, if it only had a battery.

More recent polls show a concerned for declining morals in America, and a desire to become more centrist because of it. I see this as good news because it indicates that the country is aware of its own faults.

However, I am unsure of your assertion that these were (not "are". Old poll, you know) American voters. Potential voters yes, but I believe that the small percentage that actually votes typically puts more effort into making a worthwile decision that your typical random poll participant.

Again, when it comes to action we tend to hold people responsible, that's why I suggest that you evaluate the US's impact. The really interesting question is: In the final analysis, has the US's power harmed the world or helped it? Does the US wield that power relatively well?

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if more independent anime starts popping up like Hoshi no Koe which was all done by one man and his Apple. That way the creators reap all the profits from distro and merchandising.

I'd much rather see the VF-1J Valkyrie fly! Seen here towards the bottom. Now _that's_ cool!

Oh wait, I guess it's normal for a F-14 clone to fly... :p