They're not idiots like some asperger syndrome candidates in discussion threads.
Oh snap! Wet cleanup on my keyboard!
Of course, you're right. I'm no USB expert, but IIRC, communication for USB HID (Human Input Devices--mice, keyboards, joysticks...anything you can grab onto to control the computer) is interrupt driven by the device at a certain rate. I believe this is 125 Hz for mice--which would give a latency of 8 milliseconds. I think you'd have to be one exceptional human to notice if the mouse polled more often.
So In effect, if there is a latency problem, it's probably the mouse's' fault, or the OS's fault. In fact, there are programs for windows, which increase the polling of mice with the intent of reducing lag there. I see no reason this device wouldn't work with faster than default mouse polling... But I see no good reason to do that in the first place, because we just don't have the reaction times to take advantage of faster polling... And at any rate if you did do this, the OS is going to eat up more CPU cycles doing polling and an increased rate, so it's probably just as well to leave it alone.
Of course, I hope anyone with more expertise in USB will correct me if I'm wrong.
Cyric I must say that I'm saddened that more people don't have a bit more of the wisdom that you can bring to the table. I really wish more people had a better grip on politics, I think it would go far in keeping asshats out of office.
That said, I'm a conservative person by nature, as you define it... Generally, I don't want to take anyone's rights away, except for when they infringe on others'. I'm all for guns, abortions, euthanasia for people who want it, pot to people who can medically benefit from it, and I wouldn't mind if gays could marry... However, I tend to vote Democrat (though not always) because the party's views and general attitude align relatively well with my own, and of all of the parties that have beliefs that align closely with my own, they actually have a hope of winning an election here and there.
In an attempt to relate the subject such that more geeks understand: Darth Vader would vote Republican and Admiral Ackbar would vote Democrat... In an ideal world, Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi would vote more conservatively, but since the Rebel Alliance (Democrats) actually has a chance of winning, they're grudgingly on that side.:)
You sir, are a genius. I bet you hear it all the time! This has got to be the best invention since, well, whatever Ron Popeil last invented. It's simply outstanding, because not only can you grate your cheese, you can melt it over your tortilla chips at the exhaust side of all of those hard drives. In fact, it may be ideal to have a nacho conveyor that would simply do it all for you!
Yeah can you say, "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome so bad that you wish your hand and forearm would just fall off so the pain would go away"? I'm not one to get such pain even after using the computer all day for work, and then for games, but even after a couple days of playing that game for maybe a couple hours made me realize how bad some people have it day after day... There was a period of about a week that I wished The Texas Chainsaw Massacrer would hunt me down and buzz my arm off at the elbow! Of course, it hit me after I played the game through, and not during... I think the game was designed to teach people just how bad some people have this problem.
It also made me realize that while novel, gesture based commands in games is simply one of the worst ever ideas ever... I mean, it's up in the Worst Ideas of All Time Archive right along side prohibition and Ford Mustangs build on the Pinto platform, eating forbidden fruit and electing anyone with the surname of Bush as president, for god's sake. It's just plain utterly terrible, and anyone thinking of making more gesture games should be arrested and disappeared to gitmo.
Don't talk about Stargate that way, because we WILL find where you live, Mr. Luna69... And it won't be pretty:)
Anyway, who besides an adolescent male appends '69' to their username? Just by that metric I'd say that it's most likely that you were wanking off to that poster of Amanda Tapping on your wall whilst you were writing this little diatribe.
Oh, and the only use BsG*yawn* has is as an intermission between four otherwise excellent hours of television... And it's a good thing, too, otherwise some of us might grow some sort of darkness loving moss on Friday evenings!
Look at the Tatra T77, T87. These cars look like someone on LSD took a VW Beetle, stretched it out, put two extra doors on, put a bigger engine in it, and called it good. It's Drag Coefficient: 0.212, and it looks like a ton could have been done to improve on that! Sure, it's not prettiest of cars, but it certainly was practical and comfortable. It was of steel monocoque design, had a 75HP air cooled V8, and the Germans officers loved it 'cause it would fly on the autobahn--but quite often off the autobahn also!
I mean, Czechs in the middle of WWII built these cars. They didn't have computers, and they tested it in a wind tunnel which was used for the testing of zeppelins. This was a production car built almost 70 years ago, and it quite handily beats the aerodynamics of any production car of today (even the hybrids), save for the EV1--which I won't consider a production model, because it wasn't sold. We should be able to do a bit better I think.
Eh, sorry for being all hostile... It's just that I do know poseurs, and people who buy everything under the sun for the posterity of it, and much to my discontent I *have* to deal with them. Some wouldn't have a problem at all picking up on an Enzo Ferrari, and all would have done so if they had the opportunity... And then they would have parked it, and would have mildly driven it up and down the boulevards surrounding their mansions. It's stupid, and it pisses me off.
You, Enzo and I would have agreed: Fast cars are no good if you never use them as they were intended. He did not like people who bought his cars only because such a thing was a representation of his wealth... Performance cars are meant to perform, and a good place to go about it is on track day... It's great fun, and depending on your location you'll see all kinds of cool cars. Being a member of an owners club also has its benefits, though you'll also run into the kind of people I described.
It's not that the guy with the Jetta wouldn't love a Porsche if it fell into his lap, even if it were an older one... But he's reasonably content with what he has. There's nothing wrong with that. There's a place for slow cars. Some people just know that if they had such a car it would be a problem for them, and most people know they wouldn't want to pay the insurance or fuel bills. I, for one, am glad they recognize this!
And there you have it. Most people are sheep. People on/. are less often sheep than average people. You want to reach for the stars; they're content to graze in the field. Seriously though, beautiful women who ask what car you drive on the first date are evil. Evil! Stay away unless you've got both a strong heart and so much money you warm yourself by burning Benjamin's in the fireplace.. I've seen it happen to too many *good* guys... Sorry for assuming so much and good luck.
...how do you survive in a car with only like 58 horses?
It's not about the size of your engine; it's about how you use it. This is the first lesson in Gear Head 101. I guess you missed that class.
If you're like most of the other people with Porsches and other expensive sports cars that I know, you're about as exciting and adventurous as a stump. You're most likely not a real car guy because you've got to wave around big numbers and down someone about a car that he obviously loves. You're probably just a poseur exploiting a performance car as a beacon that you've style and class, when of couse people with those attributes can get along most anywhere. If you didn't say you had the Porsche 911 Turbo (assuming you're being truthful) I'd have guessed you were probably some random ricer, attempting to compare penis size.
The thing that I most love about your type is that many of you even try conversing with women who know nothing about cars on a date; like that's going to impress woman who's interested in anything besides your bank account. As a rule, my women never, ever, learn about my car fetish until at least the twelfth date. Before that, all they know is that I have an Audi S4... Most people who know Audi love the car, everyone else ignores it. Sports sedans are wonderful!
If you've ever taken your Porsche to a curvy track and lapped it just once, my respect for you instantaneously went up 70%... However, my guess is that you just like to "street race" Hyundai drivers and quietly laugh to yourself how they're pathetic losers, and how you're teh win.
You've obviously got the money so go buy an early 90's non-turbo Jetta diesel. Drive it around for two weeks, learn how much of the world "survives" and earn some humility. I think you'll find it surprisingly survivable.
Yeah, pretty damn good, if you factor in boosting RAM from Apple to 2 gig, and upping the drive to 120G, the MacBook costs $2900, but the Acer gets a 2Ghz CPU, and weighs just a pound more. Roughly the same in every aspect. I have no idea what people would do with all of that power, but it's clear that it's available. Shame it is, that Apple's DVD won't write double layer, though. I think people will have a hard time coughing and grumbling that this Apple product costs more than they can get away with on the PC front. Personally, I think the baseline MacBook is will be a particularly good value. It's just a tad more than my 500Mhz iBook cost when it was released.
Speaking of nerds and their hands, I think I saw one of our nerd bretheren trying to solve an air-rubbic cube. (Imagine an air-guitar, well he had an air-rubbic cube.)
Any chance that he may have been deaf, or possibly of Italian decent and had a bluetooth headset?
Ah, you are correct, sir. I just found it, thanks. It's the Inspiron 9400. I went to dell.com just to poke around (to make sure I wasn't talking out of my ass) because I haven't shopped for notebooks for a couple years, and didn't find it then. Maybe it's because Dells' site makes me want to have an aneurism... Anyway...
Yeah, it's comparable, even price wise. Dell's also ships in February. It looks like a nice piece of kit, with the bigger screen and probably bigger keyboard, which is good for fat fingered dorks like me. It is about 2lbs heavier, and looks to be quite a bit thicker, though... That's okay if it's going to spend most of its time on a desk, I guess. Apple's is dead sexy, however, and seems like it would be more reasonable to use on the road, which is one of my primary concerns.
The one thing that bothers me is that neither manufacturer lists an approximate battery charge life. If the Apple can't hold a charge and the Dell can, then all that saved weight is for naught. Again, thanks for setting me straight. Both look like good products.
Well, sure you could do that, but you should also carry around a rhinoceros because they have the keen sense to detect fire and the ability to stomp out the fires caused by inadvertently placing your AMD laptop on anything flammable (such as one's lap) and since you're carrying a laptop with all of that around, a rhinoceros shouldn't be much more of a burden... And rhinoceroses are less toxic than asbestos, after all.
They'd solve all of those problems with the genetic engineering. Naturally! (Or not, as the case may be.) And besides, our super strong, humanoid, lizard skinned flying clone overlords wouldn't know what it was like to truly be human, and they'd be far too distracted by playing tag with migrating geese to care about bone structures, metabolism, muscles and all that sort of crap.
Have you even seen the specs? Okay, sure, go out and find another dual core laptop with the specs listed on Apple.com. It's officially a challenge. Bonus points if it's 1" thick, weighs around 5.5 lbs, has a built in conferencing camera (that's too cool), bluetooth, up to 256MB of graphics RAM, a wide screen LCD, lighted keyboard, plus all the misc. goodies Apple has thrown in... I don't think there is yet a comparable model anywhere to either model of the MacBook for any price and I don't see there being one for another six months at least.
I've got to say, as a computer geek, the specs are orgasm inspiring, and the price is icing on the cake. I'm no Apple fanboy, I don't always like what they do, I don't like Steve Jobs, but I have used and owned Apple computers... I can say that I do intend on picking one of these up, though. This thing will kick the average desktop's ass. Even if you intended to run only Windows on this, and forego all of the stuff that will work only with OSX, there won't be a better deal out there for quite some time, as I see it.
I think, all other things aside, that it would be a good time to buy Apple shares.
Am I saying I could write a paper off of Wikipedia? No, but when that's all you have to work with, it may be more important than you think.
Of course, the idea of writing an entire college level paper with precisely one source, let alone as few as two or three, no matter how accredited, is idiocy in the first place. It's all about diversity of information, people. Come on!
That said, Wikipedia has its advantages. It's a great place to learn the basics of a topic, and then use that to branch off and further refine your knowledge. It's often good for up to date information, and in the case of writing a paper its often at least as good as other modern media, be they newspapers, magazines, the nightly news. It's also good for an overview of historical and regional events.
Obviously, it's not often (that is to say, ever) going to be the last word in information if you're writing your thesis for a master's degree in Nuclear Engineering. There are better places to look for information related to any such focused field. However, I see nothing wrong with citing Wikipedia directly once or twice in a high school paper, especially if it's crossed referenced with other sources... And I have the feeling most teachers wouldn't have a problem with it either, as the goal of high school papers is often less about the content, and more about the experience of the whole thing.
Copper and Stainless steel? Eek! If they didn't use dielectric fittings between the two, there could have been some problems with galvanic corrosion, basically resulting in a reverse-electroplating effect. Even between different types of stainless steels (with different nickel content) there can be galvanic action, be it ever so subtle. In that case it's not generally considered a big deal, but if one was expecting the device to work for a few thousand years, it's definitely worth consideration:)
If there was more stainless than there was copper, then it was probably the stainless' fault, regardless of what flowed through it. Regular old water would have worked just as well, unless DI was needed for some reason. I've seen well thought out iron boiler systems with the right fittings that had water that was probably fifty years out of the tap, still working fine, no rust beyond the surface.
Absolutely, works fine, even with my 3.0MP P&S camera, so it dosen't require anything fancy. 10pt and up seriff fonts are no problem, though if there was very small text, it might not get that. I need to test it some more. The single most important thing is good light for good contrast, even better if the light isn't aligned very close to the len's axis. Flash tends to wash it out.
Totally, the camera thing is great, and if you need serious quality for a single or very few pages or items, he're the best way: Find a photographer with a 4"x5" camera, or pick up a similar medium format camera with a 50mm lens or so, it's fun anyway. Get your lighting the way it works for you, take the picture, get it developed, and take a negative or slide somewhere where they've got a drum scanner. It's easy, but it might cost ~$60-100 per frame to have it all done. Huge files though.
But it's not abysmal, because that 1.8L 190HP bastard is a high strung engine, it only starts to really work past 6000 RPM up to its redline of ~8300RPM, with max power at 7800 RPM. It's safe to expect that the user will often push it the car into that area, in part because of the weight and gearing. That's what it's for. It's a toy, after all. If one were to be very careful, minding the RPMs, keeping the speed down, and not doing superfluous things like breaking, it could undoubtedly get 40+ MPG... But who's boring enough to do that?
There's a ton of variables to be considered, and besides, comparing one class of car versus another is pretty much senseless. It's really more of a track car that it is a road car, and with the acceleration, top speed and handling, it would be better compared with a Ferrari weighing 1400lbs more with a little more than twice the power output; of course costing 4 times a much. But that aside...
For one, the Lotus (and the Ferrari) has a high compression engine, 11.5:1 compared to probably 8-9:1 for your average minivan--after all, soccer moms don't like to pump premium fuel. Higher compression ratio goes a long way to increase thermal efficiency. If you drove your 200HP 3.2L+ 25-35 MPG minivan / V6/V8 family car to and around redline constantly you'd probably get under 10 MPG, which is probably closer to reality considering that DOT estimations are consistently very, very liberal.
The cars' computers go a long way in determining efficiency also. While the minivan's redline may be around 5000 RPM, it's breathing more air (more air means more fuel), plus the computer is going to be enriching the fuel mixture past stoichiometric a good deal to get the whole thing moving making thermal efficiency even worse. This won't happen on the Toyota engine till it gets over 6,500 RPM. Additionally, most minivans and American cars still aren't using variable valve timing, variable ignition timing and that sort of thing, all of which contribute to making an engine both more efficient at low RPM and have a higher peak power output, if you want it, and when you want it. God I hope I'm not sounding like a Lotus salesman, but I probably am. Goes to show that I love it for what it does.
Motorcycles do give good individual economy as you point out, but factor in how much they weigh, the engine size, and the fact that they only carry one or two people at most... Even a good over the road motorcycle getting 45 MPG is miserable in terms of people moving capacity to the gallon, when compared to the lowly, but well utilized minivan. If we all drove 600cc motorcycles, it would be worse than if we all carpooled.
Anyway, to bring this all together, my point was in my previous post: American manufacturers are very slow to adopt new efficiency improving technologies, and that there's lots of cool stuff to be had in Europe that can't be had here because of crazy safety and environmental laws; and less because of the idea that people don't want smarter cars. They do. There's huge demand, and not just for little cars that go fast. The failing of the big three and the ever increasing popularity of Hondas, Toyotas, and VWs is good proof of this.
Totally agreed. We'd be able to get more cars that are popular in Europe, especially cars from manufactures that can't keep up with the US's inane changes in safety and environmental requirements.
Look at the Lotus Elise. Okay, so it's not an especially economical car, but with its 1.8L engine, and weight just under a ton, it does get pretty good gas mileage--around 25MPG, which is incredible for a sports car. The only problem is that Lotus wasn't able to fully make the feds happy with the Elise, and so it's here on a sort of temporary exemption. The failings, as I understand it, were that it didn't have a traditional bumper, airbags, or ABS (which nobody being a Lotus would want anyway), the headlights somehow didn't comply, and they had a hell of a time with emissions, not because it's somehow singularly responsible for Global Warming, but instead because the entire fuel system needs to be certified by some asinine smog standard, which probably costs many millions of dollars to do and has miniscule effect, if any. So they essentially have to lift the entire engine and fuel from a Toyota MR2, just like Panoz does with Ford's Mustang parts. I'm sure the big boys like the setup--for a nominal cost, they all but eliminate any potential small players in the US market.
What any of that has to do with anything is beyond me, though. It seems like quite a lot of Federal bullshit. The Elise's nose is so low that even if it did have a bumper that fit well into the design, it would still manage to get under the rear end a standard, normal height sedan, let alone a truck! That's why it has good brakes! The structure is sound enough to protect the passengers pretty well in the event of a collision (probably better than every other car of similar size)... So what if the car gets bruised if it's bumped in the parking lot at 5 MPH?! You shouldn't have been run into! The headlamps are probably adequate--I'm sure that European Elise drivers don't feel compelled to go inside when the driving gets dark on account of this. ABS? So what? It's not like anyone is going to be driving this car in a snow storm, and outside of that remote possibility, this car will stop better than 99.5% of the cars out there, wet or dry, even if one is simply to jump on the brake.
I dunno, it seems to me that the US regulations are much more of a moving target than the Europeans', and in a way, that's not fair considering their casualty rate and car related pollution isn't any worse than ours.
Seriously, though, I've seen funeral processions that should have been crimes, and I was stuck behind one today, for almost 30 minutes! It's asinine. I think that sometimes the poor bastard who kicked the bucket wants to punish people who are just trying to get around... And that's why I'm going to offer free food and booze, and maybe a concert or something for any and every moocher who attends my service, which will last approximately one week. I will bring the city to its knees with my cold dead body! MUHAHAHAHAHA!
This is a very good point. Spanish varies as much as English, if not more so, and it sounds like Chileans are the spanish equivalent to the Welsh!
I took four years of Spain-Spanish in highschool, and haven't used it practically in 6 years (since I last visited spain) because everyone who speaks spanish around here are mostly hard to understand Mexicans--no offense to anyone who is Mexican, or hard to understand.:) The dialect is different, and they speak very fast, and seemingly drop ends of words at random.
I was recently on a tour through Venezuela, and I found that not only are people pretty friendly in general, they speak much slower and with better pronounciation than I'm used to hearing. It was suprisingly easy to communicate despite having forgot much of what I previously learned. I'm sure I sound like a 5 year old with a gringo accent, but they still put up with me, and that was nice. It renewed my interest in the language, so hopefully I can visit Peru in the future--and not sound like a moron.
Fixed IP, and allowed to run servers: For the duration that I've been a Comcast customer, my IP has changed once, I think. Not a big deal, if you ask me, because I practically never have the need to call home to my computer. Of course, if I just *had* to access my machines with changing IPs on a regular schedule, for whatever reason, I'd probably use a dynamic DNS service.
When I was in college, I did have static IP on DSL, and I paid $2/month for it. I found it handy occasionally--because I was running mail and a small website off of my Linux box. Now, for my personal pages and pictures, misc. stuff, I have a host for a hundred bucks a year. They give me more data transfer capacity than I'll ever use, more upstream bandwidth than cable or DSL ever would--just incase I ever did use that bandwidth, and a gigabyte of storage, which isn't breath taking but it works. It's much less of a pain in the ass, and I can now access my mail by POP3, IMAP, and webmail. I'll admit, though, it was a good learning experience setting all of the software up and having a functional, personal server.
No data limit: yeah, this is a big one. Maybe some ISPs are more strict with this, still, most provide gobs and gobs of data transfer limits--not enough to run big servers or host an armada of torrents--but plenty for just about anyone. Maybe this would be more of a priority if I were into downloading every game, piece of warez, Brittany MP3 and chunk of porno ever to be uploaded. But, no.
Bandwidth is good, I've got plenty, and DSL was fine for me, too. The one reason I wish I had a dedicated server now, is to host an FPS game or two. Of course, popular servers chew through bandwidth like crazy, it's an expensive proposition. If I had more free time, I'd do it.
Of course, customer service is a priority. In fact, I switched, because QWEST was such a pain in the ass to deal with--they were acting as a DSL conduit to a little ISP a few miles away. I really liked the ISP's service, and they always treated me right. However, QWEST kept billing me monthly for a dead modem that I sent via FEDEX, with a proper RMA number. Every month I'd get the bill, and every month I'd spend three hours on the phone trying to get it sorted out.
After 4 months of this treatment, I canceled, and I STILL kept getting billed for DSL, and that damned modem for some 6 months after that--and I'd call every month and spend three hours on the phone. No bullshit, no hyperbole. I timed it, nearly three hours every time. Every month, they'd bill me and credit me at the same time! With the disconnections that I feel were intentional, the representatives forgetting me, the asking for supervisors, and all of that fun stuff, it really added up. I kept my cool, though, and now I'm free!
Comcast, so far, has treated me well, and the few times that I've had to call, they've been quick and courteous. But that's the one thing that you can't relly judge until you've been a customer a while. I suppose you can do your reasearch, see what other customers have to say, and that's about it.
That's the thing, nobody is ever going to compete with Coke on their own battle ground (including Pepsi), and nobody will ever compete with Budweiser on producing huge amounts of cheap beer. The beauty of it is that you need not try to compete on their level to have a viable business, either!
All you have to do (like it's easy, not) is come up with something that your potential customers see as a superior value, and then get stores to put it on the shelf, and that is likely the hardest part. Budweiser is great to give your buddies while you're watching the Broncos game, but nothing beats having a Fat Tire ale with a steak and potato! Yeah, I hide the good stuff for games:D It's just like how someone looking for a caffiene enriched cola isn't going to look to Coke or Pepsi at the moment--and as long Jolt is markedly superior in value to Coke's offerings, they're still going with Jolt.
The difference is, the differences between these products are very clear and easy to see, and taste. This is not so with internet providers. Most people couldn't care less what provider they have--as long as their email and chat programs work, and that it's quick to browse porn or Ebay--and most importantly, the service is cheap. Oftentimes, even for a geek, it's difficult to see how one more expensive service is worth the extra cost.
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They're not idiots like some asperger syndrome candidates in discussion threads.
Oh snap! Wet cleanup on my keyboard!
Of course, you're right. I'm no USB expert, but IIRC, communication for USB HID (Human Input Devices--mice, keyboards, joysticks...anything you can grab onto to control the computer) is interrupt driven by the device at a certain rate. I believe this is 125 Hz for mice--which would give a latency of 8 milliseconds. I think you'd have to be one exceptional human to notice if the mouse polled more often.
So In effect, if there is a latency problem, it's probably the mouse's' fault, or the OS's fault. In fact, there are programs for windows, which increase the polling of mice with the intent of reducing lag there. I see no reason this device wouldn't work with faster than default mouse polling... But I see no good reason to do that in the first place, because we just don't have the reaction times to take advantage of faster polling... And at any rate if you did do this, the OS is going to eat up more CPU cycles doing polling and an increased rate, so it's probably just as well to leave it alone.
Of course, I hope anyone with more expertise in USB will correct me if I'm wrong.
Cyric I must say that I'm saddened that more people don't have a bit more of the wisdom that you can bring to the table. I really wish more people had a better grip on politics, I think it would go far in keeping asshats out of office.
:)
That said, I'm a conservative person by nature, as you define it... Generally, I don't want to take anyone's rights away, except for when they infringe on others'. I'm all for guns, abortions, euthanasia for people who want it, pot to people who can medically benefit from it, and I wouldn't mind if gays could marry... However, I tend to vote Democrat (though not always) because the party's views and general attitude align relatively well with my own, and of all of the parties that have beliefs that align closely with my own, they actually have a hope of winning an election here and there.
In an attempt to relate the subject such that more geeks understand: Darth Vader would vote Republican and Admiral Ackbar would vote Democrat... In an ideal world, Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi would vote more conservatively, but since the Rebel Alliance (Democrats) actually has a chance of winning, they're grudgingly on that side.
You sir, are a genius. I bet you hear it all the time! This has got to be the best invention since, well, whatever Ron Popeil last invented. It's simply outstanding, because not only can you grate your cheese, you can melt it over your tortilla chips at the exhaust side of all of those hard drives. In fact, it may be ideal to have a nacho conveyor that would simply do it all for you!
ever played Black and White
Yeah can you say, "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome so bad that you wish your hand and forearm would just fall off so the pain would go away"? I'm not one to get such pain even after using the computer all day for work, and then for games, but even after a couple days of playing that game for maybe a couple hours made me realize how bad some people have it day after day... There was a period of about a week that I wished The Texas Chainsaw Massacrer would hunt me down and buzz my arm off at the elbow! Of course, it hit me after I played the game through, and not during... I think the game was designed to teach people just how bad some people have this problem.
It also made me realize that while novel, gesture based commands in games is simply one of the worst ever ideas ever... I mean, it's up in the Worst Ideas of All Time Archive right along side prohibition and Ford Mustangs build on the Pinto platform, eating forbidden fruit and electing anyone with the surname of Bush as president, for god's sake. It's just plain utterly terrible, and anyone thinking of making more gesture games should be arrested and disappeared to gitmo.
Don't talk about Stargate that way, because we WILL find where you live, Mr. Luna69... And it won't be pretty :)
Anyway, who besides an adolescent male appends '69' to their username? Just by that metric I'd say that it's most likely that you were wanking off to that poster of Amanda Tapping on your wall whilst you were writing this little diatribe.
Oh, and the only use BsG*yawn* has is as an intermission between four otherwise excellent hours of television... And it's a good thing, too, otherwise some of us might grow some sort of darkness loving moss on Friday evenings!
Look at the Tatra T77, T87. These cars look like someone on LSD took a VW Beetle, stretched it out, put two extra doors on, put a bigger engine in it, and called it good. It's Drag Coefficient: 0.212, and it looks like a ton could have been done to improve on that! Sure, it's not prettiest of cars, but it certainly was practical and comfortable. It was of steel monocoque design, had a 75HP air cooled V8, and the Germans officers loved it 'cause it would fly on the autobahn--but quite often off the autobahn also!
I mean, Czechs in the middle of WWII built these cars. They didn't have computers, and they tested it in a wind tunnel which was used for the testing of zeppelins. This was a production car built almost 70 years ago, and it quite handily beats the aerodynamics of any production car of today (even the hybrids), save for the EV1--which I won't consider a production model, because it wasn't sold. We should be able to do a bit better I think.
Eh, sorry for being all hostile... It's just that I do know poseurs, and people who buy everything under the sun for the posterity of it, and much to my discontent I *have* to deal with them. Some wouldn't have a problem at all picking up on an Enzo Ferrari, and all would have done so if they had the opportunity... And then they would have parked it, and would have mildly driven it up and down the boulevards surrounding their mansions. It's stupid, and it pisses me off.
/. are less often sheep than average people. You want to reach for the stars; they're content to graze in the field. Seriously though, beautiful women who ask what car you drive on the first date are evil. Evil! Stay away unless you've got both a strong heart and so much money you warm yourself by burning Benjamin's in the fireplace.. I've seen it happen to too many *good* guys... Sorry for assuming so much and good luck.
You, Enzo and I would have agreed: Fast cars are no good if you never use them as they were intended. He did not like people who bought his cars only because such a thing was a representation of his wealth... Performance cars are meant to perform, and a good place to go about it is on track day... It's great fun, and depending on your location you'll see all kinds of cool cars. Being a member of an owners club also has its benefits, though you'll also run into the kind of people I described.
It's not that the guy with the Jetta wouldn't love a Porsche if it fell into his lap, even if it were an older one... But he's reasonably content with what he has. There's nothing wrong with that. There's a place for slow cars. Some people just know that if they had such a car it would be a problem for them, and most people know they wouldn't want to pay the insurance or fuel bills. I, for one, am glad they recognize this!
And there you have it. Most people are sheep. People on
...how do you survive in a car with only like 58 horses?
It's not about the size of your engine; it's about how you use it. This is the first lesson in Gear Head 101. I guess you missed that class.
If you're like most of the other people with Porsches and other expensive sports cars that I know, you're about as exciting and adventurous as a stump. You're most likely not a real car guy because you've got to wave around big numbers and down someone about a car that he obviously loves. You're probably just a poseur exploiting a performance car as a beacon that you've style and class, when of couse people with those attributes can get along most anywhere. If you didn't say you had the Porsche 911 Turbo (assuming you're being truthful) I'd have guessed you were probably some random ricer, attempting to compare penis size.
The thing that I most love about your type is that many of you even try conversing with women who know nothing about cars on a date; like that's going to impress woman who's interested in anything besides your bank account. As a rule, my women never, ever, learn about my car fetish until at least the twelfth date. Before that, all they know is that I have an Audi S4... Most people who know Audi love the car, everyone else ignores it. Sports sedans are wonderful!
If you've ever taken your Porsche to a curvy track and lapped it just once, my respect for you instantaneously went up 70%... However, my guess is that you just like to "street race" Hyundai drivers and quietly laugh to yourself how they're pathetic losers, and how you're teh win.
You've obviously got the money so go buy an early 90's non-turbo Jetta diesel. Drive it around for two weeks, learn how much of the world "survives" and earn some humility. I think you'll find it surprisingly survivable.
Yeah, pretty damn good, if you factor in boosting RAM from Apple to 2 gig, and upping the drive to 120G, the MacBook costs $2900, but the Acer gets a 2Ghz CPU, and weighs just a pound more. Roughly the same in every aspect. I have no idea what people would do with all of that power, but it's clear that it's available. Shame it is, that Apple's DVD won't write double layer, though. I think people will have a hard time coughing and grumbling that this Apple product costs more than they can get away with on the PC front. Personally, I think the baseline MacBook is will be a particularly good value. It's just a tad more than my 500Mhz iBook cost when it was released.
Thanks for the link!
Speaking of nerds and their hands, I think I saw one of our nerd bretheren trying to solve an air-rubbic cube. (Imagine an air-guitar, well he had an air-rubbic cube.)
Any chance that he may have been deaf, or possibly of Italian decent and had a bluetooth headset?
Ah, you are correct, sir. I just found it, thanks. It's the Inspiron 9400. I went to dell.com just to poke around (to make sure I wasn't talking out of my ass) because I haven't shopped for notebooks for a couple years, and didn't find it then. Maybe it's because Dells' site makes me want to have an aneurism... Anyway...
Yeah, it's comparable, even price wise. Dell's also ships in February. It looks like a nice piece of kit, with the bigger screen and probably bigger keyboard, which is good for fat fingered dorks like me. It is about 2lbs heavier, and looks to be quite a bit thicker, though... That's okay if it's going to spend most of its time on a desk, I guess. Apple's is dead sexy, however, and seems like it would be more reasonable to use on the road, which is one of my primary concerns.
The one thing that bothers me is that neither manufacturer lists an approximate battery charge life. If the Apple can't hold a charge and the Dell can, then all that saved weight is for naught. Again, thanks for setting me straight. Both look like good products.
Well, sure you could do that, but you should also carry around a rhinoceros because they have the keen sense to detect fire and the ability to stomp out the fires caused by inadvertently placing your AMD laptop on anything flammable (such as one's lap) and since you're carrying a laptop with all of that around, a rhinoceros shouldn't be much more of a burden... And rhinoceroses are less toxic than asbestos, after all.
They'd solve all of those problems with the genetic engineering. Naturally! (Or not, as the case may be.) And besides, our super strong, humanoid, lizard skinned flying clone overlords wouldn't know what it was like to truly be human, and they'd be far too distracted by playing tag with migrating geese to care about bone structures, metabolism, muscles and all that sort of crap.
Have you even seen the specs? Okay, sure, go out and find another dual core laptop with the specs listed on Apple.com. It's officially a challenge. Bonus points if it's 1" thick, weighs around 5.5 lbs, has a built in conferencing camera (that's too cool), bluetooth, up to 256MB of graphics RAM, a wide screen LCD, lighted keyboard, plus all the misc. goodies Apple has thrown in... I don't think there is yet a comparable model anywhere to either model of the MacBook for any price and I don't see there being one for another six months at least.
I've got to say, as a computer geek, the specs are orgasm inspiring, and the price is icing on the cake. I'm no Apple fanboy, I don't always like what they do, I don't like Steve Jobs, but I have used and owned Apple computers... I can say that I do intend on picking one of these up, though. This thing will kick the average desktop's ass. Even if you intended to run only Windows on this, and forego all of the stuff that will work only with OSX, there won't be a better deal out there for quite some time, as I see it.
I think, all other things aside, that it would be a good time to buy Apple shares.
Am I saying I could write a paper off of Wikipedia? No, but when that's all you have to work with, it may be more important than you think.
Of course, the idea of writing an entire college level paper with precisely one source, let alone as few as two or three, no matter how accredited, is idiocy in the first place. It's all about diversity of information, people. Come on!
That said, Wikipedia has its advantages. It's a great place to learn the basics of a topic, and then use that to branch off and further refine your knowledge. It's often good for up to date information, and in the case of writing a paper its often at least as good as other modern media, be they newspapers, magazines, the nightly news. It's also good for an overview of historical and regional events.
Obviously, it's not often (that is to say, ever) going to be the last word in information if you're writing your thesis for a master's degree in Nuclear Engineering. There are better places to look for information related to any such focused field. However, I see nothing wrong with citing Wikipedia directly once or twice in a high school paper, especially if it's crossed referenced with other sources... And I have the feeling most teachers wouldn't have a problem with it either, as the goal of high school papers is often less about the content, and more about the experience of the whole thing.
Copper and Stainless steel? Eek! If they didn't use dielectric fittings between the two, there could have been some problems with galvanic corrosion, basically resulting in a reverse-electroplating effect. Even between different types of stainless steels (with different nickel content) there can be galvanic action, be it ever so subtle. In that case it's not generally considered a big deal, but if one was expecting the device to work for a few thousand years, it's definitely worth consideration :)
If there was more stainless than there was copper, then it was probably the stainless' fault, regardless of what flowed through it. Regular old water would have worked just as well, unless DI was needed for some reason. I've seen well thought out iron boiler systems with the right fittings that had water that was probably fifty years out of the tap, still working fine, no rust beyond the surface.
Absolutely, works fine, even with my 3.0MP P&S camera, so it dosen't require anything fancy. 10pt and up seriff fonts are no problem, though if there was very small text, it might not get that. I need to test it some more. The single most important thing is good light for good contrast, even better if the light isn't aligned very close to the len's axis. Flash tends to wash it out.
Totally, the camera thing is great, and if you need serious quality for a single or very few pages or items, he're the best way: Find a photographer with a 4"x5" camera, or pick up a similar medium format camera with a 50mm lens or so, it's fun anyway. Get your lighting the way it works for you, take the picture, get it developed, and take a negative or slide somewhere where they've got a drum scanner. It's easy, but it might cost ~$60-100 per frame to have it all done. Huge files though.
But it's not abysmal, because that 1.8L 190HP bastard is a high strung engine, it only starts to really work past 6000 RPM up to its redline of ~8300RPM, with max power at 7800 RPM. It's safe to expect that the user will often push it the car into that area, in part because of the weight and gearing. That's what it's for. It's a toy, after all. If one were to be very careful, minding the RPMs, keeping the speed down, and not doing superfluous things like breaking, it could undoubtedly get 40+ MPG... But who's boring enough to do that?
There's a ton of variables to be considered, and besides, comparing one class of car versus another is pretty much senseless. It's really more of a track car that it is a road car, and with the acceleration, top speed and handling, it would be better compared with a Ferrari weighing 1400lbs more with a little more than twice the power output; of course costing 4 times a much. But that aside...
For one, the Lotus (and the Ferrari) has a high compression engine, 11.5:1 compared to probably 8-9:1 for your average minivan--after all, soccer moms don't like to pump premium fuel. Higher compression ratio goes a long way to increase thermal efficiency. If you drove your 200HP 3.2L+ 25-35 MPG minivan / V6/V8 family car to and around redline constantly you'd probably get under 10 MPG, which is probably closer to reality considering that DOT estimations are consistently very, very liberal.
The cars' computers go a long way in determining efficiency also. While the minivan's redline may be around 5000 RPM, it's breathing more air (more air means more fuel), plus the computer is going to be enriching the fuel mixture past stoichiometric a good deal to get the whole thing moving making thermal efficiency even worse. This won't happen on the Toyota engine till it gets over 6,500 RPM. Additionally, most minivans and American cars still aren't using variable valve timing, variable ignition timing and that sort of thing, all of which contribute to making an engine both more efficient at low RPM and have a higher peak power output, if you want it, and when you want it. God I hope I'm not sounding like a Lotus salesman, but I probably am. Goes to show that I love it for what it does.
Motorcycles do give good individual economy as you point out, but factor in how much they weigh, the engine size, and the fact that they only carry one or two people at most... Even a good over the road motorcycle getting 45 MPG is miserable in terms of people moving capacity to the gallon, when compared to the lowly, but well utilized minivan. If we all drove 600cc motorcycles, it would be worse than if we all carpooled.
Anyway, to bring this all together, my point was in my previous post: American manufacturers are very slow to adopt new efficiency improving technologies, and that there's lots of cool stuff to be had in Europe that can't be had here because of crazy safety and environmental laws; and less because of the idea that people don't want smarter cars. They do. There's huge demand, and not just for little cars that go fast. The failing of the big three and the ever increasing popularity of Hondas, Toyotas, and VWs is good proof of this.
Totally agreed. We'd be able to get more cars that are popular in Europe, especially cars from manufactures that can't keep up with the US's inane changes in safety and environmental requirements.
Look at the Lotus Elise. Okay, so it's not an especially economical car, but with its 1.8L engine, and weight just under a ton, it does get pretty good gas mileage--around 25MPG, which is incredible for a sports car. The only problem is that Lotus wasn't able to fully make the feds happy with the Elise, and so it's here on a sort of temporary exemption. The failings, as I understand it, were that it didn't have a traditional bumper, airbags, or ABS (which nobody being a Lotus would want anyway), the headlights somehow didn't comply, and they had a hell of a time with emissions, not because it's somehow singularly responsible for Global Warming, but instead because the entire fuel system needs to be certified by some asinine smog standard, which probably costs many millions of dollars to do and has miniscule effect, if any. So they essentially have to lift the entire engine and fuel from a Toyota MR2, just like Panoz does with Ford's Mustang parts. I'm sure the big boys like the setup--for a nominal cost, they all but eliminate any potential small players in the US market.
What any of that has to do with anything is beyond me, though. It seems like quite a lot of Federal bullshit. The Elise's nose is so low that even if it did have a bumper that fit well into the design, it would still manage to get under the rear end a standard, normal height sedan, let alone a truck! That's why it has good brakes! The structure is sound enough to protect the passengers pretty well in the event of a collision (probably better than every other car of similar size)... So what if the car gets bruised if it's bumped in the parking lot at 5 MPH?! You shouldn't have been run into! The headlamps are probably adequate--I'm sure that European Elise drivers don't feel compelled to go inside when the driving gets dark on account of this. ABS? So what? It's not like anyone is going to be driving this car in a snow storm, and outside of that remote possibility, this car will stop better than 99.5% of the cars out there, wet or dry, even if one is simply to jump on the brake.
I dunno, it seems to me that the US regulations are much more of a moving target than the Europeans', and in a way, that's not fair considering their casualty rate and car related pollution isn't any worse than ours.
But, Officer, it's just a flash motorcade?!
Seriously, though, I've seen funeral processions that should have been crimes, and I was stuck behind one today, for almost 30 minutes! It's asinine. I think that sometimes the poor bastard who kicked the bucket wants to punish people who are just trying to get around... And that's why I'm going to offer free food and booze, and maybe a concert or something for any and every moocher who attends my service, which will last approximately one week. I will bring the city to its knees with my cold dead body! MUHAHAHAHAHA!
This is a very good point. Spanish varies as much as English, if not more so, and it sounds like Chileans are the spanish equivalent to the Welsh!
:) The dialect is different, and they speak very fast, and seemingly drop ends of words at random.
I took four years of Spain-Spanish in highschool, and haven't used it practically in 6 years (since I last visited spain) because everyone who speaks spanish around here are mostly hard to understand Mexicans--no offense to anyone who is Mexican, or hard to understand.
I was recently on a tour through Venezuela, and I found that not only are people pretty friendly in general, they speak much slower and with better pronounciation than I'm used to hearing. It was suprisingly easy to communicate despite having forgot much of what I previously learned. I'm sure I sound like a 5 year old with a gringo accent, but they still put up with me, and that was nice. It renewed my interest in the language, so hopefully I can visit Peru in the future--and not sound like a moron.
Chévere, amigo!
Fixed IP, and allowed to run servers: For the duration that I've been a Comcast customer, my IP has changed once, I think. Not a big deal, if you ask me, because I practically never have the need to call home to my computer. Of course, if I just *had* to access my machines with changing IPs on a regular schedule, for whatever reason, I'd probably use a dynamic DNS service.
When I was in college, I did have static IP on DSL, and I paid $2/month for it. I found it handy occasionally--because I was running mail and a small website off of my Linux box. Now, for my personal pages and pictures, misc. stuff, I have a host for a hundred bucks a year. They give me more data transfer capacity than I'll ever use, more upstream bandwidth than cable or DSL ever would--just incase I ever did use that bandwidth, and a gigabyte of storage, which isn't breath taking but it works. It's much less of a pain in the ass, and I can now access my mail by POP3, IMAP, and webmail. I'll admit, though, it was a good learning experience setting all of the software up and having a functional, personal server.
No data limit: yeah, this is a big one. Maybe some ISPs are more strict with this, still, most provide gobs and gobs of data transfer limits--not enough to run big servers or host an armada of torrents--but plenty for just about anyone. Maybe this would be more of a priority if I were into downloading every game, piece of warez, Brittany MP3 and chunk of porno ever to be uploaded. But, no.
Bandwidth is good, I've got plenty, and DSL was fine for me, too. The one reason I wish I had a dedicated server now, is to host an FPS game or two. Of course, popular servers chew through bandwidth like crazy, it's an expensive proposition. If I had more free time, I'd do it.
Of course, customer service is a priority. In fact, I switched, because QWEST was such a pain in the ass to deal with--they were acting as a DSL conduit to a little ISP a few miles away. I really liked the ISP's service, and they always treated me right. However, QWEST kept billing me monthly for a dead modem that I sent via FEDEX, with a proper RMA number. Every month I'd get the bill, and every month I'd spend three hours on the phone trying to get it sorted out.
After 4 months of this treatment, I canceled, and I STILL kept getting billed for DSL, and that damned modem for some 6 months after that--and I'd call every month and spend three hours on the phone. No bullshit, no hyperbole. I timed it, nearly three hours every time. Every month, they'd bill me and credit me at the same time! With the disconnections that I feel were intentional, the representatives forgetting me, the asking for supervisors, and all of that fun stuff, it really added up. I kept my cool, though, and now I'm free!
Comcast, so far, has treated me well, and the few times that I've had to call, they've been quick and courteous. But that's the one thing that you can't relly judge until you've been a customer a while. I suppose you can do your reasearch, see what other customers have to say, and that's about it.
That's the thing, nobody is ever going to compete with Coke on their own battle ground (including Pepsi), and nobody will ever compete with Budweiser on producing huge amounts of cheap beer. The beauty of it is that you need not try to compete on their level to have a viable business, either!
:D It's just like how someone looking for a caffiene enriched cola isn't going to look to Coke or Pepsi at the moment--and as long Jolt is markedly superior in value to Coke's offerings, they're still going with Jolt.
All you have to do (like it's easy, not) is come up with something that your potential customers see as a superior value, and then get stores to put it on the shelf, and that is likely the hardest part. Budweiser is great to give your buddies while you're watching the Broncos game, but nothing beats having a Fat Tire ale with a steak and potato! Yeah, I hide the good stuff for games
The difference is, the differences between these products are very clear and easy to see, and taste. This is not so with internet providers. Most people couldn't care less what provider they have--as long as their email and chat programs work, and that it's quick to browse porn or Ebay--and most importantly, the service is cheap. Oftentimes, even for a geek, it's difficult to see how one more expensive service is worth the extra cost.
Sure, Just as long as the business men stop taking his herb!