You just made my day. Tempest 2000 was one of the reasons I loved my Atari Jaguar. I didn't know that it was also released for the Playstation. Now I can still get my fix despite the fact that I don't own my Jaguar anymore. (Sadly, I went through a period where I didn't play console games much and sold my Jaguar.)
If its still hard to see, consider this. Say a car had a problem by which it would be easy to break into even when locked, without any signs of breakin. You would *expect* the manafacture of the car to recall all the cars and fix them. If they didn't then the blame (and possible lawsuits) lie with the manafacture.
Actually, it's a somewhat common problem with a lot of older Toyotas that keys from different cars will open other cars. And I'm honestly not surprised after looking at one of the keys for my '86 Corolla. When the owners gave me the key I thought it wasn't even cut it had worn down so much. But the damn thing still works...
And just WHY should CNN, or any other news service, "push" one product over another? What possible interest could they have?
Well, if anything I would think that they would attempt to push Netscape seeing as they are owned by the same parent company... There could be some incentive there. Although, I do appreciate the fact that they at least seem to be maintaining their objectivity.
It may not be informing anybody here, but it is a good article for those of us trying to initiate changes in internet policy. We can show it to our management as a reason to say "See! This is why we need that proxy server!" or "This is why we should switch to Opera!" or any other change.
I for one... appreciate the ammunition. (Bet you thought I was going to welcome our new browser overlords, didn't you?)
Ironically enough, I was reading this/. article this morning at home before going to work and was thinking about how I hadn't had any issues ripping any of my CDs. It wasn't until I got to work that I found out that one of my own CDs is copy protected.
The CD is Goatwhore's "Funeral Dirge for the Rotting Sun." I'm going to see them tonight and decided I wanted to listen to their music some while at work, and lo and behold Windows Media Player won't recognize it. In fact, when I inserted the CD a box came up telling me that I "Some files need to be updated before you can play this CD," so it appears to be a SunComm style copy protection. (I'm not sure if it is Suncomm's software though.) The funny thing is, I've already ripped the CD. The first thing I do when I buy any CD is rip it to mp3 so that I don't have to go digging for the CD while at home and so I can transfer it to my personal mp3 player. There is, however, a notification on the back of the album art that it is a copy protected CD. Also, like some other CDs mentioned in other posts there is no CD Audio logo on the album cover or the CD itself. (It is, however, stamped on the inside of the jewel case.) However, that does not necessarily mean anything either. A quick look at my most recent CD purchase (Auf der Maur's self titled album) and it appears to be a standard CD, but the CD Audio logo is nowhere to be found.
Anyway, if it were any band other than Goatwhore, I would immediately take the CD back. Unfortunately, in this case that goes against my beliefs in supporting local bands. Hell, I work with a family member of the band and I know one of the sound engineers who worked on the CD.
...Maybe I can use those connections to educate the band that some people may not buy their CD due to the copy protection...
The biggest problem that I've seen so far with mail on my phone is that it limits the size of the messages. Then you add in the fact that it takes forever, even with predictive text input, to type a message and it starts to become less useful.
I will admit that I was considering a PDA/phone for a bit recently, but I decided that the extra bulk wasn't worth the addition of a PDA... and then I realized that all I really need is simply, just-a-phone. If I want any of the other features I'll just get a PDA that can use my phone as a modem. I think what it boils down to for me is that when I'm out and away from home I just don't want any of those extras with me, and if I do I can bring only the device I need for that added functionality. I.E. bring Nomad IIc when I want mp3s, Canon SD100 when I want pictures, and my laptop for many of the other features.
I guess it just boils down to what your needs and wants are. Personally, I prefer discrete devices for specific functions, and really wish that I could just get a really small phone without a whole bunch of features other than those that I mentioned.
Then you think that there is no need for a mobile where you can install third-party software?
As a matter of fact, I do. As the parent poster put it, "It's a PHONE, dammit!" Not all of us want a super-convergence device that allows us to play games, send email, calculate our taxes, photograph our pets, etc. Believe it or not, some of us just want a damn phone and that's it.
Personally, I expect my phone to be an appliance and I treat it as such. When I look for a phone, I only look at a few things: 1)battery life, 2)size, 3)silent ringer, 4)what kind of signal does it get, and 5)can it do SMS (the only phone luxury I rely on)? I could give a rat's ass whether or not I can install that really cool new puzzle game all my friends are playing, and all of the functions can be provided from the manufacturer. I just want to make and receive calls anywhere, anytime. It's a PHONE.
have more or less relegated college to a chore at this point. I have a little less than 2 years left and I am taking some time off from it and working in my field. I am so much more successful in work environments that it is my sincere hope I won't ever have to go back. Basically college sucks IMHO. Aside from a handful of schools with extremely competitive admissions you are going to be surrounded by complete idiots. After a year you will stop wondering why everyone gets drunk, high, stoned, coked out of their mind every weekend because you will probably be doing it yourself.
I can't say that I really enjoyed college all that much, but I do have to disagree about the comment regarding idiots. Maybe I was lucky and I just knew a lot of smart people, but the one thing that surprised me the most when I went to college was the sheer number of people there just as smart as I was. I was a lot like the poster in high school (in fact, I test as an INTP), probably smarter than most of the people I graduated with yet I cared so little that my GPA was only 3.6 or 3.7. (Despite having the singular distinction of taking more AP classes than anybody else I graduated with.) Frankly, it was a kind of a slap in the face when I got to college and realized that I might actually have to do some work if I wanted to compete academically.
I have to disgree, however, that attending college is an entirely useless enterprise. Many employers won't even look at you if you don't have a college degree. Maybe it's true that, once you're in the field for a few years and have gained some experience, then you will find it easier to get jobs, but then you also run into some problems where some companies will refuse to promote people past a certain point if they don't have a college education. It may not be fair, but it happens.
I'm not entirely certain that my college lived up to my expectations of what a place of higher learning should be, but I am still glad that I went. Don't look at college from the perspective that it will be giving you everything you need to be successful for the rest of your life. It won't. Just look at it as a means to help you get farther in life. Put in your time, and get your degree. Employers like to see qualifications such as college degrees. It makes them feel more confident that you will be able to do the job.
Lastly, and I hate to sound so trite here, but you will grow more as a person while at college. Especially if you go away from home so that you are somewhat on your own and don't have your parents to use as a safety net. While at college you will grow and mature and learn a lot more about working with the different kinds of people that you meet out in the "real world."
Well, as far as I know, the movement of the Huey P isn't quite as bad as the Galloping Girdy, but it can still be a little scary from what I hear. Although, even in moving traffic the bridge is still no picnic. There's actually one spot when going easbound where the lanes suddenly shift left about a foot or so, my guess is from some kind of miscalculation when building the bridge. And this is with 10 foot wide lanes. I've travelled on very few roads that narrow, let alone bridges. In fact, for the longest time after moving down here I wouldn't even drive over the bridge, but I would instead go out of my way to take the Crescent City Connecion since it was so much nicer.
In fact, I can't think of a single bridge that I hate to drive over more than the Huey P.
These are good points, and I'll give you a cookie for them, but truly, what's the difference between watching Law and Order for free (a la rabbit ears), or Law and Order in Digitallifantastic Vision?
Well, eventually the government wants all people to watch Law and Order in Digitallifantastic Vision. It may be free, but it will still be digital and will necessitate the purchasing of a new TV and/or Decoder box complete with SuperHappyFunDRM!
If he's anything like most people who want to lose weight, no. No he couldn't. Why not? Because chances are he doesn't like exercise for the sake of weight loss. Evidently he does like exercise for the sake of video games, which is what makes the weight loss work.
He just needs to think of it as exercise for the sake of sex. Best comment overheard from some friends after jogging: Friend 1: This is so much work. Why do we do this to ourselves? Friend 2: Becuase we want to get laid.
A couple of summers ago I "mysteriously" started losing weight. I actually lost quite a bit, and it was probably the most I'd lost since being diagnosed with pre-diabetes. But I was never able to figure out why. I wasn't really getting much exercise. I had to walk up a pretty steep hill to go to work every morning, but once I was there I pretty much sat in my office most of the day.
In retrospect, though, here's what I've noticed is different between then and now: - Drank much less Diet Coke during the day and much more water. - Ate on a very regular schedule. Breakfast and lunch were almost always at the same time with dinner only varying through a 2 hour or so time period. - Ate smaller portions, although much of that may be related to eating on a regular schedule. It is known that people with blood sugar diseases are more likely to overeat when they don't eat on a regular schedule. - Had a fairly active social life, but no exercise really. - Didn't snack except for when my blood sugar was low.
But my problem now is that I look at those facts and I have a hard time seeing just how that caused me to lose weight. Mostly because I can't seem to replicate those results, even during a 3 month period where I was running again. Being overweight sucks, but these days, despite being fairly active at my job, I'm having a hard time not being overweight....And to move the thread slightly more ontopic with a comment about DDR... I have one comment to make about DDR itself: "Living in an apartment sucks." I used to enjoy DDR (I sucked, but I enjoyed it), but myself and all of my friends all live above other people these days.
Rather than a big car and a small car I have a car and a motorcycle. Use the bike to commute, swish through traffic and use the car for carrying stuff and longer ranges.
Motorcycles are fine, but to my knowledge, very few states allow you to cut lanes on a motorcycle which kind of limits some of the motorcycle's usefulness. Furthermore, many drivers here are just bad. They are rude, inattentive, won't allow room for merging, and I can go entire days without seeing a single turn signal. I'm sure it's a little different in other areas of the US, but I would be more than a little scared to ride a motorcycle around here. If the drivers around here weren't so bad, I probably would have bought a motorcycle instead of a car last week and put the extra money into my project car to drive when the weather's not so good.
From what I understand, driving conditions are much better than this in many places in Europe (Germany especially).
Actually a worse problem is having a host of different applications with their own seperate password policies and different password change intervals, and most of which track at least your last 3 passwords. When you have, say, 8 or 9 different appliations like this, it becomes very hard to remember all of your passwords.
And the apps that I dislike the most are those that don't allow special characters as I generally like to come up with passwords that use them. That will defeat a lot of the brute force/dictionary attacks. (1337-speak being a possible exception.)
Actually, this could be useful for some of the dedicated eBook readers. I personally have the Rocket eBook reader (it's been in a box for the last 2 years, but I still have it), and their software allows you to convert HTML to their eBook format. This is much more convenient due to the Table of Contents markup and (typically) non-fixed width text formatting. Without those two features, reading an eBook on the thing becomes much, much harder. Otherwise, tou have to do a text search for chapter titles and you have to deal with the fact that since some of the texts have hard page breaks, then when they are reformatted to fit the screen, 1 line in the text file may end halfway on line 2 on the eBook screen.
I say congrats to PG for making their content much easier to use.
Again, what's the deal with Microsoft and huge buttons and icons? Are they trying to cater to the bad eyesight but too cool to wear glasses crowd?
Agreed. I keep asking myself that same question every time I see screenshots of Longhorn. I look at Aero and think, "Wow, that sure is pretty, but look at all of that desktop space that is wasted with the bells and whistles." I'm the guy who still has to switch to classic menus on XP whenever I use a machine. I find that even Luna is harder for me to use than the 2000 interface. But I guess that I'm not the kind of person whom Aero and Luna are targetted at.
Call #1 I made the mistake of telling the guy that I had a Mac. So, I get transferred to their Macintosh help department, and get some guy in India who can barely speak English and assumes I have a bad modem. Of course, he can't solve the problem and has to give me a different number to call the next day (not that I'm going to, because I know it's not the modem -- I've tried it at my office and it worked fine).
I actually had a problem with my cable modem where, despite the fact that it worked fine elsewhere, it would not work correctly in my apartment.
When my roommate and I moved in we bought the same model and revision Linksys cable modem that a friend of mine already on cable internet had been using for well over a year... and we had all sorts of problems over the first month and a half. I don't remember the particulars but they tried replacing the filter outside, replacing the splitters (apparently not rated at the correct frequency, although the first two moron techs didn't catch this), and they even went so far as to run new cable to the modem. And we still had problems. We even took the modem over to my friend's house just to verify that it would work over there, and it did. It just had issues at our apartment.
Finally, the last time the tech came out he brought a "test modem", really just the modem that I later found out they should have given me for free when I signed up, but the first guy was a moron. He plugged it in, said they'd monitor it for a few weeks and if we didn't have any issues, they'd come back to pick it up. That was about 9 months ago. I keep wondering when they're going to come pick it up.:)
As an epilogue, my friend's cable modem sustained some sort of damage attributed to copious ammounts of alcohol. While he went throught he process of getting a new modem he borrowed our "broken" Linksys modem, and used it for two straight months with no issues until he finally got a new modem of his own. No idea why the modem won't work at our place, but I'm not complaining since our test modem has been working fine all this time.
Nah, my paranoid ass would keep regular tabs on the processes running on my machine. That and occasionally running McAfee's Stinger application to make sure I was safe, meant that I never had any viruses.
Hell, when I did get one, I picked it up immediately by how my machine seemed to be running slower, so I checked the process list and sure enough, there was something running that shouldn't have been... Yeah, I'm paranoid.
Try telling that to an end user. They don't want to be bothered with that. And also, people forget to do things sometimes. And the one time you forget, you'll get infected.
I ran my computers without virus software for several years without any problems, and it wasn't until I started user virus software again (crappy McAfee Home edition that came with my computer) that I finally got infected with a virus. The problem? I had forgotten that I'd turned my virus software off while trying to troubleshoot the installation of a game. So, later when I downloaded that possibly infected software and ran it, I forgot that I never reloaded my virus software and was infected immediately. I think that in total, I lost about 3GB of data that were infected with the virus. Whoops!
I always found it ironic that I never got a virus until I started using virus software again.
See, right there lies one of the problems that I have with christianity. Does the Bible not also teach forgivness? Personally, I know that I myself tend to lead a "better" life than many of the so-called Christians that I know. I'm not perfect by any means, and I know there are many people out there who are "better" than me, but I always strive to do right by others.
I can't rightly believe in any god who demands your worship in order to be rewarded in the afterlife, and yet whose son also preaches forgiveness among your fellow men in God's name. If God himself cannot forgive those people whom did not have faith and yet still lived "good" lives, and allow them into heaven, then why should such a duplicitous being be worthy of worship? That's not a god. That's merely a being with more power than us. The being may have enough power to seem like a god, but that doesn't necessarily make the being a "superior being" that is worthy of worship.
And before anybody asks, I have not read the Bible in a very long time. Not since giving up religion for Lent over a decade ago.
The problem seems to be that driving a smaller, more fuel efficient car seems to be against the American way. I think a lot of it has to do with the fals sense of security that's gained from driving a larger vehicle. Nevertheless, it almost seems that we Americans have it ingrained in us at an early age that it is our right to drive a large vehicle.
As for the power issue, it's never about how much power we need, but it's about how much power we want. Simply put, it's nice to have that extra power, even if we'll never need it.
That said, I'm actually going to go sign a contract on a 2003 Civic tomorrow. I need a new car, and unlike a lot of people, I see nothing wrong with buying a smaller, more fuel efficient car for my daily driver. It will get me from point A to point B and has the plus of being easier to merge on the freeway, handling better due to it's lower weight (and a stiffer suspension than my Oldsmobile), and it's much easier to park when I go downtown. It may not have a ton of power, but I'll own one of those as a non-daily driver soon enough.
As an aside, I was looking into the hybrid transmissions and from what I could tell... I was wrong, the Honda Insight was manual-only, but the newer hybrids sometimes sell with the choice of an automatic or continuously variable transmission... oddly, the fancy transmission hurts highway fuel efficiency, but it helps in the city.
I believe that the CVT is less economical on the freeway due to a higher final gear ratio. This basically means that when crusing on a highway, to maintain the same road speed as the other transmissions the engine actually has to spin at a higher engine speed to keep up, thereby hurting highway efficiency some. But the CVT helps immensely in the city since the transmission is, theoretically anyway, always able to choose the optimum gear ratio to maximize fuel efficiency at any road speed.
Of course I may be completely wrong about the freeway consumption as I havne't actually taken the time to look up the final gear ratio for each transmission offered.
A fairly typical family-car has 120ps and a 1.6 litre engine.
Although it becomes plainly obvious from the rest of your post, I was about to ask you what country you were from -- implying that you're not from the US. I would think that over here a fairly typical family car probably makes 40 - 60 HP more and with an engine at least 1.0 litres greater. For comparison, my 1995 Oldsmobile has a 3.1 litre engine and makes about 160hp, and that is a very typical family car around here. (W-body GM car, so Grand Prix, Lumina, Impala, Monte Carlo, and Regal are/were all built on the same platform with 3.1 engine being the base engine for the W-Body, and all are very common cars near me.)
I just thought it was funny at first when I thought you were talking about American cars.
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Sweeet! Thanks a bunch. Now, I just have to go about finding it. eBay only seems to have the Jaguar and PC versions...
Thanks again.
You just made my day. Tempest 2000 was one of the reasons I loved my Atari Jaguar. I didn't know that it was also released for the Playstation. Now I can still get my fix despite the fact that I don't own my Jaguar anymore. (Sadly, I went through a period where I didn't play console games much and sold my Jaguar.)
If its still hard to see, consider this.
Say a car had a problem by which it would be easy to break into even when locked, without any signs of breakin. You would *expect* the manafacture of the car to recall all the cars and fix them. If they didn't then the blame (and possible lawsuits) lie with the manafacture.
Actually, it's a somewhat common problem with a lot of older Toyotas that keys from different cars will open other cars. And I'm honestly not surprised after looking at one of the keys for my '86 Corolla. When the owners gave me the key I thought it wasn't even cut it had worn down so much. But the damn thing still works...
And just WHY should CNN, or any other news service, "push" one product over another? What possible interest could they have?
Well, if anything I would think that they would attempt to push Netscape seeing as they are owned by the same parent company... There could be some incentive there. Although, I do appreciate the fact that they at least seem to be maintaining their objectivity.
It may not be informing anybody here, but it is a good article for those of us trying to initiate changes in internet policy. We can show it to our management as a reason to say "See! This is why we need that proxy server!" or "This is why we should switch to Opera!" or any other change.
I for one... appreciate the ammunition. (Bet you thought I was going to welcome our new browser overlords, didn't you?)
Ironically enough, I was reading this /. article this morning at home before going to work and was thinking about how I hadn't had any issues ripping any of my CDs. It wasn't until I got to work that I found out that one of my own CDs is copy protected.
The CD is Goatwhore's "Funeral Dirge for the Rotting Sun." I'm going to see them tonight and decided I wanted to listen to their music some while at work, and lo and behold Windows Media Player won't recognize it. In fact, when I inserted the CD a box came up telling me that I "Some files need to be updated before you can play this CD," so it appears to be a SunComm style copy protection. (I'm not sure if it is Suncomm's software though.) The funny thing is, I've already ripped the CD. The first thing I do when I buy any CD is rip it to mp3 so that I don't have to go digging for the CD while at home and so I can transfer it to my personal mp3 player. There is, however, a notification on the back of the album art that it is a copy protected CD. Also, like some other CDs mentioned in other posts there is no CD Audio logo on the album cover or the CD itself. (It is, however, stamped on the inside of the jewel case.) However, that does not necessarily mean anything either. A quick look at my most recent CD purchase (Auf der Maur's self titled album) and it appears to be a standard CD, but the CD Audio logo is nowhere to be found.
Anyway, if it were any band other than Goatwhore, I would immediately take the CD back. Unfortunately, in this case that goes against my beliefs in supporting local bands. Hell, I work with a family member of the band and I know one of the sound engineers who worked on the CD.
...Maybe I can use those connections to educate the band that some people may not buy their CD due to the copy protection...
The biggest problem that I've seen so far with mail on my phone is that it limits the size of the messages. Then you add in the fact that it takes forever, even with predictive text input, to type a message and it starts to become less useful.
I will admit that I was considering a PDA/phone for a bit recently, but I decided that the extra bulk wasn't worth the addition of a PDA... and then I realized that all I really need is simply, just-a-phone. If I want any of the other features I'll just get a PDA that can use my phone as a modem. I think what it boils down to for me is that when I'm out and away from home I just don't want any of those extras with me, and if I do I can bring only the device I need for that added functionality. I.E. bring Nomad IIc when I want mp3s, Canon SD100 when I want pictures, and my laptop for many of the other features.
I guess it just boils down to what your needs and wants are. Personally, I prefer discrete devices for specific functions, and really wish that I could just get a really small phone without a whole bunch of features other than those that I mentioned.
Like this one here: http://reviews.cnet.com/Siemens_SL56/4505-6454_7-2 1008701.html. Too bad I'm switching to Sprint in the near future and they don't have anything like it. That is probably the first cell phone that I've actually lusted after.
Then you think that there is no need for a mobile where you can install third-party software?
As a matter of fact, I do. As the parent poster put it, "It's a PHONE, dammit!" Not all of us want a super-convergence device that allows us to play games, send email, calculate our taxes, photograph our pets, etc. Believe it or not, some of us just want a damn phone and that's it.
Personally, I expect my phone to be an appliance and I treat it as such. When I look for a phone, I only look at a few things: 1)battery life, 2)size, 3)silent ringer, 4)what kind of signal does it get, and 5)can it do SMS (the only phone luxury I rely on)? I could give a rat's ass whether or not I can install that really cool new puzzle game all my friends are playing, and all of the functions can be provided from the manufacturer. I just want to make and receive calls anywhere, anytime. It's a PHONE .
have more or less relegated college to a chore at this point. I have a little less than 2 years left and I am taking some time off from it and working in my field. I am so much more successful in work environments that it is my sincere hope I won't ever have to go back. Basically college sucks IMHO. Aside from a handful of schools with extremely competitive admissions you are going to be surrounded by complete idiots. After a year you will stop wondering why everyone gets drunk, high, stoned, coked out of their mind every weekend because you will probably be doing it yourself.
I can't say that I really enjoyed college all that much, but I do have to disagree about the comment regarding idiots. Maybe I was lucky and I just knew a lot of smart people, but the one thing that surprised me the most when I went to college was the sheer number of people there just as smart as I was. I was a lot like the poster in high school (in fact, I test as an INTP), probably smarter than most of the people I graduated with yet I cared so little that my GPA was only 3.6 or 3.7. (Despite having the singular distinction of taking more AP classes than anybody else I graduated with.) Frankly, it was a kind of a slap in the face when I got to college and realized that I might actually have to do some work if I wanted to compete academically.
I have to disgree, however, that attending college is an entirely useless enterprise. Many employers won't even look at you if you don't have a college degree. Maybe it's true that, once you're in the field for a few years and have gained some experience, then you will find it easier to get jobs, but then you also run into some problems where some companies will refuse to promote people past a certain point if they don't have a college education. It may not be fair, but it happens.
I'm not entirely certain that my college lived up to my expectations of what a place of higher learning should be, but I am still glad that I went. Don't look at college from the perspective that it will be giving you everything you need to be successful for the rest of your life. It won't. Just look at it as a means to help you get farther in life. Put in your time, and get your degree. Employers like to see qualifications such as college degrees. It makes them feel more confident that you will be able to do the job.
Lastly, and I hate to sound so trite here, but you will grow more as a person while at college. Especially if you go away from home so that you are somewhat on your own and don't have your parents to use as a safety net. While at college you will grow and mature and learn a lot more about working with the different kinds of people that you meet out in the "real world."
Well, as far as I know, the movement of the Huey P isn't quite as bad as the Galloping Girdy, but it can still be a little scary from what I hear. Although, even in moving traffic the bridge is still no picnic. There's actually one spot when going easbound where the lanes suddenly shift left about a foot or so, my guess is from some kind of miscalculation when building the bridge. And this is with 10 foot wide lanes. I've travelled on very few roads that narrow, let alone bridges. In fact, for the longest time after moving down here I wouldn't even drive over the bridge, but I would instead go out of my way to take the Crescent City Connecion since it was so much nicer.
In fact, I can't think of a single bridge that I hate to drive over more than the Huey P.
The only thing I really learned from Oregon Trail was the cost benefit of a nudist society.
Oh yeah, and how you can go almost any distance with a wagon full of bullets.
These are good points, and I'll give you a cookie for them, but truly, what's the difference between watching Law and Order for free (a la rabbit ears), or Law and Order in Digitallifantastic Vision?
Well, eventually the government wants all people to watch Law and Order in Digitallifantastic Vision. It may be free, but it will still be digital and will necessitate the purchasing of a new TV and/or Decoder box complete with SuperHappyFunDRM!
If he's anything like most people who want to lose weight, no. No he couldn't. Why not? Because chances are he doesn't like exercise for the sake of weight loss. Evidently he does like exercise for the sake of video games, which is what makes the weight loss work.
He just needs to think of it as exercise for the sake of sex. Best comment overheard from some friends after jogging:
Friend 1: This is so much work. Why do we do this to ourselves?
Friend 2: Becuase we want to get laid.
A couple of summers ago I "mysteriously" started losing weight. I actually lost quite a bit, and it was probably the most I'd lost since being diagnosed with pre-diabetes. But I was never able to figure out why. I wasn't really getting much exercise. I had to walk up a pretty steep hill to go to work every morning, but once I was there I pretty much sat in my office most of the day.
...And to move the thread slightly more ontopic with a comment about DDR... I have one comment to make about DDR itself: "Living in an apartment sucks." I used to enjoy DDR (I sucked, but I enjoyed it), but myself and all of my friends all live above other people these days.
In retrospect, though, here's what I've noticed is different between then and now:
- Drank much less Diet Coke during the day and much more water.
- Ate on a very regular schedule. Breakfast and lunch were almost always at the same time with dinner only varying through a 2 hour or so time period.
- Ate smaller portions, although much of that may be related to eating on a regular schedule. It is known that people with blood sugar diseases are more likely to overeat when they don't eat on a regular schedule.
- Had a fairly active social life, but no exercise really.
- Didn't snack except for when my blood sugar was low.
But my problem now is that I look at those facts and I have a hard time seeing just how that caused me to lose weight. Mostly because I can't seem to replicate those results, even during a 3 month period where I was running again. Being overweight sucks, but these days, despite being fairly active at my job, I'm having a hard time not being overweight.
Rather than a big car and a small car I have a car and a motorcycle. Use the bike to commute, swish through traffic and use the car for carrying stuff and longer ranges.
Motorcycles are fine, but to my knowledge, very few states allow you to cut lanes on a motorcycle which kind of limits some of the motorcycle's usefulness. Furthermore, many drivers here are just bad. They are rude, inattentive, won't allow room for merging, and I can go entire days without seeing a single turn signal. I'm sure it's a little different in other areas of the US, but I would be more than a little scared to ride a motorcycle around here. If the drivers around here weren't so bad, I probably would have bought a motorcycle instead of a car last week and put the extra money into my project car to drive when the weather's not so good.
From what I understand, driving conditions are much better than this in many places in Europe (Germany especially).
Actually a worse problem is having a host of different applications with their own seperate password policies and different password change intervals, and most of which track at least your last 3 passwords. When you have, say, 8 or 9 different appliations like this, it becomes very hard to remember all of your passwords.
And the apps that I dislike the most are those that don't allow special characters as I generally like to come up with passwords that use them. That will defeat a lot of the brute force/dictionary attacks. (1337-speak being a possible exception.)
Actually, this could be useful for some of the dedicated eBook readers. I personally have the Rocket eBook reader (it's been in a box for the last 2 years, but I still have it), and their software allows you to convert HTML to their eBook format. This is much more convenient due to the Table of Contents markup and (typically) non-fixed width text formatting. Without those two features, reading an eBook on the thing becomes much, much harder. Otherwise, tou have to do a text search for chapter titles and you have to deal with the fact that since some of the texts have hard page breaks, then when they are reformatted to fit the screen, 1 line in the text file may end halfway on line 2 on the eBook screen.
I say congrats to PG for making their content much easier to use.
Again, what's the deal with Microsoft and huge buttons and icons? Are they trying to cater to the bad eyesight but too cool to wear glasses crowd?
Agreed. I keep asking myself that same question every time I see screenshots of Longhorn. I look at Aero and think, "Wow, that sure is pretty, but look at all of that desktop space that is wasted with the bells and whistles." I'm the guy who still has to switch to classic menus on XP whenever I use a machine. I find that even Luna is harder for me to use than the 2000 interface. But I guess that I'm not the kind of person whom Aero and Luna are targetted at.
Call #1 I made the mistake of telling the guy that I had a Mac. So, I get transferred to their Macintosh help department, and get some guy in India who can barely speak English and assumes I have a bad modem. Of course, he can't solve the problem and has to give me a different number to call the next day (not that I'm going to, because I know it's not the modem -- I've tried it at my office and it worked fine).
:)
I actually had a problem with my cable modem where, despite the fact that it worked fine elsewhere, it would not work correctly in my apartment.
When my roommate and I moved in we bought the same model and revision Linksys cable modem that a friend of mine already on cable internet had been using for well over a year... and we had all sorts of problems over the first month and a half. I don't remember the particulars but they tried replacing the filter outside, replacing the splitters (apparently not rated at the correct frequency, although the first two moron techs didn't catch this), and they even went so far as to run new cable to the modem. And we still had problems. We even took the modem over to my friend's house just to verify that it would work over there, and it did. It just had issues at our apartment.
Finally, the last time the tech came out he brought a "test modem", really just the modem that I later found out they should have given me for free when I signed up, but the first guy was a moron. He plugged it in, said they'd monitor it for a few weeks and if we didn't have any issues, they'd come back to pick it up. That was about 9 months ago. I keep wondering when they're going to come pick it up.
As an epilogue, my friend's cable modem sustained some sort of damage attributed to copious ammounts of alcohol. While he went throught he process of getting a new modem he borrowed our "broken" Linksys modem, and used it for two straight months with no issues until he finally got a new modem of his own. No idea why the modem won't work at our place, but I'm not complaining since our test modem has been working fine all this time.
Nah, my paranoid ass would keep regular tabs on the processes running on my machine. That and occasionally running McAfee's Stinger application to make sure I was safe, meant that I never had any viruses.
Hell, when I did get one, I picked it up immediately by how my machine seemed to be running slower, so I checked the process list and sure enough, there was something running that shouldn't have been... Yeah, I'm paranoid.
Try telling that to an end user. They don't want to be bothered with that. And also, people forget to do things sometimes. And the one time you forget, you'll get infected.
I ran my computers without virus software for several years without any problems, and it wasn't until I started user virus software again (crappy McAfee Home edition that came with my computer) that I finally got infected with a virus. The problem? I had forgotten that I'd turned my virus software off while trying to troubleshoot the installation of a game. So, later when I downloaded that possibly infected software and ran it, I forgot that I never reloaded my virus software and was infected immediately. I think that in total, I lost about 3GB of data that were infected with the virus. Whoops!
I always found it ironic that I never got a virus until I started using virus software again.
See, right there lies one of the problems that I have with christianity. Does the Bible not also teach forgivness? Personally, I know that I myself tend to lead a "better" life than many of the so-called Christians that I know. I'm not perfect by any means, and I know there are many people out there who are "better" than me, but I always strive to do right by others.
I can't rightly believe in any god who demands your worship in order to be rewarded in the afterlife, and yet whose son also preaches forgiveness among your fellow men in God's name. If God himself cannot forgive those people whom did not have faith and yet still lived "good" lives, and allow them into heaven, then why should such a duplicitous being be worthy of worship? That's not a god. That's merely a being with more power than us. The being may have enough power to seem like a god, but that doesn't necessarily make the being a "superior being" that is worthy of worship.
And before anybody asks, I have not read the Bible in a very long time. Not since giving up religion for Lent over a decade ago.
The problem seems to be that driving a smaller, more fuel efficient car seems to be against the American way. I think a lot of it has to do with the fals sense of security that's gained from driving a larger vehicle. Nevertheless, it almost seems that we Americans have it ingrained in us at an early age that it is our right to drive a large vehicle.
As for the power issue, it's never about how much power we need, but it's about how much power we want. Simply put, it's nice to have that extra power, even if we'll never need it.
That said, I'm actually going to go sign a contract on a 2003 Civic tomorrow. I need a new car, and unlike a lot of people, I see nothing wrong with buying a smaller, more fuel efficient car for my daily driver. It will get me from point A to point B and has the plus of being easier to merge on the freeway, handling better due to it's lower weight (and a stiffer suspension than my Oldsmobile), and it's much easier to park when I go downtown. It may not have a ton of power, but I'll own one of those as a non-daily driver soon enough.
As an aside, I was looking into the hybrid transmissions and from what I could tell... I was wrong, the Honda Insight was manual-only, but the newer hybrids sometimes sell with the choice of an automatic or continuously variable transmission... oddly, the fancy transmission hurts highway fuel efficiency, but it helps in the city.
I believe that the CVT is less economical on the freeway due to a higher final gear ratio. This basically means that when crusing on a highway, to maintain the same road speed as the other transmissions the engine actually has to spin at a higher engine speed to keep up, thereby hurting highway efficiency some. But the CVT helps immensely in the city since the transmission is, theoretically anyway, always able to choose the optimum gear ratio to maximize fuel efficiency at any road speed.
Of course I may be completely wrong about the freeway consumption as I havne't actually taken the time to look up the final gear ratio for each transmission offered.
A fairly typical family-car has 120ps and a 1.6 litre engine.
Although it becomes plainly obvious from the rest of your post, I was about to ask you what country you were from -- implying that you're not from the US. I would think that over here a fairly typical family car probably makes 40 - 60 HP more and with an engine at least 1.0 litres greater. For comparison, my 1995 Oldsmobile has a 3.1 litre engine and makes about 160hp, and that is a very typical family car around here. (W-body GM car, so Grand Prix, Lumina, Impala, Monte Carlo, and Regal are/were all built on the same platform with 3.1 engine being the base engine for the W-Body, and all are very common cars near me.)
I just thought it was funny at first when I thought you were talking about American cars.