Hewlett Packard XW8200 Workstation (bought used six years ago)
8GB RAM
2 3.2GHz Xeon Processors
NVidia GeForce 8400 GS
NVidia GeForce FX 1500
Two 19in 4:3 aspect ratio monitors on either side of a 24in wide-screen monitor
500GB Samsung HDD (boot drive, running Windows 7 Ultimate)
1TB Western Digital HDD (My Documents)
External Sony USB DVD-RW (this is what's on my desk under my center monitor. The computer is in a server cabinet at the end of the desk, vented through the ceiling)
Microsoft split ergonomic media keyboard
Gear Head cordless mouse
My background is in printing and typesetting with a short side trip into web design. I'm currently unemployed and looking for something not computer-related.
I have the FreedomPop Overdrive Pro (3G/4G) on Sprint as my mobile internet in my car. I use a Nexus 7 as my GPS and entertainment, and don't even have a regular stereo in the vehicle. It works well enough for Pandora or NPR and for some navigation every now and then. I spend far less time in my car than a lot of people, so their 500MB/mo plan is usually adequate, but I'm using more as each month goes by. The next step up, 2GB/mo for $19.99, is probably in the cards for me soon. That's 2GB on 3G that Verizon wanted to charge me $50/mo for!
So... would I pay $5/day for internet access in my car? Hell no!
Most of your geekiest friends are intelligent people who can tear your idea apart and find the flaws, true enough. Just identify the geeks whose ideas you'll trust, but are far too unmotivated to take your idea and run with it. With a little research (you've been playing videogames with these guys at LAN parties for years, so you know who their friends are), you can make sure that you only show your idea to the most brilliant intellectually, but hopelessly inept socially. They'll never get it off the ground! And all for the price of a cup of coffee or a pizza! Win/win!
We moved into this house (built new) in July 2006. By the end of September we'd replaced every light in the place with a CFL, some 45 or so bulbs. The vanity in the guest bath has four globes and the main bath vanity has eight (it originally had eight *100 watt incandescents!). Most ceiling fixtures have two 40W equivalents, there is a 100W equivalent in a torchiere in the living room and one in the attic, and there are a sprinkling of 60W equivalents in various single-bulb fixtures in closets and stuff. We simply bought the equivalent wattage for whatever came out of the socket. There are four CFL spotlights on the corners of the house, 90W equivalent, on X-10 controllers so we can turn them on from the cars.
Out of the whole damned bunch, I've replaced four of the globes used in the bathroom vanities and one 40W in a closet. That's it! Before we finished replacing the incandescents in the house, two ceiling and two closet bulbs and the one in the attic had already blown (one rather spectacularly) in the first month of living here.
Nobody visiting us has ever noticed the fluorescent lighting unless they see the exposed bulb in the torchiere. The light quality is not noticeably different and we think that we're saving about $25-35 a month on the power bill. So figure it took about 8-10 months to offset the initial cost of the bulbs and I haven't had to drag a ladder out in almost three years.
I'm sold. The only incandescent bulbs still in the house are in the fridge and the oven.
This is common in almost any occupation, not just that law enforcement personnel view everyone as a potential criminal. Firemen look at the potential fire hazards around them, doctors and nurses evaluate the health of everyone they contact, proofreaders and editors (how many of these do we seem to have on Slashdot?) correct everyone's spelling and grammar. I'm a typesetter, I subconsciously identify the typestyles used in every billboard or advertisement I see. No matter what field you're in, it's hard to get the training and experience out of your head, even when you're not at work.
This idea is very shortsighted because lawmakers have so few tools at their disposal. All they get to do is make laws! If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I have four of these shipping containers on my property, two 20-foot ones and two 40-foot ones, within 100 feet of my home out among the pines. One of them is just chock full of computers. It's not a datacenter, per my definition (it's my workshop, and most of the computers aren't mine and aren't permanent residents), but a broader definition could easily consider it such.
Considering the number of low-altitude flyovers we've experienced in the last few months, I'm thinking that some law enforcement task force probably thinks I've got a meth lab here (I'm in rural NE Georgia). I've had choppers hovering, obviously taking pictures, on more than one occasion.
Won't they be surprised when they find I have an illicit datacenter and a warehouse full of metal products instead?
We moved into a brand-new house in July 2006. We started replacing bulbs almost as soon as we got here, completing the changeover to CFLs some time in September. Having never established a baseline by running incandescents for a year, we'll never know how much it may be saving - but comparing the power bills here (~1500 sq. ft., high-efficiency dual-fuel heat pump, extra insulation, very little tree coverage) versus our old apartment (~950 sq. ft., crappy old heat pump, hot and cold running air, no trees at all), we're pretty sure we're seeing a substantial savings. We're hardly conservative with our usage, with 6 PCs running 24/7 and such, but the power bills are downright reasonable and are less than they were in the other place.
The light output is okay... I could stand for them to be a bit brighter in some situations, but for the most part they're plenty bright enough. We even replaced the 100W spots on the outside of the house with 24W fluorescent spots, and there's a 7W yellow CFL "bug light" on each porch. Some 50-odd bulbs went in a box that we gave to a neighbor. Throughout the house, the difference in heat output is stunning. Sitting in a recliner in front of the TV, the torchiere in the living room was noticeably hot from a couple of feet away. With equivalent CFLs in the same fixture, I can't feel the heat from 6 inches.
Over the sink in the master bathroom, our builder put in a fixture with eight sockets and proceeded to fill them with 100W clear globes. Do women really need to step onto the surface of the sun to apply make-up? My wife unscrewed six of them the first day (which looked goofier'n hell) and agreed that we should tone it down a notch, so we replaced them with eight 9W (40 watt equivalent brightness) diffused globes. It's plenty bright, and uses 3/4 the energy of ONE of the original bulbs.
The minuses? Only two come to mind:
The spots seem to have to "warm up" before they're at full brightness. At night when it's cooler, they can take 20 seconds to come up full. Also, I'm used to having at least the outdoor lighting on X-10 remote controllers. Switching to CFLs required using more expensive X-10 switches with relays instead of dimmers. I can live with both. Less money spent on lighting means more electricity can go to the toys!
I've been a licensed Ham since 1977, currently a General Class (finally upgraded from Tech+ last year). My wife has been licensed for almost three years, and my Dad (who got me into it in the first place) has only had two callsigns in the fifty-odd years he's been playing with radios.
The three of us use rigs in our cars for local communications, and that's about it. For me, it's a gas-powered radio that I can use to talk to certain friends without running down the battery in my cellphone. I'm sure that my dad still has some HF gear that has been gathering dust for many years, but he's planning to retire soon and may find himself getting back into it.
So I guess Ham Radio is still interesting, to people who like electronics and just want to do something different. But with so many alternatives available, particularly the internet, most kids and teenagers with an interest in technology get into computers and such because it's easier and cheaper and because so many of their friends already play with the stuff. It's much easier to find someone to teach you the basics and get you started with some used parts. And although the hobby has always encouraged experimentation, someone has already pointed out that you can buy gear off the shelf that's cheaper, smaller and easier to use.
Sadly, for most people Ham Radio only becomes relevant when there's a storm or a power outage and they can't use the communications methods that they're used to. Even police departments ask Hams for help in these situations. Our local club operates a station from inside the county's 911 center during emergencies.
My worst hosting experience was with a small, cheap company whose only real enticement was unlimited bandwidth. They didn't even meter it, you couldn't ask them how much you'd used in a month... anyway, I never got the whole story on why I was having a problem (they couldn't give me details for legal reasons?), but it had something to do with script kiddies attacking another website on the same box. Every Friday afternoon, mail would start getting sluggish, and by Saturday morning the websites would be down. And nobody would do anything about it until Monday, of course. This went on for six months, with only three or four weekends that the websites were up. I lost several customers over it, while the hosting company gave me excuses and then moved me to another server (oh boy! Five days with no email) - and, of course, they moved the script kiddie bait website to the same new server!
I put up with it a lot longer than I should have, and didn't bother to pursue any grievance against the company. Nope. Why? Hell, I don't know. I believed some of the excuses, I guess.
But one day, during a duscussion right here on/. that was remarkably similar to this one, I saw an ad for hosting in someone's sig. And, I'm still with SlashChick (hi Erica!) and her company Simpli.biz and have been with them for almost two years.
So obviously, the solution is to host with someone that knows the stuff and runs a tight ship. There's simply no substitute for competence, no matter what you're paying.
One of these roller skates wouldn't be able to keep up.
That's not exactly true.
On my way into Atlanta a couple of years ago (I live about 90 miles north of the city), I was passed by a black ForTwo with two business-suited gentlemen inside. It had a manufacturer plate, and a band across the top of the windshield that said NOT ELECTRIC.
Not only did the little car not have any trouble keeping up with GA400 traffic (known locally as the Buckhead Dragstrip), I had trouble pacing them to admire the car. In my VW Jetta!
I've been diligently keeping up with the progress of US imports of the thing ever since, and I've been on ZAP's mailing list since its inception.
99% of the fucking time all that cargo capacity just carries EMPTY SPACE.
Exactly!
I now live in a small town about 90 miles north of Atlanta (where I grew up). It's mostly cornfields and tourist traps around here, and most people have gravel or dirt driveways. And most of the locals drive big pickup trucks (F150s and Cummins-powered Dodge Rams being quite numerous). Many of the tourists drive cars, but I see an incredible number of Hummers and other behemoths with out-of-state and Atlanta-area plates amongst the motorhomes traveling through here.
My wife drives an Escort ZX2. I drive a two-seater Honda Civic del Sol. They're adequate for 99.9% of our trips, whether just back and forth to work, or to the grocery store, or the 4-hour round trip to my parents' house on the south side of ATL.
My dad's truck sufficed for my move from the city to here. When I met my wife and moved to a larger place, we did most of the move in her Escort and the Jetta I had then. I got a buddy with an F250 to bring my server rack to this house not long after we moved in (that was four years ago). I got my next door neighbor to pick up a 4X8 sheet of plywood in his van a few months ago, and he moved my workbench from my shop (when I closed it) to my house (I work out of my living room now). That's been pretty much it for large capacity hauling since I left Atlanta five years ago. Moving here required a truck. Living here simply does not.
We just don't have the need for a larger vehicle often enough to warrant buying one and having to feed the damned thing for all those trips alone. Buying one as a third vehicle and leaving it parked for months at a time makes even less sense.
The Civic del Sol has a cavernous trunk for such a tiny car. Just this week, I took a customer's brand new Dell home with me to set up, then delivered it to his very rural home. The Dell (still in its almost cube-shaped cardboard box) and a 17inch monitor fit neatly into the trunk with plenty of room left over for the assorted junk that usually lives there (doughnut spare tire, toolkit, computer toolkit, a spare NIC and a couple of modems, a couple of generic power supplies, my remote mounted ham radio, etc).
We've been following the development of the Smart for several years now. I've even been on ZAP's mailing list for a few months. I was dismayed (but not too surprised) to read the announcement last year from DaimlerChrysler that the first Smart vehicle for sale in the US would be an SUV developed in cooperation with Mitsubishi. They say that people here just don't buy small cars. It's sometimes embarrassing to live in this country!
My wife and I are planning to buy TWO Smarts, as finances allow. My car is a 1994 model in good shape, so we hope to replace it in about 2007-09, and her car is a 1998 in absolutely superb condition that should be able to last a few years beyond that.
That gives us time. Both to have the financial power to have two car notes, and for the powers-that-be to figure out that some USians do indeed desire a citizen conveyance of a smaller form factor. I'd even consider the underpowered diesel version. Why?
I checked the info on each of my domains (right now, 33 of them), several of which are just "coming soon" and "currently under development" pages. Every one of them is listed as an e-commerce site. Only one of them actually is. And the location info simply says United States.
At least the rest of the info appears to be correct; right down to the registrar name (GoDaddy).
Where I live (north Georgia), this year the house apes are going back to school on August 2nd. They didn't finish the last school year until the middle of June. Their summer was awfully short this year. Just damn!
There was a similar situation with Playboy a few years ago. One of their models posed for the cover photo wearing (almost?) clothing that was appropriate for someone much younger (short skirt, little frilly socks, etc), her hair was in pigtails and she was holding a lollypop. Some self-proclaimed expert accused Playboy of having composited this photo out of several pictures, including some of children.
This "expert" was able to point out the parts of the photo that were supposed to be from different sources, and could "see" details of how the composite was assembled.
The model was rather amused by this, as was the photographer. They assured this "expert" that she was, in fact, the person in the photos and that she was indeed all in one piece and had not been pieced together out of anyone else, underaged or otherwise.
I am curious. If everyone hates lawyers, why do so many people watch all the shows about them?
The same reason they watch NASCAR races... just lookin' for a little blood and guts. They don't really want the lawyers to get killed or anything, but if there's a good wreck, they don't want to miss it.
Daimler-Chrysler makes SMART. So it's not all bad news...
Hooray! The smart is due in the US in 2006. Unfortunately, they have decided for their first model to be the ForMore, an SUV-like iteration of the ForFour, their upcoming four-door four-seat model.
Then maybe we'll get the ForFour and the ForTwo later on. The powers that be at DaimlerChrysler seem to think that we won't buy the things, despite a barrage of grey-marketers trying to bring the the little cars into the US. And their US product announcement FAQ basically says that we won't get the smaller cars.
But there's hope!
An "Americanized" version of the roadster was debuted at the Detroit Auto Show. The Dodge SlingShot concept car is obviously based on the smart roadster, down to its three-cylinder rear-mounted engine and the targa style removable roof panels.
I'll keep my '94 del Sol a little longer, thank you!
wouldn't be possible to mount the derailleur ABOVE the gears so that it is not so prone to snag on rocks, etc?
Uh, no. Unless you prefer looking at the scenery through your ass. You'd be going backwards.
The derailleur is on the bottom because that's the direction the chain travels. Clockwise, viewed from the right side. The derailleur is the chain tensioner, and it also moves the chain from one sprocket to another to change ratios. If it was on the top, the action of pedaling would stretch it out, lose the tension of the chain and provide no motive power. And the chain would fall off the sprockets through the lack of tension.
Nope, it belongs on the bottom because that's how it works.
2) I have the file in an eMule (eDonkey) shared folder.
3) I'm seeding the torrent. The tracker is having issues.
I'm on DSL, currently passing about 100KB/sec. My wife will complain that I'm sucking up all the bandwidth when she checks her mail in the morning, but she'll get over it.
On a slightly different note - we're both working Nov 4 as tech support on these very machines. We go for "training and testing" on Oct 31. We plan on asking some rather embarrassing questions during this "training", but sadly, not enough to jeopardize the obscene amount of money they've threatened us with. Expect an update.
And even as well-publicized as the AOL account-theft scam was, people still don't know any better than to give out passwords and even credit card information in email or a chat room.
Slashdot Mirror
Hewlett Packard XW8200 Workstation (bought used six years ago)
(this is what's on my desk under my center monitor. The computer is in a server cabinet at the end of the desk, vented through the ceiling)
My background is in printing and typesetting with a short side trip into web design. I'm currently unemployed and looking for something not computer-related.
That's how I've always done it. Nobody showed me how. In the 1961 VW Beetle that I learned to drive in, it just seemed to be the thing to do.
I have the FreedomPop Overdrive Pro (3G/4G) on Sprint as my mobile internet in my car. I use a Nexus 7 as my GPS and entertainment, and don't even have a regular stereo in the vehicle. It works well enough for Pandora or NPR and for some navigation every now and then. I spend far less time in my car than a lot of people, so their 500MB/mo plan is usually adequate, but I'm using more as each month goes by. The next step up, 2GB/mo for $19.99, is probably in the cards for me soon. That's 2GB on 3G that Verizon wanted to charge me $50/mo for! So... would I pay $5/day for internet access in my car? Hell no!
In related news, Tyler Winklevoss says he totally named himself that first. (Thanks JR Raphael)
Most of your geekiest friends are intelligent people who can tear your idea apart and find the flaws, true enough. Just identify the geeks whose ideas you'll trust, but are far too unmotivated to take your idea and run with it. With a little research (you've been playing videogames with these guys at LAN parties for years, so you know who their friends are), you can make sure that you only show your idea to the most brilliant intellectually, but hopelessly inept socially. They'll never get it off the ground! And all for the price of a cup of coffee or a pizza! Win/win!
We moved into this house (built new) in July 2006. By the end of September we'd replaced every light in the place with a CFL, some 45 or so bulbs. The vanity in the guest bath has four globes and the main bath vanity has eight (it originally had eight *100 watt incandescents!). Most ceiling fixtures have two 40W equivalents, there is a 100W equivalent in a torchiere in the living room and one in the attic, and there are a sprinkling of 60W equivalents in various single-bulb fixtures in closets and stuff. We simply bought the equivalent wattage for whatever came out of the socket. There are four CFL spotlights on the corners of the house, 90W equivalent, on X-10 controllers so we can turn them on from the cars.
Out of the whole damned bunch, I've replaced four of the globes used in the bathroom vanities and one 40W in a closet. That's it! Before we finished replacing the incandescents in the house, two ceiling and two closet bulbs and the one in the attic had already blown (one rather spectacularly) in the first month of living here.
Nobody visiting us has ever noticed the fluorescent lighting unless they see the exposed bulb in the torchiere. The light quality is not noticeably different and we think that we're saving about $25-35 a month on the power bill. So figure it took about 8-10 months to offset the initial cost of the bulbs and I haven't had to drag a ladder out in almost three years.
I'm sold. The only incandescent bulbs still in the house are in the fridge and the oven.
This is common in almost any occupation, not just that law enforcement personnel view everyone as a potential criminal. Firemen look at the potential fire hazards around them, doctors and nurses evaluate the health of everyone they contact, proofreaders and editors (how many of these do we seem to have on Slashdot?) correct everyone's spelling and grammar. I'm a typesetter, I subconsciously identify the typestyles used in every billboard or advertisement I see. No matter what field you're in, it's hard to get the training and experience out of your head, even when you're not at work.
This idea is very shortsighted because lawmakers have so few tools at their disposal. All they get to do is make laws! If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Incorrect.
Thank you for playing.
I have four of these shipping containers on my property, two 20-foot ones and two 40-foot ones, within 100 feet of my home out among the pines. One of them is just chock full of computers. It's not a datacenter, per my definition (it's my workshop, and most of the computers aren't mine and aren't permanent residents), but a broader definition could easily consider it such.
Considering the number of low-altitude flyovers we've experienced in the last few months, I'm thinking that some law enforcement task force probably thinks I've got a meth lab here (I'm in rural NE Georgia). I've had choppers hovering, obviously taking pictures, on more than one occasion.
Won't they be surprised when they find I have an illicit datacenter and a warehouse full of metal products instead?
We moved into a brand-new house in July 2006. We started replacing bulbs almost as soon as we got here, completing the changeover to CFLs some time in September. Having never established a baseline by running incandescents for a year, we'll never know how much it may be saving - but comparing the power bills here (~1500 sq. ft., high-efficiency dual-fuel heat pump, extra insulation, very little tree coverage) versus our old apartment (~950 sq. ft., crappy old heat pump, hot and cold running air, no trees at all), we're pretty sure we're seeing a substantial savings. We're hardly conservative with our usage, with 6 PCs running 24/7 and such, but the power bills are downright reasonable and are less than they were in the other place.
The light output is okay... I could stand for them to be a bit brighter in some situations, but for the most part they're plenty bright enough. We even replaced the 100W spots on the outside of the house with 24W fluorescent spots, and there's a 7W yellow CFL "bug light" on each porch. Some 50-odd bulbs went in a box that we gave to a neighbor. Throughout the house, the difference in heat output is stunning. Sitting in a recliner in front of the TV, the torchiere in the living room was noticeably hot from a couple of feet away. With equivalent CFLs in the same fixture, I can't feel the heat from 6 inches.
Over the sink in the master bathroom, our builder put in a fixture with eight sockets and proceeded to fill them with 100W clear globes. Do women really need to step onto the surface of the sun to apply make-up? My wife unscrewed six of them the first day (which looked goofier'n hell) and agreed that we should tone it down a notch, so we replaced them with eight 9W (40 watt equivalent brightness) diffused globes. It's plenty bright, and uses 3/4 the energy of ONE of the original bulbs.
The minuses? Only two come to mind:
The spots seem to have to "warm up" before they're at full brightness. At night when it's cooler, they can take 20 seconds to come up full. Also, I'm used to having at least the outdoor lighting on X-10 remote controllers. Switching to CFLs required using more expensive X-10 switches with relays instead of dimmers. I can live with both. Less money spent on lighting means more electricity can go to the toys!
I've been a licensed Ham since 1977, currently a General Class (finally upgraded from Tech+ last year). My wife has been licensed for almost three years, and my Dad (who got me into it in the first place) has only had two callsigns in the fifty-odd years he's been playing with radios.
The three of us use rigs in our cars for local communications, and that's about it. For me, it's a gas-powered radio that I can use to talk to certain friends without running down the battery in my cellphone. I'm sure that my dad still has some HF gear that has been gathering dust for many years, but he's planning to retire soon and may find himself getting back into it.
So I guess Ham Radio is still interesting, to people who like electronics and just want to do something different. But with so many alternatives available, particularly the internet, most kids and teenagers with an interest in technology get into computers and such because it's easier and cheaper and because so many of their friends already play with the stuff. It's much easier to find someone to teach you the basics and get you started with some used parts. And although the hobby has always encouraged experimentation, someone has already pointed out that you can buy gear off the shelf that's cheaper, smaller and easier to use.
Sadly, for most people Ham Radio only becomes relevant when there's a storm or a power outage and they can't use the communications methods that they're used to. Even police departments ask Hams for help in these situations. Our local club operates a station from inside the county's 911 center during emergencies.
My worst hosting experience was with a small, cheap company whose only real enticement was unlimited bandwidth. They didn't even meter it, you couldn't ask them how much you'd used in a month... anyway, I never got the whole story on why I was having a problem (they couldn't give me details for legal reasons?), but it had something to do with script kiddies attacking another website on the same box. Every Friday afternoon, mail would start getting sluggish, and by Saturday morning the websites would be down. And nobody would do anything about it until Monday, of course. This went on for six months, with only three or four weekends that the websites were up. I lost several customers over it, while the hosting company gave me excuses and then moved me to another server (oh boy! Five days with no email) - and, of course, they moved the script kiddie bait website to the same new server!
I put up with it a lot longer than I should have, and didn't bother to pursue any grievance against the company. Nope. Why? Hell, I don't know. I believed some of the excuses, I guess.
But one day, during a duscussion right here on /. that was remarkably similar to this one, I saw an ad for hosting in someone's sig. And, I'm still with SlashChick (hi Erica!) and her company Simpli.biz and have been with them for almost two years.
So obviously, the solution is to host with someone that knows the stuff and runs a tight ship. There's simply no substitute for competence, no matter what you're paying.
Honestly, was it too hard for them to check IMdB for the little details?
FTFA: Space: 1999 - Led by the valiant Commander Walter [sic] Koenig (played by Martin Landau).
I mean, really... I suppose I'm expecting too much from modern "journalists".
That's not exactly true.
On my way into Atlanta a couple of years ago (I live about 90 miles north of the city), I was passed by a black ForTwo with two business-suited gentlemen inside. It had a manufacturer plate, and a band across the top of the windshield that said NOT ELECTRIC.
Not only did the little car not have any trouble keeping up with GA400 traffic (known locally as the Buckhead Dragstrip), I had trouble pacing them to admire the car. In my VW Jetta!
I've been diligently keeping up with the progress of US imports of the thing ever since, and I've been on ZAP's mailing list since its inception.
I'd like for this to be my next car.
Exactly!
I now live in a small town about 90 miles north of Atlanta (where I grew up). It's mostly cornfields and tourist traps around here, and most people have gravel or dirt driveways. And most of the locals drive big pickup trucks (F150s and Cummins-powered Dodge Rams being quite numerous). Many of the tourists drive cars, but I see an incredible number of Hummers and other behemoths with out-of-state and Atlanta-area plates amongst the motorhomes traveling through here.
My wife drives an Escort ZX2. I drive a two-seater Honda Civic del Sol. They're adequate for 99.9% of our trips, whether just back and forth to work, or to the grocery store, or the 4-hour round trip to my parents' house on the south side of ATL.
My dad's truck sufficed for my move from the city to here. When I met my wife and moved to a larger place, we did most of the move in her Escort and the Jetta I had then. I got a buddy with an F250 to bring my server rack to this house not long after we moved in (that was four years ago). I got my next door neighbor to pick up a 4X8 sheet of plywood in his van a few months ago, and he moved my workbench from my shop (when I closed it) to my house (I work out of my living room now). That's been pretty much it for large capacity hauling since I left Atlanta five years ago. Moving here required a truck. Living here simply does not.
We just don't have the need for a larger vehicle often enough to warrant buying one and having to feed the damned thing for all those trips alone. Buying one as a third vehicle and leaving it parked for months at a time makes even less sense.
The Civic del Sol has a cavernous trunk for such a tiny car. Just this week, I took a customer's brand new Dell home with me to set up, then delivered it to his very rural home. The Dell (still in its almost cube-shaped cardboard box) and a 17inch monitor fit neatly into the trunk with plenty of room left over for the assorted junk that usually lives there (doughnut spare tire, toolkit, computer toolkit, a spare NIC and a couple of modems, a couple of generic power supplies, my remote mounted ham radio, etc).
We've been following the development of the Smart for several years now. I've even been on ZAP's mailing list for a few months. I was dismayed (but not too surprised) to read the announcement last year from DaimlerChrysler that the first Smart vehicle for sale in the US would be an SUV developed in cooperation with Mitsubishi. They say that people here just don't buy small cars. It's sometimes embarrassing to live in this country!
My wife and I are planning to buy TWO Smarts, as finances allow. My car is a 1994 model in good shape, so we hope to replace it in about 2007-09, and her car is a 1998 in absolutely superb condition that should be able to last a few years beyond that.
That gives us time. Both to have the financial power to have two car notes, and for the powers-that-be to figure out that some USians do indeed desire a citizen conveyance of a smaller form factor. I'd even consider the underpowered diesel version. Why?
Because it's just so damned cool!
At least the rest of the info appears to be correct; right down to the registrar name (GoDaddy).
This "expert" was able to point out the parts of the photo that were supposed to be from different sources, and could "see" details of how the composite was assembled.
The model was rather amused by this, as was the photographer. They assured this "expert" that she was, in fact, the person in the photos and that she was indeed all in one piece and had not been pieced together out of anyone else, underaged or otherwise.
The same reason they watch NASCAR races... just lookin' for a little blood and guts. They don't really want the lawyers to get killed or anything, but if there's a good wreck, they don't want to miss it.
Hooray! The smart is due in the US in 2006. Unfortunately, they have decided for their first model to be the ForMore, an SUV-like iteration of the ForFour, their upcoming four-door four-seat model.
Then maybe we'll get the ForFour and the ForTwo later on. The powers that be at DaimlerChrysler seem to think that we won't buy the things, despite a barrage of grey-marketers trying to bring the the little cars into the US. And their US product announcement FAQ basically says that we won't get the smaller cars.
But there's hope!
An "Americanized" version of the roadster was debuted at the Detroit Auto Show. The Dodge SlingShot concept car is obviously based on the smart roadster, down to its three-cylinder rear-mounted engine and the targa style removable roof panels.
I'll keep my '94 del Sol a little longer, thank you!
Wait'll they check the referrer logs to see why there's so damned much activity on that one little file.
Uh, no. Unless you prefer looking at the scenery through your ass. You'd be going backwards.
The derailleur is on the bottom because that's the direction the chain travels. Clockwise, viewed from the right side. The derailleur is the chain tensioner, and it also moves the chain from one sprocket to another to change ratios. If it was on the top, the action of pedaling would stretch it out, lose the tension of the chain and provide no motive power. And the chain would fall off the sprockets through the lack of tension.
Nope, it belongs on the bottom because that's how it works.
I'm on DSL, currently passing about 100KB/sec. My wife will complain that I'm sucking up all the bandwidth when she checks her mail in the morning, but she'll get over it.
On a slightly different note - we're both working Nov 4 as tech support on these very machines. We go for "training and testing" on Oct 31. We plan on asking some rather embarrassing questions during this "training", but sadly, not enough to jeopardize the obscene amount of money they've threatened us with. Expect an update.
What a stupid movie that was.
Stupid movie, yes. But it was pretty good "Star Trek".
Never let Kirk direct.
Shatner didn't direct that one, Nimoy did. Shatner directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , which not only was a bad movie, it wasn't even good "Star Trek".
And even as well-publicized as the AOL account-theft scam was, people still don't know any better than to give out passwords and even credit card information in email or a chat room.