Re: Roll Your Own Geosyncronous Comms Satellites
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Iridium Saved?
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· Score: 5
I did alittle research on how feasible it would be to launch a satellite to broadcast DeCSS and other controversial materials via wireless - international jurisdiction, they couldn't shut it down.
Okay. Here's a hint. Don't do your reseach from 1961 Popular Electronics magazine predictions of what things would be like by now.
. In any event, the satellite is actually pretty cheap - about $10-20k to put it into orbit with a nice transmitter and a few solar cells plus the mandatory stuff you'd find in a comm sat.
Sure. And in 1961, they thought we'd have flying cars by now. And there'd be martian colonies, let alone lunar colonies.
I hate to break it to you, but most of the time, the $15-20k figure is *per pound* of launch weight. That's not to build the satellite - that's just to put it into orbit. Russian Soyuz rockets run along the cheap end, primarily because they're statistically more likely to blow up (and destroy your multi-million dollar satellite).
For a comms satellite, you need a receiver and a transmitter, all powered by a solar cell. Such an arrangement is actually called a "transponder", since it just basically mirrors back a given signal on a different frequency and orientation.
Even for the low-band microwave C and Ku band satellite TV systems (mass produced and therefore quite cheap in comparison), receivers are not inexpensive. (And I mean the LNA/downconverter in the feedhorn, not the the set-top box.)
Simply to run any device at frequencies as high as are required for use like this, requires tremendously tight mechanical and eletronic tolerances be enforced. This costs a lot, both in machine tools, skilled employees, and also in a reduced product yield rate.
For sake of example, I often buy magnetrons for work. These aren't microwave oven magnetrons (which aren't for communications and therefore don't have to be too precise). These are radar magnetrons, running in the 12GHz band. RMS power through them is 7 watts. And they operate at normal temperatures (-40c to +70c). And they're damned expensive. Some of the EEV and JRC models I use run in the range of $4,000 - $6,000 each.
Now, consider that most modern satellite transponders run 12W transmit power. That means a bigger magnetron than my $5,000 tubes. And there's another problem: a magnetron is a tube with a magnet around it. Tubes aren't reliable or compact enough to launch, and magnets don't like temperature extremes. We don't use high-powered solid-state magnetron-equivalents in our radar systems because they're just *way* too expensive. Even a small solid-state Gunn diode for a radar speed gun can set you back $5,000 - and that's not even 1/1000th of the power you'd need.
In short, what I'm getting at, I think, is that there's no way in hell you're ever going to find a transmitting device for one transponder, let alone the rest of the transponder, let alone every other part of the satellite, let alone... for anything in the price range you're quoting.
If you really want a Satellite, I have one. It's a chrome emblem off a 1960s Plymouth. It says "Satellite", in letters about 1" tall. And ya know what, just for irony's sake, I'll *give* it to you if you promise to pay to put the thing into geosynchronous orbit.
But you couldn't even get that Satellite into orbit for the money you're talking about.
The RCMP officer type I spoke with (who was quite accustomed to Linux - I was impressed) likened it to Girl Guides knocking on your door, which isn't illegal (I argued that if they started checking every door and window for days straight, it would be different, but that's another story entirely).
1. Hackers are not bad people they just are curious and good at finding holes.
Well, some of them. I'm sure that we've all either done some things (as newbies, by accident, or without thinking) that would qualify as hacking....
loop: ping slashdot.org goto loop
(Never use this method to see if you've got your high-speed internet connection stable... although, this is more likely to make your ISP very angry for loading down their DNS servers.)
But the bigger issue, I'd suggest, isn't script-kiddies with boredom as a motivation. It's the "pros"; those who are out there deliberately trying to take you down but lacking the skill required to do it properly. Look at e-hippies vs. WTO.
Since these "e-hippies", like most other radical left-wingers, are so caught up with their agendas that they don't attempt to learn about technology before they use it, they're sitting ducks when they attack you.
In this case, while I'm sure it's technically illegal, it could take *so long* to get the proper authorities to do anything about it. I mean, you've got jurisdictional issues, contact issues, and then the time it takes to get a cop to put down the donut and get off his butt.
I'd argue that reflecting their DoS attack back at them is merely self-defense, not a separate attack. What you're doing is no worse than fighting off the guy who just punched you in the face.
3. You are know better and are breaking the law in exactally the same manner.
Sure, I know better. I didn't, and I wouldn't, start an attack. But I have to be able to defend myself against attacks. If someone breaks a window on my business and runs off, I'll chase him down and hold him there while I wait for the cops. If someone punches me in the face, I'll take whatever steps are necessary to restrain that individual until the police arrive. And finally, if a DoS attack occurs, if I can perhaps shut down their computer by reflecting their malformed packets back at them, I'll do it, in order to maintain the services provided by my own computer.
I agree it's a gray area; it's definately one that needs careful attention from legislation.
So, the province of British Columbia is willing to make concessions that will, in effect, subsidize the most profitable corporation in the world.
Makes me so proud to be a Canadian.
Personally, I don't like Microsoft, but I respect them as a business. Their products are crappy, which makes their ruthlessness, foresight and luck all the more telling.
And if they want to escape a DOJ breakup by moving someplace that doesn't care about monopolies, that's just good business sense. But for [censored] sake, I'd hope that any government wouldn't make concessions to them.
As a side note, if you're starting a business and feel like becoming a monopoly, you do have safe refuge in Canada. Not only does Canada have the usual assortment of telco and cable company monopolies, but it's got a few more:
Air Canada - the federal government changed laws to allow them to become a monopoly.
Canadian Tire - about the only place you, as a consumer, can buy a fanbelt for your car. Service sucks, prices are high, and the fanbelt will fray and fail while you're on the 401 two weeks later.
Microsoft will fit right into the Canadian goverment's view of a healthy economy.
Now, if the BC government is trying to bait them to move, I guess it means that Microsoft would get special concessions (aka. subsidies)?
If Microsoft gets subsidies - whatever you want to call them and however you want to pay them - I'm going to create a stink of unprecedented proportions. Any ideas how?
As was I, I used to be on when napster had at most 200 people online at a time and we celebrated when it broke 200 in #lobby. I remember when we used to be able to chat with napster and the incredible contravercy surrounding the swear filter before they started chopping it all up into multiple channels.
Ahhh... Remember when Napster had banner ads? And an Internic Whois lookup gave you an address in Massachusetts?
Remember when Port 80 was unused, until a little program called Spry Mosaic came out?
When you gave an electrical engineer your e-mail address, and he had no idea what it was?
When the old DEC VT-100 you'd holed away was the best way of hitting Usenet?
Sigh... the good old days, before the Internet went corporate...
[BigBlockMopar logs onto Napster and downloads "Memories".]
and get older smoking vehicles fixed or off the road.
Which is a dangerous experiment in self-delusion. Sadly, erroneous science is the favorite tool of tree-huggers, who operate on emotion rather than fact.
Most cars wear out before their emissions controls are technologically obsolete. Which means that with each generation of cars, there's an incremental upgrade.
Old cars (20+ years old) generally account for a very small percentage of the vehicles on the road. And if the car is still on the road, it's either been very well maintained (ie. not worn out) or hasn't seen much use (ie. not worn out).
Therefore, next time you see a 1971 Plymouth Valiant driving down the road, you should consider that despite its age, it's probably in no worse shape mechanically than the median commuter automobile. In fact, it's probably in better shape.
Now, what about those old emissions controls?
An electronic fuel injection system is basically a carburetor with feedback. It adjusts the fuel/air ratio for best mileage and emissions on its own. But a carburetor, properly maintained and calibrated is precise enough that it's not an issue.
A charcoal canister vapor recovery system, as fitted on virtually every car since 1975 (and two of them on most CA-emissions models) is a wonderful way of trapping unburned gasoline vapors. But next time you fill your gasoline-powered lawn trimmer, you've just released the same amount of gas vapors that would be trapped by the car's EVAP system over its lifetime. (Keep in mind, too, the EVAP system does nothing for your car when you're parked at the gas pump.)
Catalytic converters are the scourge of emissions controls. Tree-huggers lobbied the EPA until they were forced onto cars. Interesting sidenote about cataclysmic converters... they turn fairly unpleasant but non-lethal unburnt hydrocarbons into water and CO2. That's okay.But what they also do is turn the sulphur compounds in all gasoline into sulphur dioxide. Which hits the atmosphere, combines with water and produces sulphuric acid - acid rain. The pH of rainfall dropped alarmingly from 1975 to 1985 as the percentage of the vehicle fleet equipped with catalytic converters increased.
Our efforts, as a society, are far better served to look at newer cars. On a daily basis, I end up sitting in traffic behind a Hyundai Excel, Toyota Tercel or some other crowning achievement in hatchback design, breathing the blue smoke this nearly end-of-life vehicle is belching at me. The tailgate of said vehicles often have black stains all around their tailpipes, as evidence of a lingering problem in either fuel or oil control, and of long-term owner neglect. Let's look at enforcement of the issue more than every two years (registration): Get that off the road. The owner is clearly negligent and should be held criminally responsible.
By contrast, my 1983 Dodge Ram (which needed an emission test, but my '76 didn't, due to its age) blew a 24 PPM on unburnt HC its last emissions check. 0.2% CO at idle. 11 PPM NOx. Which means, either by fluke or by good maintenance, my 1983 Dodge Ram blew a cleaner sniffer test than Ontario's DriveClean program requires of a 1997 model compact sedan.
Finally, if you wonder why some people drive old cars, and in fact highly resent all attempts to regulate or inconvenience the owners of old cars in the interests of ill-founded environmental issues, think of your favorite vintage computer.
Now, if you had to license your Apple II or original Pac Man arcade machine, and then pay a tax on it because it wasn't "very efficient" - total MIPS for watt of electricity consumed - you'd be pretty mad, too, right?
is that in Phoenix, AZ, any vehicle built before 1994 is basically undrivable because the air conditioning doesn't work. Cars built before 1994 use the old 'Freon' stuff, which is basically now unobtainable. Upgrading these cars to use the new refrigerant usually costs more than the car is worth. Thus hasn't been done.
Yeah, automotive AC systems tend to be unreliable crap. And I agree, they're wholly essential to the enjoyment or even simply the usefulness of a vehicle.
My old (yet paradoxically newer) 1983 Dodge Ram was from California and had Chrysler AirTemp AC in it. Of course, it hadn't worked for years when I got the truck. And it liked R-12 freon, which is scarce and/or very expensive.
I pressurized the system with my air compressor and found the leak that had cost it all its R-12 freon. I replaced a defective hose, then took the truck to an AC shop and told them to fill up the AC system with modern R-134A, which is mostly compatible with R-12 freon.
(Sidenote: lots of people use propane (right out of a BBQ tank) in their AC systems. I don't like it, because it's not lubricated, and is therefore hard on the vehicle's AC compressor. The fire risk, actually, is very slight, because there's so little propane involved. But you can test your system with it.)
The truck's AC worked. Not as efficiently as it did when it was new, granted, but enough that when it gets to be 100+ degrees with 90% humidity here in Toronto (which does happen, believe it or not), the truck's cab was able to maintain a balmy 70 degrees.
My '76 Ram didn't have AC when I got it. So, I pulled the whole AC setup from a 1986 Ford Crown Victoria station wagon that I was scrapping, and have since retrofitted it into the truck. It promises to be effective, since it has a huge evaporator (meant to cool a wagon). It, too, is filled with R-134A - before I pulled it out of the car, I had an AC tech come by and vacuum out the R-12. Got a few bucks for the old freon, which paid for the new freon and a case of beer which I drank while I was drilling holes for new hoses in my truck. I'm just waiting for the first really hot day to see how well it works!
If you can swap a motherboard into a new case or do anything like that, you can do your own AC and automotive work. Domestics are easier to fix/modify/hack than imports, just like a generic clone is easier to upgrade than a Compaq or Dell. I mean, it's just bolted together. And what's a bolt? A bigger version of the little screws that hold your cards into their slots.
Just read the books, buy the right tools (Sears Craftsman, Mac and Snap-On are the best) and treat it like you would with a computer.
Not that I've ever found a static-sensitive starter motor...
Now, what can we do to stop this guy? We have some of the most brilliant minds in a field that represents the ultimate in intellectual free-thinking. Surely, if we come together we can figure out a *practical*, *ethical* and *legal* means to stop his service or render its results thoroughly invalid.
Hey, wait a minute. I know who he is. I cancelled his download of Donna Summers' Macarthur Park Suite, in 256kbps, after waiting for him to download 95% of it. He instant messaged me telling me that he'd get revenge.
I suggest maybe that your insurance company is not exactly doing right by you. FYI I use 21st century insurance, which I think only does california and AZ policies at the moment, but has (some) discounts for engineers, teachers, etc...:-)
Yup. But there's more to it than that.
First off, I'm in Canada; therefore, I don't have the same complement of insurance companies with which to compare prices.
Secondly, since my truck is so cheap (less than $1,000 CDN), I didn't bother with fire, theft or collision insurance. All I have is liability insurance. I wouldn't be able to do that if the vehicle cost more, since I wouldn't be able to eat the cost of replacing it. In an urban area, that affects your rates greatly.
Third, the Dodge Ram pickup truck didn't change much from 1974 to 1992. Theoretically, the front fender off a '92 Ram will bolt right onto a '74. Bumpers are the same the entire series. That makes parts easier to locate, and cheaper. Insurance companies like that.
Finally, I have other advantages from driving a truck that simply aren't present with a smaller vehicle. Advantages that more than outweigh the gas costs. Carrying stuff, intimidation of Jeep Cherokee owners (let alone making Nissan Micra owners wet themselves), being unorthodox... (I love sitting in traffic in downtown Toronto, with a shirt and tie on, driving a 24 year old pickup truck!)
Now all I need is a gun rack, a bale of hay and a Confederate flag. Then I can have some real hick fun with the Porsches and stuff that surround me daily.
but when the cost of production is vastly outweighed by the sale price sooner or later the market will force it down. This is tht force. For too long we have been asked to pay too much for too little.
I was one of the very first Napster users, going all the way back to August of last year. I happily admit that.
In the past year, I've bought over 30 CDs, compared to 20 or so the previous year. Some of those additional CDs were because I liked the stuff of theirs that I heard on Napster, and some of it was simply because of Napster, I'm more "connected" to my music collection.
I don't for a second dispute the intellectual property ownership or anything like that. But, besides the obvious fact that the Pandora's Box is open and there's nothing the RIAA can do short of making a lot of enemies, there's another issue.
I have a lot more music now than I would have ever had, buying CDs. In fact, now I have stuff that I like to listen to occasionally, but for which I would never commit the real estate occupied by a CD, let alone the cost of a CD. You know the kinds of songs I'm talking about - I guarantee you feel exactly the same way about some song or another. For me, the song is "Bust a Move" by Young MC. I hate rap.
These are songs that the RIAA would never have been paid for anyway, because I would never have bought a copy. And yet, thanks to Napster, on the rare occasion that the urge to hear it strikes, I play it.
The fact that I have this song without having paid for it is not the issue that the RIAA should be looking at. Because, as I've indicated, as a long time user, I spend more on CDs than I used to. Napster has just made me more conscious of the music I listen to, which therefore makes me invest in more.
You know, far be it for me to actually say anthing original on this topic. Everything that I have to say has been echoed hundreds of time by my fellow Slashdotters.
But I think that the RIAA isn't made up of tremendously intelligent people, since the paradigm has so obviously changed, and there's so clearly nothing that can be done to stop it short of embracing it.
So, for the sake of repetition causing learning by rote and the hopes that some little balding RIAA legal-type might read this, let's all join together and repeat after me:
The 'net is unstoppable. The more you fight it, the more record companies and artists will be casualties. The more you embrace it, the more opportunities the Internet and its users will afford you.
You do something else. That's great. I'm happy for you. Nothing to do with the thread, but congratulations.
Yeah, I seem to have gotten off on a tangent. Genius is seldom tidy. But, actually, if you're breaking down the cost of a car as an investment rather than a per mile expense, my discourse does make sense.
Out of interest, I just hit my insurance company's website. To insure a 1997 Accord for me (26 year old single male, 0 accidents, 0 convictions, 0 DUI) would cost $2,556 annually. That's $213/mo, or more than the car payment.
Ironically, insuring a pickup truck which literally has an engine 4 x bigger, weighs twice as much and is nowhere near as capable of swerving to avoid an accident costs only $37/mo to insure.
I guess that makes a pretty good statement about the motoring ability of the average Honda driver, and therefore reaffirms my rationale for driving something capable of flattening any Honda product ever built.
Besides, when I'm gentle with the accelerator, the insurance costs make up the gas mileage difference.
Hidden away in the woods of deep East Texas lies the 24th and 63rd fastest growing tech cities in the country, Tyler and Longview. Just watch out for weaving chevys 'round Arnette..;)
Well, despite the original poster's obvious lack of any literacy, he does raise some good points.
As a disenfranchised Canadian who has lived in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, I feel well qualified to say that Canada doesn't really offer me much.
The cost of living in Canada versus the US can be similar, but it depends on the person. Sure, a loaf of bread is 89c here, and 89c in $US.
But more fundamentally, taxes make up the difference. Increased buying power on an international level make up the difference.
And, most importantly to my morale, my taxes are actually *used* for something relevant. At least you have some measure of federal and state services to show for your taxes. There's a military that protects you. The INS service doesn't let known terrorists into the country and then give them welfare for five years.
Taxation differences as mentioned in related articles on this subject quoted only income taxes. Sure, California residents in the upper bracket will see 48.x% of their income taxed directly away. And in Ontario's highest tax bracket, about 50% of your income is whisked away. 2% more expensive here, and all provinces provide health care, right?
Wrong. Dead wrong.
What's the US federal sales tax? 0%, you say? In Canada, it's 7%.
What's the state sales tax in California? 5%-6%? In Ontario, it's 8%.
You make income principally to buy stuff. Everything you buy in Canada is about 10% more heavily taxed.
In Ontario, gasoline is far more heavily taxed, significantly exceeding the cost of even expensive, chemically-altered California gasoline. Once upon a time, that money went to road construction and maintence, giving Ontario the best highway system in the world (1966-1975). However, a string of socialist governments decided that because cars aren't environmentally friendly, we'll stop funding the construction of new roads. Instead, they funnelled the money into pet projects like huge welfare programs that only now are being scaled back to reasonable levels.
Health care is a farce. Since all the hospitals are public, you sit in a little waiting room somewhere and wait for service. I got strepped throat and went to a hospital in downtown Toronto. Sitting beside me was a homeless person who had broken a needle off in his arm when he had been shooting up heroin. I felt my life was in peril for the three hours I had to sit beside this individual. Every 5 minutes or so, he would ask me how it looked, waving the bleeding arm in front of my face. When I got into the doctor's office and went a through three minute exam for a prescription (which I still have to pay for, despite universal health care), enough of the homeless dude's odor had spread onto me that the doctor looked disgusted by me.
I'd love private health care. I'd like to think that I wouldn't have to share my hospital experience with, or have my service delayed by, such obvious effluence as homeless heroin addicts.
Imported items are nasty too, because Canada, being a paranoid nation, is very badly afraid of the specter of its manufacturers having to compete with American counterparts. Massive duties are leveraged against everything from car parts that I buy for restoring my vintage car to electronic items and other things that should pass through duty-free under NAFTA. Of course, the customs guy forces you to pay duty, and it's up to you to prove to the feds that the item was supposed to be duty-free under NAFTA.
As a sidenote, I'd suggest that with the lower Canadian dollar protecting Canadian manufacturers, wide-open borders would only *help* Canadian manufacturers, since it would give them more ready access to a wider variety of tools, equipment and materials that simply are not available through Canadian suppliers.
Besides, being a market leader in Canada is like being a market leader in Kansas. Big fish. Small pond. Not a great way to grow a company.
Finally, I *believe* in the United States much more than I believe in Canada. I believe in the American spirit, the risk taker, where you are the master of your own success. The Canadian attitude is that we must, at all costs, help the weak or the poor or the addicted, no matter how little they may do to help themselves.
Actually, the figure of $.50 per mile is about right for a typical car that's less than 5 years old.
I can't justify risking, every day, a vehicle that costs $10,000+ in the farce that is Toronto's highway system. When the Honda Accord doing 25MPH in the left lane of a 65MPH freeway changes lanes to try in vain to get off at the next exit, I'm going to be caught either in as she changes lanes without looking or someone else's evasive maneouvers as she spins out.
If the insurance company can viably have my car fixed, they will. But it will never be the same again.
So, I drive something big and old. My previous vehicle was a 1983 Dodge Ram with a Slant-6 engine. It got 20 MPG, cost me no more than $350 CDN to buy (and another $100 to fit up to pass safety). And I put over 150,000km on it in three years. What's my depreciation? Maintenance was not more than $300/year, and I got more for the truck when I sold it for parts than I paid for it initially.
Now, I've got a 1976 Dodge Ram with a 400CID/6.6L V8. That's four times bigger than the 1.6L engine in a Honda Civic. It gets about 7 MPG, but it's worth it for the fact that it really moves when I hammer it. And, at least I don't have a lot of capital that's going to be rear-ended by some cellphone addicted idiot.
Besides, let him hit me. I dare him. My back bumper is plate steel welded directly to a C-channel steel frame. There's not one part of most of today's cars that is that substantial.
Obviously you've never commuted in SV. Average traffic flow is not, in my experience, 60 MPH.
Here in Toronto, Highway 401 across the top of the town is the second busiest freeway in the world, after only the Santa Monica Freeway.
It's brutal. I work in Mississauga and live in Scarborough. Less than 20 miles apart, but depending on what times I travel, the trip can take an hour and a half each way.
Three hours a day wasted to commuting just is not the way to live. Look at it this way:
50 working weeks a year.
5 working days per working week.
therefore, 250 work days a year.
therefore, 750 hours a year wasted to commuting.
750 hours / 24 (hours in a day) = 31.25 days.
Yup. Every year, for the past three years, I've spent a month behind the wheel of my vehicle.
If not for the Howard Stern Show on Q107, I would have gone crazy.
Public transit would force me to actually sit beside other people. I've experimented with it, but I really don't like having children dropping soft drinks on my suits. Not only that, but it takes almost twice as long. One day when I was waiting for a part for my truck, some little booger-nose spilled a milkshake on me, destroying a brand new silk tie. I'll leave public transit to the commoners.
What to drive in the concrete jungle? I prefer big, old and ugly. At the moment, I'm driving a 1976 Dodge Ram with a 400CID (6.6L) big block V8. It's a gas pig, but I see the extra fuel as a form of insurance payment.
You see, being a commuter and driving a really large, really ugly, really unnecessary vehicle gives you that kind of insurance that State Farm just doesn't sell:
If someone driving some silly little Honda or a Subaru Outcast or even an "SUV" like a Toyota Rectal Assault Vehicle (as my friends call RAV-4s) happens to cut me off, I'm guaranteed to do far more damage to them than they do to me.
(For the sake of reference, the 1974-1992 Dodge full-size pickup trucks were rated by Consumer Reports as being the "Most Agressively Crash-safe Vehicle" currently on the road. This is not an award, but a warning - you want to be *in* the Ram, not hit *by* the Ram.)
My friends have nicknamed my truck "The Detroit Ironer", since it's great for putting new creases into Japanese sheetmetal.
Anyway, I must commend you on your choice of automobiles. "Some day..." (-: My uncle restores Mopars (including a SWEET '68(?) Road Runner, and a '69(?) Dart), and my father has a partially-assembled '72 Challenger in his garage. Somehow I doubt he'll let me drive it if/when it gets put together.
Well, first off, I'd never seen that Charger concept car. I love the shape of it, the obvious tribute to the "Coke Bottle" 1969-1970 Charger (like the General Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard). And I like four-door cars. But a 4-door Charger? That's like building a 4-door Corvette! I hope they build it - but two doors only. Maybe they could call the 4-door version the "Satellite" for real vintage flavor.
I'm a big Mopar fan. At the moment, I have three Mopars in my driveway:
1974 Plymouth Valiant Brougham 4-door with a Slant 6 (lovely, comfy Sunday cruiser)
1983 Dodge Ram with a Slant 6 / 4-speed transmission (slow but tough as nails and good on fuel)
1976 Dodge Ram with a 400 (6.6L) big-block V8 and a 727 automatic (blows away Mustang 5.0s)
And then, the non-Mopar stuff:
1980 Chevrolet Chevette 2-dr with a Buick 3.8L (231) V6 stuffed under the hood (fast).
So I'm mostly a Mopar fan. Love working on them; I've done my own engine rebuilds, rust repairs (welded, no Bond-o), lots of electrical and electronics repair and modifications. The Chevette needs a roll cage - must do it - and a new diff, because every time I stomp on the gas, I blow another wrecking yard diff. I've got a Ford 8.8" kicking around that I'll narrow for it.
And the Valiant's lovely 297,000 mile Slant-6 engine block is sitting in my living room. As part of restoring the car, I'm rebuilding the motor. But I had no place to put it! So after I cleaned it, into the house it came. It needs a little machine work before I put the engine back together. It was badly worn, but running well, when I got it. Can't kill a Slant-6.
Microsoft has responded to the cease and desist letter sent by the Digital Divas, informing the Divas that they didn't feel that 'Digital Diva' was a trademarkable term,
What broadcast monopoly are you talking about? Obviously it isn't CBC (which is still a crown corporation, and which definitely isn't a monopoly unless you live in the middle of nowhere) or the CRTC (regulates spectrum usage and ostensibly my culture, but isn't a company). What does that leave?
Well, without going back to my post, I'm sure the monopoly to which I was referring was that of the recently created Air Canada situation. (Why not let foreign carriers provide competition? Canadian Airlines would have gone under anyway.)
But I resent that my tax money goes to fund the CBC. Having worked for them on a freelance basis, I can tell you first hand that their producers speak in a currency foreign to every other organization that I've seen. The currency? Leather sofas. As in, "it cost me 30 leather sofas to make that episode of Anne of Green Gables." Near as I can tell, a "leather sofa" is a currency unit representing approximately $6,000CDN dollars.
No wonder the CBC runs a constant federal funding drain. Why? CTV is private, profitable, and produces *more* Canadian content.
As for Canadian Content, the CRTC should be disbanded. Their broadcast regulatory division is made up mostly of "Content Police", as broadcasters refer to them. Why not let the free market decide how many Tragically Hip songs Q107 should play in a day? Since 40% of all programming on Canadian radio/TV stations *has* to be Canadian, there's a serious excess of crap that shouldn't be played on even the worst college radio station.
Do you have pictures of this? I'd love to see it.;]
Hmmm... I'll try to scam the digital camera from the office for a couple of days.
In a nutshell, though, just try to imagine a Vic-20 and a garden-variety, off-the-shelf Made-in-Korea TV set sitting beside a very old (but still pretty in that 1950s way) Maytag washing machine. And a 34-conductor ribbon cable connecting the two.
It's really rather unspectacular; the software is more interesting. I'd post that, but the source code is on the hard disk of my old Amiga 500, which is packed away in a box somewhere, since I haven't used the thing in years...
Re:Silicon Valley Age Discrimination
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Too Old To Code?
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· Score: 1
Plus he got all his amps to go to 11. That's 1 more, innit?
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Okay. Here's a hint. Don't do your reseach from 1961 Popular Electronics magazine predictions of what things would be like by now.
. In any event, the satellite is actually pretty cheap - about $10-20k to put it into orbit with a nice transmitter and a few solar cells plus the mandatory stuff you'd find in a comm sat.Sure. And in 1961, they thought we'd have flying cars by now. And there'd be martian colonies, let alone lunar colonies.
I hate to break it to you, but most of the time, the $15-20k figure is *per pound* of launch weight. That's not to build the satellite - that's just to put it into orbit. Russian Soyuz rockets run along the cheap end, primarily because they're statistically more likely to blow up (and destroy your multi-million dollar satellite).
For a comms satellite, you need a receiver and a transmitter, all powered by a solar cell. Such an arrangement is actually called a "transponder", since it just basically mirrors back a given signal on a different frequency and orientation.
Even for the low-band microwave C and Ku band satellite TV systems (mass produced and therefore quite cheap in comparison), receivers are not inexpensive. (And I mean the LNA/downconverter in the feedhorn, not the the set-top box.)
Simply to run any device at frequencies as high as are required for use like this, requires tremendously tight mechanical and eletronic tolerances be enforced. This costs a lot, both in machine tools, skilled employees, and also in a reduced product yield rate.
For sake of example, I often buy magnetrons for work. These aren't microwave oven magnetrons (which aren't for communications and therefore don't have to be too precise). These are radar magnetrons, running in the 12GHz band. RMS power through them is 7 watts. And they operate at normal temperatures (-40c to +70c). And they're damned expensive. Some of the EEV and JRC models I use run in the range of $4,000 - $6,000 each.
Now, consider that most modern satellite transponders run 12W transmit power. That means a bigger magnetron than my $5,000 tubes. And there's another problem: a magnetron is a tube with a magnet around it. Tubes aren't reliable or compact enough to launch, and magnets don't like temperature extremes. We don't use high-powered solid-state magnetron-equivalents in our radar systems because they're just *way* too expensive. Even a small solid-state Gunn diode for a radar speed gun can set you back $5,000 - and that's not even 1/1000th of the power you'd need.
In short, what I'm getting at, I think, is that there's no way in hell you're ever going to find a transmitting device for one transponder, let alone the rest of the transponder, let alone every other part of the satellite, let alone... for anything in the price range you're quoting.
If you really want a Satellite, I have one. It's a chrome emblem off a 1960s Plymouth. It says "Satellite", in letters about 1" tall. And ya know what, just for irony's sake, I'll *give* it to you if you promise to pay to put the thing into geosynchronous orbit.
But you couldn't even get that Satellite into orbit for the money you're talking about.
You mean, sort of the way Jehovah's Witnesses do?
Well, some of them. I'm sure that we've all either done some things (as newbies, by accident, or without thinking) that would qualify as hacking....
loop:ping slashdot.org
goto loop
(Never use this method to see if you've got your high-speed internet connection stable... although, this is more likely to make your ISP very angry for loading down their DNS servers.)
But the bigger issue, I'd suggest, isn't script-kiddies with boredom as a motivation. It's the "pros"; those who are out there deliberately trying to take you down but lacking the skill required to do it properly. Look at e-hippies vs. WTO.
Since these "e-hippies", like most other radical left-wingers, are so caught up with their agendas that they don't attempt to learn about technology before they use it, they're sitting ducks when they attack you.
In this case, while I'm sure it's technically illegal, it could take *so long* to get the proper authorities to do anything about it. I mean, you've got jurisdictional issues, contact issues, and then the time it takes to get a cop to put down the donut and get off his butt.
I'd argue that reflecting their DoS attack back at them is merely self-defense, not a separate attack. What you're doing is no worse than fighting off the guy who just punched you in the face.
3. You are know better and are breaking the law in exactally the same manner.Sure, I know better. I didn't, and I wouldn't, start an attack. But I have to be able to defend myself against attacks. If someone breaks a window on my business and runs off, I'll chase him down and hold him there while I wait for the cops. If someone punches me in the face, I'll take whatever steps are necessary to restrain that individual until the police arrive. And finally, if a DoS attack occurs, if I can perhaps shut down their computer by reflecting their malformed packets back at them, I'll do it, in order to maintain the services provided by my own computer.
I agree it's a gray area; it's definately one that needs careful attention from legislation.
Which is, in effect, a form of subsidy.
So, the province of British Columbia is willing to make concessions that will, in effect, subsidize the most profitable corporation in the world.
Makes me so proud to be a Canadian.
Personally, I don't like Microsoft, but I respect them as a business. Their products are crappy, which makes their ruthlessness, foresight and luck all the more telling.
And if they want to escape a DOJ breakup by moving someplace that doesn't care about monopolies, that's just good business sense. But for [censored] sake, I'd hope that any government wouldn't make concessions to them.
As a side note, if you're starting a business and feel like becoming a monopoly, you do have safe refuge in Canada. Not only does Canada have the usual assortment of telco and cable company monopolies, but it's got a few more:
Air Canada - the federal government changed laws to allow them to become a monopoly.
Canadian Tire - about the only place you, as a consumer, can buy a fanbelt for your car. Service sucks, prices are high, and the fanbelt will fray and fail while you're on the 401 two weeks later.
Microsoft will fit right into the Canadian goverment's view of a healthy economy.
Lessee:
Air Canada
Canadian Tire
Bell Canada / Baby Bells
Microsoft...
Now, if the BC government is trying to bait them to move, I guess it means that Microsoft would get special concessions (aka. subsidies)?
If Microsoft gets subsidies - whatever you want to call them and however you want to pay them - I'm going to create a stink of unprecedented proportions. Any ideas how?
Ahhh... Remember when Napster had banner ads? And an Internic Whois lookup gave you an address in Massachusetts?
Remember when Port 80 was unused, until a little program called Spry Mosaic came out?
When you gave an electrical engineer your e-mail address, and he had no idea what it was?
When the old DEC VT-100 you'd holed away was the best way of hitting Usenet?
Sigh... the good old days, before the Internet went corporate...
[BigBlockMopar logs onto Napster and downloads "Memories".]
Which is a dangerous experiment in self-delusion. Sadly, erroneous science is the favorite tool of tree-huggers, who operate on emotion rather than fact.
Most cars wear out before their emissions controls are technologically obsolete. Which means that with each generation of cars, there's an incremental upgrade.
Old cars (20+ years old) generally account for a very small percentage of the vehicles on the road. And if the car is still on the road, it's either been very well maintained (ie. not worn out) or hasn't seen much use (ie. not worn out).
Therefore, next time you see a 1971 Plymouth Valiant driving down the road, you should consider that despite its age, it's probably in no worse shape mechanically than the median commuter automobile. In fact, it's probably in better shape.
Now, what about those old emissions controls?
An electronic fuel injection system is basically a carburetor with feedback. It adjusts the fuel/air ratio for best mileage and emissions on its own. But a carburetor, properly maintained and calibrated is precise enough that it's not an issue.
A charcoal canister vapor recovery system, as fitted on virtually every car since 1975 (and two of them on most CA-emissions models) is a wonderful way of trapping unburned gasoline vapors. But next time you fill your gasoline-powered lawn trimmer, you've just released the same amount of gas vapors that would be trapped by the car's EVAP system over its lifetime. (Keep in mind, too, the EVAP system does nothing for your car when you're parked at the gas pump.)
Catalytic converters are the scourge of emissions controls. Tree-huggers lobbied the EPA until they were forced onto cars. Interesting sidenote about cataclysmic converters... they turn fairly unpleasant but non-lethal unburnt hydrocarbons into water and CO2. That's okay.But what they also do is turn the sulphur compounds in all gasoline into sulphur dioxide. Which hits the atmosphere, combines with water and produces sulphuric acid - acid rain. The pH of rainfall dropped alarmingly from 1975 to 1985 as the percentage of the vehicle fleet equipped with catalytic converters increased.
Our efforts, as a society, are far better served to look at newer cars. On a daily basis, I end up sitting in traffic behind a Hyundai Excel, Toyota Tercel or some other crowning achievement in hatchback design, breathing the blue smoke this nearly end-of-life vehicle is belching at me. The tailgate of said vehicles often have black stains all around their tailpipes, as evidence of a lingering problem in either fuel or oil control, and of long-term owner neglect. Let's look at enforcement of the issue more than every two years (registration): Get that off the road. The owner is clearly negligent and should be held criminally responsible.
By contrast, my 1983 Dodge Ram (which needed an emission test, but my '76 didn't, due to its age) blew a 24 PPM on unburnt HC its last emissions check. 0.2% CO at idle. 11 PPM NOx. Which means, either by fluke or by good maintenance, my 1983 Dodge Ram blew a cleaner sniffer test than Ontario's DriveClean program requires of a 1997 model compact sedan.
Finally, if you wonder why some people drive old cars, and in fact highly resent all attempts to regulate or inconvenience the owners of old cars in the interests of ill-founded environmental issues, think of your favorite vintage computer.
Now, if you had to license your Apple II or original Pac Man arcade machine, and then pay a tax on it because it wasn't "very efficient" - total MIPS for watt of electricity consumed - you'd be pretty mad, too, right?
Welcome to my world.
Yeah, automotive AC systems tend to be unreliable crap. And I agree, they're wholly essential to the enjoyment or even simply the usefulness of a vehicle.
My old (yet paradoxically newer) 1983 Dodge Ram was from California and had Chrysler AirTemp AC in it. Of course, it hadn't worked for years when I got the truck. And it liked R-12 freon, which is scarce and/or very expensive.
I pressurized the system with my air compressor and found the leak that had cost it all its R-12 freon. I replaced a defective hose, then took the truck to an AC shop and told them to fill up the AC system with modern R-134A, which is mostly compatible with R-12 freon.
(Sidenote: lots of people use propane (right out of a BBQ tank) in their AC systems. I don't like it, because it's not lubricated, and is therefore hard on the vehicle's AC compressor. The fire risk, actually, is very slight, because there's so little propane involved. But you can test your system with it.)
The truck's AC worked. Not as efficiently as it did when it was new, granted, but enough that when it gets to be 100+ degrees with 90% humidity here in Toronto (which does happen, believe it or not), the truck's cab was able to maintain a balmy 70 degrees.
My '76 Ram didn't have AC when I got it. So, I pulled the whole AC setup from a 1986 Ford Crown Victoria station wagon that I was scrapping, and have since retrofitted it into the truck. It promises to be effective, since it has a huge evaporator (meant to cool a wagon). It, too, is filled with R-134A - before I pulled it out of the car, I had an AC tech come by and vacuum out the R-12. Got a few bucks for the old freon, which paid for the new freon and a case of beer which I drank while I was drilling holes for new hoses in my truck. I'm just waiting for the first really hot day to see how well it works!
If you can swap a motherboard into a new case or do anything like that, you can do your own AC and automotive work. Domestics are easier to fix/modify/hack than imports, just like a generic clone is easier to upgrade than a Compaq or Dell. I mean, it's just bolted together. And what's a bolt? A bigger version of the little screws that hold your cards into their slots.
Just read the books, buy the right tools (Sears Craftsman, Mac and Snap-On are the best) and treat it like you would with a computer.
Not that I've ever found a static-sensitive starter motor...
Now, what can we do to stop this guy? We have some of the most brilliant minds in a field that represents the ultimate in intellectual free-thinking. Surely, if we come together we can figure out a *practical*, *ethical* and *legal* means to stop his service or render its results thoroughly invalid.
Hey, wait a minute. I know who he is. I cancelled his download of Donna Summers' Macarthur Park Suite, in 256kbps, after waiting for him to download 95% of it. He instant messaged me telling me that he'd get revenge.
Yup. But there's more to it than that.
First off, I'm in Canada; therefore, I don't have the same complement of insurance companies with which to compare prices.
Secondly, since my truck is so cheap (less than $1,000 CDN), I didn't bother with fire, theft or collision insurance. All I have is liability insurance. I wouldn't be able to do that if the vehicle cost more, since I wouldn't be able to eat the cost of replacing it. In an urban area, that affects your rates greatly.
Third, the Dodge Ram pickup truck didn't change much from 1974 to 1992. Theoretically, the front fender off a '92 Ram will bolt right onto a '74. Bumpers are the same the entire series. That makes parts easier to locate, and cheaper. Insurance companies like that.
Finally, I have other advantages from driving a truck that simply aren't present with a smaller vehicle. Advantages that more than outweigh the gas costs. Carrying stuff, intimidation of Jeep Cherokee owners (let alone making Nissan Micra owners wet themselves), being unorthodox... (I love sitting in traffic in downtown Toronto, with a shirt and tie on, driving a 24 year old pickup truck!)
Now all I need is a gun rack, a bale of hay and a Confederate flag. Then I can have some real hick fun with the Porsches and stuff that surround me daily.
I was one of the very first Napster users, going all the way back to August of last year. I happily admit that.
In the past year, I've bought over 30 CDs, compared to 20 or so the previous year. Some of those additional CDs were because I liked the stuff of theirs that I heard on Napster, and some of it was simply because of Napster, I'm more "connected" to my music collection.
I don't for a second dispute the intellectual property ownership or anything like that. But, besides the obvious fact that the Pandora's Box is open and there's nothing the RIAA can do short of making a lot of enemies, there's another issue.
I have a lot more music now than I would have ever had, buying CDs. In fact, now I have stuff that I like to listen to occasionally, but for which I would never commit the real estate occupied by a CD, let alone the cost of a CD. You know the kinds of songs I'm talking about - I guarantee you feel exactly the same way about some song or another. For me, the song is "Bust a Move" by Young MC. I hate rap.
These are songs that the RIAA would never have been paid for anyway, because I would never have bought a copy. And yet, thanks to Napster, on the rare occasion that the urge to hear it strikes, I play it.
The fact that I have this song without having paid for it is not the issue that the RIAA should be looking at. Because, as I've indicated, as a long time user, I spend more on CDs than I used to. Napster has just made me more conscious of the music I listen to, which therefore makes me invest in more.
You know, far be it for me to actually say anthing original on this topic. Everything that I have to say has been echoed hundreds of time by my fellow Slashdotters.
But I think that the RIAA isn't made up of tremendously intelligent people, since the paradigm has so obviously changed, and there's so clearly nothing that can be done to stop it short of embracing it.
So, for the sake of repetition causing learning by rote and the hopes that some little balding RIAA legal-type might read this, let's all join together and repeat after me:
The 'net is unstoppable. The more you fight it, the more record companies and artists will be casualties. The more you embrace it, the more opportunities the Internet and its users will afford you.
[Humbly getting off soap box.]
Yeah, I seem to have gotten off on a tangent. Genius is seldom tidy. But, actually, if you're breaking down the cost of a car as an investment rather than a per mile expense, my discourse does make sense.
Out of interest, I just hit my insurance company's website. To insure a 1997 Accord for me (26 year old single male, 0 accidents, 0 convictions, 0 DUI) would cost $2,556 annually. That's $213/mo, or more than the car payment.
Ironically, insuring a pickup truck which literally has an engine 4 x bigger, weighs twice as much and is nowhere near as capable of swerving to avoid an accident costs only $37/mo to insure.
I guess that makes a pretty good statement about the motoring ability of the average Honda driver, and therefore reaffirms my rationale for driving something capable of flattening any Honda product ever built.
Besides, when I'm gentle with the accelerator, the insurance costs make up the gas mileage difference.
Just watch out for weaving chevys 'round Arnette..
Better turn off the pumps, Hap.
Yuh, I think I could like that kind of life.
Well, despite the original poster's obvious lack of any literacy, he does raise some good points.
As a disenfranchised Canadian who has lived in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, I feel well qualified to say that Canada doesn't really offer me much.
The cost of living in Canada versus the US can be similar, but it depends on the person. Sure, a loaf of bread is 89c here, and 89c in $US.
But more fundamentally, taxes make up the difference. Increased buying power on an international level make up the difference.
And, most importantly to my morale, my taxes are actually *used* for something relevant. At least you have some measure of federal and state services to show for your taxes. There's a military that protects you. The INS service doesn't let known terrorists into the country and then give them welfare for five years.
Taxation differences as mentioned in related articles on this subject quoted only income taxes. Sure, California residents in the upper bracket will see 48.x% of their income taxed directly away. And in Ontario's highest tax bracket, about 50% of your income is whisked away. 2% more expensive here, and all provinces provide health care, right?
Wrong. Dead wrong.
What's the US federal sales tax? 0%, you say? In Canada, it's 7%.
What's the state sales tax in California? 5%-6%? In Ontario, it's 8%.
You make income principally to buy stuff. Everything you buy in Canada is about 10% more heavily taxed.
In Ontario, gasoline is far more heavily taxed, significantly exceeding the cost of even expensive, chemically-altered California gasoline. Once upon a time, that money went to road construction and maintence, giving Ontario the best highway system in the world (1966-1975). However, a string of socialist governments decided that because cars aren't environmentally friendly, we'll stop funding the construction of new roads. Instead, they funnelled the money into pet projects like huge welfare programs that only now are being scaled back to reasonable levels.
Health care is a farce. Since all the hospitals are public, you sit in a little waiting room somewhere and wait for service. I got strepped throat and went to a hospital in downtown Toronto. Sitting beside me was a homeless person who had broken a needle off in his arm when he had been shooting up heroin. I felt my life was in peril for the three hours I had to sit beside this individual. Every 5 minutes or so, he would ask me how it looked, waving the bleeding arm in front of my face. When I got into the doctor's office and went a through three minute exam for a prescription (which I still have to pay for, despite universal health care), enough of the homeless dude's odor had spread onto me that the doctor looked disgusted by me.
I'd love private health care. I'd like to think that I wouldn't have to share my hospital experience with, or have my service delayed by, such obvious effluence as homeless heroin addicts.
Imported items are nasty too, because Canada, being a paranoid nation, is very badly afraid of the specter of its manufacturers having to compete with American counterparts. Massive duties are leveraged against everything from car parts that I buy for restoring my vintage car to electronic items and other things that should pass through duty-free under NAFTA. Of course, the customs guy forces you to pay duty, and it's up to you to prove to the feds that the item was supposed to be duty-free under NAFTA.
As a sidenote, I'd suggest that with the lower Canadian dollar protecting Canadian manufacturers, wide-open borders would only *help* Canadian manufacturers, since it would give them more ready access to a wider variety of tools, equipment and materials that simply are not available through Canadian suppliers.
Besides, being a market leader in Canada is like being a market leader in Kansas. Big fish. Small pond. Not a great way to grow a company.
Finally, I *believe* in the United States much more than I believe in Canada. I believe in the American spirit, the risk taker, where you are the master of your own success. The Canadian attitude is that we must, at all costs, help the weak or the poor or the addicted, no matter how little they may do to help themselves.
I can't justify risking, every day, a vehicle that costs $10,000+ in the farce that is Toronto's highway system. When the Honda Accord doing 25MPH in the left lane of a 65MPH freeway changes lanes to try in vain to get off at the next exit, I'm going to be caught either in as she changes lanes without looking or someone else's evasive maneouvers as she spins out.
If the insurance company can viably have my car fixed, they will. But it will never be the same again.
So, I drive something big and old. My previous vehicle was a 1983 Dodge Ram with a Slant-6 engine. It got 20 MPG, cost me no more than $350 CDN to buy (and another $100 to fit up to pass safety). And I put over 150,000km on it in three years. What's my depreciation? Maintenance was not more than $300/year, and I got more for the truck when I sold it for parts than I paid for it initially.
Now, I've got a 1976 Dodge Ram with a 400CID/6.6L V8. That's four times bigger than the 1.6L engine in a Honda Civic. It gets about 7 MPG, but it's worth it for the fact that it really moves when I hammer it. And, at least I don't have a lot of capital that's going to be rear-ended by some cellphone addicted idiot.
Besides, let him hit me. I dare him. My back bumper is plate steel welded directly to a C-channel steel frame. There's not one part of most of today's cars that is that substantial.
Here in Toronto, Highway 401 across the top of the town is the second busiest freeway in the world, after only the Santa Monica Freeway.
It's brutal. I work in Mississauga and live in Scarborough. Less than 20 miles apart, but depending on what times I travel, the trip can take an hour and a half each way.
Three hours a day wasted to commuting just is not the way to live. Look at it this way:
50 working weeks a year.
5 working days per working week.
therefore, 250 work days a year.
therefore, 750 hours a year wasted to commuting.
750 hours / 24 (hours in a day) = 31.25 days.
Yup. Every year, for the past three years, I've spent a month behind the wheel of my vehicle.
If not for the Howard Stern Show on Q107, I would have gone crazy.
Public transit would force me to actually sit beside other people. I've experimented with it, but I really don't like having children dropping soft drinks on my suits. Not only that, but it takes almost twice as long. One day when I was waiting for a part for my truck, some little booger-nose spilled a milkshake on me, destroying a brand new silk tie. I'll leave public transit to the commoners.
What to drive in the concrete jungle? I prefer big, old and ugly. At the moment, I'm driving a 1976 Dodge Ram with a 400CID (6.6L) big block V8. It's a gas pig, but I see the extra fuel as a form of insurance payment.
You see, being a commuter and driving a really large, really ugly, really unnecessary vehicle gives you that kind of insurance that State Farm just doesn't sell:
If someone driving some silly little Honda or a Subaru Outcast or even an "SUV" like a Toyota Rectal Assault Vehicle (as my friends call RAV-4s) happens to cut me off, I'm guaranteed to do far more damage to them than they do to me.
(For the sake of reference, the 1974-1992 Dodge full-size pickup trucks were rated by Consumer Reports as being the "Most Agressively Crash-safe Vehicle" currently on the road. This is not an award, but a warning - you want to be *in* the Ram, not hit *by* the Ram.)
My friends have nicknamed my truck "The Detroit Ironer", since it's great for putting new creases into Japanese sheetmetal.
Just another stunning display of the ineptitude and/or underhandedness of the Canadian government.
I'm just *so* proud to be a Canadian. Oh yippy, yippy, yay.
Well, first off, I'd never seen that Charger concept car. I love the shape of it, the obvious tribute to the "Coke Bottle" 1969-1970 Charger (like the General Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard). And I like four-door cars. But a 4-door Charger? That's like building a 4-door Corvette! I hope they build it - but two doors only. Maybe they could call the 4-door version the "Satellite" for real vintage flavor.
I'm a big Mopar fan. At the moment, I have three Mopars in my driveway:
1974 Plymouth Valiant Brougham 4-door with a Slant 6 (lovely, comfy Sunday cruiser)
1983 Dodge Ram with a Slant 6 / 4-speed transmission (slow but tough as nails and good on fuel)
1976 Dodge Ram with a 400 (6.6L) big-block V8 and a 727 automatic (blows away Mustang 5.0s)
And then, the non-Mopar stuff:
1980 Chevrolet Chevette 2-dr with a Buick 3.8L (231) V6 stuffed under the hood (fast).
So I'm mostly a Mopar fan. Love working on them; I've done my own engine rebuilds, rust repairs (welded, no Bond-o), lots of electrical and electronics repair and modifications. The Chevette needs a roll cage - must do it - and a new diff, because every time I stomp on the gas, I blow another wrecking yard diff. I've got a Ford 8.8" kicking around that I'll narrow for it.
And the Valiant's lovely 297,000 mile Slant-6 engine block is sitting in my living room. As part of restoring the car, I'm rebuilding the motor. But I had no place to put it! So after I cleaned it, into the house it came. It needs a little machine work before I put the engine back together. It was badly worn, but running well, when I got it. Can't kill a Slant-6.
Yeah, well, neither is 'Internet Explorer'.
Take that, Bill, you feculant little dork.
Well, without going back to my post, I'm sure the monopoly to which I was referring was that of the recently created Air Canada situation. (Why not let foreign carriers provide competition? Canadian Airlines would have gone under anyway.)
But I resent that my tax money goes to fund the CBC. Having worked for them on a freelance basis, I can tell you first hand that their producers speak in a currency foreign to every other organization that I've seen. The currency? Leather sofas. As in, "it cost me 30 leather sofas to make that episode of Anne of Green Gables." Near as I can tell, a "leather sofa" is a currency unit representing approximately $6,000CDN dollars.
No wonder the CBC runs a constant federal funding drain. Why? CTV is private, profitable, and produces *more* Canadian content.
As for Canadian Content, the CRTC should be disbanded. Their broadcast regulatory division is made up mostly of "Content Police", as broadcasters refer to them. Why not let the free market decide how many Tragically Hip songs Q107 should play in a day? Since 40% of all programming on Canadian radio/TV stations *has* to be Canadian, there's a serious excess of crap that shouldn't be played on even the worst college radio station.
Hmmm... I'll try to scam the digital camera from the office for a couple of days.
In a nutshell, though, just try to imagine a Vic-20 and a garden-variety, off-the-shelf Made-in-Korea TV set sitting beside a very old (but still pretty in that 1950s way) Maytag washing machine. And a 34-conductor ribbon cable connecting the two.
It's really rather unspectacular; the software is more interesting. I'd post that, but the source code is on the hard disk of my old Amiga 500, which is packed away in a box somewhere, since I haven't used the thing in years...
'Cause, it's bett-ah. It's just bett-ah.
No, however it does make cleaning a little easier.
And it makes silk boxer shorts more fun.
(Speaking from experience, I was cut as an adult, and I feel no shame in saying that I love being circumcised.)
Great site here.
Well, the .sig line sure is great for tormenting imbeciles.
Fait accompli.