How long has the Estes Astrocam been around? I remember playing with one in the 70's. It was an Estes rocket that you actually built (!!!) and it had a nose-cone with a 110 film cartridge type camera. It was a pretty cheap shutter mechanism and even cheaper lens. Getting good results was rare, but when you're 9 years old, it was the epitome of high-tech.
I think most of the roll ended up being pictures of my hand as I checked out the shutter function, maybe 1 arial shot, and some that misfired when the rocket got back to earth (nothing more frustrating than getting the film developed only to find some sideways pictures of tall grass).
I guess I just don't understand how somebody can see all of the identity theft, worm, trojan horse, and phishing scam stories in the news and still think they're perfectly safe.
I have far too many friends and relatives that this applies too, and I can tell you why. They have absolutely no clue what any of the jargon means. A news story that says "Today a trojan spread across the internet attacking unpatched computers and causing a denial-of-service attack on Yahoo's DNS servers." to them reads "Today a blah spread across the internet attacking blah and causing blah to Yahoo's blah."
They have no idea what it means or how it relates to them. Without very specific step-by-step instructions, most computer users are completely lost. They learn by repetition, not by understanding. You can show them how to do something, but most won't make what we would consider to be a logical leap to the next step.
They're so used to pop-ups and crashing and a generally poor computing experience that when something is actually wrong with their computer, they won't notice it.
I wish people here would start to understand that. Even the most basic technical information is lost on the vast majority of computer users.
If you neighbor says that got a virus on their computer, it's probably because their 2 year old un-updated copy of Norton said they had one. They have no idea what it means, how it got there, and what to do to keep it from coming back. If we're lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it), they'll trot down to the local Walmart and buy a new copy of whatever the cheapest virus protection software they have is.
The news reports? The scam stories? They register as "blah blah blah" to most computer users.
Glad you enjoyed it. It's the honest to God truth too! It happened yesterday. My wife heard me say it to him (I think my exact words were "Who do you think you are, George Lucas?"), her head snapped around, and she burst out laughing. Eventually my son decided that he should stop crying and start laughing too, though I don't think he knows what was so funny about it.
My four year old gave me a piece of artwork, which was a mess, but great (if you have kids, you'd understand). But the next day he wanted to take it back to make some changes and additions. I accused him of being like George Lucas. He cried.
I was talking computers with my father-in-law the other day. He wanted some instruction on how to burn CDs. I asked him when the last time he ran Windows Update was. "Windows what? What's that?"
Seriously, the collective "we" make up probably no more than 5% of the total home computer users ("we" being anyone that has the slightest clue what they're doing).
I've given up on helping friends and family straighten out their messed up computers. It could be a full-time job if I let it and I have other things to do with my life. If I had a habit of never changing the oil in my car, I wouldn't "expect" one of my mechanic friends to fix my broken car.
-S
And someone just woke up in an icy bathtub...
on
Todd Need[ed] a Liver
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I heard that it had something to do with someone getting drugged, passing out, and waking up in an icy bathtub. Really. My friend sent me an email about it.
Be careful here. A product that look exactly the same might not be. It might even be made in the same factory from the same parts. But electronics go thorugh a lot of testing along the way in manufacturing and the cheaper ones might be produced with looser specifications. It might even be "outlyers" from the core product.
For example if the brand name version has a spec on some output that calls for 40-50 (insert unit of measure here), units that come off the line with 35-39 or 51-55 might go into the "low cost brand" bin. They still work, but they're not opimal quality.
It's also very easy in electronics to disable features, depopulate boards, etc. Buy a million 5% resistors. Sick the ones closest to nominal in the brand name product, stick the others in the discount product. So, maybe the picture quality isn't as good. You saved fifty bucks, so don't complain.
That great sigh of disappointment you hear is the sound of thousands of porn site administrators realizing that one of the gmail account names they really wanted has been taken...
Reminds me of this slashdot story about a local government which OK'd the police going through citizen's garbage without a warrant. The politicians who put this in place didn't like it so much when reporters when thorugh their garbage.
So yes, the answer is to watch the watchers. Maybe the Boston police commissioner wouldn't mind if we set up some webcams in his neighborhood so we could all watch his comings and goings.
Is it just the "rules" that prevent HD component recording? Right now there's a huge variety of devices that can record from composite or s-video (TiVo, VCRs, DVD recorders, video capture cards on your computer, etc). I just want to dump HD component video into a recorder the same way I dump it into my TV.
The big problem right now is that I can record over-the-air HD with devices like this (and even some HD VCRs and HD capture cards in computers), but I can't record the analog HD signal out of my DirecTV HD box and if I ever got digital cable, I wouldn't be able to record that one either. If I want to record DirecTV HD, my only option right now is to get a HD TiVo (for about $1000), but that's not an archiving solution. (and yes, I know there's hacks, but I'm talking off-the-shelf technology that my mom could use).
I'm very well versed in this stuff but I find it incredibly frustrating trying to sort out exactly what types of signals I can record and when.
decided to forward a fake AMBER alert to the hundreds of people in her list, me being one
There is exactly one thing to do in this situation, and it's something I just love to do. Just reply/all with a link to an appropriate snopes.com page and explain to EVERYONE they sent it to that it's a hoax and that they should research such things before forwarding them on.
The result is typicaly a huge amount of embarassment for the sender.
Of course I did this to my sister and she was none too pleased with me (in fact I'd say that she was downright pissed off that I'd embarassed her in front of all of her friends and family). It worked though. She doesn't send them anymore without checking first.
In Boston if you ride on public transportation, you'll soon be subject to search.
Don't forget folks, it's not only the Republicans who are itching to strip your rights away. Massachusetts is about as Democratic as you can get and they're in on it too.
Lack of competition is not necessarily a good thing. I'm glad that the model of physical-medialess music is taking off, but I'm concerned about how much power Apple/iTunes may end up having in the future if they absolutely dominate the market. Will it be any better than the record industry now? (and don't kid yourself, there may be several "major" labels, but through the RIAA they act as one).
Look at a correlary in the "real world". What if the only place to get music was at your local Best Buy and that just about every other outlet sold orders of magnitude less.
Let's just be careful what we wish for...
-S
At least it's not a "For Dummies" book
on
Linux for Non-Geeks
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
I won't buy those on principle even if they may contain pertinent information on a subject I'd like to learn about.
they apparently provide up to 57 degrees (F) reduction in heat transfer
Heat transfer is not measured in degrees! Here's a quick thermal lesson for you electrical guys....
Temperature rise is equivalent to voltage or potential.
Heat flow (Q) in Watts is equivalent to current in amps
Thermal resistance, measured in Degrees per Watt is the same as resistance measured in ohms.
The equations work the same way too. For most instances of steady state heat dissipation what you have is a constant power dissipation or in electrical terms a constant current. The thermal circuit in this case has the heat generating components at V+ and the room can be considered to be ground. There are resistances in the path and the the higher the resistance, the higher the temperature rise there is between nodes.
What this blanket does is to stick a high thermal resistance between the laptop and one of the heat paths and as a result there is a higher "potential".
But indeed the "current" (or watts) is still constant, so by increasing the resistance through one of the paths, you increase the current flowing through the other paths (and as you know from electricity for a constant resistance, will result in higher voltage across those resistances.
So yes, you keep you lap cool... at the expense of the components in your laptop. Be careful what you wish for.
MythBusters looked into this. They built a chamber and filled it with various levels of gasoline vapors and then called cell phones that were in the chamber. I don't recall everything that they did, but it was pretty extensive and they couldn't get the vapors to explode.
The conclusion was that a static spark from your coat on a dry day is FAR more dangerous than anything a cell phone can spit out.
And remember... it's lawyers who have those signs put up. Not scientists. They're just protecting the company's butt even if there's absolutely no scientific proof that cell phones could cause an explosion.
Slashdot Mirror
How long has the Estes Astrocam been around? I remember playing with one in the 70's. It was an Estes rocket that you actually built (!!!) and it had a nose-cone with a 110 film cartridge type camera. It was a pretty cheap shutter mechanism and even cheaper lens. Getting good results was rare, but when you're 9 years old, it was the epitome of high-tech.
I think most of the roll ended up being pictures of my hand as I checked out the shutter function, maybe 1 arial shot, and some that misfired when the rocket got back to earth (nothing more frustrating than getting the film developed only to find some sideways pictures of tall grass).
-S
Not quite.
Google indexes everything you have not denied it to.
There's a difference.
-S
I have far too many friends and relatives that this applies too, and I can tell you why. They have absolutely no clue what any of the jargon means. A news story that says "Today a trojan spread across the internet attacking unpatched computers and causing a denial-of-service attack on Yahoo's DNS servers." to them reads "Today a blah spread across the internet attacking blah and causing blah to Yahoo's blah."
They have no idea what it means or how it relates to them. Without very specific step-by-step instructions, most computer users are completely lost. They learn by repetition, not by understanding. You can show them how to do something, but most won't make what we would consider to be a logical leap to the next step.
They're so used to pop-ups and crashing and a generally poor computing experience that when something is actually wrong with their computer, they won't notice it.
I wish people here would start to understand that. Even the most basic technical information is lost on the vast majority of computer users.
If you neighbor says that got a virus on their computer, it's probably because their 2 year old un-updated copy of Norton said they had one. They have no idea what it means, how it got there, and what to do to keep it from coming back. If we're lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it), they'll trot down to the local Walmart and buy a new copy of whatever the cheapest virus protection software they have is.
The news reports? The scam stories? They register as "blah blah blah" to most computer users.
-S
Glad you enjoyed it. It's the honest to God truth too! It happened yesterday. My wife heard me say it to him (I think my exact words were "Who do you think you are, George Lucas?"), her head snapped around, and she burst out laughing. Eventually my son decided that he should stop crying and start laughing too, though I don't think he knows what was so funny about it.
-S
My four year old gave me a piece of artwork, which was a mess, but great (if you have kids, you'd understand). But the next day he wanted to take it back to make some changes and additions. I accused him of being like George Lucas. He cried.
Does that make me a bad parent?
-S
Kinda. They couldn't afford a "D" so they changed the name to "digicompaqard".
I hear things are going well for the 4 ex-deccies still left in the company.
-S
I was talking computers with my father-in-law the other day. He wanted some instruction on how to burn CDs. I asked him when the last time he ran Windows Update was. "Windows what? What's that?"
Seriously, the collective "we" make up probably no more than 5% of the total home computer users ("we" being anyone that has the slightest clue what they're doing).
I've given up on helping friends and family straighten out their messed up computers. It could be a full-time job if I let it and I have other things to do with my life. If I had a habit of never changing the oil in my car, I wouldn't "expect" one of my mechanic friends to fix my broken car.
-S
I heard that it had something to do with someone getting drugged, passing out, and waking up in an icy bathtub. Really. My friend sent me an email about it.
-S
Be careful here. A product that look exactly the same might not be. It might even be made in the same factory from the same parts. But electronics go thorugh a lot of testing along the way in manufacturing and the cheaper ones might be produced with looser specifications. It might even be "outlyers" from the core product.
For example if the brand name version has a spec on some output that calls for 40-50 (insert unit of measure here), units that come off the line with 35-39 or 51-55 might go into the "low cost brand" bin. They still work, but they're not opimal quality.
It's also very easy in electronics to disable features, depopulate boards, etc. Buy a million 5% resistors. Sick the ones closest to nominal in the brand name product, stick the others in the discount product. So, maybe the picture quality isn't as good. You saved fifty bucks, so don't complain.
-S
Awesome. Email for Spinal Tap!
That great sigh of disappointment you hear is the sound of thousands of porn site administrators realizing that one of the gmail account names they really wanted has been taken...
-S
Ask Universe Man. He's got a watch with minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.
-S
So yes, the answer is to watch the watchers. Maybe the Boston police commissioner wouldn't mind if we set up some webcams in his neighborhood so we could all watch his comings and goings.
-S
Is it just the "rules" that prevent HD component recording? Right now there's a huge variety of devices that can record from composite or s-video (TiVo, VCRs, DVD recorders, video capture cards on your computer, etc). I just want to dump HD component video into a recorder the same way I dump it into my TV.
The big problem right now is that I can record over-the-air HD with devices like this (and even some HD VCRs and HD capture cards in computers), but I can't record the analog HD signal out of my DirecTV HD box and if I ever got digital cable, I wouldn't be able to record that one either. If I want to record DirecTV HD, my only option right now is to get a HD TiVo (for about $1000), but that's not an archiving solution. (and yes, I know there's hacks, but I'm talking off-the-shelf technology that my mom could use).
I'm very well versed in this stuff but I find it incredibly frustrating trying to sort out exactly what types of signals I can record and when.
-S
-S
There is exactly one thing to do in this situation, and it's something I just love to do. Just reply/all with a link to an appropriate snopes.com page and explain to EVERYONE they sent it to that it's a hoax and that they should research such things before forwarding them on.
The result is typicaly a huge amount of embarassment for the sender.
Of course I did this to my sister and she was none too pleased with me (in fact I'd say that she was downright pissed off that I'd embarassed her in front of all of her friends and family). It worked though. She doesn't send them anymore without checking first.
-S
Don't forget folks, it's not only the Republicans who are itching to strip your rights away. Massachusetts is about as Democratic as you can get and they're in on it too.
-S
Lack of competition is not necessarily a good thing. I'm glad that the model of physical-medialess music is taking off, but I'm concerned about how much power Apple/iTunes may end up having in the future if they absolutely dominate the market. Will it be any better than the record industry now? (and don't kid yourself, there may be several "major" labels, but through the RIAA they act as one).
Look at a correlary in the "real world". What if the only place to get music was at your local Best Buy and that just about every other outlet sold orders of magnitude less.
Let's just be careful what we wish for...
-S
I won't buy those on principle even if they may contain pertinent information on a subject I'd like to learn about.
-S
2) Point it here
3) Sit back and enjoy.
-S
Queue the wackos....
-S
Heat transfer is not measured in degrees! Here's a quick thermal lesson for you electrical guys....
Temperature rise is equivalent to voltage or potential.
Heat flow (Q) in Watts is equivalent to current in amps
Thermal resistance, measured in Degrees per Watt is the same as resistance measured in ohms.
The equations work the same way too. For most instances of steady state heat dissipation what you have is a constant power dissipation or in electrical terms a constant current. The thermal circuit in this case has the heat generating components at V+ and the room can be considered to be ground. There are resistances in the path and the the higher the resistance, the higher the temperature rise there is between nodes.
What this blanket does is to stick a high thermal resistance between the laptop and one of the heat paths and as a result there is a higher "potential".
But indeed the "current" (or watts) is still constant, so by increasing the resistance through one of the paths, you increase the current flowing through the other paths (and as you know from electricity for a constant resistance, will result in higher voltage across those resistances.
So yes, you keep you lap cool... at the expense of the components in your laptop. Be careful what you wish for.
-S
Too late. I think she was on The Sopranos last night.
-S
The conclusion was that a static spark from your coat on a dry day is FAR more dangerous than anything a cell phone can spit out.
And remember... it's lawyers who have those signs put up. Not scientists. They're just protecting the company's butt even if there's absolutely no scientific proof that cell phones could cause an explosion.
-S
The rest of us believe that the existing technology delivered acceptable levels of performance for far less money.
-S