It's great. High quality video. I can even record my own stuff right off TV!
I heard of this upcoming thing called DVD... supposed to be a lot better than VHS, but it will require an entirely new player! I can't even play my existing tapes on this new hardware!
Funny thing is DVD recording is relativly new. That old VHS VCR to this day is still useful for recording video. It remained a viable standard for 20+ years and this is a very good run.
In this 20 years, we had a ton of options including super vhs, 8mm/high 8, and digital tape, but for home use the VHS VCR was never really replaced.
The problem is people who plopped down $2000+ for a new fancy HD-monitor/tv, perfectly good units that meet the parameters of displaying content in higher resolutions than before, being locked out not because their monitor isn't able to display the content but because their player tells the monitor not to display it.
VHS copy protection i.e. macrovision didn't really require you to buy new equipment with some exceptions, and even so that equipment didn't cost a few grand. More advanced DVD protection for the most part doesn't require you to get a new player, and even so a new player won't cost you a few grand.
We've become habituated to the fact that while content devices may change, display and output devices change less frequently and represent a more stable investment. This isn't about needing a new player to play new media but about new players refusing to play on your output device not due to a technical limitation but because the player is told not to play on older stuff.
I remember when 25 dollar cards were plentiful and DID THE JOB...
What job?
I remember buying into some ISA video cards way back when. I was slightly annoyed at the fact that not many games supported my card... then VESA became popular so this was less of a problem, bought into an ATI ISA card, but it's windows peformance was too slow so I bought into a graphics accelerator and things were groovy.
I got tired of 8bit color and bought into PCI and 16bit color, and it was spiffy for a time, but then I wanted to play a game, and had to upgrade yet again.
Sounding familar?
The day of the $25 video card has not passed. Even 15 years ago you "could" buy a $25 video card and so long as you were doing text everything was groovy, but anything game related at above and beyond VGA 16 color was propriority and you either were lucky and bought something that was supported, or were unlucky and had a virtual paperweight.
What a $25 video card? Plenty to choose from mail order. Hell I just picked up a old ATI Rage 128 all and one wonder for well under $25 bucks. The video digitizer chipset isn't supported under linux but if you are a windows user and you don't play game it's a mighty fine card. Localy... expect to spend closer to $40 for your base video card unless you shop around some indy shops. Otherwise hit the newsgroups, find that that gamer who just has to have the latest and greatest, simply must have that small increase in framerate so they have an edge over the other guy.
Don't play games... $25. What to play a game from time to time, $50. Nothing has changed.
So far, it seems like only the "low end" cards have had misleading names. But "low end" buyers are the ones least likely to do the research.
It was common place for some dealers to advertise a TNT or a Geforce 2 / 4 in a whitebox and when you bought it home it ended up being the MX edition.
A general rule of thumb... If you are looking for a budget video card it's generally best to buy last years hot model rather than this years *lame* model.
For example I bought a geforce4 mx edition where I would have been better off buying a geforce3 which IIRC didn't have an mx edition. It was *good enough* till I actually wanted to play something more modern, in which case it was too dog slow.
The Voodoo3's are keepers, as well as the Geforce MX, if you want a fanless card. I used to play CS with them and they now end up in my girlfriend's computers (she doesn't 3D game).
My ati 9600 (256D) series is fanless. I know not the most hot gamer card on the market, but nothing to sneeze at esp considering it fetches a price under $60.00. I don't have bench marks but I noticed that pirates had game sequences such as dancing and "attack the town" where my old lame g-force 4 was so slow it was practicaly unplayable.
The TNT2 non-ultra editions were pretty spiffy and fanless, but I had some real dogs from Diamond. I returned my Viper 770 several times and finally gave up. Works ok if underclocked, but running at the standard memory clock it freaks out and gets worse as the years go on. I would have designated it a nice hand-me-down card otherwise.
You can't manipulate the deck, you can't see other peoples , etc. I suppose knowing one other persons hand might give a bit more knowledge about the cards in the deck, but how big an advantage would that be?
I'm not a big poker player... so I don't know all the rules of the game, but from my limited understanding I'm under the impression that your goal is to get a successful combination of cards where each combo is ranked differently. Further you can bluff your way to victory if someone believes you have a higher ranked combo then that do and doesn't want to take the risk. Knowing what the other guy has is a huge advantage. For example if they only have a pair, you can try for two pair or three of a kind provided you know there is a chance in hell those cards are in the deck. If you know they have a straight, and there is no chance in hell of getting a flush (regular stright royal) full house, or 4 of a kind you can fold and take the least loss.
Keep in mind the level of corruption that existed in normal gambling. Now imagine if someone wrote a worm that would relay this info to a central site and spread to other players. No harder to believe that some joker who decided one day to make casino tokens.
I guess if you got into a game with 5 other people who were all working together, they could fleece you?
This could be done easily in the olden days by signals. Now not only can you instently communicate but you can automaticly count the cards. You don't really have to use your head when software will do this for you.
what's the point in selling 92 million email address? any dictionary attack worth it's weight will have found 80%+ of those accounts anyway...
The simple fact is you could toss out 92million adverts to random names and only get a percent that are active accounts, or you could pay a good sum of money and get 92million real active addresses. I could only assume that who ever paid the tens of thousands of dollars made more than what they spent for the traction.
That's really it, if spending tens of thousands of dollars makes you hundrads of thousands of dollars or millions... you cough up the investement, no if ands or buts. What I don't understand is these people who buy this stuff they see spammed.
The moment dumb asses started selling their virtual items on e-bay these virtual items had a real value attached to them.
I wouldn't consider police personaly... but rather contact the hosters about the problem, ask for my money back, or if worse comes to worse consider a civil suit. Many gamers take their games as seriously as reality. while I would be critical of the person doing the virtual theft, i'd be more critical of the people who wrote and host the game for not fixing the damn bugs and in the end I would hold them responcible for being aware of the problem and doing nothing.
It says they *can* open post offices.. which half answers the second half. Nowhere does it say they *should*
Given they were given the power to open post offices, I think it is assumed that they should. If they shouldn't open up post offices and post roads then they wouldn't have been given the the power and authority to do so. Yes they should open post offices esp in the 18th century because if they didn't who else will? QED.
What were you doing? (I cant imagine a case getting that hot without some serious layout problems...
Serious layout problems? like just about any ATX case on the market?
I'm running a xp2800, ATI 9600 256-D based card, the fanless one 325mhz core, Two HDS one DVD burner. Also PCI scsi, SB live 5.1, Promise UDMA-100 IDE, V stream digitizer card, network adapter.
For a very long time I thought I had some layout issues as I was getting casetemps of 60C according to the Asus-probe.
After dremmeling a larger front hole for a 120mm fan, and switched to a PS with dual 92mm/80mm, and after buying another thermometer I established that my asus thermometers were reading high, really high, about 11 degrees too high. I just reassembled and with a closed cover it's reading 36.6C on my real thermometer... where asus says my MB is 46C and my CPU is 68C... I guess reality is 57C.
To be honest I don't know what a good temp is, but 11 degrees hotter than the outside enviroment doesn't seem too bad to me. I could up the speed of my fans to drop it by one more degree... but my system is stable for the first time in a while.
What really grinds my goat is the fact that the graphics slot is the last one, next to the ATX plate, CPU typicaly with its fan, and the PS with it's fans. Why the hell is the hardware pointed toward the other slots? Would it not make sense to mount the hardware the other way... esp the GPU in an area designed for things that need max airflow?
My wife liked it, but it isn't in use at the moment because of a few drawbacks: no 1 key, no backspace, and no Escape
I have to admit I rather like the idea of converting the manual style to the modern pc... still I wonder whether or not there is an easier way to meet the desired application of typing that doesn't involve hitting a wall. I often wondered about installing a soft foam layer under the the contact membrain of a normal keyboard to create a softer impact. I find my self tending to slam my fingers into the keyboard with the same result... impact impact impact.
The Coleco Adam did this out of the box. Back when most computers booted into BASIC the Adam booted into this kind of typewriter mode, and was one keystroke away from a pretty good little word processor (for its time). To get BASIC or any other program you loaded it from a high-speed random access tape (what the Adam had instead of disk drives).
Tape drives were not unique during that time period. Just most home computers employed the use of a portable cassette recorder which you manual cued where the Adam had a true blue tape drive with the ability to seek. Disk drives were an option, cartridges were commonly sold, but every adam had at least one tape drive onboard. The speed of the drive was 1200bps IIRC... the same as the TI/99/4a.
The Adam was unique in the fact that it was geard tward word processing. Marketing computers was very hard in the early 1980s... there were three basic nitches... Games, education, and word processing. Unfortunatly the most successful home computers were the ones that actually popular game titles.... Atari and Commodore.
The painfully annoying thing about the Adam was the fact that the printer acted as a power supply to the main unit. Cut down on the wires but really put a pain in finding a place to setup the sucker. While the daisy wheel printer made a pretty spiffy typewriter... it was very painful to hook up a dot matrix to it... even if you were lucky enough to find a power supply to replace your printer.
But still all and all a decent product that had many perks over the other guys... but people tended to shy away from it as they didn't want to shell out close to $1000 for something that came with everything.... from my obervsion at retail stores the parents were buying ataries and commodores for their kids.
I think a better idea would be finding a new manual typewriter that isn't outrageously expensive.
Define outrageusly expensive. I remember I was operating on an old underwood with carbonless paper as I didn't have a ribbon till I was pretty much forced to get a Brother typewriter or risk being marked down a full grade. The daisywheel brother cost there and abouts of $300. Here is an image of what I was working with.
Anyhow... in 1985 you could find this at your local sears in adult and kids models IIRC... price mark was $50ish to $120ish. You'd likely enjoy better luck getting a moderatly modern sub 50 year old Royal or perhaps a Smith Corona or Olivetti Linea 198 which is still made. My geekyness doesn't include model numbers for Royal or Smith Corona... as they were on the back and needed no plugs I never has cause to look. I somehow remember the Royal being one of the easier manuals to work with... layout more contemporary and without odd ball keys missing like the numbers 1 and 0.
But if you think $90 is over priced... well sorry. Unless you hit the used circuit and get lucky expect to spend $100 to $200 easy on a manual typewriter easily if not $350. These suckers are pretty much reserved for oddballs who travel to remote locations yet still want to get some writing done. The Olivetti likely has to be special ordered from a typewriter shop... and those suckers are getting harder and harder to find as printers are in demand and typewriters just not.
I think the main difference between a remote controlled start switch and wifi is the fact that most kids with a computer already have the equipment neccesary to screw with the wifi. You'd either have to go buy, or build, a specialized device to mess with a normal remote start. To mess with wifi, all you need to do is start googling.
This would depend if the kid's parents had a remote starter of their own. Those things are pretty simple, it's easy enough to adapt one to be universal. But valid enough point, the PC is a universal tool
One could always put the starter switch on a timer where one can only trigger the relay at specific hours... this way if some jackass managed to crack your security they could only turn on and off your vehicel and pre-determined hours. I don't have cold winters so it's not something i've considered.
But yea, use whatever makes you happy for a carputer.
The diesel engine is just a whole lot more efficient.
Actually i'll agree with you on the new turbo diesels. Some of the 80s passanger autos with diesels were not all that much better than their gas counterparts, but i'm starting to see a remarkable improvement. On trucks or an SUV... no contest, always been an improvement in terms of efficency.
The big issue in America is that diesel = bad. It's been a long time since I looked up the issue but the Volkswagon turbo diesel according to the VW website couldn't be ordered in a handful of states most notably California. And the pesky issue of finding a place to fill up a diesel. You can find them... but they are typicaly further away than your local petrol only stataion.
Yeah, but everything you're talking about is someone stealing the car. What about the smartass kid who lives next door and doesn't want to get caught spraypainting bridges, so he gets his antisocial kicks other ways, like screwing with my car? When there's basically no chance of getting caught, no way to prove he did it, what's gonna stop the computer savvy dick down the street from screwing with the car from the comfort of his parents' basement for his own amusement?
That is a valid point... which is a good reason not to consider a remote control start switch for your car... let alone a wifi enabled carputer.
However a carputer is pretty isolated from the rest of the car... with the exception of one which could in theory start your car. So let's say a jackass with nothing better to do could hack your carputer. Good reasons to
1. Boot from a DVD... This would be hard to hack 2. Switch off the WiFi when you are crusing the cafe circit 3. Depend on HD only for mass storage of media, not software or data.
Make damn sure the worst thing they can do is delete a bunch of music. And if, and I mean if your neighbors are like that the last thing you have to worry about is your carputer.
Yeah because I really want a wifi enabled computer able to start my car... because we all know wifi is SO secure. And we all know SSH is IMPOSSIBLE to penetrate, right?
If you live in a place that has cold winters, you probally do. Gotta be more secure than those wireless remote systems so common on Montana and the Dakodas. While there is the likelyhood that some jackass could break your security and start your car, they still have to worry about that pesky issue involving the steering lock.
The key switch that turns on the ignition and cues the starter are one aspect of preventing any old joe from taking your car. Anyone for the most part could come by... pop the hood, bridge the fuse box, and use a coat hanger on your starter and voom... even if they don't know what wire is which. Folk who know the wiring diagram could short the right wires to enable the ignition and the starter. But it takes a wiser person to bypass that physical lock on the wheel... and anyone who can do that doesn't need to fuss around with remote systems... cause once you got the wheel bypassed everything else is very trivial, cause you can then start the car with a screw driver. Not to speak of the fact if they really really really wanted your car... and I mean really... they could just use a tow truck.
Security through apathy. Cause anyone who really really wants your car can get it via much easier means.
Where do you people get this information? Obviously not from any real source like the WSJ or NASDAQ. Is there somewhere in fantasy-land that these things are thought of as true?
Hmmmm. My broker at Merrill Lynch. If i'm dead wrong i'm dead wrong... the only reason I cared anything about apple at the time was broker reccomended picking up some apple stock when it was about $5.00 a share... and IIRC the rumor was in WSJ. I have to admit the idea was somewhat exciting... apple being taken over by Sun or someone else (was it Cisco.. I can't remember). I didn't invest which is just as well.
I do believe that Microsoft did buy $150 million in Apple stocks, and that was just before Apple got out of debt for the first time in about 10 years
That is about the same time circa 1998 IIRC that Apple was in danger of a hostile takeover by Sun Microsystems and had it not been for Microsoft bailing them out Apple would not exist as we know it. Whether this would be been good or bad would be worthy of a debate.
Needless to say Microsoft, like them or not, has a very successful business model. Like it or not Microsoft saved Apple's collective tookus back in 1998 (IIRC).
I'm sure Jobs has learned a lesson all right, that being PC users are untrustworthy and if there is no DRM locking OS X onto Apple boxes they will all just pirate it without paying one penny.
If what you say is true... why is it that microsoft had to bail Apple out of bankruptcy.
It's true, windows is pirated by everyone and their grandmother. But it's also true that Microsoft sells a product and makes bank. The bad thing about a product that's so easy to copy is the fact that lots of people will copy it for free. The *GREAT* thing about a product that's so easy to copy is you can make more for the millions who are paying for it... and the profit margin is so high for this easy to copy product one would be a fool to not consider selling it.
I do hope to see OS-X on the PC. If if I choose not to use it competition is always good.
I always try to buy seagate, ~$10 price difference, and the 5-year warranty is priceless. You only get a 3-year warranty on most other drives, or 1 year if you buy retail Western Digital.
And if you see Maxtor, run like the wind!
I can see buying seagate... esp ones with a 5 or 7 year warranty. Going mailorder it's a very decent option.
But that 1 year warranty isn't exclusive to Western Digital... I just bought a 200gig Maxtor Drive and it only has a 1 year warranty, but the price was $80. I could have mail ordered a Barracuda but that would be $20 more and they are only offered in ATA-100 or SATA for more.
In all fairness to the claim, I have had one 60gig 5200rpm maxtor drive fail, and one 7200 20gig fail, both carried a 3 year warranty at the time. A third but my PS was miswired.. 12V on 5V... stupid thing. I have recieved maxtors and western digitals 2nd hand that were not acting properly, but they were still under warranty. On the other hand I isolated many of my power issues to a crappy breaker so I can't honestly say if it was my drive or the fact that my power would cutout randomly.
But the reason I end up going maxtor is those are the ones that end up being onsale for amazingly low prices at Office Depot and Compusa. I have no complex loyalty to maxtor, and in fact am annoyed at the lack of a 3 year warranty like many other drives have.
The states of Australia: South Australia Victoria New South Wales Tasmania Queensland Western Australia
And the Territories: Northern Territory ACT (Australian Captial Territory.)
The story also made reference to trigger happy cops in america as well. I wonder if Australian police are as (radar gun) trigger happy as they are in certain parts of the U.S. It just so happened that someone responded about cops in Washington, which just so happens to be in a certain part of the US. This is likely why the OP talked about Washington... others talked about their own respective regions.
I'm all for slaming someone for not knowing that there is a WA in Australia, and a WA in America. But this was not a case where anyone was confused except some joe probally in Perth who thinks WA is the center of the earth... the OP talked about WA in America, and it was pretty clear they were refering to Washington. I being a civilized person... I always spell it out, as I would "Washington D.C." so others don't get confused by places with similar or identical names. It is an issue in America.
I would reccomend anyone in Seattle or Perth, or any other city in either WA or WA to either spell out the full name of their respective state, or use it in conjuction with the country or city name to resolve any confusion. I.e. "Perth WA" or "Seattle, WA" W.A. and WA. would be cool too, but are not a postal standard, where there is a clear difference between Australian and US postal syntax. Or just spelling it out would be ideal.
I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Nobody is going to ram into the back of you when you're doing the speed limit. Not unless you've pulled in front of them at the last moment and they didn't have a chance to slow down. It just doesn't happen.
Highway, going a steddy 40mph per the posted limits resuts in me getting hit by jackasses who are not looking at the road going 50ish, 60ish or higher. I see it once a week.
No, there is no excuse for exceeding the limit, regardless of what the people around you are doing.
There are many excuses for exceeding the limit.. You might have to tell it to a judge in some cases... and sometimes they even agree with you. But given there are NEVER any tickets given out there... it's never an issue. It's sometimes used as an excuse to do random drunk checking, but no tickets issued there.
In the case of this 40mph zone... the cops do not enforce it... and anyone in an accident there gets told to not pay attention to the sign. Others take their patrol cars and run it over.
Sounds like you're just trying to justify your own disobedience of the road rules.
I'm illistrating now blind obedience is stupid. I tried blind obedience, it results in accidents. The patrol, local and state both agree that following the posted limit results in accidents and the loss of lives. There are situations where rules are stupid, do more harm than good, and are not only not enforced but law enforcement encourages you to not follow them. This is one of those cases.
I drive without a seatbelt, as a result I've had NO accidents. People who wear seatbelt shouldn't, they're obviously bad for you.
Key difference... this logic is faulty because driving with or without a seat belt doesn't affect your peformance on the road, generally speaking. And further... as you are not causing accidents, hurting or killing people... I don't give a shit.
The idea that driving a little bit faster on a road filled with idiots not looking where they are going, who pay no attention to the speed limit, who crash into cars going the speed limit, is sound. Comming on my ass at 20 to 30mph faster than i'm going clearly doesn't give them enough reaction time, but lowering that number... i.e. by driving faster... 10 over on a road where people go 10 to 30 road, the dumb asses have more time to actually "see" my little import car and either slow down or pass.
The logic is sound, the cops reccomend speeding in these zones to reduce accidents, no tickets are issued, and accidents are reduced.
and the answer is, who the hell runs into your car because they "won't stop"? They will stop, they'll slow down and not hit you because they don't want to get in even more trouble for hitting another car
My answer is... bozos clearly not looking at the road who always go 15+mph over the speed limit. As they are not looking at the road, they don't see the sign posted on the road, and as they are NOT looking they don't see "me" going the posted limit +/-5mph.
Where I live, there are a few spots that have short distances posted with a lower speed limit. No one pays attention for the most part. It's a case where a major highway meets a major freeway... going from 55mph to 40mph for the interchange and up to 60. In both directions there is a streach for about 2 miles or so that is 40mph.
If I go 40 or 45 I get hit.. hell going 50 I get hit. Why don't these bozos slow down and avoid an accident? Hell if I know. Perhaps they are yapping on their cell phone... perhaps because it's an east west road and the sun gets in their eyes. Perhaps they happen to be looking for their john denver CD. I have no idea.
The point is... you share the road with some very stupid people. So you can either do the SAFE thing and keep with traffic flow... or get hit. Sure you're in the right... but in this case scenero it lowers the risk of an accident and saves lives. Even better, the cops agree with me 100% on this issue and refuse to give out traffic tickets there, and take the time to tell the young inexperenced drivers to not pay attention to the stupid sign because paying attention to it causes accidents.
So yes... in key places I pay no attention to the sign... and as a result I've had NO accidents. I'm a safer driver as a result.
If you had a 1% slip at 4000rpm, then you'd be looking at your clutch plate grinding away at 40rpm. That ain't gonna last long as I see it. Do you know how much heat that'd generate?
Less heat than your brakes going down a mountain for the most part... but you are right ain't gonna last long.
Final ratio is 4:1 genericly speaking of a 4cyl vehicel, where 4th gear is typicaly 1:1... well unless you are a nissan. Take the RPM of a given speed in 4th gear to give you some idea of your wheel RPM. If your not feeling lazy you can always calculate the wheel diamater and take the tread width x aspect ratio convert to inches and establish your tire diamater. But needless to say 50mph is in the neighborhood of 1000rpm or so. I don't have a tac so I'm taking an educated guess.
The heat is something you can feel in your rear wheel drive vehicel at the base of that hump. Keep in mind that the the cluch is made out of the same material as brakes.. and would suffer burn out if allowed to get too hot.
A perfect clutch... not very likely to happen. But how perfect is your clutch? You can't really look at them to what condition they are in. Even if you can take a camera inside through the rubber of the release fork it's hard to see the clutch it self cause the release plate is in the way, and you can look when the clutch is released because the throwout bearing is in the way. So the only real way to estimate the condition of your clutch is...
1. How many miles it got on it? 2. Does it feel like it's slipping.
Miles are a good measure... but it's not perfect.
The feel technique requires someone with a clue, and I don't mean to offend anyone with this. I can't count how many times i've been asked to drive a car to diagnose a problem with the clutch. I "can" go up a hill and "guess" that the engine is reving higher than normal. By the time you can hear it it's already too late.
My point... and it's a good one really... is not to depend on one method to slow down a vehicel going down a mountain. Engine braking is better than foot braking, but the risk you need be away of esp in this day and age of a lack of asbestos is heat burning out the pad or disc. Slow down with the engine, tap on the brakes. Use both and use them well, your speed will end up being a waveform with in +/- 5 of a given speed. Neither the brakes nor the clutch will do too much work. Distribute the wear as much as you can so neither one nor the other suffers premature wear-out.
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It's great. High quality video. I can even record my own stuff right off TV!
I heard of this upcoming thing called DVD... supposed to be a lot better than VHS, but it will require an entirely new player! I can't even play my existing tapes on this new hardware!
Funny thing is DVD recording is relativly new. That old VHS VCR to this day is still useful for recording video. It remained a viable standard for 20+ years and this is a very good run.
In this 20 years, we had a ton of options including super vhs, 8mm/high 8, and digital tape, but for home use the VHS VCR was never really replaced.
The problem is people who plopped down $2000+ for a new fancy HD-monitor/tv, perfectly good units that meet the parameters of displaying content in higher resolutions than before, being locked out not because their monitor isn't able to display the content but because their player tells the monitor not to display it.
VHS copy protection i.e. macrovision didn't really require you to buy new equipment with some exceptions, and even so that equipment didn't cost a few grand. More advanced DVD protection for the most part doesn't require you to get a new player, and even so a new player won't cost you a few grand.
We've become habituated to the fact that while content devices may change, display and output devices change less frequently and represent a more stable investment. This isn't about needing a new player to play new media but about new players refusing to play on your output device not due to a technical limitation but because the player is told not to play on older stuff.
I remember when 25 dollar cards were plentiful and DID THE JOB...
What job?
I remember buying into some ISA video cards way back when. I was slightly annoyed at the fact that not many games supported my card... then VESA became popular so this was less of a problem, bought into an ATI ISA card, but it's windows peformance was too slow so I bought into a graphics accelerator and things were groovy.
I got tired of 8bit color and bought into PCI and 16bit color, and it was spiffy for a time, but then I wanted to play a game, and had to upgrade yet again.
Sounding familar?
The day of the $25 video card has not passed. Even 15 years ago you "could" buy a $25 video card and so long as you were doing text everything was groovy, but anything game related at above and beyond VGA 16 color was propriority and you either were lucky and bought something that was supported, or were unlucky and had a virtual paperweight.
What a $25 video card? Plenty to choose from mail order. Hell I just picked up a old ATI Rage 128 all and one wonder for well under $25 bucks. The video digitizer chipset isn't supported under linux but if you are a windows user and you don't play game it's a mighty fine card. Localy... expect to spend closer to $40 for your base video card unless you shop around some indy shops. Otherwise hit the newsgroups, find that that gamer who just has to have the latest and greatest, simply must have that small increase in framerate so they have an edge over the other guy.
Don't play games... $25. What to play a game from time to time, $50. Nothing has changed.
So far, it seems like only the "low end" cards have had misleading names. But "low end" buyers are the ones least likely to do the research.
It was common place for some dealers to advertise a TNT or a Geforce 2 / 4 in a whitebox and when you bought it home it ended up being the MX edition.
A general rule of thumb... If you are looking for a budget video card it's generally best to buy last years hot model rather than this years *lame* model.
For example I bought a geforce4 mx edition where I would have been better off buying a geforce3 which IIRC didn't have an mx edition. It was *good enough* till I actually wanted to play something more modern, in which case it was too dog slow.
The Voodoo3's are keepers, as well as the Geforce MX, if you want a fanless card. I used to play CS with them and they now end up in my girlfriend's computers (she doesn't 3D game).
My ati 9600 (256D) series is fanless. I know not the most hot gamer card on the market, but nothing to sneeze at esp considering it fetches a price under $60.00. I don't have bench marks but I noticed that pirates had game sequences such as dancing and "attack the town" where my old lame g-force 4 was so slow it was practicaly unplayable.
The TNT2 non-ultra editions were pretty spiffy and fanless, but I had some real dogs from Diamond. I returned my Viper 770 several times and finally gave up. Works ok if underclocked, but running at the standard memory clock it freaks out and gets worse as the years go on. I would have designated it a nice hand-me-down card otherwise.
You can't manipulate the deck, you can't see other peoples , etc. I suppose knowing one other persons hand might give a bit more knowledge about the cards in the deck, but how big an advantage would that be?
I'm not a big poker player... so I don't know all the rules of the game, but from my limited understanding I'm under the impression that your goal is to get a successful combination of cards where each combo is ranked differently. Further you can bluff your way to victory if someone believes you have a higher ranked combo then that do and doesn't want to take the risk. Knowing what the other guy has is a huge advantage. For example if they only have a pair, you can try for two pair or three of a kind provided you know there is a chance in hell those cards are in the deck. If you know they have a straight, and there is no chance in hell of getting a flush (regular stright royal) full house, or 4 of a kind you can fold and take the least loss.
Keep in mind the level of corruption that existed in normal gambling. Now imagine if someone wrote a worm that would relay this info to a central site and spread to other players. No harder to believe that some joker who decided one day to make casino tokens.
I guess if you got into a game with 5 other people who were all working together, they could fleece you?
This could be done easily in the olden days by signals. Now not only can you instently communicate but you can automaticly count the cards. You don't really have to use your head when software will do this for you.
what's the point in selling 92 million email address? any dictionary attack worth it's weight will have found 80%+ of those accounts anyway...
The simple fact is you could toss out 92million adverts to random names and only get a percent that are active accounts, or you could pay a good sum of money and get 92million real active addresses. I could only assume that who ever paid the tens of thousands of dollars made more than what they spent for the traction.
That's really it, if spending tens of thousands of dollars makes you hundrads of thousands of dollars or millions... you cough up the investement, no if ands or buts. What I don't understand is these people who buy this stuff they see spammed.
How is this illegal?
The moment dumb asses started selling their virtual items on e-bay these virtual items had a real value attached to them.
I wouldn't consider police personaly... but rather contact the hosters about the problem, ask for my money back, or if worse comes to worse consider a civil suit. Many gamers take their games as seriously as reality. while I would be critical of the person doing the virtual theft, i'd be more critical of the people who wrote and host the game for not fixing the damn bugs and in the end I would hold them responcible for being aware of the problem and doing nothing.
It says they *can* open post offices.. which half answers the second half. Nowhere does it say they *should*
Given they were given the power to open post offices, I think it is assumed that they should. If they shouldn't open up post offices and post roads then they wouldn't have been given the the power and authority to do so. Yes they should open post offices esp in the 18th century because if they didn't who else will? QED.
50C case temp?!?!
What were you doing?
(I cant imagine a case getting that hot without some serious layout problems...
Serious layout problems? like just about any ATX case on the market?
I'm running a xp2800, ATI 9600 256-D based card, the fanless one 325mhz core, Two HDS one DVD burner. Also PCI scsi, SB live 5.1, Promise UDMA-100 IDE, V stream digitizer card, network adapter.
For a very long time I thought I had some layout issues as I was getting casetemps of 60C according to the Asus-probe.
After dremmeling a larger front hole for a 120mm fan, and switched to a PS with dual 92mm/80mm, and after buying another thermometer I established that my asus thermometers were reading high, really high, about 11 degrees too high. I just reassembled and with a closed cover it's reading 36.6C on my real thermometer... where asus says my MB is 46C and my CPU is 68C... I guess reality is 57C.
To be honest I don't know what a good temp is, but 11 degrees hotter than the outside enviroment doesn't seem too bad to me. I could up the speed of my fans to drop it by one more degree... but my system is stable for the first time in a while.
What really grinds my goat is the fact that the graphics slot is the last one, next to the ATX plate, CPU typicaly with its fan, and the PS with it's fans. Why the hell is the hardware pointed toward the other slots? Would it not make sense to mount the hardware the other way... esp the GPU in an area designed for things that need max airflow?
My wife liked it, but it isn't in use at the moment because of a few drawbacks: no 1 key, no backspace, and no Escape
I have to admit I rather like the idea of converting the manual style to the modern pc... still I wonder whether or not there is an easier way to meet the desired application of typing that doesn't involve hitting a wall. I often wondered about installing a soft foam layer under the the contact membrain of a normal keyboard to create a softer impact. I find my self tending to slam my fingers into the keyboard with the same result... impact impact impact.
The Coleco Adam did this out of the box. Back when most computers booted into BASIC the Adam booted into this kind of typewriter mode, and was one keystroke away from a pretty good little word processor (for its time). To get BASIC or any other program you loaded it from a high-speed random access tape (what the Adam had instead of disk drives).
Tape drives were not unique during that time period. Just most home computers employed the use of a portable cassette recorder which you manual cued where the Adam had a true blue tape drive with the ability to seek. Disk drives were an option, cartridges were commonly sold, but every adam had at least one tape drive onboard. The speed of the drive was 1200bps IIRC... the same as the TI/99/4a.
The Adam was unique in the fact that it was geard tward word processing. Marketing computers was very hard in the early 1980s... there were three basic nitches... Games, education, and word processing. Unfortunatly the most successful home computers were the ones that actually popular game titles.... Atari and Commodore.
The painfully annoying thing about the Adam was the fact that the printer acted as a power supply to the main unit. Cut down on the wires but really put a pain in finding a place to setup the sucker. While the daisy wheel printer made a pretty spiffy typewriter... it was very painful to hook up a dot matrix to it... even if you were lucky enough to find a power supply to replace your printer.
But still all and all a decent product that had many perks over the other guys... but people tended to shy away from it as they didn't want to shell out close to $1000 for something that came with everything.... from my obervsion at retail stores the parents were buying ataries and commodores for their kids.
I think a better idea would be finding a new manual typewriter that isn't outrageously expensive.
e y=10199001&CFID=264389&CFTOKEN=96837244
Define outrageusly expensive. I remember I was operating on an old underwood with carbonless paper as I didn't have a ribbon till I was pretty much forced to get a Brother typewriter or risk being marked down a full grade. The daisywheel brother cost there and abouts of $300. Here is an image of what I was working with.
If you want a manual... they are still made somewhat
https://www.drleonards.com/detail.cfm?IID=21901&k
Anyhow... in 1985 you could find this at your local sears in adult and kids models IIRC... price mark was $50ish to $120ish. You'd likely enjoy better luck getting a moderatly modern sub 50 year old Royal or perhaps a Smith Corona or Olivetti Linea 198 which is still made. My geekyness doesn't include model numbers for Royal or Smith Corona... as they were on the back and needed no plugs I never has cause to look. I somehow remember the Royal being one of the easier manuals to work with... layout more contemporary and without odd ball keys missing like the numbers 1 and 0.
But if you think $90 is over priced... well sorry. Unless you hit the used circuit and get lucky expect to spend $100 to $200 easy on a manual typewriter easily if not $350. These suckers are pretty much reserved for oddballs who travel to remote locations yet still want to get some writing done. The Olivetti likely has to be special ordered from a typewriter shop... and those suckers are getting harder and harder to find as printers are in demand and typewriters just not.
I think the main difference between a remote controlled start switch and wifi is the fact that most kids with a computer already have the equipment neccesary to screw with the wifi. You'd either have to go buy, or build, a specialized device to mess with a normal remote start. To mess with wifi, all you need to do is start googling.
This would depend if the kid's parents had a remote starter of their own. Those things are pretty simple, it's easy enough to adapt one to be universal. But valid enough point, the PC is a universal tool
One could always put the starter switch on a timer where one can only trigger the relay at specific hours... this way if some jackass managed to crack your security they could only turn on and off your vehicel and pre-determined hours. I don't have cold winters so it's not something i've considered.
But yea, use whatever makes you happy for a carputer.
The diesel engine is just a whole lot more efficient.
Actually i'll agree with you on the new turbo diesels. Some of the 80s passanger autos with diesels were not all that much better than their gas counterparts, but i'm starting to see a remarkable improvement. On trucks or an SUV... no contest, always been an improvement in terms of efficency.
The big issue in America is that diesel = bad. It's been a long time since I looked up the issue but the Volkswagon turbo diesel according to the VW website couldn't be ordered in a handful of states most notably California. And the pesky issue of finding a place to fill up a diesel. You can find them... but they are typicaly further away than your local petrol only stataion.
Yeah, but everything you're talking about is someone stealing the car. What about the smartass kid who lives next door and doesn't want to get caught spraypainting bridges, so he gets his antisocial kicks other ways, like screwing with my car? When there's basically no chance of getting caught, no way to prove he did it, what's gonna stop the computer savvy dick down the street from screwing with the car from the comfort of his parents' basement for his own amusement?
That is a valid point... which is a good reason not to consider a remote control start switch for your car... let alone a wifi enabled carputer.
However a carputer is pretty isolated from the rest of the car... with the exception of one which could in theory start your car. So let's say a jackass with nothing better to do could hack your carputer. Good reasons to
1. Boot from a DVD... This would be hard to hack
2. Switch off the WiFi when you are crusing the cafe circit
3. Depend on HD only for mass storage of media, not software or data.
Make damn sure the worst thing they can do is delete a bunch of music. And if, and I mean if your neighbors are like that the last thing you have to worry about is your carputer.
Yeah because I really want a wifi enabled computer able to start my car... because we all know wifi is SO secure. And we all know SSH is IMPOSSIBLE to penetrate, right?
If you live in a place that has cold winters, you probally do. Gotta be more secure than those wireless remote systems so common on Montana and the Dakodas. While there is the likelyhood that some jackass could break your security and start your car, they still have to worry about that pesky issue involving the steering lock.
The key switch that turns on the ignition and cues the starter are one aspect of preventing any old joe from taking your car. Anyone for the most part could come by... pop the hood, bridge the fuse box, and use a coat hanger on your starter and voom... even if they don't know what wire is which. Folk who know the wiring diagram could short the right wires to enable the ignition and the starter. But it takes a wiser person to bypass that physical lock on the wheel... and anyone who can do that doesn't need to fuss around with remote systems... cause once you got the wheel bypassed everything else is very trivial, cause you can then start the car with a screw driver. Not to speak of the fact if they really really really wanted your car... and I mean really... they could just use a tow truck.
Security through apathy. Cause anyone who really really wants your car can get it via much easier means.
Where do you people get this information? Obviously not from any real source like the WSJ or NASDAQ. Is there somewhere in fantasy-land that these things are thought of as true?
Hmmmm. My broker at Merrill Lynch. If i'm dead wrong i'm dead wrong... the only reason I cared anything about apple at the time was broker reccomended picking up some apple stock when it was about $5.00 a share... and IIRC the rumor was in WSJ. I have to admit the idea was somewhat exciting... apple being taken over by Sun or someone else (was it Cisco.. I can't remember). I didn't invest which is just as well.
I do believe that Microsoft did buy $150 million in Apple stocks, and that was just before Apple got out of debt for the first time in about 10 years
That is about the same time circa 1998 IIRC that Apple was in danger of a hostile takeover by Sun Microsystems and had it not been for Microsoft bailing them out Apple would not exist as we know it. Whether this would be been good or bad would be worthy of a debate.
Needless to say Microsoft, like them or not, has a very successful business model. Like it or not Microsoft saved Apple's collective tookus back in 1998 (IIRC).
I'm sure Jobs has learned a lesson all right, that being PC users are untrustworthy and if there is no DRM locking OS X onto Apple boxes they will all just pirate it without paying one penny.
If what you say is true... why is it that microsoft had to bail Apple out of bankruptcy.
It's true, windows is pirated by everyone and their grandmother. But it's also true that Microsoft sells a product and makes bank. The bad thing about a product that's so easy to copy is the fact that lots of people will copy it for free. The *GREAT* thing about a product that's so easy to copy is you can make more for the millions who are paying for it... and the profit margin is so high for this easy to copy product one would be a fool to not consider selling it.
I do hope to see OS-X on the PC. If if I choose not to use it competition is always good.
I always try to buy seagate, ~$10 price difference, and the 5-year warranty is priceless. You only get a 3-year warranty on most other drives, or 1 year if you buy retail Western Digital.
And if you see Maxtor, run like the wind!
I can see buying seagate... esp ones with a 5 or 7 year warranty. Going mailorder it's a very decent option.
But that 1 year warranty isn't exclusive to Western Digital... I just bought a 200gig Maxtor Drive and it only has a 1 year warranty, but the price was $80. I could have mail ordered a Barracuda but that would be $20 more and they are only offered in ATA-100 or SATA for more.
In all fairness to the claim, I have had one 60gig 5200rpm maxtor drive fail, and one 7200 20gig fail, both carried a 3 year warranty at the time. A third but my PS was miswired.. 12V on 5V... stupid thing. I have recieved maxtors and western digitals 2nd hand that were not acting properly, but they were still under warranty. On the other hand I isolated many of my power issues to a crappy breaker so I can't honestly say if it was my drive or the fact that my power would cutout randomly.
But the reason I end up going maxtor is those are the ones that end up being onsale for amazingly low prices at Office Depot and Compusa. I have no complex loyalty to maxtor, and in fact am annoyed at the lack of a 3 year warranty like many other drives have.
The states of Australia:
South Australia
Victoria
New South Wales
Tasmania
Queensland
Western Australia
And the Territories:
Northern Territory
ACT (Australian Captial Territory.)
The story also made reference to trigger happy cops in america as well. I wonder if Australian police are as (radar gun) trigger happy as they are in certain parts of the U.S. It just so happened that someone responded about cops in Washington, which just so happens to be in a certain part of the US. This is likely why the OP talked about Washington... others talked about their own respective regions.
I'm all for slaming someone for not knowing that there is a WA in Australia, and a WA in America. But this was not a case where anyone was confused except some joe probally in Perth who thinks WA is the center of the earth... the OP talked about WA in America, and it was pretty clear they were refering to Washington. I being a civilized person... I always spell it out, as I would "Washington D.C." so others don't get confused by places with similar or identical names. It is an issue in America.
I would reccomend anyone in Seattle or Perth, or any other city in either WA or WA to either spell out the full name of their respective state, or use it in conjuction with the country or city name to resolve any confusion. I.e. "Perth WA" or "Seattle, WA" W.A. and WA. would be cool too, but are not a postal standard, where there is a clear difference between Australian and US postal syntax. Or just spelling it out would be ideal.
I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Nobody is going to ram into the back of you when you're doing the speed limit. Not unless you've pulled in front of them at the last moment and they didn't have a chance to slow down. It just doesn't happen.
Highway, going a steddy 40mph per the posted limits resuts in me getting hit by jackasses who are not looking at the road going 50ish, 60ish or higher. I see it once a week.
No, there is no excuse for exceeding the limit, regardless of what the people around you are doing.
There are many excuses for exceeding the limit.. You might have to tell it to a judge in some cases... and sometimes they even agree with you. But given there are NEVER any tickets given out there... it's never an issue. It's sometimes used as an excuse to do random drunk checking, but no tickets issued there.
In the case of this 40mph zone... the cops do not enforce it... and anyone in an accident there gets told to not pay attention to the sign. Others take their patrol cars and run it over.
Sounds like you're just trying to justify your own disobedience of the road rules.
I'm illistrating now blind obedience is stupid. I tried blind obedience, it results in accidents. The patrol, local and state both agree that following the posted limit results in accidents and the loss of lives. There are situations where rules are stupid, do more harm than good, and are not only not enforced but law enforcement encourages you to not follow them. This is one of those cases.
I drive without a seatbelt, as a result I've had NO accidents. People who wear seatbelt shouldn't, they're obviously bad for you.
Key difference... this logic is faulty because driving with or without a seat belt doesn't affect your peformance on the road, generally speaking.
And further... as you are not causing accidents, hurting or killing people... I don't give a shit.
The idea that driving a little bit faster on a road filled with idiots not looking where they are going, who pay no attention to the speed limit, who crash into cars going the speed limit, is sound. Comming on my ass at 20 to 30mph faster than i'm going clearly doesn't give them enough reaction time, but lowering that number... i.e. by driving faster... 10 over on a road where people go 10 to 30 road, the dumb asses have more time to actually "see" my little import car and either slow down or pass.
The logic is sound, the cops reccomend speeding in these zones to reduce accidents, no tickets are issued, and accidents are reduced.
Keeping with the flow of trafic saves lives.
and the answer is, who the hell runs into your car because they "won't stop"? They will stop, they'll slow down and not hit you because they don't want to get in even more trouble for hitting another car
My answer is... bozos clearly not looking at the road who always go 15+mph over the speed limit. As they are not looking at the road, they don't see the sign posted on the road, and as they are NOT looking they don't see "me" going the posted limit +/-5mph.
Where I live, there are a few spots that have short distances posted with a lower speed limit. No one pays attention for the most part. It's a case where a major highway meets a major freeway... going from 55mph to 40mph for the interchange and up to 60. In both directions there is a streach for about 2 miles or so that is 40mph.
If I go 40 or 45 I get hit.. hell going 50 I get hit. Why don't these bozos slow down and avoid an accident? Hell if I know. Perhaps they are yapping on their cell phone... perhaps because it's an east west road and the sun gets in their eyes. Perhaps they happen to be looking for their john denver CD. I have no idea.
The point is... you share the road with some very stupid people. So you can either do the SAFE thing and keep with traffic flow... or get hit. Sure you're in the right... but in this case scenero it lowers the risk of an accident and saves lives. Even better, the cops agree with me 100% on this issue and refuse to give out traffic tickets there, and take the time to tell the young inexperenced drivers to not pay attention to the stupid sign because paying attention to it causes accidents.
So yes... in key places I pay no attention to the sign... and as a result I've had NO accidents. I'm a safer driver as a result.
If you had a 1% slip at 4000rpm, then you'd be looking at your clutch plate grinding away at 40rpm. That ain't gonna last long as I see it. Do you know how much heat that'd generate?
Less heat than your brakes going down a mountain for the most part... but you are right ain't gonna last long.
Final ratio is 4:1 genericly speaking of a 4cyl vehicel, where 4th gear is typicaly 1:1... well unless you are a nissan. Take the RPM of a given speed in 4th gear to give you some idea of your wheel RPM. If your not feeling lazy you can always calculate the wheel diamater and take the tread width x aspect ratio convert to inches and establish your tire diamater. But needless to say 50mph is in the neighborhood of 1000rpm or so. I don't have a tac so I'm taking an educated guess.
The heat is something you can feel in your rear wheel drive vehicel at the base of that hump. Keep in mind that the the cluch is made out of the same material as brakes.. and would suffer burn out if allowed to get too hot.
A perfect clutch... not very likely to happen. But how perfect is your clutch? You can't really look at them to what condition they are in. Even if you can take a camera inside through the rubber of the release fork it's hard to see the clutch it self cause the release plate is in the way, and you can look when the clutch is released because the throwout bearing is in the way. So the only real way to estimate the condition of your clutch is...
1. How many miles it got on it?
2. Does it feel like it's slipping.
Miles are a good measure... but it's not perfect.
The feel technique requires someone with a clue, and I don't mean to offend anyone with this. I can't count how many times i've been asked to drive a car to diagnose a problem with the clutch. I "can" go up a hill and "guess" that the engine is reving higher than normal. By the time you can hear it it's already too late.
My point... and it's a good one really... is not to depend on one method to slow down a vehicel going down a mountain. Engine braking is better than foot braking, but the risk you need be away of esp in this day and age of a lack of asbestos is heat burning out the pad or disc. Slow down with the engine, tap on the brakes. Use both and use them well, your speed will end up being a waveform with in +/- 5 of a given speed. Neither the brakes nor the clutch will do too much work. Distribute the wear as much as you can so neither one nor the other suffers premature wear-out.