8-tracks were so cool from a sales standpoint because as soon as the players were no longer made, you had to buy a new media player and new media.
Now that we won't fall for that again... if you buy a spiffy new media player what assurance do you have that it will play your old media, not because it's not compatable but because you only bought the rights to play on your old one.
75 gallons of water?! Shit, that's more than my wife and I use in an average day for everything.
Take my estimate with a grain of salt, there is no replacement for a good water meter. My watch doesn't have a second hand, and my shower head has two settings... normal shower streem which fills buckets more slowly, and large jets of water which I use to clean the tub and fill buckets. My watch is also not water proof so I don't actually time my showers. I should actually figure out the size of my tub, and plug it up while I shower to see how much I actually use.
I believe one can get clean without using 75 gallons of water. Low consumption shower heads or a nice switch on the shower head to turn off the streem when you are in your lather up cycle spring to mind.
How much would it cost to shower with bottled water?
I don't have an accurate estimate of how much water a typical showerhead uses per min. It takes me roughly 60 seconds to fill up a 5gal bucket when I wash my car. The nice vending machines i've seen in California and am now starting to see in Washington sell water at between 25 cents and 35cents per gallon.
Assuming the rate of consumption of 5gal per min, a 15 min shower (75 gallons of water) would cost you $18.75 - $26.25 based on this cost.
Bathtubs I believe to also be in the the same ballpark... I believe 60 galons to be an approperate estimate. $15.00-$21.00 per filling.
Though it's very unlikely that you'd go into your local safeway and buy roughly 300 pounds of water I provide this estimate to illistrate the cost of dispenced water.
You can now safely go into US theaters in the usa without fear of triggering the cam-corder check until such time as they ban keychains.
It's been noted by one observe that Cantonese subtitles are no longer on their pirated video downloads. Patrons of such P2P file systems before had some assurance that cam editions of movies came with subtitles.
I was in Switzerland last year and I noticed that the stoplights there would show the yello signal in both directions. So if you're at a red light, the yellow will go on to let you know the green is getting ready to change in the opposing lane.
It's been noted by people I know visiting from Europe the fact that speedlimit signs are quite meaningless and should be ignored.
As far as your traffic light observation, I will freely admit it would take me some time to get use to a red...yellow...green color change.
I know in Vancover BC for example, they employ the use of a blinking green light. I asked a cop on the subject and he said it was for crosswalks to warn people to look out for pedestrians. It does make sense but only to people who have an idea what it's for.
I've noted that alot of the lights are actually timed so if you go a given speed, it's all green. But in most cases, if you actually go the speed limit, you are assured to actually catch every light. Specificly there is this 30 zone that goes right into downtown. I can either drive the entire distance at 30mph and stop every 3 or 4 city blocks or I can go 35mph and stop only a handful of times.
While the timming is off in this case, I find it an excelent system to keep me within the speed zone that they approve of.
Well, the case doesn't look that good to be frank. I mean, the lines don't match, there are too much branches and stuff. And it's almost an insult to mix and match plastic and wood. If you want to make something out of wood, start from the scratch. A good example can be found from here
I must admit, I do like this one on the Finnish site. Design wise I think at my level I could construct such a case with the use of plywood, pre formed molding, and a touch of hard wood. I imagine also I could do something similar using pine as well.
I will respectfully disagree with starting from the ground up when it comes to designing a wooden computer case. Not so much for the plastic elements but for the metal shielding. The ATX plate for example is wooden, where I feel it would be easier to actually get that from an old case. Sometimes they are screwed in, other times they are only rivited.
If I were to do something similar to this link, I would start with a stock metal frame. I would then go with the molding to plywood approach. I'd consider the use of primer and metal paint on the back of the wood, but it might be easier using elements of a powder coated case. Key advantage to the powder coat is the fact that you don't have that wood to bare metal. While I appricate your thoughts of acustics of wood, I feel the pre-drilled pre tapped elements of a manufactured metal frame a hell of alot more accurate then I can be with either a hand drill or a drill press.
I'm speaking from experence on this one. Even using an old XT motherboard as a template, I found that many of my holes were off by just a couple of mils. I resorted to using self tapped nylon spacers, a slightly larger hole, machine screws and nuts so it would fit properly.
Why would such a simple "case mod" make the Slashdot front page? It isn't even a "case mod", it's a "case decal".
Veneer and wood finishing work is actually a specality field, and a respectable profession. I respect it as highly as good carpentry work. I'm only an amature as far as this goes and let me tell you the hours involved in steaming, shaping, cutting and getting the damn thing to stick, and not to speak of the time involed with applying a finish. And don't get me started on the mind numbing hours of repeative motions you have to peform. And all of without an eye for design is pretty worthless.
I consider all such projects of breaking away from the mass produced PC case worthy of note... from fine veneer work to even glueing some shag carpet on your PC case.
I'm not an expert with wood to metal bonding, but I would tend to agree the fact that even epoxy i've enjoyed only limited success with veneer to vinyl. I have enjoyed much luck drilling holes into the substrate and allowing the glue to flow through and allow it to mushroom with the assistance of wax paper. Helps prevent seperatation in the same way the rivits do.
Usually, when I think of computers, I think of something highly technological, characterized by cool, sleek designs (casemodding?). However, wood is more natrual, thus being the exact opposite.
I say this often... there was a time where wood was common place for household technology items. Classic radios like Philco or Maganox use to make, television sets, you name it. Wood was a low cost material, good strength to weight ratio and very easy to work with. In fact I go out of my way to collect a few classic wooden pieces simply because I like it's character. I think of it less being nature vs technology but rather a balance between what is in fashion and what is cheep to produce.
I'm not going to say there is anything wrong with the modern plasic and powder coated computer cases. They typicaly can take more abuse then your typical wooden finish with the exception of good thick epoxy.
The last time I wanted something diffrent I selected spray paint, hunter green with black trim. It was hip, it was spiffy, it was a baby AT. Knowing my luck, the next time I custom style a case they'll change the standard again.
The uproar about it is caused by the experience that 9 of the last 10 near accidents i've been in have all been the fault of a person talking on a cell phone, and in about half the cases that person seemed to be experiencing difficulty with overcorrection due to the use of one handed driving.
The solution is simple. Get our driving schools to actually teach one handed driving! This is esp useful when teenagers start dating and want to place their hand on thier sig other's knee. That whole 10 and 2 o'clock only applies with larger vehicels when everything was out of reach, including your passanger. The modern econobox with its bucket seats just wide enough that you can touch the passanger door with your arm extended gives us remarkable freedom to access all sorts of controls, but with this freedom comes a great responsibility.
FWIW, I'd suggest you consider keeping your old gear. You may surprise yourself and discover a need you didn't think you had. Even in a home environment, extra gear could easily be used for a test sytem (new program installations, alternative distributions, major upgrades, etc.), or alternatively be put to use as a file server, backup storage, multi-boot replacement, a firewall, yada yada yada.
I have a file server, I have a nat firewall, I have web server, I have my pc, that other pc, and some other PC overthere. I have a test system, I have a old powermac. I have a old sun in the closet, I have a microvax in the other closet.
I have too much crap, and heaven forbid someone wants my old trash, I declair victory!
In some places, a deposit is required for disposable goods, usually things like soda / water / beer bottles / cans / jugs / whatever what have you. There was a time when it was the norm to provide reuseable containers made out of glass, which gets reused but this is no long the fasion. Simply put, it's more cost effective let the consumer junk that bottle, and not worry about the cost of disposal. This keeps prices down and everyone's happy.
If manufacturers actually took into account the cost of disposal, it would likely raise prices but could have the benifit of actually not making its way into landfills. The design can actually in theory take into account the fact that all materials used be recovered. Unforunatly I can't see this happening anytime soon.
Since 2000 I've gone though the following CPUs Pentium 166 pentium 200 AMD k6-3 400 Pentium III 500 [motherboard change] Pentium III 733 AMD athlon 1700xp (motherboard change]
I have found homes for all the the above... but pretty damn soon they will reach end of life and no bugger would want them anymore. Chances are it'll just end up in a landfill at such time.
One Scuba-doo $13,246 One wet suit $400.00 The photographs of thousands of untrained drivers caught in the undertoe easily spotted by this garish yellow device... Priceless
Somethings in life require training... for everything there are credit cards.
....the (HSV) X1 was a catamaran ferry in Australia. The ship caught the Navy's eye when it saw the Australian Navy using it during the East Timor conflict. The water jet propulsion system is similar to the technology on most Jet Skis. Diesel fuel powers an engine, which turns an impeller, which starts the flow of water through the boat's four rear jets.
According to my web search, this new class of vessel is powered by diesel. There was a reference regarding the use of hydrogen fuel, but it seemed like a pipe dream.
As for whether today's QMs and OODs need to keep up with paper charts or not, suffice to say that, with all of the redundancy built into most ships' systems, if you lose power to your navigation system, you've lost power in a lot of other places, too. So you're pretty much toast, even with your sextant.
I'm going to make the leap that most small ships are on diesel fuel, which unlike other fuels, requires no electrisity to operate. It's my belief that salt water could zap the electrical system, kill the batteries, yet leave the engine serviceable if not already in operation.
There was a time when knowing how to read charts, use a sextant, and basicly know where the hell you are at in the world with the use of some very low tech tools was required serve onboard a ship but it seems even in the 1990s this true and proven system started to phase out in the civilian circut. I'm not familiar with the current military stance on the subject.
I percieve this technology as being really damned useful. Even back in 1983... I was the only person who could figure out how to use the LOMAR(sp) system to gadge our posisition, but never the less took readings with a sextant. For 10 days our readings were within minutes of each other, the new system proved it self, but was still a good practice in the event the electronics failed.
I'm all for technology. GPS is a wonderful thing! Digitaly displayed charts are much easier to deal with then protractor and compass. Electronic and remote controls I can see as being useful. But all these wonderful tools are dependent on electricity to operate. It's my hope they would see the wisdom of using humans, paper charts, compass and sextant in the event of a catastrophic failure. After all, being military and sea salt water and technology don't mix. When push comes to shove, you gotta fight for flee... not continue pushing the crosswalk button in the hopes it does something.
Tell me about it... many modern ships employ the use of electrnoic throttle and rudder controls. Works just fine, unless you pop a fuse, then you're stuck with last speed and rudder settings, at least from the ferries i've seen. You would think they would employ some form of dead man's switch, where throttle is cut in the event this happens, but that would make far too much sense.
....have they come up with larger mass storage systems for the C64 or something?
Ummm... I know for a fact you could get mass storage for the C64. They were sold in computer stores in the form of a 10 or 20meg peripheral which was nothing more then a scsi host adapter, and often times an MFM/RLL to SCSI controler. The cooler ones could support 2 MFM drives...I know I bought my 15meg Seagate st-419 in about 1988 for about $300.
I can speak only from the atari standpoint as far as 8bits with mass storage.
I didn't know 110bps modems could double has snow boots.
Acoustic modems indeed could double as snowboots if you really wanted. Wrap the db-25 cable around your feet and you have little suction cups for those ice patches.
I suspect the baudot modem was less practical for this application however.
Once upon a time, there was even a BBS owner/sysop I knew who didn't bother to use more than one password.
True, but what could you gain access to with other people's passwords at the time? Another commodore BBS? Getting a chance to cheat in an online game? Posting as this person, "I am a foofoo head because I use the same password everywhere!" Once upon a time, passwords were pretty damn worthless.
Most people who use winamp use it primarily for MP3s. I honestly can't suggest it for video playback. It's never worked well for me.
I use winamp 5.x primarly for video playback, I find it to work quite well. I can see where you are comming from though... I have another PC and dispite the fact it has a faster CPU... I find that winamp's video play back on it is a touch slugish... I think it's running an ATI rage 128 or some such, where the PC it runs well on is a G-force lame edition.
I also used winamp 2.9x for video playback, my only complaint was it didn't seem to do SVCD, or I didn't have any luck with it.
A common feature I use in winamp is output to.wav. While most of the CD recording software I use supports mp3->cd directly, I find I create fewer coasters if I convert to wav first.
Slashdot Mirror
8-tracks were so cool from a sales standpoint because as soon as the players were no longer made, you had to buy a new media player and new media.
Now that we won't fall for that again... if you buy a spiffy new media player what assurance do you have that it will play your old media, not because it's not compatable but because you only bought the rights to play on your old one.
Each tape has it's own read/write heads so nothing is exposed (or potentially) to the outside of the casing.
So.. why not make standard hard drive controlers and buy new enclosed hard disks with heads.
75 gallons of water?! Shit, that's more than my wife and I use in an average day for everything.
Take my estimate with a grain of salt, there is no replacement for a good water meter. My watch doesn't have a second hand, and my shower head has two settings... normal shower streem which fills buckets more slowly, and large jets of water which I use to clean the tub and fill buckets. My watch is also not water proof so I don't actually time my showers. I should actually figure out the size of my tub, and plug it up while I shower to see how much I actually use.
I believe one can get clean without using 75 gallons of water. Low consumption shower heads or a nice switch on the shower head to turn off the streem when you are in your lather up cycle spring to mind.
When I think 800mhz I think VHF UHF my self. Some people prefer to call it VHF for some reason.
Cable Channels 126-141 805.25-895.25mhz according to my Kworld video card. I've never seen these used.
UHF channel 69 801.25mhz.. 70-83 I believe were the ones realocated to celular 806-890mhz.
http://www.inactivex.net/cellular/800MHz.html
I'm less familar with the 800mhz emergency frequencies.
900mhz I believe is what you're thinking of... I'm a cheep bastard and I own a pair of 900mhz cordless phones.
How much would it cost to shower with bottled water?
I don't have an accurate estimate of how much water a typical showerhead uses per min. It takes me roughly 60 seconds to fill up a 5gal bucket when I wash my car. The nice vending machines i've seen in California and am now starting to see in Washington sell water at between 25 cents and 35cents per gallon.
Assuming the rate of consumption of 5gal per min, a 15 min shower (75 gallons of water) would cost you $18.75 - $26.25 based on this cost.
Bathtubs I believe to also be in the the same ballpark... I believe 60 galons to be an approperate estimate. $15.00-$21.00 per filling.
Though it's very unlikely that you'd go into your local safeway and buy roughly 300 pounds of water I provide this estimate to illistrate the cost of dispenced water.
You can now safely go into US theaters in the usa without fear of triggering the cam-corder check until such time as they ban keychains.
It's been noted by one observe that Cantonese subtitles are no longer on their pirated video downloads. Patrons of such P2P file systems before had some assurance that cam editions of movies came with subtitles.
I was in Switzerland last year and I noticed that the stoplights there would show the yello signal in both directions. So if you're at a red light, the yellow will go on to let you know the green is getting ready to change in the opposing lane.
It's been noted by people I know visiting from Europe the fact that speedlimit signs are quite meaningless and should be ignored.
As far as your traffic light observation, I will freely admit it would take me some time to get use to a red...yellow...green color change.
I know in Vancover BC for example, they employ the use of a blinking green light. I asked a cop on the subject and he said it was for crosswalks to warn people to look out for pedestrians. It does make sense but only to people who have an idea what it's for.
I've noted that alot of the lights are actually timed so if you go a given speed, it's all green. But in most cases, if you actually go the speed limit, you are assured to actually catch every light. Specificly there is this 30 zone that goes right into downtown. I can either drive the entire distance at 30mph and stop every 3 or 4 city blocks or I can go 35mph and stop only a handful of times.
While the timming is off in this case, I find it an excelent system to keep me within the speed zone that they approve of.
Well, the case doesn't look that good to be frank. I mean, the lines don't match, there are too much branches and stuff. And it's almost an insult to mix and match plastic and wood. If you want to make something out of wood, start from the scratch. A good example can be found from here
I must admit, I do like this one on the Finnish site. Design wise I think at my level I could construct such a case with the use of plywood, pre formed molding, and a touch of hard wood. I imagine also I could do something similar using pine as well.
I will respectfully disagree with starting from the ground up when it comes to designing a wooden computer case. Not so much for the plastic elements but for the metal shielding. The ATX plate for example is wooden, where I feel it would be easier to actually get that from an old case. Sometimes they are screwed in, other times they are only rivited.
If I were to do something similar to this link, I would start with a stock metal frame. I would then go with the molding to plywood approach. I'd consider the use of primer and metal paint on the back of the wood, but it might be easier using elements of a powder coated case. Key advantage to the powder coat is the fact that you don't have that wood to bare metal. While I appricate your thoughts of acustics of wood, I feel the pre-drilled pre tapped elements of a manufactured metal frame a hell of alot more accurate then I can be with either a hand drill or a drill press.
I'm speaking from experence on this one. Even using an old XT motherboard as a template, I found that many of my holes were off by just a couple of mils. I resorted to using self tapped nylon spacers, a slightly larger hole, machine screws and nuts so it would fit properly.
Why would such a simple "case mod" make the Slashdot front page? It isn't even a "case mod", it's a "case decal".
Veneer and wood finishing work is actually a specality field, and a respectable profession. I respect it as highly as good carpentry work. I'm only an amature as far as this goes and let me tell you the hours involved in steaming, shaping, cutting and getting the damn thing to stick, and not to speak of the time involed with applying a finish. And don't get me started on the mind numbing hours of repeative motions you have to peform. And all of without an eye for design is pretty worthless.
I consider all such projects of breaking away from the mass produced PC case worthy of note... from fine veneer work to even glueing some shag carpet on your PC case.
I'm not an expert with wood to metal bonding, but I would tend to agree the fact that even epoxy i've enjoyed only limited success with veneer to vinyl. I have enjoyed much luck drilling holes into the substrate and allowing the glue to flow through and allow it to mushroom with the assistance of wax paper. Helps prevent seperatation in the same way the rivits do.
Wouldn't the wood covering just act like an insulator?
I have an old sony amp... linier power supply rated for the 300 watt range, passivly cooled. It's a wooden case with top vents and does just fine.
Usually, when I think of computers, I think of something highly technological, characterized by cool, sleek designs (casemodding?). However, wood is more natrual, thus being the exact opposite.
I say this often... there was a time where wood was common place for household technology items. Classic radios like Philco or Maganox use to make, television sets, you name it. Wood was a low cost material, good strength to weight ratio and very easy to work with. In fact I go out of my way to collect a few classic wooden pieces simply because I like it's character. I think of it less being nature vs technology but rather a balance between what is in fashion and what is cheep to produce.
I'm not going to say there is anything wrong with the modern plasic and powder coated computer cases. They typicaly can take more abuse then your typical wooden finish with the exception of good thick epoxy.
The last time I wanted something diffrent I selected spray paint, hunter green with black trim. It was hip, it was spiffy, it was a baby AT. Knowing my luck, the next time I custom style a case they'll change the standard again.
The uproar about it is caused by the experience that 9 of the last 10 near accidents i've been in have all been the fault of a person talking on a cell phone, and in about half the cases that person seemed to be experiencing difficulty with overcorrection due to the use of one handed driving.
The solution is simple. Get our driving schools to actually teach one handed driving! This is esp useful when teenagers start dating and want to place their hand on thier sig other's knee. That whole 10 and 2 o'clock only applies with larger vehicels when everything was out of reach, including your passanger. The modern econobox with its bucket seats just wide enough that you can touch the passanger door with your arm extended gives us remarkable freedom to access all sorts of controls, but with this freedom comes a great responsibility.
FWIW, I'd suggest you consider keeping your old gear. You may surprise yourself and discover a need you didn't think you had. Even in a home environment, extra gear could easily be used for a test sytem (new program installations, alternative distributions, major upgrades, etc.), or alternatively be put to use as a file server, backup storage, multi-boot replacement, a firewall, yada yada yada.
I have a file server, I have a nat firewall, I have web server, I have my pc, that other pc, and some other PC overthere. I have a test system, I have a old powermac. I have a old sun in the closet, I have a microvax in the other closet.
I have too much crap, and heaven forbid someone wants my old trash, I declair victory!
In some places, a deposit is required for disposable goods, usually things like soda / water / beer bottles / cans / jugs / whatever what have you. There was a time when it was the norm to provide reuseable containers made out of glass, which gets reused but this is no long the fasion. Simply put, it's more cost effective let the consumer junk that bottle, and not worry about the cost of disposal. This keeps prices down and everyone's happy.
If manufacturers actually took into account the cost of disposal, it would likely raise prices but could have the benifit of actually not making its way into landfills. The design can actually in theory take into account the fact that all materials used be recovered. Unforunatly I can't see this happening anytime soon.
Since 2000 I've gone though the following CPUs
Pentium 166
pentium 200
AMD k6-3 400
Pentium III 500 [motherboard change]
Pentium III 733
AMD athlon 1700xp (motherboard change]
I have found homes for all the the above... but pretty damn soon they will reach end of life and no bugger would want them anymore. Chances are it'll just end up in a landfill at such time.
One Scuba-doo $13,246
One wet suit $400.00
The photographs of thousands of untrained drivers caught in the undertoe easily spotted by this garish yellow device... Priceless
Somethings in life require training... for everything there are credit cards.
http://www.navsup.navy.mil/npi/lintest/jf03/Pag
http://www.ussendurance.org/MCM%20Future
According to my web search, this new class of vessel is powered by diesel. There was a reference regarding the use of hydrogen fuel, but it seemed like a pipe dream.
As for whether today's QMs and OODs need to keep up with paper charts or not, suffice to say that, with all of the redundancy built into most ships' systems, if you lose power to your navigation system, you've lost power in a lot of other places, too. So you're pretty much toast, even with your sextant.
I'm going to make the leap that most small ships are on diesel fuel, which unlike other fuels, requires no electrisity to operate. It's my belief that salt water could zap the electrical system, kill the batteries, yet leave the engine serviceable if not already in operation.
There was a time when knowing how to read charts, use a sextant, and basicly know where the hell you are at in the world with the use of some very low tech tools was required serve onboard a ship but it seems even in the 1990s this true and proven system started to phase out in the civilian circut. I'm not familiar with the current military stance on the subject.
I percieve this technology as being really damned useful. Even back in 1983... I was the only person who could figure out how to use the LOMAR(sp) system to gadge our posisition, but never the less took readings with a sextant. For 10 days our readings were within minutes of each other, the new system proved it self, but was still a good practice in the event the electronics failed.
I'm all for technology. GPS is a wonderful thing! Digitaly displayed charts are much easier to deal with then protractor and compass. Electronic and remote controls I can see as being useful. But all these wonderful tools are dependent on electricity to operate. It's my hope they would see the wisdom of using humans, paper charts, compass and sextant in the event of a catastrophic failure. After all, being military and sea salt water and technology don't mix. When push comes to shove, you gotta fight for flee... not continue pushing the crosswalk button in the hopes it does something.
Computer navigation and steering is not new.
Tell me about it... many modern ships employ the use of electrnoic throttle and rudder controls. Works just fine, unless you pop a fuse, then you're stuck with last speed and rudder settings, at least from the ferries i've seen. You would think they would employ some form of dead man's switch, where throttle is cut in the event this happens, but that would make far too much sense.
....have they come up with larger mass storage systems for the C64 or something?
Ummm... I know for a fact you could get mass storage for the C64. They were sold in computer stores in the form of a 10 or 20meg peripheral which was nothing more then a scsi host adapter, and often times an MFM/RLL to SCSI controler. The cooler ones could support 2 MFM drives...I know I bought my 15meg Seagate st-419 in about 1988 for about $300.
I can speak only from the atari standpoint as far as 8bits with mass storage.
I didn't know 110bps modems could double has snow boots.
Acoustic modems indeed could double as snowboots if you really wanted. Wrap the db-25 cable around your feet and you have little suction cups for those ice patches.
I suspect the baudot modem was less practical for this application however.
Once upon a time, there was even a BBS owner/sysop I knew who didn't bother to use more than one password.
True, but what could you gain access to with other people's passwords at the time? Another commodore BBS? Getting a chance to cheat in an online game? Posting as this person, "I am a foofoo head because I use the same password everywhere!" Once upon a time, passwords were pretty damn worthless.
Most people who use winamp use it primarily for MP3s. I honestly can't suggest it for video playback. It's never worked well for me.
.wav. While most of the CD recording software I use supports mp3->cd directly, I find I create fewer coasters if I convert to wav first.
I use winamp 5.x primarly for video playback, I find it to work quite well. I can see where you are comming from though... I have another PC and dispite the fact it has a faster CPU... I find that winamp's video play back on it is a touch slugish... I think it's running an ATI rage 128 or some such, where the PC it runs well on is a G-force lame edition.
I also used winamp 2.9x for video playback, my only complaint was it didn't seem to do SVCD, or I didn't have any luck with it.
A common feature I use in winamp is output to