I know they sent out a report about the old silver TIs power supplies catching on fire, but they sent you something in the mail to resolve the issue... basicly I believe it was just a polorized plug... but don't quote me on that. I was like age 8/9 at the time, and all I remember is TI sending a piece of plastic.
The plasic TI that you were likely to get at K-mart for $50 late 1982 didn't have the same issue.
Whether or not this was the cause for TI to kill their computer division I couldn't tell you. I would suspect it wasn't making enough of a profit, it being between 1981 and 1983 and there really wasn't much of a home computer market. Plus I'm sure Bill Cosbey's fee didn't do much for their budget.
Let's not forget terminal emulator II (never saw terminal emulator I), which wasn't only required to get a damn modem to work, but was required for true text to speech. Unlike Extended basic where speech was based on a very limited vocabulary. I remember for my spelling I had to use regular basic as my vocabulary words were not in extended basic.
And one of the fastest tape drives of the time period. I don't remember it's baud rate, but I know it was faster to leave programs on friends answering machines then it was to setup a modem to modem transfer.
But needless to say, the TI was a hot little machine for it's time period. It still makes me sad that TI dumped it. I'm sure I still have that P.E. box around here somewhere, purchaced from BEST after the fall of TI price marked down as no bugger would spend that much money on it.
Re:1000 projects for a boy
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Linux Toys
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· Score: 3, Funny
How very sexist to assume only boys are wired to do mechanical or technical shit. What's on the girls shelf? "How to Get a Boy to Build You a Bird House"? "How to Get a Boy to Fix Your Toyota and Save a Bundle"? "How Suferage for Women Was a Bad Idea and That's Why You Must Fix Your Own Damn Car"?
I'm actually aware of this, generally speaking people who refer to the creation as "Frankenstein's Monster" are atleast somewhat aware of the text, where people who refer to the creation as being "Frankenstein" are more likely to not being familar with the text.
It's rather why I think it would be most approperate for him to be an assistant, it can grrrr in the hollywood fasion, and yet can actually make an observation like "that was really thoughtful", which most people don't expect.
It's sad to be well rounded you most not only know the classic as well as the comic book editions, but that's the 21century for ya.
I had the "advantage" of bypassing the 386SX... I went from my parent's XT straight to a 486DX/25 I bought myself (only computer I've ever bought that I didn't assemble) for $4k when I was a junior in high school. Some people buy cars... I bought a computer. Lasted me through most of college though. Borland Turbo Pascal 6.0 was too slow to use on the XT, so I needed to upgrade.
I personaly never owned an XT, and my parents computer was a ti-99/4a. I did own an atari 8-bit but after I blew my multi io board with serial, printer and scsi as well as 1meg of ram, it was more cost effective to buy a 386 then it was to replace that board. Though I was given a 8086 at one point and time, a lugable, but it was really too slow for my needs.
I guess technicaly it too was the only computer I bought that I didn't assemble (amigas excluded), though I had to remove the drive rails in order to accomidate my 15meg seagate st-419 full height drive. I tried to get an MFM controler from the people who sold me the PC, and I didn't know enough to know that what an IDE was.
I also remember at the time no one sold 1.44 meg 3.5 inch disks, with the exception of a few shops who wanted to chage me $40 for a pack of 10 disks, so I stuck with 720k disks and added a switch to my floppy to allow me to format them to 1.44 meg.
Turbo Pascal 6.0 I also had, but my class required me to use Microsoft Pascal, though techncialy the teacher said I can use Turbo Pascal but then failed me cause it wouldn't compile under microsoft pascal. Most annoying as the text book was geared tward turbo pascal.
But needless to say, I was much happier with a PC, dispite the Amiga being the far more attractive option. Basicly you could upgrade without soldering (for the most part), and faster CPUs were released yearly, rather then the world of atari and commodore.
Of course, that was a complete non-issue at the time. I mean, who could possibly need more than 16 MB of memory?!?!?:)
Well, it was sorta a non-issue... when I got my first 386sx-16 somewhere between 1989 or 1990 till web browsers started to hit the scene circa 1994/1995 or so. This was the main reason I upgraded to a true 386dx that took simms, rather then my old sx-16 board that took both chips and sipps.
I also remember trying to argue with the nice folks at the local computer shop. They basicly kept trying to tell me "you need 4 banks full, we don't know why but you do", and I knew perfectly well I only needed two banks full on the sx.
I do recall getting my 486DX up to 20MB of memory in the early 90s... there were very few people with more memory at the time, and I only got that much because my MB had 8 DIMM
Perhaps you mean simm sockets... typicaly 30 72 pin simms, though there was one oddball 64pin simm someone used at the time other then apple. At some point I know I upgraded from a pretty sweet 386dx-33 board with an iit mathco to a true blue intel 486dx-33 board, and found that in bench marks the 386dx was superior under old notrons si which didn't take floating point into account.
But yea, while i'd agree this was a NON issue in 1990, it sorta became an issue in 1995 as OS/2, win95 (win3.1 as well) sorta needed more then the stock 4megs of ram, esp since the price dropped to about $50 per 4megs, then $50 per 16megs, so forth and so on.
But needless to say, I would have kept my 386sx-16 in service longer then 3 years if it could have addressed more memory.
The 386SX had no feature differences -- it was just slower.
If i'm not sadly mistaken, the 386sx could only address up to 16megs of memory (24 address lines), where the 386DX could address a bit more (32 address lines) 4gigs of ram if i'm remembering correctly..
Let's not forget the 486slc and dlc as well. Unlike the 486 sx/dx, this was more like the 286 / 386sx in the fact that it only had a 16-bit data path and could only address 16megs of memory. This was most annoying for largish companies who bought PS/2s who, when they started to upgrade to windows 95, discovered this annoying limitation, and even when upgrading to the full 16megs of memory, it would still not be able to access a small trivial amount of memory, but just enough to apear to some software as not having 16megs of memory. I'm unsure if IBM was unaware of this limitation, but needless to say they got rather shafted on this deal for this chip, which I believe was marketed for laptops.
I always thought that a nice frankenstein's monster assistant would be perfect. Totally unhelpful answers like "errrrrrrrrrr!" or "grrrrrrrrrrrrr", but if you say "grr" it says "that was very thoughtful.
I know a grunting monster isn't exactly helpful, but would make me feel better to have something else grring at microsoft office when it doesn't do what I want. After all, the office assistant was never too terribly helpful.
Now, given that (motorola battery costs $30), I cannot concieve how Apple thinks their battery ought to be $99.
The thing of it is, there are a heck of alot more motorola cell phones out there then ipods. Motorola was probally most wise and went with an off the shelf battery rather then a proproirity one.
Apple, not to slam them too much, tends to go with propriority solutions for everything. It's entirely possible that the ipod batteries are not exactly mass production and are custom made for apple. Annoying as this is, this costs bucks. I remember in the olden days you pretty much had to use apple branded scsi drives, well unless you were able to get a low level formating program that didn't look for the Apple(tm) brand. Eventually apple stopped that as this generally costs more money then you'd tend to make on selling replacements.
Should they have gone with a cell phone battery? Probally! Is there a good reason why they didn't? To make money stocking the replacement.
Re:The Microsoft line of products is still support
on
Oldest Supported Software?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
To make the all too common analogy, if you have a car, and 5 years from now it breaks down, you bring it to a mechanic, he says "sorry, this model isn't supported anymore, time to upgrade!", what the hell do you say to that?
It depends on what you mean by break down. If you're talking routine maintance that would suck. If you are talking about a major failure such as an engine or transmission then it would be wise to evaluate the cost of a new car, cost of a used car, vs the cost of fixing the old car. In my case, I have a 1998 nissan sentra, were I believe it blue books for about $4500 with a trade in value of $3000. A good mechanic would take this into account.
But as far as cars vs computers go, every year is equilivent to 10 years in cars. Basided on this logic a good mechanic wouldn't waste their time, "dude it's not worth it, time to buy another one". You can either accept that answer, or reject it if you really love that specific car.
Computers are little diffrent. When the cost of supporting older stuff gets too high, a wise person considers an upgrade or replacement. However, I take STRONG exception to cases where the software is still good, useful, but the company folded and the copyrights are owned by some back somewhere who couldn't care less about actually looking into selling the rights to it resulting in the problem of can't buy nessicary addon cause no one sell it.
Strictly speaking, it qualifies as "old" since let's be real - Micosoft software hasn't changed much since the late Eighties.
Sure it has! They have changed "edit" "options" to "view options" in the pull down menus. Win95 there was a "find" fuction that has since changed to "search" however f is still the hot key for it. And the names of their products have changed as well. Windows explorer, Internet explorer, Microsoft Messenger, Windows Messenger. Lots and lots of changes.
Assuming this works, yeah, let's build it on an island chain!!
1) Build big arse reactor in the middle of the ocean on a small island 2) Use super duper power generation to produce hydrogen and oxygen which gets transported to the 4 corners of the globe to be used from anything from automobiles to electrical plants. 3) Profit.
Even if using only fission, it covers few bases such as centralized storage of waste the waste product and protecting the population from meltdown to some degree. While i'm not all that hip to nuclear power esp nuclear waste, it's bang per waste is pretty good and an island could in theory house it.
Whether or not this could provide a fuel source cheeper then oil would remain to be seen, but a remote power plant converts heat -> electrical -> chemical engery isn't such a far fetched idea.
I remember some old amiga folk attempting to use a scsi to ethernet adapter, as classic amigas almost always had scsi adapters, but i'm unaware of anyone who actually implemented one.
It's just you... I can see how one might think the witch and the wardrobe being about a moody drag queen clothes horse, but i'm not familar with any associations between lions and gay men... Let alone porn.
Now "Men in Scoring Positions" which was filmed (at least in part) in Seattle does indeed sound like gay porn, but the crew insisted it was a sports film. I've been too afraid to find out.
A review...
"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" doesn't sound like gay porn "Men in Scoring Positions" does sound like gay porn, but might just be sports related.
also, for the money you spend, why can't you buy individual chanels from the cable company. why do you have to buy them in a package? what if all i want to buy from them is just cspan and cnn? why cant i buy just those two chanels?
The best option I knew of for people like your self who wanted to save a buck is to buy the minimal service, not basic cable, but that 2-13 range I believe old TCI and AT&T cable called "lifeline" then ask about the ability to get pay per view movies. In my region, they would give you a box and you would end up with expanded basic cable for just $7.50 monthly. I'm not sure if this service still exists as I switched cable providers to one which doesn't charge extra for cable modem but no cable tv access.
I'm curious about this situation where I might be able to see where there *is* a legal, non-infringing use. Suppose I already am a subscriber, but I purchase my own equipment, ie, one of these black boxes, to use instead of my cable provider's in order to save the extra charges they tack on to the bill for each box? Fair use? Or illegal?
The problem is actually talking to the cable company and getting them to hookup third party equipment. In theory you can do this no problem, though I've had NO luck picking up boxes at the local thrift store as their responce was "It looks stolen the stickers are missing". I assumed that it was probally cable owned, but some poor sap didn't return it and got charged an arm and a leg for it, and as a direct result it was actually legaly purchaced rather then being stolen. But alas, they won't even look into it, they'll just snag the box, put it under their desk, give you $20.00 and send you on your way.
Hey, i'll all for that 1/2 hour programing that exists to help you keep your sanity while waiting for paint to dry. Whether it be some form of Geek-TV, or one of the pseudo educational channels. While I don't pretend watching TV is in anyway productive, sure is a far cry better then the current trend of reality TV. Sometimes being semi-productive can actually give you some insperation for a project your working on, whether it be the woodworking shop, or geek-tv.
The problem with being a geek is the fact that geeks are always doing something, not nessicarly social but always have their little side projects going on. Sure a geek can go hang gliding, surfing, or engage in some form of sporty social activity (aka doing something), but the end result is the same, they end up talking about the esoteric aspects of it, rather then the generic social aspect. So you can either research social interaction... perhaps TLC these days, or find another geek, and end up talking about what you saw on TV researchign social interaction.
So, GeekTV is a good idea in my book, to give geeks something to watch and talk about and actually be on par with normal human social creatures.
The F***ing point (this was moded interesting?) i'd imagine for people on a health kick, who really miss that morning cup of joe.
There are those people who enjoy coffee There are those who enjoy the taste but don't like being wired There are still others who enjoy the smell, but hate the taste (not met anyone who doesn't enjoy the smell).
I'll agree that I wouldn't eat a coffee flavored breakfast cerial, simply because it just sounds really bad. I would however enjoy a nice coffee air fresh tree for my automobile to cover up the smell of my spilt lattes.
--- Trading Spaces - Ever sit in someone's home and wonder what would happen if you stripped, ripped and painted as you pleased? Find out during this one-of-a-kind decorating show when two sets of neighbors swap keys to transform a room in each other's home. They have two days, a set budget, and they're not allowed back into their own homes until the moment of truth. This is how-to with a neighborly twist. ---
Actually, while not main streem education, it's actually a decent show to get decoration ideas. Interror design is actually a field, though sometimes not as respected as construction.
--- What not to wear - What Not to Wear draws on the personality and talent of fashion experts Stacy London and Clinton Kelly to convert participants from dowdy to dashing. Hair stylist Nick Arrojo and makeup artist Carmindy add the finishing touches that complete the change. --
Again, not mainstreem education, but after a full week of geeking out, it's good to tune to this once and a while to get some ideas so you can actually get a date. Let's face it, it's hard to pickup chicks in a cisco t-shirt (though not impossible).
--- Date Patrol - Watch the daters stammer, blush and squirm on these first dates. ---
Ok, I have no defence for this one, I won't even try.
Or if all else failes... nescafe(tm) directly in milk. Not exactly coffee, but kinda coffee flavo(u)red. I'm sure it would be every bit as good as coffee flavo(u)red flacks.
When that quad shot latte isn't enough for you, and you don't want to waste your stomach volume on non-cafinated liquid.
The Cannon a-1 is a sweet camera, I own this my self. I bought it as an upgrade to my ae-1 program due to the fact it offered a 30 second shutter speed, where the canon f-1 on the other hand offered faster then 1/1000th second shutter speed. An AE-1 / AE-1 program can be had for no much change.
I'll agree with everyone (at the risk of being redundent) that going with a pentax is the way to go, esp since their older lenses will go on their newer cameras, though I don't think they marketed a K mount digital. I remember thinking i'll sell all my canon gear if Pentax released a digital SLR I own a p70 I believe it is, a pretty minimal pentax. You can get a new autofocus pentax pretty cheeply. This clearly is #1 for lens interoperability.
Nikon comes in a close second in the lenses, though never owning one I'm not 100% positive on the level of lens interchangabity.
Third I'll say the Olympus OM-1. The only annoyance is trying to find the stupid hot shoe adapter as the head piece has what looks like a phono chack. I rank this 3 in lens interchangability as the OM mount is still being produced for manual focus still cameras, though from what I understand, the new Olympus is nothing like prior models. The OM-10 I remember not being an attractive option because it's pretty much all auto-matic unless you were to build a manual control for it (don't remember the details)
A major benifit of the OM series is the fact that the exposure dial is right before the lens. The only control that wasn't on the lens area was the shutter release.
Konica i'll put on my list not so much for lens interoperatility but the simple fact that pawn shops tend to sell these cheeply. No longer in production. I forget which model I had, I do remember a gave my niece a Konica TC as a wedding gift. The Konica TC has no slow shutter speeds, I believe the slowest was like 1/15th second.
Minolta I never really looked at to be honest.
So a review 1. Pentax k-1000 or other pentax... pretty standard and interchangeable lenses 2. Nikon (don't own one, don't know the details) 3. Canon a1 (30sec-1/1000)/ f1 (1/4000thsec max) / ae-1 program 2sec-1/1000th. 4. Olympus OM-1 (not OM-10) nice placement of exposure dial. (1/sec 1/1000th) 5. Konica TC 1/4?-1/1000th (perhaps t-3)
A solution... for the semi-paranoid
on
Fake ATM Fraud Expose
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· Score: 3, Informative
You can, with ease, open up a second with your bank... where by the 2nd account is used exclusivly for online transations and getting the odd bit of cash.
1 primary card for your paycheck needs, used only at trusted locations, like your physical bank, card stored at home preferably in a safe.
1 secondary card which can be termed a petty cash card, where you may transfer funds to it on an as needed basis, for mail order items for example.
I'm not saying that this system is perfect, but offers some minimal protection, and can be implemented by going down to your bank and opening up a second account. If lost or stolen, well you loose you may loose your petty cash, but hey could be worse, far far worse.
I mean seriously, if you're carrying a recorder into a theater, you've obviously going to pirate this movie.
Not true! Let's say I was out on shooting the scenes and decide to catch a movie when him done. I can...
1. Leave the photo / video equipment in the car
2. Keep it on my person.
How often does this happen? Being a recovering catholic I have a large army of nieces of nephews whom I visit or visit me. Likely to happen 4 times a year. Go to the beach, film the kids, catch a movie with sandy feet.
I can also see a soccer mom scenero easily. Film the team, if they win, treat them to a movie.
Would I pirate a movie with a cam corder? Hell no! I'd just get a copy from Hong Kong just like everyone else.
The Max Headroom pilot almost had it right basicly by pointing out in the *not so distant future* that credit fraud was worse then murder. I guess the writers were not too far off.
I joined a record club when I was a kid, without parental permision or anything along those lines. My issue was getting stuff I didn't order, even though I made sure to mail in my stuff. "We're out of stock on this item, so we're sending you the beach boys". I sent it back, they sent it back to me saying I had no choice. Some sort of double album at a double price who's price doubled and trippled and before I knew it I owed them $50 or some such.
The letters said quite specificly that I would have bad credit for 5 years (could have been 7), and given I was roughly 10 years old at the time I declaired victory.
Slashdot Mirror
I know they sent out a report about the old silver TIs power supplies catching on fire, but they sent you something in the mail to resolve the issue... basicly I believe it was just a polorized plug... but don't quote me on that. I was like age 8/9 at the time, and all I remember is TI sending a piece of plastic.
The plasic TI that you were likely to get at K-mart for $50 late 1982 didn't have the same issue.
Whether or not this was the cause for TI to kill their computer division I couldn't tell you. I would suspect it wasn't making enough of a profit, it being between 1981 and 1983 and there really wasn't much of a home computer market. Plus I'm sure Bill Cosbey's fee didn't do much for their budget.
Let's not forget terminal emulator II (never saw terminal emulator I), which wasn't only required to get a damn modem to work, but was required for true text to speech. Unlike Extended basic where speech was based on a very limited vocabulary. I remember for my spelling I had to use regular basic as my vocabulary words were not in extended basic.
And one of the fastest tape drives of the time period. I don't remember it's baud rate, but I know it was faster to leave programs on friends answering machines then it was to setup a modem to modem transfer.
But needless to say, the TI was a hot little machine for it's time period. It still makes me sad that TI dumped it. I'm sure I still have that P.E. box around here somewhere, purchaced from BEST after the fall of TI price marked down as no bugger would spend that much money on it.
How very sexist to assume only boys are wired to do mechanical or technical shit. What's on the girls shelf? "How to Get a Boy to Build You a Bird House"? "How to Get a Boy to Fix Your Toyota and Save a Bundle"? "How Suferage for Women Was a Bad Idea and That's Why You Must Fix Your Own Damn Car"?
Frankenstein's creation is a wordy mofo.
I'm actually aware of this, generally speaking people who refer to the creation as "Frankenstein's Monster" are atleast somewhat aware of the text, where people who refer to the creation as being "Frankenstein" are more likely to not being familar with the text.
It's rather why I think it would be most approperate for him to be an assistant, it can grrrr in the hollywood fasion, and yet can actually make an observation like "that was really thoughtful", which most people don't expect.
It's sad to be well rounded you most not only know the classic as well as the comic book editions, but that's the 21century for ya.
I had the "advantage" of bypassing the 386SX... I went from my parent's XT straight to a 486DX/25 I bought myself (only computer I've ever bought that I didn't assemble) for $4k when I was a junior in high school. Some people buy cars... I bought a computer. Lasted me through most of college though. Borland Turbo Pascal 6.0 was too slow to use on the XT, so I needed to upgrade.
I personaly never owned an XT, and my parents computer was a ti-99/4a. I did own an atari 8-bit but after I blew my multi io board with serial, printer and scsi as well as 1meg of ram, it was more cost effective to buy a 386 then it was to replace that board. Though I was given a 8086 at one point and time, a lugable, but it was really too slow for my needs.
I guess technicaly it too was the only computer I bought that I didn't assemble (amigas excluded), though I had to remove the drive rails in order to accomidate my 15meg seagate st-419 full height drive. I tried to get an MFM controler from the people who sold me the PC, and I didn't know enough to know that what an IDE was.
I also remember at the time no one sold 1.44 meg 3.5 inch disks, with the exception of a few shops who wanted to chage me $40 for a pack of 10 disks, so I stuck with 720k disks and added a switch to my floppy to allow me to format them to 1.44 meg.
Turbo Pascal 6.0 I also had, but my class required me to use Microsoft Pascal, though techncialy the teacher said I can use Turbo Pascal but then failed me cause it wouldn't compile under microsoft pascal. Most annoying as the text book was geared tward turbo pascal.
But needless to say, I was much happier with a PC, dispite the Amiga being the far more attractive option. Basicly you could upgrade without soldering (for the most part), and faster CPUs were released yearly, rather then the world of atari and commodore.
Of course, that was a complete non-issue at the time. I mean, who could possibly need more than 16 MB of memory?!?!? :)
Well, it was sorta a non-issue... when I got my first 386sx-16 somewhere between 1989 or 1990 till web browsers started to hit the scene circa 1994/1995 or so. This was the main reason I upgraded to a true 386dx that took simms, rather then my old sx-16 board that took both chips and sipps.
I also remember trying to argue with the nice folks at the local computer shop. They basicly kept trying to tell me "you need 4 banks full, we don't know why but you do", and I knew perfectly well I only needed two banks full on the sx.
I do recall getting my 486DX up to 20MB of memory in the early 90s... there were very few people with more memory at the time, and I only got that much because my MB had 8 DIMM
Perhaps you mean simm sockets... typicaly 30 72 pin simms, though there was one oddball 64pin simm someone used at the time other then apple. At some point I know I upgraded from a pretty sweet 386dx-33 board with an iit mathco to a true blue intel 486dx-33 board, and found that in bench marks the 386dx was superior under old notrons si which didn't take floating point into account.
But yea, while i'd agree this was a NON issue in 1990, it sorta became an issue in 1995 as OS/2, win95 (win3.1 as well) sorta needed more then the stock 4megs of ram, esp since the price dropped to about $50 per 4megs, then $50 per 16megs, so forth and so on.
But needless to say, I would have kept my 386sx-16 in service longer then 3 years if it could have addressed more memory.
The 386SX had no feature differences -- it was just slower.
If i'm not sadly mistaken, the 386sx could only address up to 16megs of memory (24 address lines), where the 386DX could address a bit more (32 address lines) 4gigs of ram if i'm remembering correctly..
Let's not forget the 486slc and dlc as well. Unlike the 486 sx/dx, this was more like the 286 / 386sx in the fact that it only had a 16-bit data path and could only address 16megs of memory. This was most annoying for largish companies who bought PS/2s who, when they started to upgrade to windows 95, discovered this annoying limitation, and even when upgrading to the full 16megs of memory, it would still not be able to access a small trivial amount of memory, but just enough to apear to some software as not having 16megs of memory. I'm unsure if IBM was unaware of this limitation, but needless to say they got rather shafted on this deal for this chip, which I believe was marketed for laptops.
I always thought that a nice frankenstein's monster assistant would be perfect. Totally unhelpful answers like "errrrrrrrrrr!" or "grrrrrrrrrrrrr", but if you say "grr" it says "that was very thoughtful.
I know a grunting monster isn't exactly helpful, but would make me feel better to have something else grring at microsoft office when it doesn't do what I want. After all, the office assistant was never too terribly helpful.
Now, given that (motorola battery costs $30), I cannot concieve how Apple thinks their battery ought to be $99.
The thing of it is, there are a heck of alot more motorola cell phones out there then ipods. Motorola was probally most wise and went with an off the shelf battery rather then a proproirity one.
Apple, not to slam them too much, tends to go with propriority solutions for everything. It's entirely possible that the ipod batteries are not exactly mass production and are custom made for apple. Annoying as this is, this costs bucks. I remember in the olden days you pretty much had to use apple branded scsi drives, well unless you were able to get a low level formating program that didn't look for the Apple(tm) brand. Eventually apple stopped that as this generally costs more money then you'd tend to make on selling replacements.
Should they have gone with a cell phone battery? Probally! Is there a good reason why they didn't? To make money stocking the replacement.
To make the all too common analogy, if you have a car, and 5 years from now it breaks down, you bring it to a mechanic, he says "sorry, this model isn't supported anymore, time to upgrade!", what the hell do you say to that?
It depends on what you mean by break down. If you're talking routine maintance that would suck. If you are talking about a major failure such as an engine or transmission then it would be wise to evaluate the cost of a new car, cost of a used car, vs the cost of fixing the old car. In my case, I have a 1998 nissan sentra, were I believe it blue books for about $4500 with a trade in value of $3000. A good mechanic would take this into account.
But as far as cars vs computers go, every year is equilivent to 10 years in cars. Basided on this logic a good mechanic wouldn't waste their time, "dude it's not worth it, time to buy another one". You can either accept that answer, or reject it if you really love that specific car.
Computers are little diffrent. When the cost of supporting older stuff gets too high, a wise person considers an upgrade or replacement. However, I take STRONG exception to cases where the software is still good, useful, but the company folded and the copyrights are owned by some back somewhere who couldn't care less about actually looking into selling the rights to it resulting in the problem of can't buy nessicary addon cause no one sell it.
Strictly speaking, it qualifies as "old" since let's be real - Micosoft software hasn't changed much since the late Eighties.
Sure it has! They have changed "edit" "options" to "view options" in the pull down menus. Win95 there was a "find" fuction that has since changed to "search" however f is still the hot key for it. And the names of their products have changed as well. Windows explorer, Internet explorer, Microsoft Messenger, Windows Messenger. Lots and lots of changes.
Microsoft - Now where did my documents go today?
Assuming this works, yeah, let's build it on an island chain!!
1) Build big arse reactor in the middle of the ocean on a small island
2) Use super duper power generation to produce hydrogen and oxygen which gets transported to the 4 corners of the globe to be used from anything from automobiles to electrical plants.
3) Profit.
Even if using only fission, it covers few bases such as centralized storage of waste the waste product and protecting the population from meltdown to some degree. While i'm not all that hip to nuclear power esp nuclear waste, it's bang per waste is pretty good and an island could in theory house it.
Whether or not this could provide a fuel source cheeper then oil would remain to be seen, but a remote power plant converts heat -> electrical -> chemical engery isn't such a far fetched idea.
I remember some old amiga folk attempting to use a scsi to ethernet adapter, as classic amigas almost always had scsi adapters, but i'm unaware of anyone who actually implemented one.
Is it me, or does that sound like gay porn?
It's just you... I can see how one might think the witch and the wardrobe being about a moody drag queen clothes horse, but i'm not familar with any associations between lions and gay men... Let alone porn.
Now "Men in Scoring Positions" which was filmed (at least in part) in Seattle does indeed sound like gay porn, but the crew insisted it was a sports film. I've been too afraid to find out.
A review...
"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" doesn't sound like gay porn
"Men in Scoring Positions" does sound like gay porn, but might just be sports related.
also, for the money you spend, why can't you buy individual chanels from the cable company. why do you have to buy them in a package? what if all i want to buy from them is just cspan and cnn? why cant i buy just those two chanels?
The best option I knew of for people like your self who wanted to save a buck is to buy the minimal service, not basic cable, but that 2-13 range I believe old TCI and AT&T cable called "lifeline" then ask about the ability to get pay per view movies. In my region, they would give you a box and you would end up with expanded basic cable for just $7.50 monthly. I'm not sure if this service still exists as I switched cable providers to one which doesn't charge extra for cable modem but no cable tv access.
I'm curious about this situation where I might be able to see where there *is* a legal, non-infringing use. Suppose I already am a subscriber, but I purchase my own equipment, ie, one of these black boxes, to use instead of my cable provider's in order to save the extra charges they tack on to the bill for each box? Fair use? Or illegal?
The problem is actually talking to the cable company and getting them to hookup third party equipment. In theory you can do this no problem, though I've had NO luck picking up boxes at the local thrift store as their responce was "It looks stolen the stickers are missing". I assumed that it was probally cable owned, but some poor sap didn't return it and got charged an arm and a leg for it, and as a direct result it was actually legaly purchaced rather then being stolen. But alas, they won't even look into it, they'll just snag the box, put it under their desk, give you $20.00 and send you on your way.
Hey, i'll all for that 1/2 hour programing that exists to help you keep your sanity while waiting for paint to dry. Whether it be some form of Geek-TV, or one of the pseudo educational channels. While I don't pretend watching TV is in anyway productive, sure is a far cry better then the current trend of reality TV. Sometimes being semi-productive can actually give you some insperation for a project your working on, whether it be the woodworking shop, or geek-tv.
The problem with being a geek is the fact that geeks are always doing something, not nessicarly social but always have their little side projects going on. Sure a geek can go hang gliding, surfing, or engage in some form of sporty social activity (aka doing something), but the end result is the same, they end up talking about the esoteric aspects of it, rather then the generic social aspect. So you can either research social interaction... perhaps TLC these days, or find another geek, and end up talking about what you saw on TV researchign social interaction.
So, GeekTV is a good idea in my book, to give geeks something to watch and talk about and actually be on par with normal human social creatures.
The F***ing point (this was moded interesting?) i'd imagine for people on a health kick, who really miss that morning cup of joe.
There are those people who enjoy coffee
There are those who enjoy the taste but don't like being wired
There are still others who enjoy the smell, but hate the taste (not met anyone who doesn't enjoy the smell).
I'll agree that I wouldn't eat a coffee flavored breakfast cerial, simply because it just sounds really bad. I would however enjoy a nice coffee air fresh tree for my automobile to cover up the smell of my spilt lattes.
Direct from the website
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Trading Spaces - Ever sit in someone's home and wonder what would happen if you stripped, ripped and painted as you pleased? Find out during this one-of-a-kind decorating show when two sets of neighbors swap keys to transform a room in each other's home. They have two days, a set budget, and they're not allowed back into their own homes until the moment of truth. This is how-to with a neighborly twist.
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Actually, while not main streem education, it's actually a decent show to get decoration ideas. Interror design is actually a field, though sometimes not as respected as construction.
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What not to wear - What Not to Wear draws on the personality and talent of fashion experts Stacy London and Clinton Kelly to convert participants from dowdy to dashing. Hair stylist Nick Arrojo and makeup artist Carmindy add the finishing touches that complete the change.
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Again, not mainstreem education, but after a full week of geeking out, it's good to tune to this once and a while to get some ideas so you can actually get a date. Let's face it, it's hard to pickup chicks in a cisco t-shirt (though not impossible).
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Date Patrol - Watch the daters stammer, blush and squirm on these first dates.
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Ok, I have no defence for this one, I won't even try.
Or if all else failes... nescafe(tm) directly in milk. Not exactly coffee, but kinda coffee flavo(u)red. I'm sure it would be every bit as good as coffee flavo(u)red flacks.
When that quad shot latte isn't enough for you, and you don't want to waste your stomach volume on non-cafinated liquid.
The Cannon a-1 is a sweet camera, I own this my self. I bought it as an upgrade to my ae-1 program due to the fact it offered a 30 second shutter speed, where the canon f-1 on the other hand offered faster then 1/1000th second shutter speed. An AE-1 / AE-1 program can be had for no much change.
I'll agree with everyone (at the risk of being redundent) that going with a pentax is the way to go, esp since their older lenses will go on their newer cameras, though I don't think they marketed a K mount digital. I remember thinking i'll sell all my canon gear if Pentax released a digital SLR I own a p70 I believe it is, a pretty minimal pentax. You can get a new autofocus pentax pretty cheeply. This clearly is #1 for lens interoperability.
Nikon comes in a close second in the lenses, though never owning one I'm not 100% positive on the level of lens interchangabity.
Third I'll say the Olympus OM-1. The only annoyance is trying to find the stupid hot shoe adapter as the head piece has what looks like a phono chack. I rank this 3 in lens interchangability as the OM mount is still being produced for manual focus still cameras, though from what I understand, the new Olympus is nothing like prior models. The OM-10 I remember not being an attractive option because it's pretty much all auto-matic unless you were to build a manual control for it (don't remember the details)
A major benifit of the OM series is the fact that the exposure dial is right before the lens. The only control that wasn't on the lens area was the shutter release.
Konica i'll put on my list not so much for lens interoperatility but the simple fact that pawn shops tend to sell these cheeply. No longer in production. I forget which model I had, I do remember a gave my niece a Konica TC as a wedding gift. The Konica TC has no slow shutter speeds, I believe the slowest was like 1/15th second.
Minolta I never really looked at to be honest.
So a review
1. Pentax k-1000 or other pentax... pretty standard and interchangeable lenses
2. Nikon (don't own one, don't know the details)
3. Canon a1 (30sec-1/1000)/ f1 (1/4000thsec max) / ae-1 program 2sec-1/1000th.
4. Olympus OM-1 (not OM-10) nice placement of exposure dial. (1/sec 1/1000th)
5. Konica TC 1/4?-1/1000th (perhaps t-3)
You can, with ease, open up a second with your bank... where by the 2nd account is used exclusivly for online transations and getting the odd bit of cash.
1 primary card for your paycheck needs, used only at trusted locations, like your physical bank, card stored at home preferably in a safe.
1 secondary card which can be termed a petty cash card, where you may transfer funds to it on an as needed basis, for mail order items for example.
I'm not saying that this system is perfect, but offers some minimal protection, and can be implemented by going down to your bank and opening up a second account. If lost or stolen, well you loose you may loose your petty cash, but hey could be worse, far far worse.
I mean seriously, if you're carrying a recorder into a theater, you've obviously going to pirate this movie.
Not true! Let's say I was out on shooting the scenes and decide to catch a movie when him done. I can...
1. Leave the photo / video equipment in the car
2. Keep it on my person.
How often does this happen? Being a recovering catholic I have a large army of nieces of nephews whom I visit or visit me. Likely to happen 4 times a year. Go to the beach, film the kids, catch a movie with sandy feet.
I can also see a soccer mom scenero easily. Film the team, if they win, treat them to a movie.
Would I pirate a movie with a cam corder? Hell no! I'd just get a copy from Hong Kong just like everyone else.
"Credit Fraud? That's worse then murder!"
The Max Headroom pilot almost had it right basicly by pointing out in the *not so distant future* that credit fraud was worse then murder. I guess the writers were not too far off.
I joined a record club when I was a kid, without parental permision or anything along those lines. My issue was getting stuff I didn't order, even though I made sure to mail in my stuff. "We're out of stock on this item, so we're sending you the beach boys". I sent it back, they sent it back to me saying I had no choice. Some sort of double album at a double price who's price doubled and trippled and before I knew it I owed them $50 or some such.
The letters said quite specificly that I would have bad credit for 5 years (could have been 7), and given I was roughly 10 years old at the time I declaired victory.