You can get decent LCD screens from www.partsexpress.com. No need to hack a portable DVD player. In the past they've had quite a few choices, it appears they only have one model showing online right now.
It would not suprise me if most of the stuff you drag home marks its territory too, including ink jets.
I do not use my ink jet often but when I do, the ink is always dried, has bands and looks like crap. If these tracking ink dots came out fine and traceable, I'd be pissed.
I suspect that if this technology has actually been around for 20 years, it has gotten good enough to be nearly impossible to bypass.
Good enough? I doubt it. This is one time where security through obscurity worked. Considering there is not a live market and a real desire to remove these codes, it has not passed the test of many hands. A bunch of hackers can work collectively to get around an Xbox and a Playstation because there is the incentive of more functionality and thrill of experimentation that you can share with others. Printing money is not something there is a big following for and not something you advertise that you are interested in. I would assume many big time money printers people have got around this serial number issue but it can still be used to catch the other 99% that thgouht they knew what they were doing.
They are often twice as bright as the cars low beams, and when they are on (with the low beams) there is as much or more light coming from the front of the car as with the high beams alone, and are just as blinding to oncoming traffic (or traffic you are following)
If you are refering to fog lights you are greatly mistaken. Legal fog lights are 55 watt bulbs (model H1 infact), equivelent in power to a typical cars low beam. When they are aimed as they should be, they do not shine up at all and will not "blind" anyone. If you are blinded by a factory or aftermarket fog lights that are aimed correctly (much lower then the headlights), you should not be driving at night yourself. Stand about 20 feet in front of a car with the low beams and fog lights on, look at the light patterns on your legs as you walk toward the car. You should clearly see both light beams and where they are aimed. For a better perspective, bend down and look into the lights, you will see the different heights that they are aimed as noted by the extreme brightness change. There is no way the eyes of an oncoming car are that low to the ground.
Here is are twolinks that debunk your yellow theory also.
At work we have a Primera Bravo II. It works fine for what we use it for, unattended bulk copies and authoring data to multiple discs. Our model has a Pioneer A05 DVD drive. The Bravo II is probably not industrial strength or the best choice for master discs but I've burned about 2000 discs with it in the last year and other then some DVD+R media issues (which we've stopped using), it works great. Just my.02
My local Costco has the FEIT flourescent indoor/outdoor floodlights in stock also. They come in a two pack but I do not remember the price. Off topic but every single light in my house that can fit a compact flourescent has been changed to one. I also look for that fit ability when I buy new fixtures. I've had to get rid of a few wall switch dimmers but worth the savings in electricity to switch them out.
Not specifically to addressed to you but.. Foglights are not just for fog (although the name implies). They have a very wide pattern and should be physically placed very close to the ground and as far out as possible. The purpose is to light up the area directly in front and side of the car where the low beams do not cover very well. When aimed correctly, they should not bother anyone and are a great help. Laws vary by state but typically, they can only be powered in conjuction with the cars low beams. Driving lights are more like spot lights. Narrow beam aimed level with the car and project very far. They are used to light up the direct path of the car and far ahead. They should be placed higher on the car. Again the laws very by state but when allowed, it is only to be used with the cars high beams. The problem comes from people that buy driving lights, put them on the car in the place the fog lights should go and do not aim them correctly and wire them up so they are on more then with just the high beams. That combination of lights and location serves no purpose at all to the driver and hinders other drivers. The lights themselves are not the problem, the idiots using them are.
Hotmail uses Mcafee and Yahoo uses Norton to scan attachments for viruses. I know those scans are not 100% effective but orders of magnatude more effective then your claim of 50% infection from them. I think the people you know that are blaming Hotmail and Yahoo should be blaming themselves or the software on their own computers.
Almost 95% of those jobs are X month contracts with heavy travel or a rent to own option. Those can be great for some folks but no so for others. My TS expired and I am out of the loop on all counts now. Maybe things have changed.
1: Drug companies charge higher prices in the united states because the US has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and can afford to pay more. It's sort of like the left's "Tax the rich" scheme.
Agreed, part of doing business. So why does the government have to step in and/or discourage consumers from looking elsewhere and provide artificial protection to the companies that desire to charge different rates in different areas? US companies can buy products and outsource factories to cheaper locations in the world but there are many hoops to jump through for an american citizen to buy products directly from that same cheaper place. Too many companies either artifically or though the help of the US government, are providing hurdles to prevent the us consumers from buying elsewhere. DVD and console game region coding and prescription drugs are some very good examples of this racket.
In theory, no lines should be run above your speptic tank. I believe that is in code in my area. My cable service was actually over the lid of my septic tank, luckily the dude digging did not break it. Off topic here but.. I was impressed as hell with the septic guy I had. He was able to locate my septic lid and dig a 3ft diameter hole exactly over the access lid without any error. He looked at my cleanout plug, looked out in the yard and said right HERE, dug down about 2.5 feet and was directly above the lid. There was no obvious marks in the above grass line as the tank had not been pumped in about 7 years. That guy really knows his shit!
I've used that service before when i was planning a new deck. They mark all the underground lines with paint lines and arrows (different colors for different services). If you strike a line outside of a defined distance they mark, it is their responsibility to fix it. They provide this as a free service to residential customers, all it takes is one phone call and all of your underground utilities are marked from pole to house.
I believe the generally technical accepted reason for the "raw warm sound" is:
Tube amplifiers have much more total harmonic distortion when compared to a typical transistorized amplifier but, the distortion generated by tube amps is even order harmonic distortion and much more tolerable by the ear then the odd order distortion created by transistor circuits. 2% of even order harmonics is typically not noticed or considered displeasing by many people but 0.5% of odd harmonics is. You can get much lower then 0.5% with modern solid state amplifiers though, this reduces the total distortion and makes the sounds more accurate but for some instruments like the guitar, the even order harmonics generated by the tubes are desired.
Wild ass guess.. I assume an electron tubes sole purpose in life is to amplify, recify, or generate a waveform (or a combination like a magnetron). Computers speak specific defined states (1's and 0's). Not quite the most efficient use of a tube for speed or power.
A word of caution if you decide to try one and toast it. That strawberry filling heats up to some extreme high temperature that I think could probably melt most metals, same with the frosting on the outside. Take that first bite with extreme care, the sugary parts cool much slower and you can be burned even worse then a unmanaged microwaved burrito or Hot Pocket!
Slightly off topic but some companies search for those things.
Back in 1996, Alchemy Mindworks Inc. made GIFCON, it was a shareware application for making animated gifs. Alchemy searched the internet and provided warnings to those that had moving gifs published on the internet made with an unregistered version of their software. Even if you were not using there software anymore, they either wanted the gifs taken down or for you to pay and register the product. You could get around them finding out what you made the gifs with by removing their signature from the resulting gif files with a hex editor, it was plain ASCII and said something like "Created with an unregistered copy of GIFCON". I guess you could argue either way on that one, do they really control and end product you made with their software?
Here is a usenet thread describing one persons email dealings with that company.
At home, I leave IE as the default browser and use my personal firewall to block IE from accessing the internet and set Firefox to allow. Might not work very well in an environment like a lab or library but keeps rogue applications like spyware from getting anywhere when the "default" html rendering engine is called or from using IE when called directly. Of course I have to remove that policy when I whant to use the Windows update site but well worth the effort.
Same with nuclear power. Imagine the public outcry if someone planned to build a nuclear power plant in Honolulu or any where on the island of Oahu. Take a trip to the naval base and you can see probably 10 of them tied right next to the pier. The Puget sound area in Washington is even better. They have the multiple reactor compartments and various leftovers from defueled submarines scattered thorough out the shipyard in Bremerton. The submarine base about 15 miles north is home to multiple nuclear submarines and across the sound is Whidbey island. I guess since these reactors are "portable", no one minds;)
Well RS needs to change the policy around superbowl time. Almost every retailer has a different policy for returns on pressure washers and portable power generators. These items were frequently used once or not at all and then returned. As a result, the policy is now maybe an even exchange but more often then not, work directly with the manufacturer for repair. The point is, whatever the policy needs to be very clear and up front.
I have an AMEX with my picture, no one seems to look looks at that or the signature. Maybe they look at it real quick but I never see them look at the card and then look at me in a manner that they are trying to compare the two.
I have that written in the signature box of my credit card, and I'm surprised at the number of cashiers that don't bother even looking at the back of the card to see if a signature exists.
I have the same, about 1 of 10 people ask. Does it really matter though as the only places that really look at your card anymore are restaurants, everywhere else you normally scan it yourself. Are they supposed to ask even when you scan? I've seen signs to provide the cashier with the card and/or ID if paying with credit card but I never show them and they never ask.
Re:I've never understood the obsession with Halo
on
Halo 2 Reviews
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· Score: 1
A keyboard and mouse are a pain in the ass and quite slow
To each his own I guess but I like the KB/Mouse setup better. I used an "ASDF" KB setup and 3 button mouse setup starting back with Duke3D and love it. With ASDF, I could strafe left, right, jump and duck. Other keys nearby for backwards and turn around. The three button mouse with dual functions for two clicks like left mouse was fire/kick, middle mouse was run backwards, turn around, and right button was run forward and open. I was out of the FPS scene for a while but started back with the Socom series. I find it much harder to move as good in that game with just the PS2 joystick. I guess Socom is supposed to be more realistic and stategy based then Duke, Doom, and Quake so maybe some of those movements you could do with the KB/Mouse would not fit into that games scope of play anyway.
So you are saying that the customer is responsible to know the details of a contract between the Microsoft and the retailer? Because MS has a magazine ad that says something will be released on a certain day has absolutely nothing to do with the contract between two companies. I suppose you are also saying that the customer is responsible to listen to all commericails and advertisements and should just know what a certain release date is? The last time you bought a candy bar from the grocery store, did you have any idea about the contracts and release dates for that product? How about when you last bought gas, did you know the parent company had a contract with your local gas station to sell it for $2/gal but they were actually selling it for $1.95. Are you liable for that contract discrepency between them? Why should you be obligated to know about a release date of a piece of software. You are not a party to the contract. Dealing in stolen goods is a crime, a "do not sale before this date" is a contract violation, two completely different things. Your agruement makes no legal sense if you step back and look at it BIG PICTURE.
San Andreas started selling at 7:00PM the night before the official release date at my local mall. I picked one up. I have NO idea what their contract states and I did nothing wrong by buying it then.
Slashdot Mirror
You can get decent LCD screens from www.partsexpress.com. No need to hack a portable DVD player. In the past they've had quite a few choices, it appears they only have one model showing online right now.
It would not suprise me if most of the stuff you drag home marks its territory too, including ink jets.
I do not use my ink jet often but when I do, the ink is always dried, has bands and looks like crap. If these tracking ink dots came out fine and traceable, I'd be pissed.
I suspect that if this technology has actually been around for 20 years, it has gotten good enough to be nearly impossible to bypass.
Good enough? I doubt it. This is one time where security through obscurity worked. Considering there is not a live market and a real desire to remove these codes, it has not passed the test of many hands. A bunch of hackers can work collectively to get around an Xbox and a Playstation because there is the incentive of more functionality and thrill of experimentation that you can share with others. Printing money is not something there is a big following for and not something you advertise that you are interested in. I would assume many big time money printers people have got around this serial number issue but it can still be used to catch the other 99% that thgouht they knew what they were doing.
They are often twice as bright as the cars low beams, and when they are on (with the low beams) there is as much or more light coming from the front of the car as with the high beams alone, and are just as blinding to oncoming traffic (or traffic you are following)
If you are refering to fog lights you are greatly mistaken. Legal fog lights are 55 watt bulbs (model H1 infact), equivelent in power to a typical cars low beam. When they are aimed as they should be, they do not shine up at all and will not "blind" anyone. If you are blinded by a factory or aftermarket fog lights that are aimed correctly (much lower then the headlights), you should not be driving at night yourself. Stand about 20 feet in front of a car with the low beams and fog lights on, look at the light patterns on your legs as you walk toward the car. You should clearly see both light beams and where they are aimed. For a better perspective, bend down and look into the lights, you will see the different heights that they are aimed as noted by the extreme brightness change. There is no way the eyes of an oncoming car are that low to the ground.
Here is are two links that debunk your yellow theory also.
At work we have a Primera Bravo II. It works fine for what we use it for, unattended bulk copies and authoring data to multiple discs. Our model has a Pioneer A05 DVD drive. The Bravo II is probably not industrial strength or the best choice for master discs but I've burned about 2000 discs with it in the last year and other then some DVD+R media issues (which we've stopped using), it works great. Just my .02
My local Costco has the FEIT flourescent indoor/outdoor floodlights in stock also. They come in a two pack but I do not remember the price. Off topic but every single light in my house that can fit a compact flourescent has been changed to one. I also look for that fit ability when I buy new fixtures. I've had to get rid of a few wall switch dimmers but worth the savings in electricity to switch them out.
Not specifically to addressed to you but..
Foglights are not just for fog (although the name implies). They have a very wide pattern and should be physically placed very close to the ground and as far out as possible. The purpose is to light up the area directly in front and side of the car where the low beams do not cover very well. When aimed correctly, they should not bother anyone and are a great help. Laws vary by state but typically, they can only be powered in conjuction with the cars low beams. Driving lights are more like spot lights. Narrow beam aimed level with the car and project very far. They are used to light up the direct path of the car and far ahead. They should be placed higher on the car. Again the laws very by state but when allowed, it is only to be used with the cars high beams. The problem comes from people that buy driving lights, put them on the car in the place the fog lights should go and do not aim them correctly and wire them up so they are on more then with just the high beams. That combination of lights and location serves no purpose at all to the driver and hinders other drivers. The lights themselves are not the problem, the idiots using them are.
Hotmail uses Mcafee and Yahoo uses Norton to scan attachments for viruses. I know those scans are not 100% effective but orders of magnatude more effective then your claim of 50% infection from them. I think the people you know that are blaming Hotmail and Yahoo should be blaming themselves or the software on their own computers.
Not directly.
It is good to get rid of components that need component specific fans.
Almost 95% of those jobs are X month contracts with heavy travel or a rent to own option. Those can be great for some folks but no so for others. My TS expired and I am out of the loop on all counts now. Maybe things have changed.
1: Drug companies charge higher prices in the united states because the US has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and can afford to pay more. It's sort of like the left's "Tax the rich" scheme.
Agreed, part of doing business. So why does the government have to step in and/or discourage consumers from looking elsewhere and provide artificial protection to the companies that desire to charge different rates in different areas? US companies can buy products and outsource factories to cheaper locations in the world but there are many hoops to jump through for an american citizen to buy products directly from that same cheaper place. Too many companies either artifically or though the help of the US government, are providing hurdles to prevent the us consumers from buying elsewhere. DVD and console game region coding and prescription drugs are some very good examples of this racket.
In theory, no lines should be run above your speptic tank. I believe that is in code in my area. My cable service was actually over the lid of my septic tank, luckily the dude digging did not break it. Off topic here but..
I was impressed as hell with the septic guy I had. He was able to locate my septic lid and dig a 3ft diameter hole exactly over the access lid without any error. He looked at my cleanout plug, looked out in the yard and said right HERE, dug down about 2.5 feet and was directly above the lid. There was no obvious marks in the above grass line as the tank had not been pumped in about 7 years. That guy really knows his shit!
I've used that service before when i was planning a new deck. They mark all the underground lines with paint lines and arrows (different colors for different services). If you strike a line outside of a defined distance they mark, it is their responsibility to fix it. They provide this as a free service to residential customers, all it takes is one phone call and all of your underground utilities are marked from pole to house.
This scares the hell out of me that my work and research, in 5 years time, is going to be used to bug the hell out of everyone.
Get out now!! I've heard Cyberdyne Systems is hiring.
I believe the generally technical accepted reason for the "raw warm sound" is:
Tube amplifiers have much more total harmonic distortion when compared to a typical transistorized amplifier but, the distortion generated by tube amps is even order harmonic distortion and much more tolerable by the ear then the odd order distortion created by transistor circuits.
2% of even order harmonics is typically not noticed or considered displeasing by many people but 0.5% of odd harmonics is. You can get much lower then 0.5% with modern solid state amplifiers though, this reduces the total distortion and makes the sounds more accurate but for some instruments like the guitar, the even order harmonics generated by the tubes are desired.
Wild ass guess..
I assume an electron tubes sole purpose in life is to amplify, recify, or generate a waveform (or a combination like a magnetron). Computers speak specific defined states (1's and 0's). Not quite the most efficient use of a tube for speed or power.
Do they need to be toasted?
No, just as good cold.
I've never actually had a pop tart in my life.
A word of caution if you decide to try one and toast it. That strawberry filling heats up to some extreme high temperature that I think could probably melt most metals, same with the frosting on the outside. Take that first bite with extreme care, the sugary parts cool much slower and you can be burned even worse then a unmanaged microwaved burrito or Hot Pocket!
Slightly off topic but some companies search for those things.
Back in 1996, Alchemy Mindworks Inc. made GIFCON, it was a shareware application for making animated gifs. Alchemy searched the internet and provided warnings to those that had moving gifs published on the internet made with an unregistered version of their software. Even if you were not using there software anymore, they either wanted the gifs taken down or for you to pay and register the product. You could get around them finding out what you made the gifs with by removing their signature from the resulting gif files with a hex editor, it was plain ASCII and said something like "Created with an unregistered copy of GIFCON". I guess you could argue either way on that one, do they really control and end product you made with their software?
Here is a usenet thread describing one persons email dealings with that company.
At home, I leave IE as the default browser and use my personal firewall to block IE from accessing the internet and set Firefox to allow. Might not work very well in an environment like a lab or library but keeps rogue applications like spyware from getting anywhere when the "default" html rendering engine is called or from using IE when called directly. Of course I have to remove that policy when I whant to use the Windows update site but well worth the effort.
Same with nuclear power. Imagine the public outcry if someone planned to build a nuclear power plant in Honolulu or any where on the island of Oahu. Take a trip to the naval base and you can see probably 10 of them tied right next to the pier. The Puget sound area in Washington is even better. They have the multiple reactor compartments and various leftovers from defueled submarines scattered thorough out the shipyard in Bremerton. The submarine base about 15 miles north is home to multiple nuclear submarines and across the sound is Whidbey island. ;)
I guess since these reactors are "portable", no one minds
Well RS needs to change the policy around superbowl time. Almost every retailer has a different policy for returns on pressure washers and portable power generators. These items were frequently used once or not at all and then returned. As a result, the policy is now maybe an even exchange but more often then not, work directly with the manufacturer for repair. The point is, whatever the policy needs to be very clear and up front.
I have an AMEX with my picture, no one seems to look looks at that or the signature. Maybe they look at it real quick but I never see them look at the card and then look at me in a manner that they are trying to compare the two.
I have that written in the signature box of my credit card, and I'm surprised at the number of cashiers that don't bother even looking at the back of the card to see if a signature exists.
I have the same, about 1 of 10 people ask. Does it really matter though as the only places that really look at your card anymore are restaurants, everywhere else you normally scan it yourself. Are they supposed to ask even when you scan? I've seen signs to provide the cashier with the card and/or ID if paying with credit card but I never show them and they never ask.
A keyboard and mouse are a pain in the ass and quite slow
To each his own I guess but I like the KB/Mouse setup better. I used an "ASDF" KB setup and 3 button mouse setup starting back with Duke3D and love it. With ASDF, I could strafe left, right, jump and duck. Other keys nearby for backwards and turn around. The three button mouse with dual functions for two clicks like left mouse was fire/kick, middle mouse was run backwards, turn around, and right button was run forward and open. I was out of the FPS scene for a while but started back with the Socom series. I find it much harder to move as good in that game with just the PS2 joystick. I guess Socom is supposed to be more realistic and stategy based then Duke, Doom, and Quake so maybe some of those movements you could do with the KB/Mouse would not fit into that games scope of play anyway.
So you are saying that the customer is responsible to know the details of a contract between the Microsoft and the retailer? Because MS has a magazine ad that says something will be released on a certain day has absolutely nothing to do with the contract between two companies. I suppose you are also saying that the customer is responsible to listen to all commericails and advertisements and should just know what a certain release date is? The last time you bought a candy bar from the grocery store, did you have any idea about the contracts and release dates for that product? How about when you last bought gas, did you know the parent company had a contract with your local gas station to sell it for $2/gal but they were actually selling it for $1.95. Are you liable for that contract discrepency between them? Why should you be obligated to know about a release date of a piece of software. You are not a party to the contract. Dealing in stolen goods is a crime, a "do not sale before this date" is a contract violation, two completely different things.
Your agruement makes no legal sense if you step back and look at it BIG PICTURE.
San Andreas started selling at 7:00PM the night before the official release date at my local mall. I picked one up. I have NO idea what their contract states and I did nothing wrong by buying it then.