Plug it into the sound-out of a cabled media computer. Put the computer wherever you have the space (closet, basement, attic) and keep your stereo clutter-free. Serve the jukebox control interface via http on the local wireless network and control it via laptop, pda, whatever. Tune the FM transmitter to a free space low on the dial (89.3 or so), and listen to your streams on any stereo in/around/outside the house. So long as you aren't stepping on any other nearby frequencies, and the reception drops off enough a few houses away, you shouldn't have much worry about complaints.
Heat pumps are a useful technology. The trick is finding the best way to tune them to the particular application.
What you propose is basically a Heat Recovery Ventilator or an Energy Recovery Ventilator. (I can't remember what the fine distinction is between them.) They work best in larger industrial-type settings, where there is likely to be a good understanding of the details among a range of variables (air changes per hour with and without proposed system, average temperature ranges inside and out, temperature loads inside, predictable peak variations, etc.). Then the system can be designed to be efficient to the site. And yeah, the building has to be really air-tight. Otherwise there isn't enough heat/cold flowing out to reclaim.
For a residential situation, a better bet may be a Geothermal Heat Pump. Since the deep ground can be counted on to stay at a fairly constant temperature throughout the year, that's one variable in the system that is just about locked down. Pump the heat out of it in the winter, and back into it in the summer. The downside is in the digging/drilling. (Though if you have a large property, a pond can be incorporated.)
By the way, there is a system very similar to what you propose that will reclaim the heat from the water going down your drain. It's called a Grey Water Heat Exchanger. Everytime you shower, the heat going down the drain is recalimed and used to warm the water that's going into your hot water tank, so it doesn't have to work so hard.
Let's see, to keep from being *too far* off-topic... you can insulate the plumbing in your GHP system with aerogel, so the surface ground temperatures don't cut into the efficiency too much.
I'd even add that this can provide some amount of foreknowledge for the rest of us. I do a small amount of contract work, and anything I can learn to help me avoid potential pitfalls is worth at least a few moments of my time.
In fact, I'd say that more often than not, Ask Slashdot has provided me with some little nugget of knowledge that has been useful later. Sometimes it's only just that it introduces a topic for me to explore further.
Did anyone else see the watermark in the photo of the man squatting near the flower and think at first it was like those wafting vapors that cartoons use to show that something stinks?
Maybe it's just me...
The relationship between stinky smells and pleasing ones is an interesting one. Many of the most unpleasant and gut-wrenching odors are not really much more than very intense concentrations of smells that are actually quite pleasant in smaller doses. Or actually, overly-powerful mixtures of several otherwise pleasing odors.
The smell of soft Ambergris is enough to make most people vomit, and yet it has been a valuable ingredient for perfume (in very small amounts, after being dissolved in alcohol) for centuries.
Think of other passionflowers as being something like Pachelbel's Canon and gigue in D and Rafflesia as being more like, lets say Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, played at an extreme volume. (I actually enjoy MMM , though truth be told, only about once a year or so.)
Character-wise, I'd agree. But don't the books mention Arthur Dent as being something like 6 feet tall? Martin looks like he's barely over 5 feet. Look, here he is in "Love, Actually", opposite Joanna Page, and I'd be surprised if she were more than about 5'2".
I suppose they could do a reverse-hobbit on him...
My pet problem has been the scent-markings of 3 cats who don't always get along. They get everything. The file cabinet. The bookshelves. The desk. The computer cases. They even got up on the desk and got the ZIP drive and scanner. It's awful. Keeping the door shut helps, but not when you don't realize that one has hidden himself in the back of the closet, and you've now locked him in instead of out.
The solution, for the tower cases at least, was to set them in open-topped plastic totes. The air could still circulate, but now there is a nice splash guard all around the outsides. The *ultimate* solution was vetoed by my wife. We'll see how goes with attrition.
Re:Problems happen no matter what...
on
Paperless Billing?
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I think mistakes could be made either way. Personally, I'd be checking both against my own records rather than errors between the two version of the statements.
Aw, cmon! If paperless is good enough for something important, like voting, then it should certainly do for something as insignificant as your personal finances.
Myself, I'd certainly differentiate between a scroll-wheel mouse and a generic three-button mouse. When I want to press the middle button, I don't want it rolling around under my finger (or tilting, the way some of the track-point style ones do).
That said, I think the poster just isn't doing his homework. I realize that Micro Center is only in about 13 States, but their online store seems to have about a half dozen likely candidates. $1.50 for a white Belkin, or be a big spender and plop down a whole fiver for the same, but in black.
Here are some fairly cheap X-based thinclients, from HDS/Neoware. Circa 1996 technology. $20 each, or 5 for $45. Monitors, keyboards, and mice not included.
I have no affiliation with Computer Surplus Outlet. I just have a strong inclination toward reuse and recycling.
I can top that for odd: I moved into a new house and the old lawn service kept on coming. I actually wanted them to, but I could never get them to send me a bill! (Yes I actually tried a couple of times.) They mowed my lawn for months without being paid, then just stopped coming.
I have friend who had a similar experience, except he wanted it to stop, and ChemLawnDoctorGreen kept dumping their fertilizer and herbicide and then sending bills.
My friend was quite upset, because he had wanted to have a safe lawn, for the sake of his daughter and dog. A quick letter mentioning his lawyer and the medical costs associated with Lymphoma made them go away.
I think the most interesting thing about this ad is the footnote: "* Mr. Espina's notarized statement is on file with the Marantz Company." It seems so... quaintly earnest. That was back when we had truth-in-advertising laws that still came with the threat of enforcement.
These days that ad would probably be a hyperbolic "Extreme Marantz!" depiction of someone using it to put out a grease fire, plunge a toilet, jack up a car to fix a flat tire, and finally pound some nails before finally turning it on to find is still works great. There'd be some "professional driver on a closed test track" microscopic fine print at the bottom of the page.
But that wouldn't stop some poor shmoes from trying one or more of the depicted alternate uses. Nor the rest of us from making fun of those shmoes. I mean, c'mon, it's just an ad. It's only supposed to make the product look *cool*, right.
imagine if the internet was run by idiot companies with no idea about how to run a network with all the isp's just putting more traffic over a poor backbone infrastructure that was already in place, with little or no investment in that infrastructure, with all the maintainence work contracted out to the cheapest sub-contractor.
What, is it 1995 again?!? Did AOL just buy ANS? Hey, maybe my stock options are worth something again!!
It's too bad Man or Astro-man? is on sabbatical.
I expect a MoA-M? vs C!BR show would be the smackdown of the new millennium. Or maybe not.
But at least it'd be an interesting double-bill. Maybe they could rehydrate one of the clone bands. I heard the gammas rocked!
I wired my chainsaw.
I no longer have a hand, but I now can turn that thing on from any internet connected computer. Just don't make the mistake I did... firewall it.
From the referred article: Anthony Perks, a professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Colombia in Vancouver, and a doctor at the university's Women's Hospital, first thought of Stonehenge's connection to women after noticing...
Somebody obviously needs to spend more time away from the office. That one week trip in the southwestern English countryside was apparently not enough. Seriously, this seems to be more a case of how if you spend your life swinging a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
I am surprised that there is only one reply that has considered the implications of the foldingofVNS (the exit poll consortium that gave preliminary results on election nights) on Diebold'sunwillingness to provide a paper-trail for voting verification.
Exit polls are not at all a replacement for proper auditin and verification, but they at least (used to) provide a big picture view that helped to highlight any major problems in vote counting. (cough Florida cough)
From the original posting:
The report notes that 'SAIC has identified several high-risk vulnerabilities [...]'
I happen to know that several states, like my Ohio, and Illinois, get pretty mean on enforcement...
Um, sort of. The latest Ohio budget bill passed with more than 100 riders attached that had next-to-nothing to do with the actual budget. And Ohio lawmakers defended their actions by claiming that most of the riders were such little (but necessary) things that they would have otherwise been unable to bring them up for consideration independently.
In order for a court to "get pretty mean on enforcement", some aggrieved group has to have the money to bring a challenge before that court. This has happened in the past (shooting down the school vouchers program) but never happens with any uniformity (expanding Ohio's senior citizen discount program, adding a judgeship in a county, allowing a small township to merge the park authority into the township government) because there are just too many flies to swat. So the legislators will keep doing it, even though the constitution specifically prohibits it.
I think the most useful redesign that CNET has done in the past was to stop insisting that everyone spell their name c|net, using the pipe character. Too many of the more common fonts on various platforms lacked that particular glyph.
Of course, they were born in the era of TAFKAP (pronounced "Squiggle"), interCapitals, emoticons, and the widespread discovery of <SHIFT>-2, so you can at least understand their impulse to acquire an exoteric punctuation mark all their own.
But of course, after backing down about the pipe, they tried to one-up Sun: CNET, we're ".com" in ".com.com", so maybe they haven't really learned...
Slashdot Mirror
What with skipping the commercials, doesn't TIVO already let you do this?
Dontcha think it's possible to go a bit too far with the cramming?
Definitely, avoid wireless for the media computer, you're better off avoiding the ever-crowding 2.4G bands.
Where you want to go wireless is in the FM band. Something like this.
Plug it into the sound-out of a cabled media computer. Put the computer wherever you have the space (closet, basement, attic) and keep your stereo clutter-free. Serve the jukebox control interface via http on the local wireless network and control it via laptop, pda, whatever. Tune the FM transmitter to a free space low on the dial (89.3 or so), and listen to your streams on any stereo in/around/outside the house. So long as you aren't stepping on any other nearby frequencies, and the reception drops off enough a few houses away, you shouldn't have much worry about complaints.
Heat pumps are a useful technology. The trick is finding the best way to tune them to the particular application.
What you propose is basically a Heat Recovery Ventilator or an Energy Recovery Ventilator. (I can't remember what the fine distinction is between them.) They work best in larger industrial-type settings, where there is likely to be a good understanding of the details among a range of variables (air changes per hour with and without proposed system, average temperature ranges inside and out, temperature loads inside, predictable peak variations, etc.). Then the system can be designed to be efficient to the site. And yeah, the building has to be really air-tight. Otherwise there isn't enough heat/cold flowing out to reclaim.
For a residential situation, a better bet may be a Geothermal Heat Pump. Since the deep ground can be counted on to stay at a fairly constant temperature throughout the year, that's one variable in the system that is just about locked down. Pump the heat out of it in the winter, and back into it in the summer. The downside is in the digging/drilling. (Though if you have a large property, a pond can be incorporated.)
By the way, there is a system very similar to what you propose that will reclaim the heat from the water going down your drain. It's called a Grey Water Heat Exchanger. Everytime you shower, the heat going down the drain is recalimed and used to warm the water that's going into your hot water tank, so it doesn't have to work so hard.
Let's see, to keep from being *too far* off-topic ... you can insulate the plumbing in your GHP system with aerogel, so the surface ground temperatures don't cut into the efficiency too much.
Here, here!
I'd even add that this can provide some amount of foreknowledge for the rest of us. I do a small amount of contract work, and anything I can learn to help me avoid potential pitfalls is worth at least a few moments of my time.
In fact, I'd say that more often than not, Ask Slashdot has provided me with some little nugget of knowledge that has been useful later. Sometimes it's only just that it introduces a topic for me to explore further.
Did anyone else see the watermark in the photo of the man squatting near the flower and think at first it was like those wafting vapors that cartoons use to show that something stinks?
Maybe it's just me...
The relationship between stinky smells and pleasing ones is an interesting one. Many of the most unpleasant and gut-wrenching odors are not really much more than very intense concentrations of smells that are actually quite pleasant in smaller doses. Or actually, overly-powerful mixtures of several otherwise pleasing odors.
The smell of soft Ambergris is enough to make most people vomit, and yet it has been a valuable ingredient for perfume (in very small amounts, after being dissolved in alcohol) for centuries.
Think of other passionflowers as being something like Pachelbel's Canon and gigue in D and Rafflesia as being more like, lets say Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, played at an extreme volume. (I actually enjoy MMM , though truth be told, only about once a year or so.)
Character-wise, I'd agree. But don't the books mention Arthur Dent as being something like 6 feet tall? Martin looks like he's barely over 5 feet. Look, here he is in "Love, Actually", opposite Joanna Page, and I'd be surprised if she were more than about 5'2".
I suppose they could do a reverse-hobbit on him ...
Just don't plan on driving that car in California.
My pet problem has been the scent-markings of 3 cats who don't always get along. They get everything. The file cabinet. The bookshelves. The desk. The computer cases. They even got up on the desk and got the ZIP drive and scanner. It's awful. Keeping the door shut helps, but not when you don't realize that one has hidden himself in the back of the closet, and you've now locked him in instead of out.
The solution, for the tower cases at least, was to set them in open-topped plastic totes. The air could still circulate, but now there is a nice splash guard all around the outsides. The *ultimate* solution was vetoed by my wife. We'll see how goes with attrition.
Aw, cmon! If paperless is good enough for something important, like voting, then it should certainly do for something as insignificant as your personal finances.
Myself, I'd certainly differentiate between a scroll-wheel mouse and a generic three-button mouse. When I want to press the middle button, I don't want it rolling around under my finger (or tilting, the way some of the track-point style ones do).
That said, I think the poster just isn't doing his homework. I realize that Micro Center is only in about 13 States, but their online store seems to have about a half dozen likely candidates. $1.50 for a white Belkin, or be a big spender and plop down a whole fiver for the same, but in black.
Here are some fairly cheap X-based thin clients, from HDS/Neoware. Circa 1996 technology. $20 each, or 5 for $45. Monitors, keyboards, and mice not included.
I have no affiliation with Computer Surplus Outlet. I just have a strong inclination toward reuse and recycling.
Hey, and it really IS smaller than my PS/2! And just as quiet.
I have friend who had a similar experience, except he wanted it to stop, and ChemLawnDoctorGreen kept dumping their fertilizer and herbicide and then sending bills.
My friend was quite upset, because he had wanted to have a safe lawn, for the sake of his daughter and dog. A quick letter mentioning his lawyer and the medical costs associated with Lymphoma made them go away.
I always think about this kind of story when I read a sales job description.
I think the most interesting thing about this ad is the footnote: "* Mr. Espina's notarized statement is on file with the Marantz Company." It seems so
These days that ad would probably be a hyperbolic "Extreme Marantz!" depiction of someone using it to put out a grease fire, plunge a toilet, jack up a car to fix a flat tire, and finally pound some nails before finally turning it on to find is still works great. There'd be some "professional driver on a closed test track" microscopic fine print at the bottom of the page.
But that wouldn't stop some poor shmoes from trying one or more of the depicted alternate uses. Nor the rest of us from making fun of those shmoes. I mean, c'mon, it's just an ad. It's only supposed to make the product look *cool*, right.
What, is it 1995 again?!? Did AOL just buy ANS? Hey, maybe my stock options are worth something again!!
Is anyone else starting to think that SCO's secret last resort will be David Boies screaming
"I'm out of order? You're out of order! This whole trial is out of order!"
It's too bad Man or Astro-man? is on sabbatical.
I expect a MoA-M? vs C!BR show would be the smackdown of the new millennium. Or maybe not.
But at least it'd be an interesting double-bill. Maybe they could rehydrate one of the clone bands. I heard the gammas rocked!
So. How often does your cable go out? And for how long?
I'm all for giving the local telcos some competition. (Especially now that consolidation means they're less and less local any more.)
But really, what's your cable company's track record on service quality? That'd be the first thing I'd be concerned about.
-Sporktoast
Bruce Campbell is that you?
From the referred article:
Anthony Perks, a professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Colombia in Vancouver, and a doctor at the university's Women's Hospital, first thought of Stonehenge's connection to women after noticing
Somebody obviously needs to spend more time away from the office. That one week trip in the southwestern English countryside was apparently not enough. Seriously, this seems to be more a case of how if you spend your life swinging a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
I am surprised that there is only one reply that has considered the implications of the folding of VNS (the exit poll consortium that gave preliminary results on election nights) on Diebold's unwillingness to provide a paper-trail for voting verification.
Exit polls are not at all a replacement for proper auditin and verification, but they at least (used to) provide a big picture view that helped to highlight any major problems in vote counting. (cough Florida cough)
From the original posting:
Wasn't SAIC involved in (Google cache:) Total Information Awareness?Um, sort of. The latest Ohio budget bill passed with more than 100 riders attached that had next-to-nothing to do with the actual budget. And Ohio lawmakers defended their actions by claiming that most of the riders were such little (but necessary) things that they would have otherwise been unable to bring them up for consideration independently.
In order for a court to "get pretty mean on enforcement", some aggrieved group has to have the money to bring a challenge before that court. This has happened in the past (shooting down the school vouchers program) but never happens with any uniformity (expanding Ohio's senior citizen discount program, adding a judgeship in a county, allowing a small township to merge the park authority into the township government) because there are just too many flies to swat. So the legislators will keep doing it, even though the constitution specifically prohibits it.
I think the most useful redesign that CNET has done in the past was to stop insisting that everyone spell their name c|net, using the pipe character. Too many of the more common fonts on various platforms lacked that particular glyph.
Of course, they were born in the era of TAFKAP (pronounced "Squiggle"), interCapitals, emoticons, and the widespread discovery of <SHIFT>-2, so you can at least understand their impulse to acquire an exoteric punctuation mark all their own.
But of course, after backing down about the pipe, they tried to one-up Sun: CNET, we're ".com" in ".com.com", so maybe they haven't really learned...