Why do people always go with the 12 volt fans? There exist same size (as well as larger) "muffin"-style fans that run on 110-115VAC, many pump 100-200 cfm (I had one that came from a DEC mini computer powersupply - had to mount it on a board to keep it from blowing away when I was playing with it). Sure, they would be extremely loud, but think of it - you can easily get that computer center droning noise you know you've always secretly wanted...
Coolant
Instead of water, why not pump mineral oil through the system? People have immersed thier systems in circulated mineral oil, but that is messy. Use a gas tank pump to circulate the oil (the pumps are designed to resist the solvent power of harsh chemicals, like gasoline). You might not get better cooling than water (don't know whether you would or not), but you wouldn't have to worry about leaks shorting your machine out, since the mineral oil isn't conductive (else why would people immerse thier machines in it).
I would have told the agent "one moment" - went to the front of the car, asked for everyone's attention, and then given a speech, something along the lines of:
"Attention, everyone - I have just been informed that I fit the profile of a drug smuggler - I paid for my ticket with cash and got on at the last minute. Is it now illegal in this country to use cash? When did you last use cash? Can I not choose to do something in this country on impulse? By purchasing my ticket and boarding, I harm no one! But the DEA agent sitting in seat XX says that I am a threat. You are my witnesses, ladies and gentlemen - my witnesses to this event. Remember it! This is just one more step down the road to tyranny!"
(ok, I know, I know - I probably wouldn't even get to the front of the car, let alone give a speech - but wouldn't those things be within my rights, as well?)...
Then I would go back to my seat, told Mr. Agent that I would NOT let him check my bags or person without my lawyer present, and also throw some warrant shit in his face as well (though I full well know it wouldn't matter, since a warrant only is needed for a residence, from what I understand) - but maybe it would stall him a bit. The agent would likely be beligerant (I would definitely remain absolutely calm during all of this - remain an upright citizen - so that my witnesses could see I was the one being badgered). He would likely handcuff me (I would ask why for - I pose not threat - and where are my Miranda rights - I want them read, damnit!), and take me "downtown" at the next stop. I would not say one more thing after my Miranda rights are read, no matter what they ask, other than I want to see my lawyer, and to ask for water, or to go to the bathroom, or what not. I would not give up any other information, until I saw my lawyer. I know I would end up being detained, and I would also not get to where I was going.
I would make this agent work - I would gladly pay for a lawyer - then, when at last no drugs are found, and all of that time is wasted, I would push to file a lawsuit against these people for some civil rights violations. Fitting a profile does not equal to committing a crime! They want to charge me with a crime, they have to prove it, not just "think" I look like someone who could commit a crime. But that is where we are at now in this country - and none of us stands up against this bullshit because it might "inconvience us", or make it look like we are for the "bad guys". These are people we should protect also - even the bad guys have rights.
We are all - every...single...one...of...us - capable of committing a crime.
But these actions and abilities (our rights that have been lost - "unreasonable search and seizure" - to the "War on (some) Drugs") are sanctioned by most people. But you what horrifies me the most?
The fact that if I could make that speech, that every one of the individuals on that car (hell, probably the DEA agent himself, as well!), would tune me out, or look at me with hate, tell me to sit down, or be fearful of me... Why would that be?
I saw this book down at the bookstore again (I say again because I first ran across it last year) yesterday, and thought it should really be in the entertainment section, and not the science section. It literally "screams" coffee table! It is one of those books for people who want to look smart, but who don't actually read - you know, the same yuppie people who hire others to buy whole sections from used bookstores to decorate their house with...
Anyhow, it is not much more than robo-porn. Cheap entertainment disguised as reference.
The first time I saw it, I passed it up for Gordon McComb's updated 2nd Edition (long overdue) "99 Inexpensive Robotics Projects" and another project book containing a bunch of the Amateur Robotics columns from Nuts and Volts. These two are books really discussing the "where it is happening" in robotics - not in labs, but in garages - where it has always been happening for over 30 years.
This book will appeal to robot "stuff" collectors - I myself admit that I might buy it someday, but with full knowledge of what it really is, and not what it pretends to be (I have an older "art/coffee table" robot book called ROBOTS - can't remember the author - one thing I do like about many of the older "pop"-robotic books is that they tend to be the only reference to historical hobby robotics from the 70's and early 80's).
Though I got it long after the date mentioned - I don't have any intention of trying to get and rebate, or whatever it is.
I have a parallel port 100 meg model - the things I like about it, above a CD-RW:
1. The drive is cheap. 2. The drive is durable (I throw mine in my backpack all the time, no probs). 3. It is portable.
I have yet to see a CD-RW on every machine I go to, especially at my workplace - we have a few, but only on "management's" machines - never on normal developers boxes. So, when I need to pull down a bunch of stuff, I bring in my ZIP drive.
That thing has been abused to hell and back - I even got a few burn/melt marks on it from soldering near it.
I will say the cost of media sucks - but buying or building a portable parallel port CD-RW drive is not my idea of cheap, yet (though it is rapidly falling to below $200 - which is about right)...
With a P200MMX with 96MB of ram, and a 6MB Hercules Stingray 128/3D PCI, running KDE on SuSE 6.3 ("upgraded" to 2.2.14 kernel).
Plenty fast for me - it does what I want, fast enough.
However, with prices dropping so much, I decided to upgrade - I have waiting in the wings a Celeron 366 with 256MB SDRAM and an AGP TNT card (haven't received it yet off an ebay guy, but will soon). Right now the test rig is sitting next to me on top of my scanner.
I don't know when I will get around to installing it and booting up - maybe when I get that video card. I am not sure if it is really going to matter to me. I am thinking about getting an even better CPU (I bought the celeron only for testing - the MB was given to me by my employer, and I didn't know if it worked right or not), probably another celeron (maybe a 600), or a PII.
At any rate, I haven't found anything that I use that taxes the system as it is (with the P200). If I played more games, I probably would, but I haven't bought a piece of software in ages.
Around here, I would personally get my standoffs from either Fry's or from Apache Reclamation (my favorite hangout - get grungy!), but for most people it will be the Shack.
As far as the cards are concerned, I had thought about that later. What you would want to try to do is either cut down the case (ie, physically cut it down, or take it apart) to just give the bottom and the card mount, or build your own mounts. Another possibility might be mounting a bar at the height of the card screwdown, and then mounting the motherboards on the shelf, so that you can anchor them to both.
Going the full chipset route is probably the best, if most or all the machines are servers (or, dare I say it - nodes in a Beowulf cluster), as it means you can put them closer together...
For the original Ask/. poster, doing that would be idea in his case (test network)...
While you can get short racks fairly cheap (small cube like 19 inch racks), for around $50.00 - surplus, and it is possible to build your own rack system, here is a solution, that while not standard size, might be something interesting to try.
Take a trip down to Walmart (or K-Mart, sometimes Target). In the hardware section, look for steel shelving. Walmart sells these shelves (by the seashore?) that are made out of the flimsiest damn steel you can imagine. Pick the right day, and you might be able to pick some up for $12.00 a box. The shelves are about 42" high, 30" wide, and 12" deep, generally with 4 shelves. Supposedly, each shelf can hold around 200 lbs. Now, putting them together is a bitch, because they are very flimsy, until you get them tightened up. Once tight, though, they are damn strong. I bought six of them earlier in the year, used 1.5 to build an almost "double-high" shelf, set them side by side (3 tall shelves), anchored them to the wall (and to each other), and filled them with books - excellent bookshelves!
The same could be done to hold computers (or even just bare motherboards, using risers/standoffs to keep the boards from shorting out on the shelves), just more shelves per shelf (since the shelves are spaced far apart in a regular configuration). You will generally end up with leftover parts, which might be useful elsewhere. Sometimes, they package the boxes wrong, and give you extra parts (normally, you get extra parts - though I would imagine it would be possible to end up with fewer parts in a box as well). These shelves are el-cheapo, the boxes may be mangled, the parts may be drilled wrong or bashed/bent - but you get what you pay for, and all you have to do in most cases is break out the power tools and do some bashing to get it all to fit.
Add some back and side panels, and a large piece of plexiglass to the front for a "custom" look - cut holes in the top and stick some 120VAC muffin fans in for ventilation (you might have to drill holes in the intervening shelves for proper airflow, or replace them with something else).
Hell, I have talked enough on this that I might try it myself. I honestly think you could build just about anything with these shelves - they are excellent!
A Harlan Ellison (sp?) classic, actually. An excellent read, IMO, though it only takes a little while to get through (few hours if you are a normal reader)...
On some military cable channel (can't remember what channel it was, but it like CNN for.mil) - anyhow, they showed the thing lift off, hover, slide sideways, then land upright.
I was fuckin' amazed!
The feeling I got was we had done something that until that point was a dream in science fiction. I am certain that I felt (in a smaller way) to what some people felt about the televised moon landing.
I never knew until today that the machine was that big - I thought it was actually a smaller prototype that flew - was it full size? Or was that the smaller prototype (quite possibly, I imagine)?
It angers me to know that we have turned our backs on something so promising...
Glove type input devices never caught on because they were never meant to be used when you could still see your hand - they were meant to be used when wearing an HMD for immersive work, when one would normally be moving most of the body anyway.
The problem was the same as using a mouse for drawing on the screen - can it be done? Yes. Is it the optimal tool? No.
What you say makes sense - we have two A/Cs, like I said, so maybe I can convince my GF to do the shutdown thing on the one in the back of the house, and leave the other one running, or get that timer like you said also (I might look into the cost of getting a couple of electronic thermostats)...
The first thing I drew in kindergarten was a picture of a UFO. What is strange to me about this is that I don't have any recollection of seeing any images of "UFOs" before this, either on TV or in a book or somesuch...
Sue me - I suck at spelling - I think it is rather funny that you point this out - I have had the sig running for quite a long time, yet you are the first to point it out.
I will change it immediately, thanks for the update...
But isn't this assuming that the AC is on all the time, rather than being switched on and off via a thermostat?
Why would the electric company (even in CA) tell you to turn your A/C up when you are not home, rather than off, to conserve electricity? I mean, if what you say is true, then why don't they tell you to turn it completely off (outside of the fact that they want to make money)?
I actually don't have the choice to turn it completely off (maybe the back rooms), because our small animals would die in the summer...
I could just see what utterly useless pap Dr. Seuss was. The first book I remember being "introduced" to was a science encyclopedia my parents got in the mail - they knew I liked building toys and such, so they showed it to me, and I read that thing nearly cover-to-cover, so they got me more like it (always asking my input on whether it was something I would like to read). Later they got a set of encyclopedias (Brittanica - not a cheap set to get), mainly for school work. Any other kinds of book wanted to read, I could pick out from the bookstore or elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong - my reading interests weren't all reference, nor did I read only "adult" oriented books - I read my share of children's novels. I just enjoyed the kind of books that had more than 10-15 pages, and more words than pictures. For those books that had pictures, I vastly preferred pictures that at least looked like a real setting, rather than a complete candy-coated strange-ass drug-induced fantasy land (and if you look at Dr. Seuss in this light as an adult, perhaps that is why some adults are fascinated by his work...perhaps).
I'll never forget the way my teachers in grade school (around 1st-2nd grade) treated me: They wanted me to read the stupid Dr. Seuss books, and other kid books - rather than let me read the ones I could see I wanted to read - Science Experiment books, Alfred Morgan electricity books, books on space and technology, computers, etc. - Telling me those were for the "older" children, only (like, WTF? I might learn something? What the hell am I going to learn about "Green eggs and ham, Sam I am"? How to read? I already knew how to do that, unlike my lamer peers!)...
Thank the gods my parents had some sense, and bought me both a science and a regular encyclopedia for me before I turned 6 years old...
Actually, it works OK in larger houses too - my GF and I live in a very large house out here (unfortunately not a solar home - that is my dream and ideal house, something which should be standard out here, but isn't) in Phoenix, and we have 2 (!!) large A/C units on the house, it is so big - we simply close the curtains on the large windows, and turn up the back room area and leave the other up a little higher than normal, but not as high as the back room (otherwise our guinea pigs would roast) - so we normally have both A/Cs at 75-77 or so, and then when we leave the back area (bedrooms) get set to about 85, and the front area is set to 78-80. We also close all the back room area doors, as well. Works out pretty good, actually...
First, you shouldn't turn your air conditioning off, but instead turn it up (make it warmer) when you leave, then down (make it cooler) when you come home. Otherwise, it takes more energy to cool down a very hot house, rather than a slightly warm house.
Try it for a month - set your AC to 75 (or whatever is the temp you like), then when you leave the house, up it to 80-85, then back down when you come home. It isn't that bad, doesn't take long to cool down, and your electric bill will be lower.
What would be better would be room-by-room thermostats that had IR motion detectors, so that you could direct the cooling to specific parts of the house, where you are at, when you are in the area, using vent valves and such, and raise the temperature up and down based on if you are home or not. That would be much better.
Of course, what I don't understand out here in lovely Phoenix, Arizona, why people don't use solar cooling instead of A/C - it can work great if the house is built properly (read as: proper orientation of windows/walls, having a partially buried house, rammed earth construction, etc)...
Actually, I looked at all the pictures, and in only a very few of them (mostly all on the very last set) show actual "property" destruction:
Photos 28, 29 and 30 seem to show people dragging branches somewhere. With the occurrance of fire in several images, we can suspect that they are dragging them to a fire (but hey, who knows - maybe they have some crafting they need to do?)...
At least photo 53 wasn't as stupid (next time, wear a ski mask!)...
Photo 58 shows a man wielding a large piece of what appears to be wood - maybe going to throw it on a fire - or bash Mr. 61 about the shoulders, one of the two (wipe that smirk off yer face, nugget!)...
Photo 77 - "Dude, where'd my doob go...? F*ckin' riot..."
Photo 86 - Now showing a better image of the Cydonian Face...
photos 95 and 96 show someone with another large piece of wood - probably not a picket sign. On the same page we have 99 and 101 doing more branch dragging (they must love crafting there at Purdue!)...
Now, it definitely looks like in Photo 150 there is a set of individuals up to no good with that mailbox - but why don't they note that the other guy (in black pants and grey vest) was involved as well? And why does that man look like he may actually be security or something?
The final page is about the only one that shows real good clear pictures of anybody causing destruction - and if you notice, most of the stuff they seem to be burning came from a DUMPSTER. They must value their trash very highly at Purdue, alright...
So, in closing - while there seem to have been some people causing havoc, and that one shouldn't blatently set fire to anything in public, I doubt $100,000 worth of damage occurred (unless they count the mailbox and the signpost - but only the mailbox seemed damaged). If those were damaged, then the individuals should have to pay retribution (include Mr. Blackpants, whoever he is). As for the others, they just seem to be bystanders, who didn't stop what was happening (and rant all you want about them not stopping it, but I would be they either wouldn't be heard, or they would be assaulted for their views, or something equally bad).
Oh, BTW, photo 49 offends me - WTF is that guy grabbing himself for? It ain't going anywhere, pal (actually, it takes more than that to offend me, but I have to admit the guy looks patently stupid making that gesture - I mean, if that guy can get a higher education, than anybody should).
Just found out it was run on VA by themselves - that is pathetic - relatively COTS, should _NOT_ have taken this long to restore to operation!
What I was speaking of tends to happen when you work with companies like Sun, SGI, or IBM - but it is truely amazing when it takes this long for a company that built and runs the hardware to fix the problem...
While backing up should always be done (and it probably was in this case), it may not always be the solution.
For example, what if the controller board on the drive dies?
One could say "Well, go down to Fry's and buy a new drive, slap it in and restore!", but rarely is it that simple.
You see, hardware manufacturers sometimes have maintenance contracts (and when I mean hardware, I mean the high end, "sell-yo-mamma-to-afford-it" type stuff) that stipulate that in order for the contract and warantee on the product to remain valid, you must do all service through the manufacturer.
That means when something fails, you have to call them, get them to come out when they can (at _their_ earliest possible conveniance), then they have to diagnose the problem, say "Yep, it's the hard drive alright!", then they call in to get a replacement hard drive - but maybe they don't have a spare, so it needs to be overnighted or couriered in from IBM or somewhere, then they get it, install it, verify it is working, then let you restore your data (which might take a day in itself, depending on if you send tapes out for offsite storage, and your rotation happened just before the crash, so now your tapes are in transit to storage - wait some more!).
Later in the month they send you a check for [bignum] bucks...
So, while in theory something that could have been done in a day using COTS hardware and a good admin, generally takes a ton of time when dealing with the higher end hardware. In this case, I don't think themes.org has to worry about a bill, they are probably doing a managed co-lo somewhere, and don't own the hardware. If they _do_ own the hardware, oh-boy, will they love the bill (at that point it becomes an issue whether you should stick to high-end, or go with a more COTS solution, and hope it doesn't break often under load)...
What happened was that our ever so thoughtful local government gave a rebate for alternative fuel vehicles (and when I mean rebate, I mean BIG REBATE - like going from a $15,000 vehicle to $8,000 if if was alt-fuel), but allowed the rebate to go to those who had current cars converted, bought them converted from the mfg (the dealer stuck NG or propane tanks, left in the gas system, so you could use either).
Here was the problem - they defined the alt-fuel as being propane or NG, I don't think electrics were considered alt-fuel (maybe they were - most people bought the gasoline/propane combo vehicles, though), and did NOT allow a certain alcohol fuel (it is called J60 or something like that), which actually can work fine in certain 4-cylinder Ford Rangers and Probes, with no modifications at all.
Most of the people went for the combo vehicles - which just happened to be mostly large SUV vehicles (!!) retrofitted, you could use gas or propane/NG in them (tank sits right between the rear bumper and spare) - but most people (read: yuppies on a stick) just fill up with gas, so we end up with:
A large city of gas burning SUVs, manned by "we-don't-care-about-the-earth" yuppies-on-cellphone-assholes, who have used the system to not only get lower taxes (and probably registration fees - plus the cute AF license plates), but got a cheaper car as well! I can only hope that their erratic on-a-cell-phone-can't-drive driving style causes them to be rear ended, earning them a darwin award (fat chance it would occur - I am sure the tanks are engineered to withstand that).
I would have loved to use that alcohol fuel in my Ranger (because I could've in mine) - but I wouldn't have gotten the rebate (and the rebate would've come in handy for me, since it is a bitch to get that fuel, as it isn't widely available).
I am sure there are some who are only using propane, and loved this deal because it allowed them to really do something for the environment - kudos to them. I am just as certain that the majority just took advantage of the system to get something for nothing, and actually make the problem worse in the end (typical for Arizona).
Oh, and BTW - the rest of the taxpayers are footing the bill.
I am not saying that what you said, WPL510, isn't true - it very well may be. I just think that it really boiled down to screwing the system, and saving money by shifting the end-cost to those who can't afford a new car retrofitted with the propane tanks...
There seems to be very little information available about this man - Tesla is downright famous compared to him.
For a little background, supposedly Farnsworth (Philo T. Farnsworth - true inventor of electronic television) invented a method of creating a possible fusion reactor of sorts using a strange form of vacuum tube device that contains and accelerates electrons in a magnetic "cage" of some sort (like a mini tokamak, I guess), causing the possible end result of fusion to happen (ok, my description is probably all botched to hell, but look up and read the sites for more info)...
The article is kinda thin on details in exactly what way the aircraft acted, but basically these three events occurred:
1. Hydraulic line is severed, warning lights go off, including one on the reset button. 2. Per training, pilot hits reset button once, then multiple times. 3. The rotor pitch changes, causing the craft to inevitably crash.
Now, the article says that the hydraulics have had problems in the past... Here is my take:
In the three pieces I outlined above, two stand out as being really underdefined (or wrongly defined) in the article: Number 1, in that they don't mention what the hydraulic line controlled, and number 3, in that they make it ambiguous as to whether the blade pitch changed, or the rotor (ie, the pod) pitch changed.
The V22 is a tilt rotor craft. Say perhaps it was the pod pitch that changed, and not the blade pitch, and the hydraulics that were damaged were the ones controlling the pod tilt on one side. The reset button is hit, computer say "go into hover mode" and only one pod tilts...
See where I am going at? Perhaps what the reset button did was intentional - but the programmer assumed that both pods were working. I am not saying there wasn't a bug - somewhere along the line there was - but the way the article was written doesn't really tell what happenned...
You may mod me down - I am sure I have various things incorrect (for all I know the tilting is done with electric motors - but I doubt it)...
Slashdot Mirror
Case Fans
Why do people always go with the 12 volt fans? There exist same size (as well as larger) "muffin"-style fans that run on 110-115VAC, many pump 100-200 cfm (I had one that came from a DEC mini computer powersupply - had to mount it on a board to keep it from blowing away when I was playing with it). Sure, they would be extremely loud, but think of it - you can easily get that computer center droning noise you know you've always secretly wanted...
Coolant
Instead of water, why not pump mineral oil through the system? People have immersed thier systems in circulated mineral oil, but that is messy. Use a gas tank pump to circulate the oil (the pumps are designed to resist the solvent power of harsh chemicals, like gasoline). You might not get better cooling than water (don't know whether you would or not), but you wouldn't have to worry about leaks shorting your machine out, since the mineral oil isn't conductive (else why would people immerse thier machines in it).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I would have told the agent "one moment" - went to the front of the car, asked for everyone's attention, and then given a speech, something along the lines of:
"Attention, everyone - I have just been informed that I fit the profile of a drug smuggler - I paid for my ticket with cash and got on at the last minute. Is it now illegal in this country to use cash? When did you last use cash? Can I not choose to do something in this country on impulse? By purchasing my ticket and boarding, I harm no one! But the DEA agent sitting in seat XX says that I am a threat. You are my witnesses, ladies and gentlemen - my witnesses to this event. Remember it! This is just one more step down the road to tyranny!"
(ok, I know, I know - I probably wouldn't even get to the front of the car, let alone give a speech - but wouldn't those things be within my rights, as well?)...
Then I would go back to my seat, told Mr. Agent that I would NOT let him check my bags or person without my lawyer present, and also throw some warrant shit in his face as well (though I full well know it wouldn't matter, since a warrant only is needed for a residence, from what I understand) - but maybe it would stall him a bit. The agent would likely be beligerant (I would definitely remain absolutely calm during all of this - remain an upright citizen - so that my witnesses could see I was the one being badgered). He would likely handcuff me (I would ask why for - I pose not threat - and where are my Miranda rights - I want them read, damnit!), and take me "downtown" at the next stop. I would not say one more thing after my Miranda rights are read, no matter what they ask, other than I want to see my lawyer, and to ask for water, or to go to the bathroom, or what not. I would not give up any other information, until I saw my lawyer. I know I would end up being detained, and I would also not get to where I was going.
I would make this agent work - I would gladly pay for a lawyer - then, when at last no drugs are found, and all of that time is wasted, I would push to file a lawsuit against these people for some civil rights violations. Fitting a profile does not equal to committing a crime! They want to charge me with a crime, they have to prove it, not just "think" I look like someone who could commit a crime. But that is where we are at now in this country - and none of us stands up against this bullshit because it might "inconvience us", or make it look like we are for the "bad guys". These are people we should protect also - even the bad guys have rights.
We are all - every...single...one...of...us - capable of committing a crime.
But these actions and abilities (our rights that have been lost - "unreasonable search and seizure" - to the "War on (some) Drugs") are sanctioned by most people. But you what horrifies me the most?
The fact that if I could make that speech, that every one of the individuals on that car (hell, probably the DEA agent himself, as well!), would tune me out, or look at me with hate, tell me to sit down, or be fearful of me... Why would that be?
Because I would be the one truely free...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I saw this book down at the bookstore again (I say again because I first ran across it last year) yesterday, and thought it should really be in the entertainment section, and not the science section. It literally "screams" coffee table! It is one of those books for people who want to look smart, but who don't actually read - you know, the same yuppie people who hire others to buy whole sections from used bookstores to decorate their house with...
Anyhow, it is not much more than robo-porn. Cheap entertainment disguised as reference.
The first time I saw it, I passed it up for Gordon McComb's updated 2nd Edition (long overdue) "99 Inexpensive Robotics Projects" and another project book containing a bunch of the Amateur Robotics columns from Nuts and Volts. These two are books really discussing the "where it is happening" in robotics - not in labs, but in garages - where it has always been happening for over 30 years.
This book will appeal to robot "stuff" collectors - I myself admit that I might buy it someday, but with full knowledge of what it really is, and not what it pretends to be (I have an older "art/coffee table" robot book called ROBOTS - can't remember the author - one thing I do like about many of the older "pop"-robotic books is that they tend to be the only reference to historical hobby robotics from the 70's and early 80's).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Though I got it long after the date mentioned - I don't have any intention of trying to get and rebate, or whatever it is.
I have a parallel port 100 meg model - the things I like about it, above a CD-RW:
1. The drive is cheap.
2. The drive is durable (I throw mine in my backpack all the time, no probs).
3. It is portable.
I have yet to see a CD-RW on every machine I go to, especially at my workplace - we have a few, but only on "management's" machines - never on normal developers boxes. So, when I need to pull down a bunch of stuff, I bring in my ZIP drive.
That thing has been abused to hell and back - I even got a few burn/melt marks on it from soldering near it.
I will say the cost of media sucks - but buying or building a portable parallel port CD-RW drive is not my idea of cheap, yet (though it is rapidly falling to below $200 - which is about right)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
With a P200MMX with 96MB of ram, and a 6MB Hercules Stingray 128/3D PCI, running KDE on SuSE 6.3 ("upgraded" to 2.2.14 kernel).
Plenty fast for me - it does what I want, fast enough.
However, with prices dropping so much, I decided to upgrade - I have waiting in the wings a Celeron 366 with 256MB SDRAM and an AGP TNT card (haven't received it yet off an ebay guy, but will soon). Right now the test rig is sitting next to me on top of my scanner.
I don't know when I will get around to installing it and booting up - maybe when I get that video card. I am not sure if it is really going to matter to me. I am thinking about getting an even better CPU (I bought the celeron only for testing - the MB was given to me by my employer, and I didn't know if it worked right or not), probably another celeron (maybe a 600), or a PII.
At any rate, I haven't found anything that I use that taxes the system as it is (with the P200). If I played more games, I probably would, but I haven't bought a piece of software in ages.
Just my two cents, probably worth less...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Around here, I would personally get my standoffs from either Fry's or from Apache Reclamation (my favorite hangout - get grungy!), but for most people it will be the Shack.
/. poster, doing that would be idea in his case (test network)...
As far as the cards are concerned, I had thought about that later. What you would want to try to do is either cut down the case (ie, physically cut it down, or take it apart) to just give the bottom and the card mount, or build your own mounts. Another possibility might be mounting a bar at the height of the card screwdown, and then mounting the motherboards on the shelf, so that you can anchor them to both.
Going the full chipset route is probably the best, if most or all the machines are servers (or, dare I say it - nodes in a Beowulf cluster), as it means you can put them closer together...
For the original Ask
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
While you can get short racks fairly cheap (small cube like 19 inch racks), for around $50.00 - surplus, and it is possible to build your own rack system, here is a solution, that while not standard size, might be something interesting to try.
Take a trip down to Walmart (or K-Mart, sometimes Target). In the hardware section, look for steel shelving. Walmart sells these shelves (by the seashore?) that are made out of the flimsiest damn steel you can imagine. Pick the right day, and you might be able to pick some up for $12.00 a box. The shelves are about 42" high, 30" wide, and 12" deep, generally with 4 shelves. Supposedly, each shelf can hold around 200 lbs. Now, putting them together is a bitch, because they are very flimsy, until you get them tightened up. Once tight, though, they are damn strong. I bought six of them earlier in the year, used 1.5 to build an almost "double-high" shelf, set them side by side (3 tall shelves), anchored them to the wall (and to each other), and filled them with books - excellent bookshelves!
The same could be done to hold computers (or even just bare motherboards, using risers/standoffs to keep the boards from shorting out on the shelves), just more shelves per shelf (since the shelves are spaced far apart in a regular configuration). You will generally end up with leftover parts, which might be useful elsewhere. Sometimes, they package the boxes wrong, and give you extra parts (normally, you get extra parts - though I would imagine it would be possible to end up with fewer parts in a box as well). These shelves are el-cheapo, the boxes may be mangled, the parts may be drilled wrong or bashed/bent - but you get what you pay for, and all you have to do in most cases is break out the power tools and do some bashing to get it all to fit.
Add some back and side panels, and a large piece of plexiglass to the front for a "custom" look - cut holes in the top and stick some 120VAC muffin fans in for ventilation (you might have to drill holes in the intervening shelves for proper airflow, or replace them with something else).
Hell, I have talked enough on this that I might try it myself. I honestly think you could build just about anything with these shelves - they are excellent!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
A Harlan Ellison (sp?) classic, actually. An excellent read, IMO, though it only takes a little while to get through (few hours if you are a normal reader)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
On some military cable channel (can't remember what channel it was, but it like CNN for .mil) - anyhow, they showed the thing lift off, hover, slide sideways, then land upright.
I was fuckin' amazed!
The feeling I got was we had done something that until that point was a dream in science fiction. I am certain that I felt (in a smaller way) to what some people felt about the televised moon landing.
I never knew until today that the machine was that big - I thought it was actually a smaller prototype that flew - was it full size? Or was that the smaller prototype (quite possibly, I imagine)?
It angers me to know that we have turned our backs on something so promising...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Glove type input devices never caught on because they were never meant to be used when you could still see your hand - they were meant to be used when wearing an HMD for immersive work, when one would normally be moving most of the body anyway.
The problem was the same as using a mouse for drawing on the screen - can it be done? Yes. Is it the optimal tool? No.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Thanks for the input.
What you say makes sense - we have two A/Cs, like I said, so maybe I can convince my GF to do the shutdown thing on the one in the back of the house, and leave the other one running, or get that timer like you said also (I might look into the cost of getting a couple of electronic thermostats)...
Thanks again!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
The first thing I drew in kindergarten was a picture of a UFO. What is strange to me about this is that I don't have any recollection of seeing any images of "UFOs" before this, either on TV or in a book or somesuch...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I just didn't like Dr. Seuss books...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Sue me - I suck at spelling - I think it is rather funny that you point this out - I have had the sig running for quite a long time, yet you are the first to point it out.
I will change it immediately, thanks for the update...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
But isn't this assuming that the AC is on all the time, rather than being switched on and off via a thermostat?
Why would the electric company (even in CA) tell you to turn your A/C up when you are not home, rather than off, to conserve electricity? I mean, if what you say is true, then why don't they tell you to turn it completely off (outside of the fact that they want to make money)?
I actually don't have the choice to turn it completely off (maybe the back rooms), because our small animals would die in the summer...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Not crunched for time at all...
I could just see what utterly useless pap Dr. Seuss was. The first book I remember being "introduced" to was a science encyclopedia my parents got in the mail - they knew I liked building toys and such, so they showed it to me, and I read that thing nearly cover-to-cover, so they got me more like it (always asking my input on whether it was something I would like to read). Later they got a set of encyclopedias (Brittanica - not a cheap set to get), mainly for school work. Any other kinds of book wanted to read, I could pick out from the bookstore or elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong - my reading interests weren't all reference, nor did I read only "adult" oriented books - I read my share of children's novels. I just enjoyed the kind of books that had more than 10-15 pages, and more words than pictures. For those books that had pictures, I vastly preferred pictures that at least looked like a real setting, rather than a complete candy-coated strange-ass drug-induced fantasy land (and if you look at Dr. Seuss in this light as an adult, perhaps that is why some adults are fascinated by his work...perhaps).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
You may be right, but in all honesty...
I have always hated Dr. Seuss...
I'll never forget the way my teachers in grade school (around 1st-2nd grade) treated me: They wanted me to read the stupid Dr. Seuss books, and other kid books - rather than let me read the ones I could see I wanted to read - Science Experiment books, Alfred Morgan electricity books, books on space and technology, computers, etc. - Telling me those were for the "older" children, only (like, WTF? I might learn something? What the hell am I going to learn about "Green eggs and ham, Sam I am"? How to read? I already knew how to do that, unlike my lamer peers!)...
Thank the gods my parents had some sense, and bought me both a science and a regular encyclopedia for me before I turned 6 years old...
That, and plenty of Lego...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Actually, it works OK in larger houses too - my GF and I live in a very large house out here (unfortunately not a solar home - that is my dream and ideal house, something which should be standard out here, but isn't) in Phoenix, and we have 2 (!!) large A/C units on the house, it is so big - we simply close the curtains on the large windows, and turn up the back room area and leave the other up a little higher than normal, but not as high as the back room (otherwise our guinea pigs would roast) - so we normally have both A/Cs at 75-77 or so, and then when we leave the back area (bedrooms) get set to about 85, and the front area is set to 78-80. We also close all the back room area doors, as well. Works out pretty good, actually...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
First, you shouldn't turn your air conditioning off, but instead turn it up (make it warmer) when you leave, then down (make it cooler) when you come home. Otherwise, it takes more energy to cool down a very hot house, rather than a slightly warm house.
Try it for a month - set your AC to 75 (or whatever is the temp you like), then when you leave the house, up it to 80-85, then back down when you come home. It isn't that bad, doesn't take long to cool down, and your electric bill will be lower.
What would be better would be room-by-room thermostats that had IR motion detectors, so that you could direct the cooling to specific parts of the house, where you are at, when you are in the area, using vent valves and such, and raise the temperature up and down based on if you are home or not. That would be much better.
Of course, what I don't understand out here in lovely Phoenix, Arizona, why people don't use solar cooling instead of A/C - it can work great if the house is built properly (read as: proper orientation of windows/walls, having a partially buried house, rammed earth construction, etc)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
But hey, this is /. - where my opinion counts too!
Actually, I looked at all the pictures, and in only a very few of them (mostly all on the very last set) show actual "property" destruction:
Photos 28, 29 and 30 seem to show people dragging branches somewhere. With the occurrance of fire in several images, we can suspect that they are dragging them to a fire (but hey, who knows - maybe they have some crafting they need to do?)...
At least photo 53 wasn't as stupid (next time, wear a ski mask!)...
Photo 58 shows a man wielding a large piece of what appears to be wood - maybe going to throw it on a fire - or bash Mr. 61 about the shoulders, one of the two (wipe that smirk off yer face, nugget!)...
Photo 62 - Praise Stallman!!!
Photo 70 - Use the Force, Luke!!
Photo 77 - "Dude, where'd my doob go...? F*ckin' riot..."
Photo 86 - Now showing a better image of the Cydonian Face...
photos 95 and 96 show someone with another large piece of wood - probably not a picket sign. On the same page we have 99 and 101 doing more branch dragging (they must love crafting there at Purdue!)...
Photo 109 - Wow! I found a doob!
Now, it definitely looks like in Photo 150 there is a set of individuals up to no good with that mailbox - but why don't they note that the other guy (in black pants and grey vest) was involved as well? And why does that man look like he may actually be security or something?
The final page is about the only one that shows real good clear pictures of anybody causing destruction - and if you notice, most of the stuff they seem to be burning came from a DUMPSTER. They must value their trash very highly at Purdue, alright...
So, in closing - while there seem to have been some people causing havoc, and that one shouldn't blatently set fire to anything in public, I doubt $100,000 worth of damage occurred (unless they count the mailbox and the signpost - but only the mailbox seemed damaged). If those were damaged, then the individuals should have to pay retribution (include Mr. Blackpants, whoever he is). As for the others, they just seem to be bystanders, who didn't stop what was happening (and rant all you want about them not stopping it, but I would be they either wouldn't be heard, or they would be assaulted for their views, or something equally bad).
Oh, BTW, photo 49 offends me - WTF is that guy grabbing himself for? It ain't going anywhere, pal (actually, it takes more than that to offend me, but I have to admit the guy looks patently stupid making that gesture - I mean, if that guy can get a higher education, than anybody should).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Just found out it was run on VA by themselves - that is pathetic - relatively COTS, should _NOT_ have taken this long to restore to operation!
What I was speaking of tends to happen when you work with companies like Sun, SGI, or IBM - but it is truely amazing when it takes this long for a company that built and runs the hardware to fix the problem...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
While backing up should always be done (and it probably was in this case), it may not always be the solution.
For example, what if the controller board on the drive dies?
One could say "Well, go down to Fry's and buy a new drive, slap it in and restore!", but rarely is it that simple.
You see, hardware manufacturers sometimes have maintenance contracts (and when I mean hardware, I mean the high end, "sell-yo-mamma-to-afford-it" type stuff) that stipulate that in order for the contract and warantee on the product to remain valid, you must do all service through the manufacturer.
That means when something fails, you have to call them, get them to come out when they can (at _their_ earliest possible conveniance), then they have to diagnose the problem, say "Yep, it's the hard drive alright!", then they call in to get a replacement hard drive - but maybe they don't have a spare, so it needs to be overnighted or couriered in from IBM or somewhere, then they get it, install it, verify it is working, then let you restore your data (which might take a day in itself, depending on if you send tapes out for offsite storage, and your rotation happened just before the crash, so now your tapes are in transit to storage - wait some more!).
Later in the month they send you a check for [bignum] bucks...
So, while in theory something that could have been done in a day using COTS hardware and a good admin, generally takes a ton of time when dealing with the higher end hardware. In this case, I don't think themes.org has to worry about a bill, they are probably doing a managed co-lo somewhere, and don't own the hardware. If they _do_ own the hardware, oh-boy, will they love the bill (at that point it becomes an issue whether you should stick to high-end, or go with a more COTS solution, and hope it doesn't break often under load)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
What happened was that our ever so thoughtful local government gave a rebate for alternative fuel vehicles (and when I mean rebate, I mean BIG REBATE - like going from a $15,000 vehicle to $8,000 if if was alt-fuel), but allowed the rebate to go to those who had current cars converted, bought them converted from the mfg (the dealer stuck NG or propane tanks, left in the gas system, so you could use either).
Here was the problem - they defined the alt-fuel as being propane or NG, I don't think electrics were considered alt-fuel (maybe they were - most people bought the gasoline/propane combo vehicles, though), and did NOT allow a certain alcohol fuel (it is called J60 or something like that), which actually can work fine in certain 4-cylinder Ford Rangers and Probes, with no modifications at all.
Most of the people went for the combo vehicles - which just happened to be mostly large SUV vehicles (!!) retrofitted, you could use gas or propane/NG in them (tank sits right between the rear bumper and spare) - but most people (read: yuppies on a stick) just fill up with gas, so we end up with:
A large city of gas burning SUVs, manned by "we-don't-care-about-the-earth" yuppies-on-cellphone-assholes, who have used the system to not only get lower taxes (and probably registration fees - plus the cute AF license plates), but got a cheaper car as well! I can only hope that their erratic on-a-cell-phone-can't-drive driving style causes them to be rear ended, earning them a darwin award (fat chance it would occur - I am sure the tanks are engineered to withstand that).
I would have loved to use that alcohol fuel in my Ranger (because I could've in mine) - but I wouldn't have gotten the rebate (and the rebate would've come in handy for me, since it is a bitch to get that fuel, as it isn't widely available).
I am sure there are some who are only using propane, and loved this deal because it allowed them to really do something for the environment - kudos to them. I am just as certain that the majority just took advantage of the system to get something for nothing, and actually make the problem worse in the end (typical for Arizona).
Oh, and BTW - the rest of the taxpayers are footing the bill.
I am not saying that what you said, WPL510, isn't true - it very well may be. I just think that it really boiled down to screwing the system, and saving money by shifting the end-cost to those who can't afford a new car retrofitted with the propane tanks...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Does anyone have any information about the Farnsworth Fusor, outside of these links?
e x.html
http://fus.x0r.com/
http://songs.com/philo/ind
http://www.farnovision.com/
There seems to be very little information available about this man - Tesla is downright famous compared to him.
For a little background, supposedly Farnsworth (Philo T. Farnsworth - true inventor of electronic television) invented a method of creating a possible fusion reactor of sorts using a strange form of vacuum tube device that contains and accelerates electrons in a magnetic "cage" of some sort (like a mini tokamak, I guess), causing the possible end result of fusion to happen (ok, my description is probably all botched to hell, but look up and read the sites for more info)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
So mod me down, if you must...
The article is kinda thin on details in exactly what way the aircraft acted, but basically these three events occurred:
1. Hydraulic line is severed, warning lights go off, including one on the reset button.
2. Per training, pilot hits reset button once, then multiple times.
3. The rotor pitch changes, causing the craft to inevitably crash.
Now, the article says that the hydraulics have had problems in the past... Here is my take:
In the three pieces I outlined above, two stand out as being really underdefined (or wrongly defined) in the article: Number 1, in that they don't mention what the hydraulic line controlled, and number 3, in that they make it ambiguous as to whether the blade pitch changed, or the rotor (ie, the pod) pitch changed.
The V22 is a tilt rotor craft. Say perhaps it was the pod pitch that changed, and not the blade pitch, and the hydraulics that were damaged were the ones controlling the pod tilt on one side. The reset button is hit, computer say "go into hover mode" and only one pod tilts...
See where I am going at? Perhaps what the reset button did was intentional - but the programmer assumed that both pods were working. I am not saying there wasn't a bug - somewhere along the line there was - but the way the article was written doesn't really tell what happenned...
You may mod me down - I am sure I have various things incorrect (for all I know the tilting is done with electric motors - but I doubt it)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!