...there was much rejoicing in the law-enforcement community when they learned internet users will be leaving years of e-mail online for easy searching.
Last year I had to drive a Ryder truck of furniture from Vermont to Brooklyn. Not a big truck, more like a cube van, but I'm sure it counted as a truck as far as the Revenue Enhancers were concerned. I dutifully went to the mapping site (can't recall whether it was Yahoo or Mapquest), printed out the directions, map of destination in several different resolutions, etc. Unfortunately, one of the roads we were plotted on was for trucks only, and we didn't know this until the on-ramp. I took the road anyway, and we went for about 45 minutes before my wife ordered me to get off at the next exit so we don't get some huge fine. Needless to say, we got lost. We got more lost later, small town Vermont boy driving a Ryder van through Manhattan during rush hour, wife screaming from the passenger seat. Large fun.
Anyway, is there a way to find a TRUCK route point-to-point? And to the mapping website people, maybe a quick disclaimer about the routes being for passenger cars...
Funny that this appears the same day as this post on the Slot Car Illustrated Message Board: http://pub83.ezboard.com/fpockitfrm2.showM essage?t opicID=2538.topic
(remove spaces, yadda yadda)
Not a hack (sorry) but apparently a commercial product. I guess trainheads are not alone in wanting "that experience", although slot cars are a bit more of an engineering challenge - you can't attach three cars of circuit boards and batteries to the back!
AOL CD's are sent presort standard and if you write refused/deceased/etc. on it and put it back in your mailbox, it will get recycled by the post office. I'm a letter carrier.
I'm a recovering letter carrier... I recall seeing clerks at the carrier station spending hours recycling undeliverable AOL disks. Because the USPS has mandatory recycling for all UBBM (Undeliverable Bulk Business Mail - junk mail to endusers), someone gets to make $17/hour tearing the plastic shrinkwrap open, recycling the paper and discarding the disk and shrinkwrap. I swear the USPS must lose money on handling these things, especially as they're not easily automatable, unlike letter mail, which is sorted - with OCR - at 40-60,000 pieces per hour in one machine.
DoC
In almost seven years as a carrier, I wasn't bitten once. By a dog, anyway.
Cruelshoes wrote: Ninco, Fly, Carrera? What's your slot car poison?
The new Scalextric Sport rocks my world. Any self-respecting car nut owes it to themselves to check these things out - worth buying even if you don't own any track! The Penske Camaro is sweet, and I've got the GT40 on order. They've got a computer interface now too.
Thank god I'm not into R/C. Or Bass fishing.
DoC
Recovering Addict
on
Lego Addictions
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I can sympathize with the 100k dude - my collection included well over 60,000 pieces. While I built some really cool stuff - large LEGO train layouts with pneumatically operated switching points - I found myself spending more time sorting than building. I probably owned more Plano tackle boxes than most fishermen would ever dream of, and they were full of Technic bits broken down by gear size and linkage function. Yes, I was single then. I sold the whole lot when I moved to New Zealand - paid for the trip and freighting the rest of my stuff over!
Some interesting LEGO links:
The LEGO User's Group Network - started as an offshoot of the rec.toys.lego newsgroup, now the definitive source for info and discussion.
The Brickshelf has a gallery of all sorts of stuff people have done, as well as scans of old catalogs and building instructions (you threw those away, didn't you).
I sorta miss my LEGO sometimes, until I see new LEGO in the store - yech. For the most part, they've really gone downhill (the Sante Fe train engine excepted). Plus, I've got other expensive hobbies - 1/32 slot cars, bicycles, 'puters....
Specify that an existing ban on the gadvertisementh of any device that is used primarily for surreptitious electronic surveillance applies to online ads.
So - does this mean no more of those annoying X10 ads? "Security"? Suuuure... Like I need to protect my home from the comely lass in the X10 ads...
spare a thought for the fools in new zealand who have adsl connections with only 400 per month included in their "plan" - and have to pay per meg charges for every meg over that;)
Damn - I'm moving from Vermont to Christchurch in a month. Are there any good Enzed providers?
In fact, RTGs HAVE survived launch accidents, been recovered from the ocean, and been RE-USED.
Just out of curiosity, had the solid rocket booster involved in the Challenger debacle been used before? I seem to remember reading - maybe it was Feynman's book - that there was a procedure to make sure that the SRB was round. It involved measuring the diameter of the SRB at several locations and then some kind of crude mashing/stretching to get it back to round. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing that makes for an ideal gasket sealing, but I'm probably sphincter-speaking now anyway.
FWIW, the Salon article is smarmy and not helpful. If you're going to point out foolish government spending and want to be taken seriously, this ain't the way.
I think a variation of the universal electric shock symbol would work well - a body recoiling in pain from waves of radiation. Some cultures may worship the dead, but not too many worship pain.
The free car program [freecar.com] where you get a free car because it has Advertising on it can now have cars that are updated monthly.
Scene in mall parking lot, 2005: "Honey, I can't find our minivan! Were we running the ad for Coke or Microsoft this week?"
Hmmmm, this material used in prominent places, combined with the ability to be updated remotely, lends itself to some interesting hacking scenerios. "Kick me" indeed!
DoC
Re:invisibility wont work because of....
on
Paintable LCDs
·
· Score: 1
...Shadows.
While you theoretically could camouflage yourself, light being blocked by you would still register on objects around you.
Unless there were thousands of miniature lights along with thousands of cameras and millions of pixels. Nah.
Damn straight. The music I've heard on Groove Salad and Monkey Radio blew me away - a whole new genre I didn't know existed. I just counted - twelve CDs I have purchased over the last year have been due to hearing streaming audio and then hunting the stuff down on USENET and filesharing apps and liking it enough to buy.
I'll pay small amounts for this service - say $5.99 a month, as long as I can hear music, music, music and am able to see a playlist of everything in the last day.
The major label alliances are dropping the ball for customer such as myself. Here I'm offering them money to play things for me that I might then buy. Instead they've devoted their energies to making it difficult to take my digital music with me conveniently, if at all. These are businesspeople?
Kruder & Dorfmeister, Nightmares on Wax, DJ Food, Fila Brazillia, St Germain... Hadn't heard of them a year ago. Now it's about all I buy.
Oh, and The Cowboy Cultural Society has always been a fun diversion...
...Create something incredibly cool and lose your site. Thanks to thesolo for mirroring a couple of pix - this thing is AMAZING. Two weeks ago I sold my collection of 60,000+ LEGO bricks (re-entering my "dark ages"), but I never managed to do anything that cool with them. I did get around to a 100 square foot train layout with pneumatically powered switches, compressor, and regulator (all LEGO) but this puts my stuff to shame.
For those who have been out of LEGO for a while (15+ years), there is some pretty amazing stuff out there now. Mindstorms is quite cool, some of the larger Technic sets are amazing, and LEGO seems to be catering toward its growing Train fans by releasing neat sets like the Sante Fe Super Chief. On the other hand, unfortunately, they are also licensing Harry Potter and Star Wars. Feh.
If it's not on the list, is it even worth considering? Newegg has the Biostar M7VKQ for $52, and I'm thinking of using one for an MP3 player. Onboard video and LAN.
Wish there could be some Mandrake-centric books though.
Well, there is SAMS "Teach yourself Mandrake Linux in 24 Hours", but it sounds like you may already be past that (I regret buying it as I am a bit past it as well).
I just found "Linux Complete" at my local B&N in "used" for ten bucks. Sure, it's a little Red-Hat-centric, but it's still a fantastic reference.
Really, once you get past the install, is there much of a diff? (Asked seriously, not rhetorically, I'm a newbie myself)
Because Gibson has fallen on hard times (confirmed by a buddy who used to work in the Custom Shop) and knows that you slap Dale's name on anything and you will sell as many as you can make. Assuming they made 333 of them and profit around a grand (of the $4k list price) that's over a quarter mil of profit. Duh.
Fernandes doesn't say on their site how much these guitars are, but you'll pay at least a c-note just for the licensing. OTOH, you'd pay a lot more than that to have someone custom paint Natalie Portman on your Strat.
Other posters have debated whether or not Fernandes guitars are any good. As a former guitar repairmen, I can say that any guitar under $400 is probably crap, and you'll pay over a grand for a quality instrument. Some of the Jap and Mexican Fenders were pretty good, but as others said, quality varies from axe to axe. I do remember some horrible Fernandes guitars, but some (okay most) of the Korean Fenders were crap too.
You get what you pay for. You may save 10-15% buying mail order versus buying from a music store, but you could end up with one of the "Monday" guitars that somebody else sent back.
Tomy is a strange company - they used to sell quite a few "neat" products here in the States back in the 80's
Yeah, no kidding. I have in my possession a Tomy "Tinkle Tot", which is a naked little plastic squeeze doll about the size of a hackeysack with an anatomically incorrect "hole" right where you're thinking. From the package:
"From a fun-filled island come the Tinkle Tots. They swim in the sea, hide in the jungle and when you fill them with water and squeze them, watch what they do!"
I saw it in the dollar store and had to buy it otherwise nobody would believe me. Truly the strangest toy I've ever seen.
1: Our Senator Jeffords got fed up with how far the Republican Right was going and became and Independent.
2: Only Socialist Congressman in the US.
3: First state to pass a civil unions bill.
4: No billboards!
5: Last state in the country to get a Walmart (we've got two or three now).
6: Both open-carry and permitless concealed-carry of firearms permitted (I hate guns, but I hate gun laws more).
7: Last state to adopt a flag-burning resolution (who the fuck needs it).
8: Senator Leahy.
9: Citizen legislature
10: Smallest state capitol in the US (though, IIRC, more lawyers per capita than any other capitol).
11: Road salt
Okay, downsides...
1: Clouds.
2: Cold.
3: Clueless SUV drivers (oh, you got those too?)
4: Did I mention clouds?
Now, if we could just make it illegal for telemarketers to auto-dial every number (including unlisted), make it illegal for voter registration lists to be bought, and force marketers to reveal, upon our request, where they got our name, I'd be far happier. Oh, and not allow the phone co to CHARGE us for an unlisted number.
Egads. Someone needs to explain to this well-meaning gentleman (so obviously someone from the pr0n industry) that he's not getting a penny of that $150,000 he "spent" on that van-tastic paint job when he sells it.
Same with Romero's car. Yeah, he's done a lot of hardcore tuning to it, but that means almost nothing at resale time, unless you find the right individual. Add maybe 10k (for "celebrity ownership") to the value of a used TR of that vintage, and you're still looking at $70k.
IIRC, Norwood Tuning is the firm that got the Ferrari crowd's collective knickers in a twist when they took a second-generation GTO, dropped a twin-turbo V8 in it, and went record-hunting at Bonnevile.
Good luck sellin' the cars, guys, but both these items have a pretty small pool of interested buyers.
...where can one find things like 90deg PCI adaptors, low-profile power supplies, etc. ? I'm in the middle of trying to build myself a Linux print/music server from an old Dell 300 and an Apple IIgs case. The power supply has me stumped, unless I take apart an OEM one and split it in half.
Speaking of power supplies, is the nasty voltage all in the caps and what's a safe way to dissipate it?
Slashdot Mirror
It's not quite clear to me - can I apply for this even if I feel I haven't been directly wronged?
DoC
...there was much rejoicing in the law-enforcement community when they learned internet users will be leaving years of e-mail online for easy searching.
capn
Last year I had to drive a Ryder truck of furniture from Vermont to Brooklyn. Not a big truck, more like a cube van, but I'm sure it counted as a truck as far as the Revenue Enhancers were concerned. I dutifully went to the mapping site (can't recall whether it was Yahoo or Mapquest), printed out the directions, map of destination in several different resolutions, etc. Unfortunately, one of the roads we were plotted on was for trucks only, and we didn't know this until the on-ramp. I took the road anyway, and we went for about 45 minutes before my wife ordered me to get off at the next exit so we don't get some huge fine. Needless to say, we got lost. We got more lost later, small town Vermont boy driving a Ryder van through Manhattan during rush hour, wife screaming from the passenger seat. Large fun.
Anyway, is there a way to find a TRUCK route point-to-point? And to the mapping website people, maybe a quick disclaimer about the routes being for passenger cars...
Capnfutile
Funny that this appears the same day as this post on the Slot Car Illustrated Message Board:M essage?t opicID=2538.topic
http://pub83.ezboard.com/fpockitfrm2.show
(remove spaces, yadda yadda)
Not a hack (sorry) but apparently a commercial product. I guess trainheads are not alone in wanting "that experience", although slot cars are a bit more of an engineering challenge - you can't attach three cars of circuit boards and batteries to the back!
Enjoy!
DoC
I'm a recovering letter carrier... I recall seeing clerks at the carrier station spending hours recycling undeliverable AOL disks. Because the USPS has mandatory recycling for all UBBM (Undeliverable Bulk Business Mail - junk mail to endusers), someone gets to make $17/hour tearing the plastic shrinkwrap open, recycling the paper and discarding the disk and shrinkwrap. I swear the USPS must lose money on handling these things, especially as they're not easily automatable, unlike letter mail, which is sorted - with OCR - at 40-60,000 pieces per hour in one machine.
DoC
In almost seven years as a carrier, I wasn't bitten once. By a dog, anyway.
Ninco, Fly, Carrera? What's your slot car poison?
The new Scalextric Sport rocks my world. Any self-respecting car nut owes it to themselves to check these things out - worth buying even if you don't own any track! The Penske Camaro is sweet, and I've got the GT40 on order. They've got a computer interface now too.
Thank god I'm not into R/C. Or Bass fishing.
DoC
Some interesting LEGO links:
The LEGO User's Group Network - started as an offshoot of the rec.toys.lego newsgroup, now the definitive source for info and discussion.
The Brickshelf has a gallery of all sorts of stuff people have done, as well as scans of old catalogs and building instructions (you threw those away, didn't you).
I sorta miss my LEGO sometimes, until I see new LEGO in the store - yech. For the most part, they've really gone downhill (the Sante Fe train engine excepted). Plus, I've got other expensive hobbies - 1/32 slot cars, bicycles, 'puters....
That harpsicord is pretty wack, tho.
Later,
DoC
Specify that an existing ban on the gadvertisementh of any device that is used primarily for surreptitious electronic surveillance applies to online ads.
So - does this mean no more of those annoying X10 ads? "Security"? Suuuure... Like I need to protect my home from the comely lass in the X10 ads...
DoC
Hurn de Flee der verda hoon de biggen do zu--
Bork bork bork!
Note - parent was troll...
spare a thought for the fools in new zealand who have adsl connections with only 400 per month included in their "plan" - and have to pay per meg charges for every meg over that ;)
Damn - I'm moving from Vermont to Christchurch in a month. Are there any good Enzed providers?
DoC
In fact, RTGs HAVE survived launch accidents, been recovered from the ocean, and been RE-USED.
Just out of curiosity, had the solid rocket booster involved in the Challenger debacle been used before? I seem to remember reading - maybe it was Feynman's book - that there was a procedure to make sure that the SRB was round. It involved measuring the diameter of the SRB at several locations and then some kind of crude mashing/stretching to get it back to round. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing that makes for an ideal gasket sealing, but I'm probably sphincter-speaking now anyway.
FWIW, the Salon article is smarmy and not helpful. If you're going to point out foolish government spending and want to be taken seriously, this ain't the way.
I think a variation of the universal electric shock symbol would work well - a body recoiling in pain from waves of radiation. Some cultures may worship the dead, but not too many worship pain.
DoC
The free car program [freecar.com] where you get a free car because it has Advertising on it can now have cars that are updated monthly.
Scene in mall parking lot, 2005:
"Honey, I can't find our minivan! Were we running the ad for Coke or Microsoft this week?"
Hmmmm, this material used in prominent places, combined with the ability to be updated remotely, lends itself to some interesting hacking scenerios. "Kick me" indeed!
DoC
...Shadows.
While you theoretically could camouflage yourself, light being blocked by you would still register on objects around you.
Unless there were thousands of miniature lights along with thousands of cameras and millions of pixels. Nah.
DoC
Damn straight. The music I've heard on Groove Salad and Monkey Radio blew me away - a whole new genre I didn't know existed. I just counted - twelve CDs I have purchased over the last year have been due to hearing streaming audio and then hunting the stuff down on USENET and filesharing apps and liking it enough to buy.
I'll pay small amounts for this service - say $5.99 a month, as long as I can hear music, music, music and am able to see a playlist of everything in the last day.
The major label alliances are dropping the ball for customer such as myself. Here I'm offering them money to play things for me that I might then buy. Instead they've devoted their energies to making it difficult to take my digital music with me conveniently, if at all. These are businesspeople?
Kruder & Dorfmeister, Nightmares on Wax, DJ Food, Fila Brazillia, St Germain... Hadn't heard of them a year ago. Now it's about all I buy.
Oh, and The Cowboy Cultural Society has always been a fun diversion...
DoC
...Create something incredibly cool and lose your site. Thanks to thesolo for mirroring a couple of pix - this thing is AMAZING. Two weeks ago I sold my collection of 60,000+ LEGO bricks (re-entering my "dark ages"), but I never managed to do anything that cool with them. I did get around to a 100 square foot train layout with pneumatically powered switches, compressor, and regulator (all LEGO) but this puts my stuff to shame.
For those who have been out of LEGO for a while (15+ years), there is some pretty amazing stuff out there now. Mindstorms is quite cool, some of the larger Technic sets are amazing, and LEGO seems to be catering toward its growing Train fans by releasing neat sets like the Sante Fe Super Chief. On the other hand, unfortunately, they are also licensing Harry Potter and Star Wars. Feh.
Some other links to Slas^H^H^H^Hview are:
Lego Castles
The Pacific Northwest LEGO Train Club
the Brickshelf Gallery
The LEGO Users Group Network
Hopefully the traffic'll die down soon so I can see the rest of Amy's site. Nice work, Ms. Hughes, and may your cat rest in peace.
DoC
If it's not on the list, is it even worth considering? Newegg has the Biostar M7VKQ for $52, and I'm thinking of using one for an MP3 player. Onboard video and LAN.
Any love/horror Biostar stories?
DoC
Wish there could be some Mandrake-centric books though.
Well, there is SAMS "Teach yourself Mandrake Linux in 24 Hours", but it sounds like you may already be past that (I regret buying it as I am a bit past it as well).
I just found "Linux Complete" at my local B&N in "used" for ten bucks. Sure, it's a little Red-Hat-centric, but it's still a fantastic reference.
Really, once you get past the install, is there much of a diff? (Asked seriously, not rhetorically, I'm a newbie myself)
DoC
Why do they keep doing stuff like this??
Because Gibson has fallen on hard times (confirmed by a buddy who used to work in the Custom Shop) and knows that you slap Dale's name on anything and you will sell as many as you can make. Assuming they made 333 of them and profit around a grand (of the $4k list price) that's over a quarter mil of profit. Duh.
Fernandes doesn't say on their site how much these guitars are, but you'll pay at least a c-note just for the licensing. OTOH, you'd pay a lot more than that to have someone custom paint Natalie Portman on your Strat.
Other posters have debated whether or not Fernandes guitars are any good. As a former guitar repairmen, I can say that any guitar under $400 is probably crap, and you'll pay over a grand for a quality instrument. Some of the Jap and Mexican Fenders were pretty good, but as others said, quality varies from axe to axe. I do remember some horrible Fernandes guitars, but some (okay most) of the Korean Fenders were crap too.
You get what you pay for. You may save 10-15% buying mail order versus buying from a music store, but you could end up with one of the "Monday" guitars that somebody else sent back.
/rant
DoC
Yeah, no kidding. I have in my possession a Tomy "Tinkle Tot", which is a naked little plastic squeeze doll about the size of a hackeysack with an anatomically incorrect "hole" right where you're thinking. From the package:
"From a fun-filled island come the Tinkle Tots. They swim in the sea, hide in the jungle and when you fill them with water and squeze them, watch what they do!"
I saw it in the dollar store and had to buy it otherwise nobody would believe me. Truly the strangest toy I've ever seen.
DoC
"Pee is not a toy"!
..People'll try to pedal just about anything.
I'll be here all week - don't forget to tip your waitresses!
DoC
1: Our Senator Jeffords got fed up with how far the Republican Right was going and became and Independent.
2: Only Socialist Congressman in the US.
3: First state to pass a civil unions bill.
4: No billboards!
5: Last state in the country to get a Walmart (we've got two or three now).
6: Both open-carry and permitless concealed-carry of firearms permitted (I hate guns, but I hate gun laws more).
7: Last state to adopt a flag-burning resolution (who the fuck needs it).
8: Senator Leahy.
9: Citizen legislature
10: Smallest state capitol in the US (though, IIRC, more lawyers per capita than any other capitol).
11: Road salt
Okay, downsides...
1: Clouds.
2: Cold.
3: Clueless SUV drivers (oh, you got those too?)
4: Did I mention clouds?
Now, if we could just make it illegal for telemarketers to auto-dial every number (including unlisted), make it illegal for voter registration lists to be bought, and force marketers to reveal, upon our request, where they got our name, I'd be far happier. Oh, and not allow the phone co to CHARGE us for an unlisted number.
Go Vermont!
DoC
This is the coolest Winamp skin ever - the digits display like nixies.
Just in case you like the look but are considered a hazard with a soldering iron.
DoC
dude, cut those nylon straps.
Dude, he's about to. Notice the samurai sword lower right foreground.
DoC
Same with Romero's car. Yeah, he's done a lot of hardcore tuning to it, but that means almost nothing at resale time, unless you find the right individual. Add maybe 10k (for "celebrity ownership") to the value of a used TR of that vintage, and you're still looking at $70k.
IIRC, Norwood Tuning is the firm that got the Ferrari crowd's collective knickers in a twist when they took a second-generation GTO, dropped a twin-turbo V8 in it, and went record-hunting at Bonnevile.
Good luck sellin' the cars, guys, but both these items have a pretty small pool of interested buyers.
DoC
Speaking of power supplies, is the nasty voltage all in the caps and what's a safe way to dissipate it?
DoC