At a science demo at our local college when I was young, one of the profs was demoing quickly dipping their fingers into liquid nitrogen.
I asked nicely and he let me try as well...
Pretty cool (no pun intended). With a short immersion of only an inch or two, your fingers are so hot compared to the liquid nitrogen that it boils from your skin temperature and forms a vapour barrier that keeps the liquid from touching you. In comparison, think of a few drops of regular tap water hitting a frying pan that's 200c - it vaporizes so fast that it just hops around the surface.
Naturally, if you leave your fingers in too long, the extreme cold will cool your skin down, allowing the liquid to touch you, which is bad. But for only a second or two, no problem.
There was also the story about another university prof who would put some in his mouth and blow it out. I also recall another story (unrelated?) about someone doing this and when blowing it out, blew it out over their teeth, causing a thermal contraction that cracked a few. Nasty.
Still, I want to get some - Just have to convince the suppliers that I'm not going crazy with it, I just wanna play and make some ice cream too:).
I just moved from a Handspring Visor Edge to a Sony Ericsson P800 a week ago, and I love it.
I couldn't imagine getting another PDA without telecom capabilities. Having a phone that does "everything" is the way to go!
I've also played a bit with the Treo, but the P800 is smaller and more "wearable" - I miss the polish of the Palm OS, but I'm pretty happy with my new phone.
No, these devices should be illegal and outlawed because, dammit, all drivers and their lawyers SHOULD have the right to try lie their way out of a court case where they killed a couple of teenagers!
[end scarcasm]
Of course, that's the most extreme case - I wouldn't want a cop being able to pull up behind me at a traffic light and see the maximum speed during my travels for the day/month/year, etc.
That said, if there is an accident, especially if there are serious injuries/fatalities, I think I'd be happy to see something like this able to be used in court.
Might also help stop the insurance companies from trying to weasle out paying the rightful victim to have their car repaired/replaced, and any medical expenses paid without the victim getting screwed.
I think stronger enforcement would be a good idea too...
I like the idea in some European countries where if you get caught DWI, you lose your license - forever. Never drive a car again in your life. Done. Etc.
Maybe if that happened more here there would be less problems with it. And if they catch you without a valid license, your car is immediately siezed and either crushed or resold, no courts involved.
The difference here is if they're also asking people to work outside the terms/hours outlined in their contract, and possibly even asking people to work extra without claiming overtime.
That's not going to fly.
If the managers ask the employees to work extra time, fine, but they better not complain when the employees claim their overtime as well as (depending on where they work) extra money for working straight through without days off.
Needless to say, the employer should've talked to the employees before handing down the new job, and discussed how the project was going to be handled and still keep people fresh and alert.
I think one of the poster's original points was that the contracters being paid by the hour would make a boat of extra money, but those on salary were just being taken advantage of if they were expected to work longer hours without any additional pay.
N.
Re:My father's Minivan already has this
on
42-Volt Autos
·
· Score: 1
Yup, good info.
I've got a handy-dandy little battery pack unit which has a built-in AC inverter, and also a jumpstart port for jumping car batteries.
Doesn't have a lot of juice, but definately enough to turn over the starter.
The nice thing with this unit is that you can connect it directly to the battery terminals. It had a built-in detection circuit which checks to make sure the clips are on the proper poles before opening the relay to allow the juice through. Nice design!
SMS just isn't that popular in the US and Canada, despite most recent handsets having the ability.
Given the choice between text'ing someone or just ringing them up by voice, takes less hunt and pecking on a tiny keyboard, and just less efford all-round to just phone them and talk, or leave a message on their machine:)
My provider charges me $0.10/min (billed by the second) with 300 free minutes per month. SMS messages on the other hand are $0.10 each. It's cheaper to just phone someone and talk to them quickly:)
Seems to me that Verisign was just putting roadblocks in front of the guy and hoping that he'd give up and go away.
They screwed up and I imagine they really, really wanted the whole thing to vanish, so instead of taking action to fix the problem (which would've proven they were aware of the situation), they just played dumb and hoped he'd give up.
Of course, they were more than a little stupid to think that with MILLIONS of dollars on the hook that he'd just quit bothering them.
I hope verisign gets nailed right to the wall for this. I transferred my domain away from them (to register.com) as fast as I could when it was nearing expiry, and I never looked back.
Seems to me that in addition to having people get everything set-up ahead of time, another way of handling this would be to set up a small local webserver that hosts patches, updates, level downloads and stuff.
just put a big sign up on the wall that "everyone who needs patches, updates and stuff should fire up their webbrowser and connect to http://192.168.1.5" or something.
I'd tend to agree with the overpriced bit. The price is "starting" to come down, but it's not there by a longshot.
There are a number of people that have ordered the "bluespoon" wireless headsets for their various phones. Granted, the design is pretty nice - fits almost entirely in your ear, however it's over $250, and people have already complained about the range being extremely short.
Sony Ericsson also makes a couple of bluetooth headsets, both of which retail for over $100.
When these headsets get to under $50, they'll probably take off, but it's the price point that will get them selling (at least in North America), not the features/convenience.
While Europeans and Asians want small and convenient, and are willing to pay for it, most North Americans want CHEAP - nothing else matters...
Sure they crossed it - the developer version of 3DMark lets the viewer move the viewpoint of the scene, which they didn't account for, which caused massive clipping errors when rendering, which caused them to get caught.
Having 1/2 your scene unrendered doesn't seem like "advertised quality" to me. How about when game developers release a new patch for their game and because of Nvidia's "optimizations" you're unable to play the new version because they over-optimized the rendering.
The game developer's fault? Nope, Nvidia's.
Nvidia has now shot themselves in the foot twice:
- The FX "Leafblower Series" graphis cards (huge flop)
- _Cheating_ in benchmarks
I used to quite respect Nvidia - seems they're slipping...
I think [H]ardOCP stated it best as "Futuremark didn't want to get sued by Nvidia". Nvidia has the legal and financial resources to totally ruin Futuremark and they know it.
And now Futuremark has totally invalidated their own benchmark software by declaring it "open season" for hardware manufacturers to distort the "tests" in any way shape or form they desire to make the numbers higher.
N.
Re:12v Power Over CAT5?
on
PeltierBeer
·
· Score: 1
I sent that to the IT guys at my school last year after griping that the network always seemed to be down at the start of the semester...
My Japanese instructor gave me the best explanation - that the commonly accepted Japanese meaning was someone who stays at home all of the time (presumably watching anime and playing with toys) - in other words, doesn't get out much.
The meaning took a more sinister undertone in the late 80s/early 90s when a self-proclaimed "Otaku" decided to start killing schoolkids in Japan.
Regardless, it's not exactly the cute word that some people seem to thing it is.
If you say that you're an "Otaku" to a Japanese person, it's basically the same as saying that you're a "fanboy with no life" in english, and although they may be polite about it, the perception will be the same.
One of the especially ironic things is that the DirectTV system was designed by two Canadians;P
I had the pleasure of meeting one of them a few months back and the story was absolutely facsinating - considering they were just two guys (a business manager and an engineer), that were competeing against the likes of Sony, Panasonic, and some of the biggest names in the broadcast industry for the contract.
I just had a WD800JB blow up a few weeks ago with bad sectors - corrupted my system drive so I had to reformat and reinstall, at which point the drive started spinning down/spinning up at random times and locking up the machine.
Got a replacement from WD (which was a refurbished drive and makes "clicking" sounds occasionally.
Took it out of my system and replaced it with a Maxtor 120gb which is quieter, faster and of course, bigger.
The 80gb refurbished drive is now in an external firewire case as a data transport drive.
I was less than impressed getting a refurbished drive back from WD on a drive that's less than 6 months old - I'm sticking to Maxtor / Seagate from now on.
Likewise, I've also been using it via POPFile. I'm _extremely_ happy with the results. Within a week of implementing it, my incoming spam was cut by over 90% and the classification error rate is exceptionally low.
I've been running POPFile since January, and on over 1,200 messages (until my HD blew up), the accuracy was over 98%.
There is an internal clock built into the Jukebox BTW - it's been there ever since the NJB 1.
It's not visible on the NJB menus or display, but you can set it/read it with the creative playcenter software.
Re:Cruel Intentions...
on
Shocking Clothing
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
We're men. We can take it. We shouldn't have to, but we can.
Just for the record every advertiser that uses the "smartass women is obviously smarter than her lovable but stupid husband/boyfriend" advertising tactic when touting some product or service has lost me as a customer.
Of course, they probably don't realize how offensive it is, but... (shrug).
Slashdot Mirror
At a science demo at our local college when I was young, one of the profs was demoing quickly dipping their fingers into liquid nitrogen.
:).
I asked nicely and he let me try as well...
Pretty cool (no pun intended). With a short immersion of only an inch or two, your fingers are so hot compared to the liquid nitrogen that it boils from your skin temperature and forms a vapour barrier that keeps the liquid from touching you. In comparison, think of a few drops of regular tap water hitting a frying pan that's 200c - it vaporizes so fast that it just hops around the surface.
Naturally, if you leave your fingers in too long, the extreme cold will cool your skin down, allowing the liquid to touch you, which is bad. But for only a second or two, no problem.
There was also the story about another university prof who would put some in his mouth and blow it out. I also recall another story (unrelated?) about someone doing this and when blowing it out, blew it out over their teeth, causing a thermal contraction that cracked a few. Nasty.
Still, I want to get some - Just have to convince the suppliers that I'm not going crazy with it, I just wanna play and make some ice cream too
N.
I just moved from a Handspring Visor Edge to a Sony Ericsson P800 a week ago, and I love it.
I couldn't imagine getting another PDA without telecom capabilities. Having a phone that does "everything" is the way to go!
I've also played a bit with the Treo, but the P800 is smaller and more "wearable" - I miss the polish of the Palm OS, but I'm pretty happy with my new phone.
N.
Ya, that'd be the reason the previous poster mentioned.
That said, it's IBM... Which has a rather large legal team...
Should be some fireworks...
N.
[begin scarcasm]
No, these devices should be illegal and outlawed because, dammit, all drivers and their lawyers SHOULD have the right to try lie their way out of a court case where they killed a couple of teenagers!
[end scarcasm]
Of course, that's the most extreme case - I wouldn't want a cop being able to pull up behind me at a traffic light and see the maximum speed during my travels for the day/month/year, etc.
That said, if there is an accident, especially if there are serious injuries/fatalities, I think I'd be happy to see something like this able to be used in court.
Might also help stop the insurance companies from trying to weasle out paying the rightful victim to have their car repaired/replaced, and any medical expenses paid without the victim getting screwed.
I think stronger enforcement would be a good idea too...
I like the idea in some European countries where if you get caught DWI, you lose your license - forever. Never drive a car again in your life. Done. Etc.
Maybe if that happened more here there would be less problems with it. And if they catch you without a valid license, your car is immediately siezed and either crushed or resold, no courts involved.
The difference here is if they're also asking people to work outside the terms/hours outlined in their contract, and possibly even asking people to work extra without claiming overtime.
That's not going to fly.
If the managers ask the employees to work extra time, fine, but they better not complain when the employees claim their overtime as well as (depending on where they work) extra money for working straight through without days off.
Needless to say, the employer should've talked to the employees before handing down the new job, and discussed how the project was going to be handled and still keep people fresh and alert.
I think one of the poster's original points was that the contracters being paid by the hour would make a boat of extra money, but those on salary were just being taken advantage of if they were expected to work longer hours without any additional pay.
N.
Yup, good info.
I've got a handy-dandy little battery pack unit which has a built-in AC inverter, and also a jumpstart port for jumping car batteries.
Doesn't have a lot of juice, but definately enough to turn over the starter.
The nice thing with this unit is that you can connect it directly to the battery terminals. It had a built-in detection circuit which checks to make sure the clips are on the proper poles before opening the relay to allow the juice through. Nice design!
N.
SMS just isn't that popular in the US and Canada, despite most recent handsets having the ability.
:)
:)
Given the choice between text'ing someone or just ringing them up by voice, takes less hunt and pecking on a tiny keyboard, and just less efford all-round to just phone them and talk, or leave a message on their machine
My provider charges me $0.10/min (billed by the second) with 300 free minutes per month. SMS messages on the other hand are $0.10 each. It's cheaper to just phone someone and talk to them quickly
Well, if you can get the fuselage and maybe the engine for $30k, I'd say that's a damn fine deal...
Of course, I expect that little to none of the avionics, radios, or much of anything else is included. Would have to buy all of that later.
N.
Seems to me that Verisign was just putting roadblocks in front of the guy and hoping that he'd give up and go away.
They screwed up and I imagine they really, really wanted the whole thing to vanish, so instead of taking action to fix the problem (which would've proven they were aware of the situation), they just played dumb and hoped he'd give up.
Of course, they were more than a little stupid to think that with MILLIONS of dollars on the hook that he'd just quit bothering them.
I hope verisign gets nailed right to the wall for this. I transferred my domain away from them (to register.com) as fast as I could when it was nearing expiry, and I never looked back.
N.
Seems to me that in addition to having people get everything set-up ahead of time, another way of handling this would be to set up a small local webserver that hosts patches, updates, level downloads and stuff.
just put a big sign up on the wall that "everyone who needs patches, updates and stuff should fire up their webbrowser and connect to http://192.168.1.5" or something.
Good idea?
I'd tend to agree with the overpriced bit. The price is "starting" to come down, but it's not there by a longshot.
There are a number of people that have ordered the "bluespoon" wireless headsets for their various phones. Granted, the design is pretty nice - fits almost entirely in your ear, however it's over $250, and people have already complained about the range being extremely short.
Sony Ericsson also makes a couple of bluetooth headsets, both of which retail for over $100.
When these headsets get to under $50, they'll probably take off, but it's the price point that will get them selling (at least in North America), not the features/convenience.
While Europeans and Asians want small and convenient, and are willing to pay for it, most North Americans want CHEAP - nothing else matters...
N.
Sure they crossed it - the developer version of 3DMark lets the viewer move the viewpoint of the scene, which they didn't account for, which caused massive clipping errors when rendering, which caused them to get caught.
Having 1/2 your scene unrendered doesn't seem like "advertised quality" to me. How about when game developers release a new patch for their game and because of Nvidia's "optimizations" you're unable to play the new version because they over-optimized the rendering.
The game developer's fault? Nope, Nvidia's.
Nvidia has now shot themselves in the foot twice:
- The FX "Leafblower Series" graphis cards (huge flop)
- _Cheating_ in benchmarks
I used to quite respect Nvidia - seems they're slipping...
N.
I think [H]ardOCP stated it best as "Futuremark didn't want to get sued by Nvidia". Nvidia has the legal and financial resources to totally ruin Futuremark and they know it.
And now Futuremark has totally invalidated their own benchmark software by declaring it "open season" for hardware manufacturers to distort the "tests" in any way shape or form they desire to make the numbers higher.
N.
I sent that to the IT guys at my school last year after griping that the network always seemed to be down at the start of the semester...
;P
I never got a reply
N.
It certainly does motivate them though, doesn't it...
N.
Just a thought:
/www.mpaa.org [L]
;P
How about using apache's mod_rewrite capability to redirect slashdot users to something a little more interesting rather than flooding the site?
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^slashdot.*
RewriteRule ^/$
(don't jump on me if I got the syntax wrong, I only discovered mod_rewrite a day or two ago)
N.
My Japanese instructor gave me the best explanation - that the commonly accepted Japanese meaning was someone who stays at home all of the time (presumably watching anime and playing with toys) - in other words, doesn't get out much.
The meaning took a more sinister undertone in the late 80s/early 90s when a self-proclaimed "Otaku" decided to start killing schoolkids in Japan.
Regardless, it's not exactly the cute word that some people seem to thing it is.
If you say that you're an "Otaku" to a Japanese person, it's basically the same as saying that you're a "fanboy with no life" in english, and although they may be polite about it, the perception will be the same.
Not a good thing.
So I fail to see the reason that DirecTV is so upset about information boards as in the topic.
If their new cards are so secure, just swap them out, invalidate the old ones and move on.
If on the other hand the cards aren't quite as secure as you think they are, perhaps they DO have reason to be worried...
N.
One of the especially ironic things is that the DirectTV system was designed by two Canadians ;P
I had the pleasure of meeting one of them a few months back and the story was absolutely facsinating - considering they were just two guys (a business manager and an engineer), that were competeing against the likes of Sony, Panasonic, and some of the biggest names in the broadcast industry for the contract.
N.
I just had a WD800JB blow up a few weeks ago with bad sectors - corrupted my system drive so I had to reformat and reinstall, at which point the drive started spinning down/spinning up at random times and locking up the machine.
Got a replacement from WD (which was a refurbished drive and makes "clicking" sounds occasionally.
Took it out of my system and replaced it with a Maxtor 120gb which is quieter, faster and of course, bigger.
The 80gb refurbished drive is now in an external firewire case as a data transport drive.
I was less than impressed getting a refurbished drive back from WD on a drive that's less than 6 months old - I'm sticking to Maxtor / Seagate from now on.
N.
There's a small PERL program (insert.pl) included with POPFile to do exactly what you're requiring in terms of past spam training:
You just tell it that all of the messages are spam for example, and it adds everything automatically.
N.
Likewise, I've also been using it via POPFile. I'm _extremely_ happy with the results. Within a week of implementing it, my incoming spam was cut by over 90% and the classification error rate is exceptionally low.
I've been running POPFile since January, and on over 1,200 messages (until my HD blew up), the accuracy was over 98%.
Good deal!
N.
There is an internal clock built into the Jukebox BTW - it's been there ever since the NJB 1.
It's not visible on the NJB menus or display, but you can set it/read it with the creative playcenter software.
We're men. We can take it. We shouldn't have to, but we can.
Just for the record every advertiser that uses the "smartass women is obviously smarter than her lovable but stupid husband/boyfriend" advertising tactic when touting some product or service has lost me as a customer.
Of course, they probably don't realize how offensive it is, but... (shrug).
All your....
;)
Nope. Not going there
N.