As an American citizen and a taxpayer, I feel that there is nothing wrong with paying a country to deliver our crew to the International Space Station. Pay as you go. Right? Now, let's apply this principle to every country in the world:)
Everybody hates the United States nowadays. The country is this and that when it comes to international politics. Yet when shit hits the fan, American taxpayers are *eager* to contribute. Did your poor country have an earthquake? That is not a problem; the Johnsons will pay for it. Need help when it comes to feeding your people? The Yanks will pay too; Americans who are poor do not need help anyway. I know that U.S.A. is not the first one in terms on donations in terms of GDP; still, it carries a good portion of the tab.
The solution? I do not know. I am not a fucking economist:) I can tell you that if we let everything slide without payments, the world will go broke. If we demand payments for everything that we do, the world will go broke as well. Shit can happen to anybody and since we have to share this damn planet in some sort of fashion; we might as well help each other in order to achieve a better standard of living. However, help should be delived appropriately. We give you zero percent loans, please let us have your coffee at a discount or let American companies do business in your country without taxes (or something like that).
Given the fact that Russian goverment is fucked up to the point of no return -- this comes from a person who lived there -- and due to corruption, I suggest that we directly fund the mission or give money to public schools or something along those lines. I remember the times when humanitarian aid that came to Russia ended up in the hands of those who needed it the least; let it not happen again.
Am I the only one who finds this test completely useless? Ferrari and Porsche stopped fighting for the fastest car title becuase it turned out to be extremely expensive and it does not prove anything, except for the fact that a car can reach a certain speed. How many of you do go above 85 mph on a frequent basis? What about over 100mph? Even if your car can go 150mph, how many times do you go that fast? As far as I know, only several states in the United States have roads without speed limit...
If any car company wants to make a better hybrid vehicles, they should focus on things like:
Cost. Currently, Honda Civic Hybrids start at around $20K, while the Accord Hybrid is pushing $29K. Why bother buying that if you can get a Honda S2000 or a 350Z for less money. If you do not like sporty cars, you can still buy cheaper sedans and coupes. There are Subarus, regular Hondas and Toyotas that can do what hybrids do for much less. It is silly to market a $29K Accord Hybrid as a fast car. If had $29K to spend on a fast car, I would not look at Accords to begin with:)
Looks. My hats go off to Honda for this company managed to make a hybrid car without totally molesting its looks. Hybrid Civics and Accord look no different than their standard versions; that is a good thing because the standard models look nice for the money. I guess Ford can be in that league too because its hybrid SUV looks like a normal small SUV. On the other hand, Toyota engineers should stop drinking bong water because so far their hybrids looked like outtakes from bad cartoons. Small wheels, ugly fronts and rears combined with ridiculous ergonomics inside make me want to puke.... Now, this is just my personal opinion and yours may be different. However, if I spend $20K on a car, I expect it to look somewhat nice in and out.
Useful specs. I can care less about the top speed. As far as I know, in Massachusetts I can't go above 90mph without being arrested. I am more interested in 0-60, cornerning and stopping abilities along with certain safety features. So far, Honda Accord looks like a good choice for a faster sedan. However, the performance comes with a price tags: for $2K more, you can get a brand new Subaru WRX STi which in my opinion is a much better option for a performance oriented driver who wants a sedan. Although hybrids seem to catch up in this category, they are not truly there. If I lived in a region that required even more attention to the road -- think mountains or places with harsh conditions -- I would completely rule out hybrids for now.
More models and trims. As somebody who belives in alternatives to gas, I would get hybrid. However, it seems that no hybrid models are made in order to appeal to males in mid-20s. I went through all available hybrid models and so far I found none that I liked. Accord was the closest choice; however, it lacked manual transmission:( To be honest with you, I do not know who is the "audience" for hybrids nowadays... It is definitely not single moms or people with tight budgets or performance oriented freaks. The choices are limited in terms of models, trims and additional features. Despite whatever I say about Toyota Prius I think that it was a great idea to make a separate hybrid model. IMO, Toyota fucked it up, but nothing in this world is done without mistakes. I think that companies should make hybrid versions of existing cars along with introducing new hybrid-only models in order to bring more diversity and attract more buyers. I know that waiting lists for hybrid cars are long, but they can be much much longer!
Gas is still cheap. When I wanted to get a reliable gas sipper, I got a used Honda Civic. The car cost me $4K and it gets around 35mpg. I fill up once in two weeks on average and it costs me around $16 to do so. Wow! All that for $4K. I do admit, that I am thinking of getting a different car because this one is too slow. I talked to my friends who drive BMWs and watched forums
Re:Sign Me Up.... I Want My Charlie Back!
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Re-Pet a Reality
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Grow up? I am grown up enough. Thankfully, unlike you I still have emotions and feelings left. I am sorry, but having my buddy killed on the road is uneasy on me. Especially when I know that the cocksucker who killed the cat did not even bother to stop. Fortunately, I am not as traumatized as the witness who saw it happen.
It is very easy to say "go get another cat, caz there is plenty of them." What if I do not want another cat? I kinda liked Charlie the way he was:( For all its worth, I would not mind cloning him back. Believe it or not, after this story about re-pet showed up on CNN many of my co-workers who did not know about the accident asked for a DNA sample from Chalrie. You *really* had to see him in order to understand why I am so attached to the bastard and why everybody was impressed.
Re:Sign Me Up.... I Want My Charlie Back!
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Thank you:) My step dad could not handle the loss so he ended up surprising my mom with a kitten. Meanwhile, I made my mom collect some DNA from Charlie in case if pet cloning becomes cheaper.
Re:Sign Me Up.... I Want My Charlie Back!
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You are right. There are more animal shelters than shelters for battered women in this country. I think that there is nothign wrong with that: people (women as well) can protect themselves, animals cant.
As somebody who grew up in a piss poor family, I would like to assure you that everything is possible for humans if they only dare. I have a lot of sympathy for homeless and poor people because I was there myself (not quite homeless, but close). Also, please note that if you kill a person, you will face some sort of action regardless of the victim's status. Animals are totally another category. People do not mind speeding, killing and then moving on with their driving...
Sign Me Up.... I Want My Charlie Back!
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Re-Pet a Reality
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Two days ago my cat was killed by a driver who did not bother to even stop after the accident. We did not know about the accidnt until a boy came knocking on our door; he found the cat and used the address on the name tag to find the owner. When my mom arrived to the scene, she saw a pool of blood and the cat. Charlie was barely breathing; it tried to lick my mom and purr but died shortly aftewards. Every single bone in his body was broken. Now, I am extremely pissed at the mother fucker who was speeding through a resdential neighborhood and did not even stop after the accident. Had I witnessed the accident, I would have been in jail by now for putting a fist through somebody's mouth because it was not just a cat who died: Charlie was a memeber of our family.
The cat was pretty big: it ate about 4 cans of wet food per day along with anything he could kill: birds, rabbits and other small animals:) Charlie stood out from the rest of the cats I have seein in my life because he was fucking huge and lean. If had extra $50K that I could burn through, I would "re-pet" him just because of his size. I believe that there is nothing wrong with genetically engineered animals as long as people are informed that they are not getting the same pet back. I know all about different personalities, characters, moods, etc. However, I can see the joy in my mom's eyes if she saw that big red hunter again on her lap... I do not care if the cat is different or if it does not purr as loud. All I want is a big cat with large paws (same color plz!).
For now, $50K is a bit much for me. I would like to develop a technique for catching deuches who like speed through residential neighborhoods and "floor it" when they see animals. And those of you who kill domestic pets, please have enough balls to find their owners.
If you have any information about the accident, please let me know. The accident happened on December 21st, around 8-9 PM in Charleston, South Carolina around Corey Blvd.
So public sites with torrents are down. What is stopping you from creating a private tracker and distrubuting torrent files among your friends? If you have a VPN and a site that is available only to several people, nobody is going to notice you. Keep it quiet, keep it low and MPAA will not bother you.
Here is another tip: have "external hard drive" parties. Sites like suprnova.org have been known for quite some time and I bet you there are many people with terabytes of information that you may be interested in. Get a Firewire drive, put all your movies and music files there and then get your friends do so the same. Chances of MPAA knocking on your door to bust a party where several friends are swapping hardware are minimal.
Well yeah, but the main benefit of running SSHD is that my mom does not have to do jack shit when it comes to some problems. I login securely, do my stuff get out. The hole point is that OS X makes eMac a very attractive and a powerful solution for those who need security, stability and simple functionality. I will take that box over any Dell or Gateway.
I am not a Mac fanatic, yet I do not like that eMac made the article. It is a solid machine for somebody who wants to have a stable client for checking e-mail, using a digital camera, surfing the web and being somewhat secure. Especially for $800.
Please do not give me "my Linux box can do the same for less" crap because there is no fucking way in hell I am going to recommend a Linux box to any of my relatives or non-techie people. Currently, I still see Linux as a great system for servers and desktops owned by techies who know the differences between kernel 2.4 and 2.6. Dell is okay, but as long as they run some sort of Windows, I am not touching them.
A couple of months ago I spent 2 days cleaning my friend's computer from every goddamn malware program out there. Then I cleaned my aunts computer, then I helped my mom because her box was extremely slow due to all the "addware" that she managed to install. Being a naive and a non-experienced user sucks, especially when companies do not want to be on your side. That is why I strongly push my mom toward an eMac because as far as I am concerned it represents a solid machine for beginners who do not want to spend all their free time maintaining it. Let's face the facts: not everybody enjoys configuring their computers whenever they have free time.
Here is why I like eMac:
It runs Mac OS X. This eliminates tons of malware available for Windows users. It is also easy to upgrade and maintain. I can enable SSHd and login to my mom's computer whenever she has a problem that needs to be fixed.
It is relatively cheap for what it is. Because I do not have to spend my time maintaining the computer, I can do something else. How much does your free time cost?
It has enough disk space. Believe it or not, 40GB is enough for any normal person. So far, all my software on my computer takes up 20GB. A person who does not download movies or music does not need a large hard drive to begin with.
eMac is pretty damn compact. I do not want my mom to deal with tons of wires, so a single box seems to be a perfect solution.
And that is just the beginning. Granted, I am a little biased towards Macs because since I got one, I noticed increase in my productivity. Now I can actually spend my time on writing code and doing fun things that do not involve system administration 24/7.
Hi there. No, you do not have to square it. If you want to double the resolvign power of the sensor, meaning you want to have prints twice as large as the highest quality print that you can have now, you need to increase have twice as many pixels horizonatally and twice as many pixels vertically. 2x2=4:) That is why you walk away from a salesperson who tells you that a 6MP camera is much better than a 5MP one.
When you change lenses, you can get dust onto the sensor. This is not a problem, because the actual thing is covered with glass (it won't break your camera). However, you will need to clean it. With a film SLR it does not happen because film is covered when you change the lens (normally, you would not have film loaded when you do it as well). With DSLRs you have to either get a kit and clean it or bring it to a Nikon shop. There is software that can "remove" the dust from pics for you, but that software sucks ass:)
D70 is a good camera. If you want, do what I did: get a D70 body only (since you have a film one) and try using it with the existing film lens. With existing film lenses you can get 1.5x magnification of a 35mm camera, so your standard 80mm lens can be more useful. Whatever you do, do not throw away boxes/manuals/receits in case if you want to return it. I ended up "trying" camera like that and then not returning it. It was too damn good. FYI, pland to spend $150 more: $100 for a GB card + $50 on a card reader (prices are approximate).
Hi there. I used to think the same until I started taking lots of pictures. So far, my Nikon N80 cost me $600 for one year of use.
You can learn how to take pictures only if you take a lot of pictures. It is expensive to learn on a film camera. Thus, if I want to try things out, I use my Nikon D70. If I know what to do, I use my film one. I got two cameras used and I share all lenses between the two of them. So far, it was not as bad. You spend your money on things you like, right?
Hi, you got me there. I am sorry for a typo. Instead of "sensors" I meant to type "pixels." One of the main differences between the technologies is how the value of the charge received by pixels is read. In CMOS each pixel has several transistors that amplify and transfer the signal. Thus, the size of the pixel must be reduced in order to maintain an acceptable size of the sensor (as a whole). In CCD, the charge is not amplified because the trasnport method is different. Amplification of the signal can cause distortion just by itself. When coupled with a smaller pixel size, it is PRONE to introducing more noise. Granted, I do not have every single digital camera; therefore I cannot be 100%. CCD have 100% fill factor and CMOS do not (generally it varies for latter).
Canon's cameras vary in noise. You cannot say that all Canons are better than all Nikons (and vice versa). I did not choose Canon due it slow flash-sync rate. Plus, Canon's CMOS sensors are like the best among competitors:)
I have been doing photography since I was 12 years old. By "photography" I mean that I actually go take pictures, develop film and do my own prints. Recently it has been hard to do so due to do so because I haven't seen one bedroom apartments with dark rooms. Therefore, I decided to get a digital SLR instead. After months of investigation, I decided to go with Nikon D70.
Digital SLRs are not created equal. If you are into new things, take a look at cameras with 4:3 ration (Olympus E1 and Evolot). They have an ability to dust off the sensor before taking every shot, thus pics stay dust free. If you want to get a pro-sumer DSLR, take a look at Nikon D70 and Canon (although I recommend Nikon better due to its low noise). Why spend all $$$ on these cameras if you can find a point-and-shoot for cheaper? Here are my pointers:
Lenses.You are not creaing pictures with a camera. You create pictures with a lens. If you can exchange lenses, you give yourself more flexibility. This is a must if you want to take pictures of animals, close up shots, wide-angle shots, etc.
Color. Digital SLRs tend to have larger sensors with larger photosites. When you take pictures, you work with light and it is essential that you get enough light in order to process it correctly. Larger photosites do a better job, hence they have less noise. If you take a look at pictures produced by standard digital SLRS (based on 35mm cameras) vs. pictrures made by Olympus cameras that implement 4:3 technology (the latter have smaller sensors) you will see the difference.
No LCD monitor. Despite whatever you may think, this is a plus. First of all, your camera does not suck batteries for what you can actually see through a lens, secondly, your view is unaltered. You see colors and objects as they appear.
Depth of field. This one gets me everytime somebody says that DSLRs lack depth of field. In fact, if you have more than two brain cells, you will be able to vary the depth of field by adjusting your shutter speed and aperture. Most of cameras come with a "depth of field preview" button that will let you judge the picture that is going to be recorded.
There are several things that you must remember about digital SLRs (and digital cameras in general):
Run away from any person who tries to sell you a more expensive camera by saying "Well, it has more megapixels." Megapixel is a number that is related to the area of the sensor in terms of the number of pixels. Thus, a small linear enlargement (like adding a few megapixels to the horizontal side of the sensor) will affect the number. If a sales person tells you that a 6MP camera will give you much larger prints than a 5MP camera at the same sharpness, slap them in the face: the difference in size will be rather small. In order to increase the size of the print by 2, you'll have to increase the megapixel count by 4 in order to maintain the same image quality.
There are two different types of censors. CMOS and CCD. CMOS sensors are smaller than CCD. It appears (from my tests) that cameras with CCDs produce less noise; however, CMOS will soon improve. CCD technology is rather old. You can learn more about it by googling:)
Flash-sync speeds are really important for fill-in flashes. Typically, you want somethin above 1/250 in a pro-sumer camera. If you have no idea what a fill-in technique is, you'll learn it once you start taking pics during nice sunny weather.
Dust on sensors is pain in the rear. I have a lense that I use primary with my D70; thus, I haven't experienced it yet. You can clean it off yourself or take it to a shop. If you are concerned, take a look at Olympus cameras. E1 and Evolt use ultra-sound to take dust off the sensor before taking a shot.
Night photography sucks.... Yes. You heard me right. With a film camera, this is a pretty easy due to the lack of noise and purple frinding. With digital SLRs it requires more training, but can be done. I do not like high
Amen to that, brother. When my family was poor, I wanted to get as much $$$ as I could and buy a lot of expensive toys. Four years of college and real-life taught me that otherwise.
Now that I have some money to burn, it is definitely not going into something that goes down in price faster than Monica went down on Billy Clinton:) House vs a nice TV... That's a no fucking brainer to me.
Can somebody tell me why we should care about it? Seriously, if Japan has cooler toys, more power to them. Who the fuck cares? Are you really upset because you cannot get your e-mail faster? At this point of time, Americans behave like crowds of cattle when it comes to shopping.... Would you like to put more spin onto that?
I certainly do not. Stuff is not what we should care about because as long as we do so, we will always be unhappy with something. Remeber, grass is greener on the other side. I can't believe that this bullshit makes to Slashdot nowadays. Seriously, it sounds like a bunch of stupid teenage girls who complain about boots, dresses and shirts that do not fit.
I can get upset because U.S. students lag behind in math and science, but not because somebody has a cooler DVD camera. Give me a break...
P.S.: It is not what you have, it is what you do with it.
Actually, this is not funny. Corporate America generated the problem when it started engaging into price wars. Now that customers expect low prices no matter what, companies are paying for it.
Telecoms are dead right now. They cannot make any price increases because people will dump them and switch. If that is the case, how are companies supposed to expand? Last fall Wal-Mart dumped tons of toys priced below the market value and everybody seemed to be happy. Because Wal-Mart is able to undersell many competitors, many toy stores went out of business and some even closed! I understand that people want the lowest price, but people must understand that you can have it all for an extremely low price anytime you want it without a side effect. Somebody will have to pay for it because there is no free lunch.
Although, I do not completely agree with the quotes in the article, I see the point. Right now Americans are trained to exploit low prices and unreasonable offers that are passed onto their friends and neighbors who work for businesses. At the end it hurts both parties: businesses encounter higher costs that will be passed onto the customer or their employees and customers engage into unhealthy amount of shopping an consumption.
Good service is everything, at least when I vote (buy things) with my wallet. I avoid large stores and discounters like a plague because I do not get the kind of service I want. Period.
Call me a fucking snob or whatever you want, but I do not want to spend my whole afternoon shopping for TV and talking to some retard who barely knows the product. I shopped at Wal-Mart only a few times and then I simply got fed up with their service. The same thing, sadly, applied to BestBuy and other retailers. With that in mind, I completely switched to shopping online. I still buy some items (suites, sport coats, shirts, shoes) at stores because I need to try them on, but when it comes to electronics Dr. Internet is my friend. Everything is shipped to my office, no pickups needed. Then I win because of the low opportunity cost: I can do all my shopping within several minutes and enjoy weekends and nights doing something else.
Normal Americans do not hate France. They do tell silly jokes about it, but no country in the world is exempt from puns because countries are different.
You have to understand that the United States is a divided country. We have the industrialized North, rural mid-West and South. What is acceptable in Boston, is not a norm in South Dakota and vice versa. And if you are isulted by a group of rednecks pouring French wine and screaming "We do not need no stinking wine!" please consider the source and smile. Those people are so poor and uneducated, they do not even know about it.
Look, I voted for Kerry who voted to preserve national resources. However, since Bush won and since Alaska supported him, let's drill the living crap out of it. Afterall, isn't it what they wanted?
For a country that is so proud of being so religious, whatever happened "Do upon others what you would like done to you" (??? sorry can't remember the real quote) ? You bomb people left and right, overthrow democratic governments throughout the world in favor of dictatorships in your own interest... and then your surprised that people in the world hate Americans that much ??
Religion is separate from the state in the U.S. There is no official religion and our Bill of Rights has a nice paragraph regarding this matter. Overthrowing democratic goverments? Please. As much as I hate the war in Iraq, I have to tell you that Saddam was not what you would call a democratic leader.
It is hard to count crosses on papers. With optical or electronic voting you can count votes almost instantly. Think how simple it is to create a program where you have a number of buttons. Each button is a assigned to a counter. You press a button, confirm the selection, and the counter for that button goes +1. Then you can count all votes almost instantly.
Stupid people -- remember Florida? -- cannot make connections between names and check boxes.
Easier data analysis.
Please do not be mad at the United States for their experiments. Afterall, trying new things brought them to the status of a world leader.
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As an American citizen and a taxpayer, I feel that there is nothing wrong with paying a country to deliver our crew to the International Space Station. Pay as you go. Right? Now, let's apply this principle to every country in the world :)
Everybody hates the United States nowadays. The country is this and that when it comes to international politics. Yet when shit hits the fan, American taxpayers are *eager* to contribute. Did your poor country have an earthquake? That is not a problem; the Johnsons will pay for it. Need help when it comes to feeding your people? The Yanks will pay too; Americans who are poor do not need help anyway. I know that U.S.A. is not the first one in terms on donations in terms of GDP; still, it carries a good portion of the tab.
The solution? I do not know. I am not a fucking economist :) I can tell you that if we let everything slide without payments, the world will go broke. If we demand payments for everything that we do, the world will go broke as well. Shit can happen to anybody and since we have to share this damn planet in some sort of fashion; we might as well help each other in order to achieve a better standard of living. However, help should be delived appropriately. We give you zero percent loans, please let us have your coffee at a discount or let American companies do business in your country without taxes (or something like that).
Given the fact that Russian goverment is fucked up to the point of no return -- this comes from a person who lived there -- and due to corruption, I suggest that we directly fund the mission or give money to public schools or something along those lines. I remember the times when humanitarian aid that came to Russia ended up in the hands of those who needed it the least; let it not happen again.
Am I the only one who finds this test completely useless? Ferrari and Porsche stopped fighting for the fastest car title becuase it turned out to be extremely expensive and it does not prove anything, except for the fact that a car can reach a certain speed. How many of you do go above 85 mph on a frequent basis? What about over 100mph? Even if your car can go 150mph, how many times do you go that fast? As far as I know, only several states in the United States have roads without speed limit...
If any car company wants to make a better hybrid vehicles, they should focus on things like:
Cost. Currently, Honda Civic Hybrids start at around $20K, while the Accord Hybrid is pushing $29K. Why bother buying that if you can get a Honda S2000 or a 350Z for less money. If you do not like sporty cars, you can still buy cheaper sedans and coupes. There are Subarus, regular Hondas and Toyotas that can do what hybrids do for much less. It is silly to market a $29K Accord Hybrid as a fast car. If had $29K to spend on a fast car, I would not look at Accords to begin with:)
Looks. My hats go off to Honda for this company managed to make a hybrid car without totally molesting its looks. Hybrid Civics and Accord look no different than their standard versions; that is a good thing because the standard models look nice for the money. I guess Ford can be in that league too because its hybrid SUV looks like a normal small SUV. On the other hand, Toyota engineers should stop drinking bong water because so far their hybrids looked like outtakes from bad cartoons. Small wheels, ugly fronts and rears combined with ridiculous ergonomics inside make me want to puke.... Now, this is just my personal opinion and yours may be different. However, if I spend $20K on a car, I expect it to look somewhat nice in and out.
Useful specs. I can care less about the top speed. As far as I know, in Massachusetts I can't go above 90mph without being arrested. I am more interested in 0-60, cornerning and stopping abilities along with certain safety features. So far, Honda Accord looks like a good choice for a faster sedan. However, the performance comes with a price tags: for $2K more, you can get a brand new Subaru WRX STi which in my opinion is a much better option for a performance oriented driver who wants a sedan. Although hybrids seem to catch up in this category, they are not truly there. If I lived in a region that required even more attention to the road -- think mountains or places with harsh conditions -- I would completely rule out hybrids for now.
More models and trims. As somebody who belives in alternatives to gas, I would get hybrid. However, it seems that no hybrid models are made in order to appeal to males in mid-20s. I went through all available hybrid models and so far I found none that I liked. Accord was the closest choice; however, it lacked manual transmission :( To be honest with you, I do not know who is the "audience" for hybrids nowadays... It is definitely not single moms or people with tight budgets or performance oriented freaks. The choices are limited in terms of models, trims and additional features. Despite whatever I say about Toyota Prius I think that it was a great idea to make a separate hybrid model. IMO, Toyota fucked it up, but nothing in this world is done without mistakes. I think that companies should make hybrid versions of existing cars along with introducing new hybrid-only models in order to bring more diversity and attract more buyers. I know that waiting lists for hybrid cars are long, but they can be much much longer!
Gas is still cheap. When I wanted to get a reliable gas sipper, I got a used Honda Civic. The car cost me $4K and it gets around 35mpg. I fill up once in two weeks on average and it costs me around $16 to do so. Wow! All that for $4K. I do admit, that I am thinking of getting a different car because this one is too slow. I talked to my friends who drive BMWs and watched forums
Grow up? I am grown up enough. Thankfully, unlike you I still have emotions and feelings left. I am sorry, but having my buddy killed on the road is uneasy on me. Especially when I know that the cocksucker who killed the cat did not even bother to stop. Fortunately, I am not as traumatized as the witness who saw it happen.
It is very easy to say "go get another cat, caz there is plenty of them." What if I do not want another cat? I kinda liked Charlie the way he was :( For all its worth, I would not mind cloning him back. Believe it or not, after this story about re-pet showed up on CNN many of my co-workers who did not know about the accident asked for a DNA sample from Chalrie. You *really* had to see him in order to understand why I am so attached to the bastard and why everybody was impressed.
Thank you :) My step dad could not handle the loss so he ended up surprising my mom with a kitten. Meanwhile, I made my mom collect some DNA from Charlie in case if pet cloning becomes cheaper.
You are right. There are more animal shelters than shelters for battered women in this country. I think that there is nothign wrong with that: people (women as well) can protect themselves, animals cant.
As somebody who grew up in a piss poor family, I would like to assure you that everything is possible for humans if they only dare. I have a lot of sympathy for homeless and poor people because I was there myself (not quite homeless, but close). Also, please note that if you kill a person, you will face some sort of action regardless of the victim's status. Animals are totally another category. People do not mind speeding, killing and then moving on with their driving...
Two days ago my cat was killed by a driver who did not bother to even stop after the accident. We did not know about the accidnt until a boy came knocking on our door; he found the cat and used the address on the name tag to find the owner. When my mom arrived to the scene, she saw a pool of blood and the cat. Charlie was barely breathing; it tried to lick my mom and purr but died shortly aftewards. Every single bone in his body was broken. Now, I am extremely pissed at the mother fucker who was speeding through a resdential neighborhood and did not even stop after the accident. Had I witnessed the accident, I would have been in jail by now for putting a fist through somebody's mouth because it was not just a cat who died: Charlie was a memeber of our family.
The cat was pretty big: it ate about 4 cans of wet food per day along with anything he could kill: birds, rabbits and other small animals :) Charlie stood out from the rest of the cats I have seein in my life because he was fucking huge and lean. If had extra $50K that I could burn through, I would "re-pet" him just because of his size. I believe that there is nothing wrong with genetically engineered animals as long as people are informed that they are not getting the same pet back. I know all about different personalities, characters, moods, etc. However, I can see the joy in my mom's eyes if she saw that big red hunter again on her lap... I do not care if the cat is different or if it does not purr as loud. All I want is a big cat with large paws (same color plz!).
For now, $50K is a bit much for me. I would like to develop a technique for catching deuches who like speed through residential neighborhoods and "floor it" when they see animals. And those of you who kill domestic pets, please have enough balls to find their owners.
If you have any information about the accident, please let me know. The accident happened on December 21st, around 8-9 PM in Charleston, South Carolina around Corey Blvd.
So public sites with torrents are down. What is stopping you from creating a private tracker and distrubuting torrent files among your friends? If you have a VPN and a site that is available only to several people, nobody is going to notice you. Keep it quiet, keep it low and MPAA will not bother you.
Here is another tip: have "external hard drive" parties. Sites like suprnova.org have been known for quite some time and I bet you there are many people with terabytes of information that you may be interested in. Get a Firewire drive, put all your movies and music files there and then get your friends do so the same. Chances of MPAA knocking on your door to bust a party where several friends are swapping hardware are minimal.
Well yeah, but the main benefit of running SSHD is that my mom does not have to do jack shit when it comes to some problems. I login securely, do my stuff get out. The hole point is that OS X makes eMac a very attractive and a powerful solution for those who need security, stability and simple functionality. I will take that box over any Dell or Gateway.
I am not a Mac fanatic, yet I do not like that eMac made the article. It is a solid machine for somebody who wants to have a stable client for checking e-mail, using a digital camera, surfing the web and being somewhat secure. Especially for $800.
Please do not give me "my Linux box can do the same for less" crap because there is no fucking way in hell I am going to recommend a Linux box to any of my relatives or non-techie people. Currently, I still see Linux as a great system for servers and desktops owned by techies who know the differences between kernel 2.4 and 2.6. Dell is okay, but as long as they run some sort of Windows, I am not touching them.
A couple of months ago I spent 2 days cleaning my friend's computer from every goddamn malware program out there. Then I cleaned my aunts computer, then I helped my mom because her box was extremely slow due to all the "addware" that she managed to install. Being a naive and a non-experienced user sucks, especially when companies do not want to be on your side. That is why I strongly push my mom toward an eMac because as far as I am concerned it represents a solid machine for beginners who do not want to spend all their free time maintaining it. Let's face the facts: not everybody enjoys configuring their computers whenever they have free time.
Here is why I like eMac:
It runs Mac OS X. This eliminates tons of malware available for Windows users. It is also easy to upgrade and maintain. I can enable SSHd and login to my mom's computer whenever she has a problem that needs to be fixed.
It is relatively cheap for what it is. Because I do not have to spend my time maintaining the computer, I can do something else. How much does your free time cost?
It has enough disk space. Believe it or not, 40GB is enough for any normal person. So far, all my software on my computer takes up 20GB. A person who does not download movies or music does not need a large hard drive to begin with.
eMac is pretty damn compact. I do not want my mom to deal with tons of wires, so a single box seems to be a perfect solution.
And that is just the beginning. Granted, I am a little biased towards Macs because since I got one, I noticed increase in my productivity. Now I can actually spend my time on writing code and doing fun things that do not involve system administration 24/7.
Hi there. No, you do not have to square it. If you want to double the resolvign power of the sensor, meaning you want to have prints twice as large as the highest quality print that you can have now, you need to increase have twice as many pixels horizonatally and twice as many pixels vertically. 2x2=4 :) That is why you walk away from a salesperson who tells you that a 6MP camera is much better than a 5MP one.
When you change lenses, you can get dust onto the sensor. This is not a problem, because the actual thing is covered with glass (it won't break your camera). However, you will need to clean it. With a film SLR it does not happen because film is covered when you change the lens (normally, you would not have film loaded when you do it as well). With DSLRs you have to either get a kit and clean it or bring it to a Nikon shop. There is software that can "remove" the dust from pics for you, but that software sucks ass :)
D70 is a good camera. If you want, do what I did: get a D70 body only (since you have a film one) and try using it with the existing film lens. With existing film lenses you can get 1.5x magnification of a 35mm camera, so your standard 80mm lens can be more useful. Whatever you do, do not throw away boxes/manuals/receits in case if you want to return it. I ended up "trying" camera like that and then not returning it. It was too damn good. FYI, pland to spend $150 more: $100 for a GB card + $50 on a card reader (prices are approximate).
Hi there. I used to think the same until I started taking lots of pictures. So far, my Nikon N80 cost me $600 for one year of use.
You can learn how to take pictures only if you take a lot of pictures. It is expensive to learn on a film camera. Thus, if I want to try things out, I use my Nikon D70. If I know what to do, I use my film one. I got two cameras used and I share all lenses between the two of them. So far, it was not as bad. You spend your money on things you like, right?
Hmm..... I hope you're being sarcastic. Otheriwse, have fun cleaning the sensor when it gets dusty :)
Hi, you got me there. I am sorry for a typo. Instead of "sensors" I meant to type "pixels." One of the main differences between the technologies is how the value of the charge received by pixels is read. In CMOS each pixel has several transistors that amplify and transfer the signal. Thus, the size of the pixel must be reduced in order to maintain an acceptable size of the sensor (as a whole). In CCD, the charge is not amplified because the trasnport method is different. Amplification of the signal can cause distortion just by itself. When coupled with a smaller pixel size, it is PRONE to introducing more noise. Granted, I do not have every single digital camera; therefore I cannot be 100%. CCD have 100% fill factor and CMOS do not (generally it varies for latter).
Canon's cameras vary in noise. You cannot say that all Canons are better than all Nikons (and vice versa). I did not choose Canon due it slow flash-sync rate. Plus, Canon's CMOS sensors are like the best among competitors :)
Good catch though.
I have been doing photography since I was 12 years old. By "photography" I mean that I actually go take pictures, develop film and do my own prints. Recently it has been hard to do so due to do so because I haven't seen one bedroom apartments with dark rooms. Therefore, I decided to get a digital SLR instead. After months of investigation, I decided to go with Nikon D70.
Digital SLRs are not created equal. If you are into new things, take a look at cameras with 4:3 ration (Olympus E1 and Evolot). They have an ability to dust off the sensor before taking every shot, thus pics stay dust free. If you want to get a pro-sumer DSLR, take a look at Nikon D70 and Canon (although I recommend Nikon better due to its low noise). Why spend all $$$ on these cameras if you can find a point-and-shoot for cheaper? Here are my pointers:
Lenses.You are not creaing pictures with a camera. You create pictures with a lens. If you can exchange lenses, you give yourself more flexibility. This is a must if you want to take pictures of animals, close up shots, wide-angle shots, etc.
Color. Digital SLRs tend to have larger sensors with larger photosites. When you take pictures, you work with light and it is essential that you get enough light in order to process it correctly. Larger photosites do a better job, hence they have less noise. If you take a look at pictures produced by standard digital SLRS (based on 35mm cameras) vs. pictrures made by Olympus cameras that implement 4:3 technology (the latter have smaller sensors) you will see the difference.
No LCD monitor. Despite whatever you may think, this is a plus. First of all, your camera does not suck batteries for what you can actually see through a lens, secondly, your view is unaltered. You see colors and objects as they appear.
Depth of field. This one gets me everytime somebody says that DSLRs lack depth of field. In fact, if you have more than two brain cells, you will be able to vary the depth of field by adjusting your shutter speed and aperture. Most of cameras come with a "depth of field preview" button that will let you judge the picture that is going to be recorded.
There are several things that you must remember about digital SLRs (and digital cameras in general):
Run away from any person who tries to sell you a more expensive camera by saying "Well, it has more megapixels." Megapixel is a number that is related to the area of the sensor in terms of the number of pixels. Thus, a small linear enlargement (like adding a few megapixels to the horizontal side of the sensor) will affect the number. If a sales person tells you that a 6MP camera will give you much larger prints than a 5MP camera at the same sharpness, slap them in the face: the difference in size will be rather small. In order to increase the size of the print by 2, you'll have to increase the megapixel count by 4 in order to maintain the same image quality.
There are two different types of censors. CMOS and CCD. CMOS sensors are smaller than CCD. It appears (from my tests) that cameras with CCDs produce less noise; however, CMOS will soon improve. CCD technology is rather old. You can learn more about it by googling :)
Flash-sync speeds are really important for fill-in flashes. Typically, you want somethin above 1/250 in a pro-sumer camera. If you have no idea what a fill-in technique is, you'll learn it once you start taking pics during nice sunny weather.
Dust on sensors is pain in the rear. I have a lense that I use primary with my D70; thus, I haven't experienced it yet. You can clean it off yourself or take it to a shop. If you are concerned, take a look at Olympus cameras. E1 and Evolt use ultra-sound to take dust off the sensor before taking a shot.
Night photography sucks.... Yes. You heard me right. With a film camera, this is a pretty easy due to the lack of noise and purple frinding. With digital SLRs it requires more training, but can be done. I do not like high
Amen to that, brother. When my family was poor, I wanted to get as much $$$ as I could and buy a lot of expensive toys. Four years of college and real-life taught me that otherwise.
Now that I have some money to burn, it is definitely not going into something that goes down in price faster than Monica went down on Billy Clinton :) House vs a nice TV... That's a no fucking brainer to me.
This is funny in some sick way :)
Can somebody tell me why we should care about it? Seriously, if Japan has cooler toys, more power to them. Who the fuck cares? Are you really upset because you cannot get your e-mail faster? At this point of time, Americans behave like crowds of cattle when it comes to shopping.... Would you like to put more spin onto that?
I certainly do not. Stuff is not what we should care about because as long as we do so, we will always be unhappy with something. Remeber, grass is greener on the other side. I can't believe that this bullshit makes to Slashdot nowadays. Seriously, it sounds like a bunch of stupid teenage girls who complain about boots, dresses and shirts that do not fit.
I can get upset because U.S. students lag behind in math and science, but not because somebody has a cooler DVD camera. Give me a break... P.S.: It is not what you have, it is what you do with it.
How about letting Indian contractors take care of that? We ship the waste to India and let them take care of it.
Actually, this is not funny. Corporate America generated the problem when it started engaging into price wars. Now that customers expect low prices no matter what, companies are paying for it.
Telecoms are dead right now. They cannot make any price increases because people will dump them and switch. If that is the case, how are companies supposed to expand? Last fall Wal-Mart dumped tons of toys priced below the market value and everybody seemed to be happy. Because Wal-Mart is able to undersell many competitors, many toy stores went out of business and some even closed! I understand that people want the lowest price, but people must understand that you can have it all for an extremely low price anytime you want it without a side effect. Somebody will have to pay for it because there is no free lunch.
Although, I do not completely agree with the quotes in the article, I see the point. Right now Americans are trained to exploit low prices and unreasonable offers that are passed onto their friends and neighbors who work for businesses. At the end it hurts both parties: businesses encounter higher costs that will be passed onto the customer or their employees and customers engage into unhealthy amount of shopping an consumption.
Good service is everything, at least when I vote (buy things) with my wallet. I avoid large stores and discounters like a plague because I do not get the kind of service I want. Period. Call me a fucking snob or whatever you want, but I do not want to spend my whole afternoon shopping for TV and talking to some retard who barely knows the product. I shopped at Wal-Mart only a few times and then I simply got fed up with their service. The same thing, sadly, applied to BestBuy and other retailers. With that in mind, I completely switched to shopping online. I still buy some items (suites, sport coats, shirts, shoes) at stores because I need to try them on, but when it comes to electronics Dr. Internet is my friend. Everything is shipped to my office, no pickups needed. Then I win because of the low opportunity cost: I can do all my shopping within several minutes and enjoy weekends and nights doing something else.
Normal Americans do not hate France. They do tell silly jokes about it, but no country in the world is exempt from puns because countries are different.
You have to understand that the United States is a divided country. We have the industrialized North, rural mid-West and South. What is acceptable in Boston, is not a norm in South Dakota and vice versa. And if you are isulted by a group of rednecks pouring French wine and screaming "We do not need no stinking wine!" please consider the source and smile. Those people are so poor and uneducated, they do not even know about it.
Look, I voted for Kerry who voted to preserve national resources. However, since Bush won and since Alaska supported him, let's drill the living crap out of it. Afterall, isn't it what they wanted?
Where do you store nuclear waste?
Where do you put nuclear plants? If you like it so much, would you like having a plant in your backyard?
How do you keep it safe?
Do not get me wrong, I am all up for alternative sources of energy; however, there are issues with most all of them that we need to consider.
Religion is separate from the state in the U.S. There is no official religion and our Bill of Rights has a nice paragraph regarding this matter. Overthrowing democratic goverments? Please. As much as I hate the war in Iraq, I have to tell you that Saddam was not what you would call a democratic leader.
Let me help you out on this one:
It is hard to count crosses on papers. With optical or electronic voting you can count votes almost instantly. Think how simple it is to create a program where you have a number of buttons. Each button is a assigned to a counter. You press a button, confirm the selection, and the counter for that button goes +1. Then you can count all votes almost instantly.
Stupid people -- remember Florida? -- cannot make connections between names and check boxes.
Easier data analysis.
Please do not be mad at the United States for their experiments. Afterall, trying new things brought them to the status of a world leader.