Interesting how the article in the NYT on blocking popup ads has a popup of its own. I realize this is a site-wide script, but the irony is just too good.
In 1960, some U of Washington students built a replica of the 1902 Wright glider. There's a picture hanging on the wall in the Aeronautics/Aerospace building of the group of guys that did it. They're all standing next to their glider on a grassy hill. It's pretty cool.
To those of you asking why anyone would spend their time building a replica of an old airplane or glider, I say this: Designing aircraft is not all engineering and science. There's an art to it and a few people truly find joy in it.
I recently rented Payback from Netflix. I never used to check the DVD's face for scratches because I assumed Netflix has some sort of quality control (mistake #1). I got about 20 minutes into the movie and then it wouldn't go any further. Upon inspection, the DVD face looked like someone had taken steel wool to it. How the hell does that get past the retard that puts it in the little envelopes?
So I reported it as unplayable and had them send a replacement. I figured this had to happen from time to time.. give them a break. The replacement came and I eagerly watched it (after being teased with the first 20 minutes from the previous week's attempt). I got 1:30 through the movie and it happened again! Sure enough, this DVD was scratched just as bad. You can imagine I was about to throw the damned thing out the window.
It's one thing to send a bad DVD, but to send an unplayable replacement for an unplayable DVD? That's just sad.
Other peeves have already been posted, but I'll reiterate: If you want a 2-DVD set, some of them are split so you have to rent each DVD separately. They don't have many copies of some movies, meaning that you have to wait and watch something else or wait for that movie to be returned to Netflix. Their turnaround time is horrible and they ship bulk mail (slow compared to 1st class).
I had a good run with Netflix, but they seem to be getting worse. I'm to the point that I'm going to try one of these other services out.
I'm a little late in seeing this post, but I just have to sound off. I actually have to learn JCL (already took a class on the basics) for my job. We're going to use it to submit jobs to a mainframe at JSC for testing shuttle avionics software.
The good thing is that we don't have to use physical punch cards anymore. The bad news is that we still have to use JCL:p
Sure, it took lots of time to develop this satellite. That's just part of the deal. It's rather ironic that these students actually _paid_ to work on this satellite, if you consider their tuition costs.
The thing to remember here is that the goal of these satellites is not to produce _one_ lasting satellite. Because these sats are so cheap to build, several universities can design and build them. In some cases, a successful project could be used later on by the government in a larger scale.
Consider this... what if some university designed a sturdy, yet cheap high-atmosphere/LEO weather satellite? Their design could be used to create a "Twister-esque" system of satellites. So, rather than sending up one extremely expensive satellite, we could send up thousands of smaller satellites to do the same task, but covering much more area. While these satellites only have lives of a few months to a year, they are so cheap that replacements are "petty change".
In the end, the cost of the development for this design wasn't nearly as much as it would have been for the single, much-larger satellite. You even get the bonus of giving some college students some very effective experience.
Very rarely to engineers plan to leave a non-operative satellite in precious orbit space. With these small satellites, they are usually in low orbits to begin with and after a few months to a year, the orbit continually decays until a critical point at which the satellite begins its fiery re-entry. This is just the passive way of ending a mission.
With larger sats, engineers will have some sort of end-of-life system onboard which puts it into a de-orbit trajectory.
I'm not sure what the threshold is for how large a satellite can be (and of what materials it is made) before it will not completely burn up before "hitting some poor soul". I imagine few satellites are this large, and if they are they probably make special arrangements for their end-of-life.
These small satellite projects are good for design classes because they are small enough that one year's class can complete the design and the simplicity of the satellites makes for cheap overall costs. Thus, the university can usually afford to fund the construction of the satellite. Actually seeing your hard work being launched on a mission is quite fullfilling.
Why don't we combine this OCed CPU with the coolant system mentioned earlier today and kill two birds with one stone? Eventually they could build a hovercomputer!
Exactly... there are ways to prevent CPS and people should be smart enough to do what they can to prevent it.
Sure, there might be a few cases of CPS (possibly intensified by other circumstances or medical conditions) where it wasn't possible to prevent, but I don't want tax dollars going to disability funding for retards who don't understand the ergonomics of typing and using a mouse.
It's like when I see some obese lard-ass rolling out of their cadillac in the handicap spot at McDonald's. They obviously aren't doing anything to prevent their "disability", but they'll take that front parking spot before an elderly woman can get to it.
So how would this apply to a human body? Could this be used to run strands of conductors through a human capillary system? Could a person then have interesting EM "things" happen to them... or could they in turn use body chemistry to induce electric/magnetic fields around them? Freaky concepts...
Don't forget the almighty ISS. Why is NASA in budget trouble? Ah yes, because they spent an extra $5 billion on that heap of junk slowly falling towards Earth.
Why we ever made that thing an international project must be _totally_ political because it's not like any of the other countries are pouring money into the ISS like we are. Then Russia basically pushes the civilian-space-tourist crap on us because they see a way to make money on the deal.
We should have never made it an international project to begin with. Such an idea is too Hollywood to work out well. We should have either done the entire thing ourselves or told the other countries that they had to pay equal shares to support its construction/maintenence (including shuttle launches to support it).
If it weren't for that damn program, I'm sure they wouldn't have to discuss this issue about privatizing the shuttle.
NASA needs to fire the managers that let the whole ISS $$ fiasco get so bad.
I graduated this past spring with a BS in Aero/Astro Engineering. I find myself not too excited about my job and I think I'm starting to realize a way to alleviate that boredom. Don't expect your first job to be vigorating and stimulating. Very few people are lucky enough to get jobs that really challenge them and yet provide years of enjoyable work.
Rather, find a job that you can stick with for a couple years. Build up your work experience and look for places to move to after you have the qualifications for the job. Eventually you'll get a job that will be worth all this effort.
In the meantime, don't waste your enthusiasm for CS. Work on projects on your own at home away from work. This may sound trivial, but you may stumble upon / develop something really cool that could turn into a home-business.
I've got some buddies that develop online java games for a living. They actually quit college early because they were able to make money on their games so soon, but they are doing what they love for income.
So whether you work on extra projects at home for fun or for good income, don't let mundane jobs get you down (buck up soldier:p ). We all have to "pay our dues" when we start out.
I'm just saying that since the drivers were made with one game in mind, it could be said that those video card users will have some advantage. Granted, they probably tested their stuff to make sure it wasn't like the Asus deal, but you see my point.
Btw, I love how I was modded "offtopic". Moderators, do you actually read what you mod?
I'm sure you've heard about the "wallhacks" for Half-Life Counter-Strike using modified Asus drivers. Hell, I've got a Voodoo 5 and I got accused of using those drivers. I bet this will cause similar "controversy". Obviously it's not the same as blatantly cheating, but it's an advantage based on circumstances not controlled by the game.
If you have a warranty on something and it breaks or does not hold up to the specs it was designed for at purchase, then hold the company up to their end of the warranty. You may have to go through some loopholes, but ultimately it is their responsibility to satisfy you as a customer with the product you purchased.
If the company won't comply with the details of their warranty to give you a quality product, then you need to contact the attorney general and follow legal procedures. In some cases, this will lead to a ruling by a court. Don't be afraid to hold the company to their end of the fine print.
On a side note, don't buy personal computers from Compaq. They have very poor customer support. Not only do their PCs suck (personal opinion), but they charge you for every possible detail when it comes time for them to fix a problem with their product (fact, not an opinion).
I could also tack on Voicestream. Their cell phone service is horrible. The billing department has screwed up over 3 times in the past year, the "customer care" department never follows up on things I request, and their internal communications is slow and unreliable.
So basically this is just a remote control for Winamp. What else could this possibly add to any software mp3 player? Who cares if it hooks up between your computer and stereo. You can just use a moderately-priced sound card to do that.
The claim that this can be used with the highest-quality sound equipment is hilarious. What is the compression on mp3s? Do you _really_ think mp3s sound nearly as good as a good CD player? No matter how tweaked out this bad boy is, mp3s will still have hisses and skips that can be dangerous to powerful, quality audio setups.
Slashdot Mirror
This site is my favorite anti-hoax site so far.
Interesting how the article in the NYT on blocking popup ads has a popup of its own. I realize this is a site-wide script, but the irony is just too good.
In 1960, some U of Washington students built a replica of the 1902 Wright glider. There's a picture hanging on the wall in the Aeronautics/Aerospace building of the group of guys that did it. They're all standing next to their glider on a grassy hill. It's pretty cool.
To those of you asking why anyone would spend their time building a replica of an old airplane or glider, I say this: Designing aircraft is not all engineering and science. There's an art to it and a few people truly find joy in it.
Here are some other options. I haven't tried any of these yet, but I'm about to.
.. give them a break. The replacement came and I eagerly watched it (after being teased with the first 20 minutes from the previous week's attempt). I got 1:30 through the movie and it happened again! Sure enough, this DVD was scratched just as bad. You can imagine I was about to throw the damned thing out the window.
Rent My DVD
DVD Barn
Number Slate
DVD Overnight
I recently rented Payback from Netflix. I never used to check the DVD's face for scratches because I assumed Netflix has some sort of quality control (mistake #1). I got about 20 minutes into the movie and then it wouldn't go any further. Upon inspection, the DVD face looked like someone had taken steel wool to it. How the hell does that get past the retard that puts it in the little envelopes?
So I reported it as unplayable and had them send a replacement. I figured this had to happen from time to time
It's one thing to send a bad DVD, but to send an unplayable replacement for an unplayable DVD? That's just sad.
Other peeves have already been posted, but I'll reiterate: If you want a 2-DVD set, some of them are split so you have to rent each DVD separately. They don't have many copies of some movies, meaning that you have to wait and watch something else or wait for that movie to be returned to Netflix. Their turnaround time is horrible and they ship bulk mail (slow compared to 1st class).
I had a good run with Netflix, but they seem to be getting worse. I'm to the point that I'm going to try one of these other services out.
I'm a little late in seeing this post, but I just have to sound off. I actually have to learn JCL (already took a class on the basics) for my job. We're going to use it to submit jobs to a mainframe at JSC for testing shuttle avionics software.
:p
The good thing is that we don't have to use physical punch cards anymore. The bad news is that we still have to use JCL
Encourage hourly pr0n breaks. Tell your management you're billing it as "administrative stress-management" time.
Sure, it took lots of time to develop this satellite. That's just part of the deal. It's rather ironic that these students actually _paid_ to work on this satellite, if you consider their tuition costs.
... what if some university designed a sturdy, yet cheap high-atmosphere/LEO weather satellite? Their design could be used to create a "Twister-esque" system of satellites. So, rather than sending up one extremely expensive satellite, we could send up thousands of smaller satellites to do the same task, but covering much more area. While these satellites only have lives of a few months to a year, they are so cheap that replacements are "petty change".
The thing to remember here is that the goal of these satellites is not to produce _one_ lasting satellite. Because these sats are so cheap to build, several universities can design and build them. In some cases, a successful project could be used later on by the government in a larger scale.
Consider this
In the end, the cost of the development for this design wasn't nearly as much as it would have been for the single, much-larger satellite. You even get the bonus of giving some college students some very effective experience.
Very rarely to engineers plan to leave a non-operative satellite in precious orbit space. With these small satellites, they are usually in low orbits to begin with and after a few months to a year, the orbit continually decays until a critical point at which the satellite begins its fiery re-entry. This is just the passive way of ending a mission.
With larger sats, engineers will have some sort of end-of-life system onboard which puts it into a de-orbit trajectory.
I'm not sure what the threshold is for how large a satellite can be (and of what materials it is made) before it will not completely burn up before "hitting some poor soul". I imagine few satellites are this large, and if they are they probably make special arrangements for their end-of-life.
I spent some time working on a similar project at the University of Washington in the Aero-Astro department. It was part of a group of nanosats funded by the AFOSR and DARPA.
These small satellite projects are good for design classes because they are small enough that one year's class can complete the design and the simplicity of the satellites makes for cheap overall costs. Thus, the university can usually afford to fund the construction of the satellite. Actually seeing your hard work being launched on a mission is quite fullfilling.
Why don't we combine this OCed CPU with the coolant system mentioned earlier today and kill two birds with one stone? Eventually they could build a hovercomputer!
It's a small web afterall ...
Exactly ... there are ways to prevent CPS and people should be smart enough to do what they can to prevent it.
...
Sure, there might be a few cases of CPS (possibly intensified by other circumstances or medical conditions) where it wasn't possible to prevent, but I don't want tax dollars going to disability funding for retards who don't understand the ergonomics of typing and using a mouse.
It's like when I see some obese lard-ass rolling out of their cadillac in the handicap spot at McDonald's. They obviously aren't doing anything to prevent their "disability", but they'll take that front parking spot before an elderly woman can get to it.
Reality check
Does it have a "reverse" option so I can add more meaningless nudity and cussing?
/me gets out his Speak n Spell.
So how would this apply to a human body? Could this be used to run strands of conductors through a human capillary system? Could a person then have interesting EM "things" happen to them ... or could they in turn use body chemistry to induce electric/magnetic fields around them? Freaky concepts...
Don't forget the almighty ISS. Why is NASA in budget trouble? Ah yes, because they spent an extra $5 billion on that heap of junk slowly falling towards Earth.
Why we ever made that thing an international project must be _totally_ political because it's not like any of the other countries are pouring money into the ISS like we are. Then Russia basically pushes the civilian-space-tourist crap on us because they see a way to make money on the deal.
We should have never made it an international project to begin with. Such an idea is too Hollywood to work out well. We should have either done the entire thing ourselves or told the other countries that they had to pay equal shares to support its construction/maintenence (including shuttle launches to support it).
If it weren't for that damn program, I'm sure they wouldn't have to discuss this issue about privatizing the shuttle.
NASA needs to fire the managers that let the whole ISS $$ fiasco get so bad.
You said "eradicate"!! I'm so proud!
:p ). We all have to "pay our dues" when we start out.
I graduated this past spring with a BS in Aero/Astro Engineering. I find myself not too excited about my job and I think I'm starting to realize a way to alleviate that boredom. Don't expect your first job to be vigorating and stimulating. Very few people are lucky enough to get jobs that really challenge them and yet provide years of enjoyable work.
Rather, find a job that you can stick with for a couple years. Build up your work experience and look for places to move to after you have the qualifications for the job. Eventually you'll get a job that will be worth all this effort.
In the meantime, don't waste your enthusiasm for CS. Work on projects on your own at home away from work. This may sound trivial, but you may stumble upon / develop something really cool that could turn into a home-business.
I've got some buddies that develop online java games for a living. They actually quit college early because they were able to make money on their games so soon, but they are doing what they love for income.
So whether you work on extra projects at home for fun or for good income, don't let mundane jobs get you down (buck up soldier
According to the MS Word thesaurus, "Bill Gates" is now synonymous with "1337 d00d" and "Supreme Ruler of the World".
I'm just saying that since the drivers were made with one game in mind, it could be said that those video card users will have some advantage. Granted, they probably tested their stuff to make sure it wasn't like the Asus deal, but you see my point.
Btw, I love how I was modded "offtopic". Moderators, do you actually read what you mod?
I'm sure you've heard about the "wallhacks" for Half-Life Counter-Strike using modified Asus drivers. Hell, I've got a Voodoo 5 and I got accused of using those drivers. I bet this will cause similar "controversy". Obviously it's not the same as blatantly cheating, but it's an advantage based on circumstances not controlled by the game.
If you have a warranty on something and it breaks or does not hold up to the specs it was designed for at purchase, then hold the company up to their end of the warranty. You may have to go through some loopholes, but ultimately it is their responsibility to satisfy you as a customer with the product you purchased.
If the company won't comply with the details of their warranty to give you a quality product, then you need to contact the attorney general and follow legal procedures. In some cases, this will lead to a ruling by a court. Don't be afraid to hold the company to their end of the fine print.
On a side note, don't buy personal computers from Compaq. They have very poor customer support. Not only do their PCs suck (personal opinion), but they charge you for every possible detail when it comes time for them to fix a problem with their product (fact, not an opinion).
I could also tack on Voicestream. Their cell phone service is horrible. The billing department has screwed up over 3 times in the past year, the "customer care" department never follows up on things I request, and their internal communications is slow and unreliable.
endRant
Exactly.
Standard TV has 480 interlaced lines at best. There's a reason people don't make NTSC TVs larger than about 60".
If you truly want to go for 100" of quality, get an HD projector with a nice silk screen.
After a few weeks with my 65" HDTV I think I'd puke if I watched TV on a 100" STV.
Actually Winamp (and probably every other media player) can do this. It's called file sharing.
So basically this is just a remote control for Winamp. What else could this possibly add to any software mp3 player? Who cares if it hooks up between your computer and stereo. You can just use a moderately-priced sound card to do that.
The claim that this can be used with the highest-quality sound equipment is hilarious. What is the compression on mp3s? Do you _really_ think mp3s sound nearly as good as a good CD player? No matter how tweaked out this bad boy is, mp3s will still have hisses and skips that can be dangerous to powerful, quality audio setups.
This is not a flame. This is a reality check.
Now if they could mod that robot so it would fetch a beer on voice command, that would be sweet.