Car companies often control the supply of replacement parts.
Car parts for newer models are often only available from the Original Equipment Manufacturer for a limited time due to licensing agreements between the car maker and the parts makers and the fact that aftermarket parts manufacturers have to tool up to make the new parts.
In the USA the Federal Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 made tying of the parts to the warranty illegal. The car maker cannot require that you buy their parts or supplies (like Toyota-brand oil or wiper blades for example), and they cannot void your warranty because you used aftermarket parts or supplies unless they can prove that the aftermarket part caused the failure of the vehicle.
What if I modified my car then release the notes on a web page. Could the manufacture DMCA it down?
What part of your car is a technical measure intended to protect access to a copyrighted work? None. Plus, a car is real physical property - you can do whatever you want with it. If you do something with it that causes it to break, and you show other people how to do it, you'll just be left with a void warranty (if it was still in effect), but there's not much the car makers can do to make you stop showing others how to break their own cars.
As far as wanting to get rid of money, I'm spending work money, and I have to spend it all by the end of the funding contract period of performance. The real truth of it is I wanted systems that "just work" (and for my purposes these do), and I have the budget for it. Not everyone on Slashdot is poor.
Most computers these days come with a mouse. In the case of a Mac, it's a Mighty Mouse.
I do have one iMac, it's not used for much other than monitoring a security system and running Windows XP under VMWare Fusion to run a CD duplicator/printer. It works great and takes no more desk space than an equivalently sized LCD monitor. The other systems are Mac Pros and an old G5 Quad (with really cool sounding fans).
Apart from the flaky scroll ball and the backlight on my 30" Cinema display that wouldn't work on the first try on cold winter mornings (warranty took care of it) the Apple hardware has all been rock solid and worth the money.
I concur - the Mighty Mouse is not so mighty, Apple's worst product in a long time. I have the problem you describe in Safari 3 and 4 beta. Plus scrolling down has worn out somehow.
Right clicking on the Mighty Mouse appears to have been designed by someone who only used one-button mice before. You have to pretty much take your fingers off of the mouse and only click on the right side of the mouse. It would have made much more sense to make it signal a right click if the right "button" area of the mouse was being touched, regardless of what's happening on the left. It sucks, and they really should fix it (probably could be done with a firmware update).
As for the scroll ball, I have used the "turn the mouse upside down and run the scroll ball around on your pants leg" method with some success. It only works until you get something inside the scroll ball that won't come out. My primary Mighty Mouse (I have four, two are bluetooth and on the same desk) would not scroll right, and even throwing it at the floor and wall didn't work, so I decided to break the damned thing open.
It's actually not hard to crack the mouse open, if you don't mind breaking that little collar that runs around the bottom of the mouse. There are two flexible connections that you have to disconnect, but you can remove the scroll ball mechanism with a small phillips screwdriver, disassemble it, clean it out, and reassemble it. I did it a month ago with no further problems. There is an order to reassembling the mouse and not having one of the flexible connections pull out, but it's not hard to trial and error your way through.
Well no. Uber-phones just need an USB connector and appropriate drivers to let them feed audio/video/files/network/whatever they feel like through it.
No need for special drivers and wires ! Just standardize on protocols (like Bluetooth did, but USB is also quite good at that) and you have one connector for all your needs.
That would require every device you plug the phone or iPod into to be a USB host. That's going to cost a lot more.
I have a Nokia phone that can output video and stereo audio through its headset jack. It also has a standard mini USB port, and a barrel connector for the charger. I'm pretty sure it can charge through the USB connector, but since Nokia already had a charger that fit their other more basic phones, they elected to use that so people could use their older Nokia car chargers and so on.
But, getting back to what you were talking about:
How do you propose I install drivers on my TV and stereo, both of which lack USB ports?
Instead of a cheap video cable to show video or photos to your relatives, you would need a clunky thing that acts as a USB host and acts as a video adapter. That sounds like a very special wire! And it seems like a step backwards.
The signature on the back of a card has nothing to do with ID. It is there as acceptance of the card agreement.
The USPS won't accept credit cards where you've written "SEE ID" on the signature line because it isn't about ID at all.
This is true. I have a friend who worked the front counter at the post office for years and that's what he always said.
The signature area has almost completely worn off of my Visa card, and the word "void" shows through in some areas. There's even a small area where the magnetic stripe is worn through (it still reads). Everyone still accepts it although most places ask to see my ID (even the local post office). I suspect that's because there is a fragment of signature visible.
1. I am not a sports fan, and I expect ESPN to issue me a credit if my ISP is paying them for a service I do not use and do not want. Now that I think about it, if I could get a discount for having their channels removed from my TV service that would be great, too.
2. ESPN has just eliminated a huge swath of the Internet-using public from viewing their content. If it's a subscription service, sell it as such. The way they are handling this seems like it would be bad for their business.
If I was a sports fan, and I couldn't view ESPN's content because of my choice of ISP, I think I'd just look elsewhere (ie. another sports news site), rather than go through the hassle of changing ISPs.
WHARRGARBL is the sound dogs make when they attempt to drink from a lawn sprinkler.
WHARRGARBL is also defined as a representation of what fundamentalist religious ranting sounds like to unbelievers, which is more likely the correct meaning in this case since the story is the kind of thing that right-wingers can get worked up about nowadays.
In most of the USA, the philosophy is that you are responsible for maintaining your car in a safe condition. If you fail to keep your car in good condition, and an accident or injury is caused because of that, you can really get in trouble. People have gone to jail because their unsafe vehicles injured or killed someone.
I have a friend in the UK who bought a car from a dealer who had used the car as a demonstrator model for people to test drive (which is strange, because I always thought people test drive the actual vehicle they're going to buy, and not an example vehicle). Apparently the dealer had modified it to produce much more power than that model usually produced.
Anyhow, my friend said he took his car in for the MOT, and it failed. Not for any safety reason; he said they told him it produced too much horsepower. There was no problem with the emissions.
I still have a hard time believing that this is a valid reason for a test failure. Is it?
In the USA, I've taken cars I've modified for more power in for the emissions test, and I take the test as a challenge to see how low I can get the emissions. So I've usually gotten two comments from the tester - "The emissions are really low", and "This car must be a lot of fun to drive".
I remember one car in particular that I ended up putting a really loud exhaust on because it made so much more power and actually helped the fuel economy. When the tester drove it on the dynamometer during the emissions test, the noise actually drew a crowd. A couple of the guys were disappointed when the test ended after only 30 seconds - the car's emissions were low enough that the car received a "Fast Pass" and it didn't have to run the entire test.
There's nothing like sitting behind a car that burns more oil than gasoline and getting a face full of smoke when they hit the gas.
Where I live, they backed off on the emissions tests a couple of years ago. The local test station still has the I/M 240 dynamometer test equipment, but the rules said something like cars older than 1996 model year no longer need to be tested if they were in compliance as of 2007. Newer cars only have to be tested after they get to be four years old, and then it's just an OBD 2 scan test, not a dynamometer test.
So, you'd think you'd see a lot of old smoky cars on the road. But, you don't. I think the fact of the matter is that here, in the rust belt (the winter road salt belt, really) many cars older than 1996 model year have rusted away or been scrapped, and they represent a small percentage of the cars in use. The oldest cars I see in use in this area look to be from around 1990; the winter salt use around here is pretty aggressive, so anything much older than that tends to be a collector car that only comes out on summer days.
The other weird thing is, my oldest car is a 1999 bought a couple of years ago, and I haven't had to bring it in for an OBD emissions test yet. The emissions test station (state owned/operated) is still there, the lights are on, and I can see cars parked in the staff parking lot, but when I drive by it I never see any cars in the test lanes.
Many of the smaller (ie. most of the) models available in Japan cannot pass the US DOT crash test requirements, and so they cannot be sold for road use in the USA. You can find dealers in the USA selling Kei-class trucks, for example, but they cannot be registered as regular road-going vehicles in most states. In Illinois, for example, they can only be registered as "neighborhood vehicles" and are restricted to streets with speed limits up to 35 MPH. In a Kei-class vehicle, the main energy absorber in the crumple zone for front end collisions is the driver's legs.
Huh? I could list my garbage collector as my beneficiary, if I wanted to, and nothing could stop me.
The difference is that the garbage collector wouldn't be allowed to live in your house and claim it as their own until your will had gone been executed properly or gone through probate, and your remaining family members could challenge the validity of the will, keeping your beloved garbage collector out of the house for more time during his time of bereavement.
For example, if your parents' house was only in your dad's name - Can you imagine, if your dad passed away and then your mother wasn't allowed to stay in the house for a month or two? That's what you're talking about.
I have watched a friend be kicked out of his own house when his partner passed away. He was given 15 minutes, by his partner's daughter, to gather his things and get out. If they had been legally married, this could not have happened.
The hospital visitation problem is a real issue. Married people have no problem visiting each other in a hospital, but a gay person's partner can be refused entry to their hospital room - for example by a family member who doesn't get along with the partner, unless some specific legal papers have been drawn up (you actually have to carry those papers with you). That's just not right.
There are a lot of parts of legally recognized marriage that can be simulated through clever lawyering, but the simple matter is that there is no substitute.
Yeah, so much for "your huddled masses":(
Additionally, watch Americans be completely surprised when these countries reciprocate the generosity.
Hate to break it to you, but the "huddled masses" wording is part of a poem, not the US immigration policy.
I'd further like to note that this requirement is for people traveling under the visa waiver program... ie. it's an alternative to getting a visa. There's nothing new to stop travelers from getting a visa from a US embassy the old fashioned way.
Let's see here... 1000 gallons of compressed liquefied propane at about $2.55/gallon delivered (local Texas prices, some parts of the US it costs nearly $4/gallon delivered) equals $2550! Ouch.
How long does a tankful last in your house?
A buddy of mine who built a new house on Lake Travis near Austin, TX runs his house's water heaters, furnace, cooking stove and clothes dryer on a buried 250 gallon propane tank and he has to fill it about every 6-8 weeks in the coldest winter months. That seems more expensive than natural gas or a total electric house.
I guess Hank Hill must be enjoying that brand new red Ford Super Duty pickup truck, eh?
Holy crap, 250 gallons every two months at $4/gallon - that's $500 a month. In Texas? How cold does it get there? I'm living 50 miles northwest of Chicago in a good sized house that dates back in part to the 1920s and my natural gas bill has yet to be higher than $210 in the worst winter month (like in February, when we consider 20 F to be a heatwave).
Today's forecasted high here is 18F. In Austin, TX, the national weather service says a high of 63F. Either propane costs 10 times what natural gas does, your friend's house has no roof, or my house is being heated by radioactive decay from the rocks in the foundation (yes, I actually have rocks in the 1800s part of my foundation).
I have friends nearby who heat their house (which is about 1/2 the size of my house) with all electric baseboard heaters, and they say they've never paid over $200 a month. I suspect they are lying though, to save face in our gas vs. electric debates.
You need to look at the LED taillights on a Cadillac in moving traffic. In the dim mode used for tail/marker lights (not the full brightness mode used when the driver presses on the brake pedal), the taillights are being dimmed by PWM with no filtering. The flicker is extremely annoying and gives a strobe-like appearance where your eyes see multiple images of the lights in moving traffic.
Why Cadillac chose to dim their LED taillights this way is beyond explanation. It makes the cars look cheap, but it can't be a cost saving, because you can dim an LED array with a simple resistor and eliminate the PWM circuit altogether. LED taillights for heavy trucks use a diode and a resistor for the lower light output level and they look great.
The effect is more noticeable when you're traveling at a different speed than the Cadillac, or if you move your head side to side while looking at the taillights. It's really obvious and undeniable.
You forgot gyroscopic force, which can be powerful enough to bend the disc as it turns, regardless of how it is clamped (CDs are flexible). It can then momentarily contact the front lens on the optical pickup, resulting in a scratch. Gyroscopic force is produced by the angular momentum of the spinning disc wanting to spin in the same plane while the axis is being rotated.
Some physicist will probably correct me on that, but I know it's a powerful force.
your fault for not buying the $199.00 tool to turn it off yourself.
you choose to pay $400 every 3 months to feed your apathy.
Actually a cheap OBD 2 scan tool that can read and clear codes (turn off the check engine light) costs about $39.
The check engine light can illuminate for any one of hundreds of reasons, from a loose gas cap, to a faulty EGR valve, to a slipping torque converter clutch.
If your check engine light comes on often, you either have a lemon or a mechanic who is fleecing you while not actually properly diagnosing and fixing the problem. Or, you abuse your car or fail to maintain it properly.
Unless, you're talking about a maintenance reminder, which is supposed to be reset by the mechanic when they do a routine service, like an oil change or Mercedes-Benz's A or B services. Those reminders can usually be reset by the user at no cost, by some combination of turning the ignition on and off and pressing the accelerator pedal, like a cheat code in a video game.
Well, once again someone has come along with generalizations that don't fit the situation.
The DTB-H260F is a great receiver. The sensitivity is better than or equal to the other units I've compared it to. The feed line is not too long, and is not leaky. It's not cheap coax, it is properly grounded, and the correct connectors are used. I've even used a four foot piece of RG-6 with the receiver sitting right next to the antenna base with the same results.
Your statement that the receiver has poor sensitivity does not take into account the conditions in which the receiver is being used. That's like saying your eyes are in bad shape because you can't make out details on a small sign three miles away without using a telescope.
I'm using a directional antenna that has plenty of good reviews from people using it similar distances from the transmitters, including some amateur radio enthusiasts who know how to test antennas. In fact, it was a friend of mine who is an amateur radio enthusiast, and who also got his degree in antenna design, who suggested I try an amplifier.
It's VTEC, not V-Tech. VTEC is Honda's system that allows the engine computer to select between two different camshaft profiles depending on operating conditions. V-Tech is a company that manufactures consumer electronics. Putting a V-Tech sticker on a car would make no sense, unless the driver is a sales rep for V-Tech.
The simple fact of the matter is that I live in a very mature suburban neighborhood with huge trees all around. The signal maps show that the signal strength is already weak here, and the trees don't help. Before you suggest it, a tall mast is not an option.
Without the amplifier neither of my recievers can find any station.
I'm actually over 70 miles from most of the transmitters. I am concerned that I'd get multipath noise, but it appears I'm not getting a strong enough signal in the first place and there are no terrain features or large buildings in the way that would cause multipath. I'm not concerned about "rounding off" the edges of the signals, since the 8VSB modulation doesn't produce square waves anyway.
Isn't there a third possibility? Like that some lawyers are jerks? Just like there are some jerks everywhere else in the general population?
I went along to a bunch of court appearances and watched an acquaintance of mine suffer at the hands of the "wrong" attorney during his divorce. The wrangling it took just to get that attorney to go away so he could use another lawyer was really surprising. Thankfully his next attorney was really good, and a great person. I know now who to call if I ever need a lawyer for courtroom work.
If I hadn't seen these lawyers in action and I was staring at the phone book looking for a lawyer, I wouldn't know which one to pick. They're both qualified, and experienced but one was a big jerk and the other a great attorney. How does someone find a good lawyer, except by chance? It's not like everyone around me deals with lawyers all the time and I can just call up a friend or coworker for a recommendation.
Heck, even finding a good car mechanic can be challenging, let alone a lawyer. Thankfully I can work on my own car. Legal documents and court procedure, not so much.
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Car companies often control the supply of replacement parts.
Car parts for newer models are often only available from the Original Equipment Manufacturer for a limited time due to licensing agreements between the car maker and the parts makers and the fact that aftermarket parts manufacturers have to tool up to make the new parts.
In the USA the Federal Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 made tying of the parts to the warranty illegal. The car maker cannot require that you buy their parts or supplies (like Toyota-brand oil or wiper blades for example), and they cannot void your warranty because you used aftermarket parts or supplies unless they can prove that the aftermarket part caused the failure of the vehicle.
What if I modified my car then release the notes on a web page. Could the manufacture DMCA it down?
What part of your car is a technical measure intended to protect access to a copyrighted work? None. Plus, a car is real physical property - you can do whatever you want with it. If you do something with it that causes it to break, and you show other people how to do it, you'll just be left with a void warranty (if it was still in effect), but there's not much the car makers can do to make you stop showing others how to break their own cars.
As far as wanting to get rid of money, I'm spending work money, and I have to spend it all by the end of the funding contract period of performance. The real truth of it is I wanted systems that "just work" (and for my purposes these do), and I have the budget for it. Not everyone on Slashdot is poor.
Most computers these days come with a mouse. In the case of a Mac, it's a Mighty Mouse.
I do have one iMac, it's not used for much other than monitoring a security system and running Windows XP under VMWare Fusion to run a CD duplicator/printer. It works great and takes no more desk space than an equivalently sized LCD monitor. The other systems are Mac Pros and an old G5 Quad (with really cool sounding fans).
Apart from the flaky scroll ball and the backlight on my 30" Cinema display that wouldn't work on the first try on cold winter mornings (warranty took care of it) the Apple hardware has all been rock solid and worth the money.
I concur - the Mighty Mouse is not so mighty, Apple's worst product in a long time. I have the problem you describe in Safari 3 and 4 beta. Plus scrolling down has worn out somehow.
Right clicking on the Mighty Mouse appears to have been designed by someone who only used one-button mice before. You have to pretty much take your fingers off of the mouse and only click on the right side of the mouse. It would have made much more sense to make it signal a right click if the right "button" area of the mouse was being touched, regardless of what's happening on the left. It sucks, and they really should fix it (probably could be done with a firmware update).
As for the scroll ball, I have used the "turn the mouse upside down and run the scroll ball around on your pants leg" method with some success. It only works until you get something inside the scroll ball that won't come out. My primary Mighty Mouse (I have four, two are bluetooth and on the same desk) would not scroll right, and even throwing it at the floor and wall didn't work, so I decided to break the damned thing open.
It's actually not hard to crack the mouse open, if you don't mind breaking that little collar that runs around the bottom of the mouse. There are two flexible connections that you have to disconnect, but you can remove the scroll ball mechanism with a small phillips screwdriver, disassemble it, clean it out, and reassemble it. I did it a month ago with no further problems. There is an order to reassembling the mouse and not having one of the flexible connections pull out, but it's not hard to trial and error your way through.
Well no. Uber-phones just need an USB connector and appropriate drivers to let them feed audio/video/files/network/whatever they feel like through it. No need for special drivers and wires ! Just standardize on protocols (like Bluetooth did, but USB is also quite good at that) and you have one connector for all your needs.
That would require every device you plug the phone or iPod into to be a USB host. That's going to cost a lot more.
I have a Nokia phone that can output video and stereo audio through its headset jack. It also has a standard mini USB port, and a barrel connector for the charger. I'm pretty sure it can charge through the USB connector, but since Nokia already had a charger that fit their other more basic phones, they elected to use that so people could use their older Nokia car chargers and so on.
But, getting back to what you were talking about:
How do you propose I install drivers on my TV and stereo, both of which lack USB ports?
Instead of a cheap video cable to show video or photos to your relatives, you would need a clunky thing that acts as a USB host and acts as a video adapter. That sounds like a very special wire! And it seems like a step backwards.
You aren't supposed to verify ID.
The signature on the back of a card has nothing to do with ID. It is there as acceptance of the card agreement.
The USPS won't accept credit cards where you've written "SEE ID" on the signature line because it isn't about ID at all.
This is true. I have a friend who worked the front counter at the post office for years and that's what he always said.
The signature area has almost completely worn off of my Visa card, and the word "void" shows through in some areas. There's even a small area where the magnetic stripe is worn through (it still reads). Everyone still accepts it although most places ask to see my ID (even the local post office). I suspect that's because there is a fragment of signature visible.
This raises two issues for me:
1. I am not a sports fan, and I expect ESPN to issue me a credit if my ISP is paying them for a service I do not use and do not want. Now that I think about it, if I could get a discount for having their channels removed from my TV service that would be great, too.
2. ESPN has just eliminated a huge swath of the Internet-using public from viewing their content. If it's a subscription service, sell it as such. The way they are handling this seems like it would be bad for their business.
If I was a sports fan, and I couldn't view ESPN's content because of my choice of ISP, I think I'd just look elsewhere (ie. another sports news site), rather than go through the hassle of changing ISPs.
He doesn't have one of these.
Consistently better than microwave popcorn.
Unless you forget to turn the handle.
WHARRGARBL is the sound dogs make when they attempt to drink from a lawn sprinkler.
WHARRGARBL is also defined as a representation of what fundamentalist religious ranting sounds like to unbelievers, which is more likely the correct meaning in this case since the story is the kind of thing that right-wingers can get worked up about nowadays.
Just make sure you get a converter box with Component Video out (also called YPbPr).
The submitter was looking for a Coupon Eligible Converter Box.
CECBs are prohibited from having a Component Video output - only RF, Composite Video or S-Video outputs are permitted.
In most of the USA, the philosophy is that you are responsible for maintaining your car in a safe condition. If you fail to keep your car in good condition, and an accident or injury is caused because of that, you can really get in trouble. People have gone to jail because their unsafe vehicles injured or killed someone.
I have a friend in the UK who bought a car from a dealer who had used the car as a demonstrator model for people to test drive (which is strange, because I always thought people test drive the actual vehicle they're going to buy, and not an example vehicle). Apparently the dealer had modified it to produce much more power than that model usually produced.
Anyhow, my friend said he took his car in for the MOT, and it failed. Not for any safety reason; he said they told him it produced too much horsepower. There was no problem with the emissions.
I still have a hard time believing that this is a valid reason for a test failure. Is it?
In the USA, I've taken cars I've modified for more power in for the emissions test, and I take the test as a challenge to see how low I can get the emissions. So I've usually gotten two comments from the tester - "The emissions are really low", and "This car must be a lot of fun to drive".
I remember one car in particular that I ended up putting a really loud exhaust on because it made so much more power and actually helped the fuel economy. When the tester drove it on the dynamometer during the emissions test, the noise actually drew a crowd. A couple of the guys were disappointed when the test ended after only 30 seconds - the car's emissions were low enough that the car received a "Fast Pass" and it didn't have to run the entire test.
There's nothing like sitting behind a car that burns more oil than gasoline and getting a face full of smoke when they hit the gas.
Where I live, they backed off on the emissions tests a couple of years ago. The local test station still has the I/M 240 dynamometer test equipment, but the rules said something like cars older than 1996 model year no longer need to be tested if they were in compliance as of 2007. Newer cars only have to be tested after they get to be four years old, and then it's just an OBD 2 scan test, not a dynamometer test.
So, you'd think you'd see a lot of old smoky cars on the road. But, you don't. I think the fact of the matter is that here, in the rust belt (the winter road salt belt, really) many cars older than 1996 model year have rusted away or been scrapped, and they represent a small percentage of the cars in use. The oldest cars I see in use in this area look to be from around 1990; the winter salt use around here is pretty aggressive, so anything much older than that tends to be a collector car that only comes out on summer days.
The other weird thing is, my oldest car is a 1999 bought a couple of years ago, and I haven't had to bring it in for an OBD emissions test yet. The emissions test station (state owned/operated) is still there, the lights are on, and I can see cars parked in the staff parking lot, but when I drive by it I never see any cars in the test lanes.
How much were the bus passes worth?
Many of the smaller (ie. most of the) models available in Japan cannot pass the US DOT crash test requirements, and so they cannot be sold for road use in the USA. You can find dealers in the USA selling Kei-class trucks, for example, but they cannot be registered as regular road-going vehicles in most states. In Illinois, for example, they can only be registered as "neighborhood vehicles" and are restricted to streets with speed limits up to 35 MPH. In a Kei-class vehicle, the main energy absorber in the crumple zone for front end collisions is the driver's legs.
Huh? I could list my garbage collector as my beneficiary, if I wanted to, and nothing could stop me.
The difference is that the garbage collector wouldn't be allowed to live in your house and claim it as their own until your will had gone been executed properly or gone through probate, and your remaining family members could challenge the validity of the will, keeping your beloved garbage collector out of the house for more time during his time of bereavement.
For example, if your parents' house was only in your dad's name - Can you imagine, if your dad passed away and then your mother wasn't allowed to stay in the house for a month or two? That's what you're talking about.
I have watched a friend be kicked out of his own house when his partner passed away. He was given 15 minutes, by his partner's daughter, to gather his things and get out. If they had been legally married, this could not have happened.
The hospital visitation problem is a real issue. Married people have no problem visiting each other in a hospital, but a gay person's partner can be refused entry to their hospital room - for example by a family member who doesn't get along with the partner, unless some specific legal papers have been drawn up (you actually have to carry those papers with you). That's just not right.
There are a lot of parts of legally recognized marriage that can be simulated through clever lawyering, but the simple matter is that there is no substitute.
Yeah, so much for "your huddled masses" :(
Additionally, watch Americans be completely surprised when these countries reciprocate the generosity.
Hate to break it to you, but the "huddled masses" wording is part of a poem, not the US immigration policy.
I'd further like to note that this requirement is for people traveling under the visa waiver program... ie. it's an alternative to getting a visa. There's nothing new to stop travelers from getting a visa from a US embassy the old fashioned way.
Let's see here... 1000 gallons of compressed liquefied propane at about $2.55/gallon delivered (local Texas prices, some parts of the US it costs nearly $4/gallon delivered) equals $2550! Ouch.
How long does a tankful last in your house?
A buddy of mine who built a new house on Lake Travis near Austin, TX runs his house's water heaters, furnace, cooking stove and clothes dryer on a buried 250 gallon propane tank and he has to fill it about every 6-8 weeks in the coldest winter months. That seems more expensive than natural gas or a total electric house.
I guess Hank Hill must be enjoying that brand new red Ford Super Duty pickup truck, eh?
Holy crap, 250 gallons every two months at $4/gallon - that's $500 a month. In Texas? How cold does it get there? I'm living 50 miles northwest of Chicago in a good sized house that dates back in part to the 1920s and my natural gas bill has yet to be higher than $210 in the worst winter month (like in February, when we consider 20 F to be a heatwave).
Today's forecasted high here is 18F. In Austin, TX, the national weather service says a high of 63F. Either propane costs 10 times what natural gas does, your friend's house has no roof, or my house is being heated by radioactive decay from the rocks in the foundation (yes, I actually have rocks in the 1800s part of my foundation).
I have friends nearby who heat their house (which is about 1/2 the size of my house) with all electric baseboard heaters, and they say they've never paid over $200 a month. I suspect they are lying though, to save face in our gas vs. electric debates.
Ah, but that raises even more questions:
The tungsten filament in a light bulb is a coil of already coiled wire.
Are the GP poster's pubic hairs similarly double coiled?
And, what would have caused that? An experiment with electric pants gone awry?
[...] Instead, they keep selling us a tiny wire the size of a pubic hair [...]
Please adopt the metric system. PLEASE!!!
Pray tell, can you enlighten us to what the metric equivalent of a pubic hair is?
5.3 centicurlies?
You need to look at the LED taillights on a Cadillac in moving traffic. In the dim mode used for tail/marker lights (not the full brightness mode used when the driver presses on the brake pedal), the taillights are being dimmed by PWM with no filtering. The flicker is extremely annoying and gives a strobe-like appearance where your eyes see multiple images of the lights in moving traffic.
Why Cadillac chose to dim their LED taillights this way is beyond explanation. It makes the cars look cheap, but it can't be a cost saving, because you can dim an LED array with a simple resistor and eliminate the PWM circuit altogether. LED taillights for heavy trucks use a diode and a resistor for the lower light output level and they look great.
The effect is more noticeable when you're traveling at a different speed than the Cadillac, or if you move your head side to side while looking at the taillights. It's really obvious and undeniable.
You forgot gyroscopic force, which can be powerful enough to bend the disc as it turns, regardless of how it is clamped (CDs are flexible). It can then momentarily contact the front lens on the optical pickup, resulting in a scratch. Gyroscopic force is produced by the angular momentum of the spinning disc wanting to spin in the same plane while the axis is being rotated.
Some physicist will probably correct me on that, but I know it's a powerful force.
your fault for not buying the $199.00 tool to turn it off yourself.
you choose to pay $400 every 3 months to feed your apathy.
Actually a cheap OBD 2 scan tool that can read and clear codes (turn off the check engine light) costs about $39.
The check engine light can illuminate for any one of hundreds of reasons, from a loose gas cap, to a faulty EGR valve, to a slipping torque converter clutch.
If your check engine light comes on often, you either have a lemon or a mechanic who is fleecing you while not actually properly diagnosing and fixing the problem. Or, you abuse your car or fail to maintain it properly.
Unless, you're talking about a maintenance reminder, which is supposed to be reset by the mechanic when they do a routine service, like an oil change or Mercedes-Benz's A or B services. Those reminders can usually be reset by the user at no cost, by some combination of turning the ignition on and off and pressing the accelerator pedal, like a cheat code in a video game.
From Wikipedia:
The first failure resulted in the deaths of three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire.
Well, once again someone has come along with generalizations that don't fit the situation.
The DTB-H260F is a great receiver. The sensitivity is better than or equal to the other units I've compared it to. The feed line is not too long, and is not leaky. It's not cheap coax, it is properly grounded, and the correct connectors are used. I've even used a four foot piece of RG-6 with the receiver sitting right next to the antenna base with the same results.
Your statement that the receiver has poor sensitivity does not take into account the conditions in which the receiver is being used. That's like saying your eyes are in bad shape because you can't make out details on a small sign three miles away without using a telescope.
I'm using a directional antenna that has plenty of good reviews from people using it similar distances from the transmitters, including some amateur radio enthusiasts who know how to test antennas. In fact, it was a friend of mine who is an amateur radio enthusiast, and who also got his degree in antenna design, who suggested I try an amplifier.
It's VTEC, not V-Tech. VTEC is Honda's system that allows the engine computer to select between two different camshaft profiles depending on operating conditions. V-Tech is a company that manufactures consumer electronics. Putting a V-Tech sticker on a car would make no sense, unless the driver is a sales rep for V-Tech.
The simple fact of the matter is that I live in a very mature suburban neighborhood with huge trees all around. The signal maps show that the signal strength is already weak here, and the trees don't help. Before you suggest it, a tall mast is not an option.
Without the amplifier neither of my recievers can find any station.
I'm actually over 70 miles from most of the transmitters. I am concerned that I'd get multipath noise, but it appears I'm not getting a strong enough signal in the first place and there are no terrain features or large buildings in the way that would cause multipath. I'm not concerned about "rounding off" the edges of the signals, since the 8VSB modulation doesn't produce square waves anyway.
Isn't there a third possibility? Like that some lawyers are jerks? Just like there are some jerks everywhere else in the general population?
I went along to a bunch of court appearances and watched an acquaintance of mine suffer at the hands of the "wrong" attorney during his divorce. The wrangling it took just to get that attorney to go away so he could use another lawyer was really surprising. Thankfully his next attorney was really good, and a great person. I know now who to call if I ever need a lawyer for courtroom work.
If I hadn't seen these lawyers in action and I was staring at the phone book looking for a lawyer, I wouldn't know which one to pick. They're both qualified, and experienced but one was a big jerk and the other a great attorney. How does someone find a good lawyer, except by chance? It's not like everyone around me deals with lawyers all the time and I can just call up a friend or coworker for a recommendation.
Heck, even finding a good car mechanic can be challenging, let alone a lawyer. Thankfully I can work on my own car. Legal documents and court procedure, not so much.