If there was a current limited control on the entire engine system then it would work very well. But you would have to risk selling vehicles that don't do 0-60 in
Let me offer another view. (By the way, I remember the car you are talking about, it was called a Uniq. Popular Science gave it a nice write-up) What was lacking then that is available now is good battery technology. As a proof-of-concept, a company based in California built a very nice prototype electric (not hybrid) sports car.
The car was the T-Zero, built by AC Propulsion. They built four of them, primarily as a test platform for a drive train they were developing. There was a dramatic improvement in performance between the third and fourth prototypes. #3 went from 0-60 in 4.7s, if I recall correctly, and #4 in 4.3s. The real difference, though, was in the range. #3 had a range of 60-100 miles, and #4 had a range of 300-450 miles. Both had regenerative braking. The difference between #3 and #4 was that #3 used a lead-acid battery and #4 used a lithium ion battery pack. This both reduced the weight of the car and increased the current-handling ability of the pack.
The exact same principle is applicable in a hybrid car. The only difference, in the case of a serial hybrid, is the presence of the engine-driven generator. Applying newer battery technology to the problem might solve the explosive issue of current handling.
P.S. On the issue of hybrid vs. diesel, I'd like to suggest, instead, hybrid plus diesel, i.e. hybrid with a diesel engine.
I believe that you are holding a majority opinion there. I have recently come to that opinion myself. Let me tell you why.
About three years ago, I bought a HDTV. It was a low-end model, a 27" 4:3 Samsung, but it can take an input of 480i, 480p or 1080i. There were a couple of others in its price class, but the point that sold me on this TV was that it included a line doubler so that 480i input would get upgraded to 480p. SDTV has never looked better.
The problem, however is that it has only analogue inputs. Composite, S-Video, Component. No DVI, no HDMI, and, obviously, it therefore has no HDCP ability.
With both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray consortia declaring independently of each other that they will not allow any player to produce >480p through analogue outputs, and that HDMI+HDCP is required to get HD output from these players, it officially puts HD-DVD and Blu-Ray at precicely the same level of usefulness I already enjoy from my DVD player. Without upgrading my TV (which, historically, I do very infrequently), HD-DVD and Blu-Ray give me no advantage, despite having a HDTV.
I feel violated. When I bought my TV, I went out of my way to get one that I believed would be highly future-resistant. As the early adopter who helped fund the R+D, I got boned. Well, fuck 'em. Who needs 'em?
Ironically, Sony are one of the few big names whose set top DVD recorders ARE dual format.
Also, Lite-On has an all-format DVDR under the make of "All Write." IIRC, I think it may work with DVD-RAM as well as DVD[{+|-}R[W]].... not that anyone cares.
Seriously though, its a wonder to me that each device continues to insist on its own PSU
I have a project on the drawing board to deal with this. The power supply will primarily be 12V, with the primary being a mains-powered converter, and the secondary being a bundle of batteries. A Mini-Box DC-DC converter will be snapped to each motherboard (these are about 95% efficient), cable modem already runs on 12VDC (so it would just be tied into the power rail) and I have some custom work on the drawing board to set up a DC source for switches, etc.
Also, high-efficiency lighting and some other non-computer equipement (CB + 2 ham radios) are in the plan also to run off of these 12VDC rails.
Before anyone mentions it, no, POE isn't in my plan, nor is it likely to be.
When you write on the silvery label you're actually writing on the back of the recording medium.
Of CDs: true. Of DVDs: False. DVDs sandwich the recording medium between two layers of substrate, rather than having it sprayed on the one side of the disc. This has several benefits:
You can't scratch the data off of the disc accidentally (you can scratch the disc, but the data is still there and can be rescued)
You can create 2 sided discs (can't do that with a CD, because the focal point of the laser will be wrong)
Solvent properties of labeling materials won't directly affect the data layer. They can dig into the substrate a bit, but have to dig really deep to get to the data. (On a side note, I have at least two commercially-recorded CDs that have gone bad because the black paint used in labelling them cut through to the aluminum reflective layer. Such a thing would be far less likely on a DVD.)
On labels, we have a problem here at my workplace in that we receive data from a certain other department on DVD. Regulations require that the DVD be labelled in a particular fashion (doesn't say use a label, does say $wordy_legal_boilerplate must appear on the disc) and the other department refuses to cease using sticky labels to do this. Our department all use laptop computers (because we all have to work weekends from home occasionally) and the sticky label causes the disc to warp slightly as it heats up in our machines, thus causing it to stop being legible after about 15 minutes unless you keep it 100% spun up the entire time. Labels on optical discs are evil
I think you're confusing probaility with randomness. Cards are dealt in poker at random, but it is still possible (though improbable) to get a straight 5 hands in a row.
Your point is taken. I have had a game recently where I got quads in one hand (8's), and a straight royal flush in the next (10-J-Q-K-A spades). Too bad we weren't playing for money:(
However, I play poker nearly every day. I fly once every few years. I have not flown since this six of six incident, which was about four years ago, and it had been a few years before that since I'd previously flown. (I'm stating that mostly to indicate that I don't fly much, but that my not flying much has little to nothing to do with 9/11 or the six of six incident).
Right or wrong, there is no doubt that "random selection" has become a euphemism for racial profiling.
Well, my firsthand experience is that it is not racial, but definitely not random. I took a trip early in 2002 from Albany NY to Tulsa OK, which involved three flights each direction. Somehow, I got "randomly" selected six times out of six. That's not very random.
Sure it's illegal as all hell, but when the balloon goes up who cares?
Normally I don't answer ACs, but this one needs a response.
The last thing we need when the shit hits the fan is a bunch of untrained idiots clouding up the airwaves. Get the licence, then get the experience operating. Not only do you increas your odds of survival, but you also decrease the chance that you will aid in someone else's demise.
Digital TV is also 6 MHz wide, but the broadcasters don't have the bandwidth so rigidly allocated, and can run multiplexed signals over it at reduced bitrates.
The part that is most out of place in analogue TV is the 1.25MHz of cruft at the bottom of the signal. That's the result of mid-20th century technology being state of the art when the standards were defined. In a more modern context, they would probably have gone with USB with full carrier rather than VSB-- putting the carrier right on the channel boundary, or at least a lot closer to it than it is. This would have given either (a) a sharper picture or (b) a lower bandwidth.
Incidentally, if memory serves me, European TVs are 8MHz wide, which is partly (though not fully) responsible for PAL producing a more detailed picture than NTSC (typically 400 lines vs. 320).
Taking it a step further, Japan has (or had, not sure) the MUSE standard, which is a superset of NTSC. MUSE TVs use 12MHz to produce a high-definition picture in the analogue domain.
Since my question is off topic, I will post AC. I have a dumb question (there are no dumb questions, just dumb people asking questions...). Is it possible to be a Ham if you don't have anywhere to mount the antennae? Like if one lives in an apartment?
Not a dumb question, and not really off topic, either, I think. The mods can differ with me if they want; I've got karma to burn.
Yes. It is limiting, but not a show stopper.
Ham radios themselves come in all shapes and sizes, from some very tiny radios that will fit in a shirt pocket to some monsters that will take up a rack or two.
Ham radio has a number of different bands (usually referred to by approximate wavelength, e.g. 2m, 6m, 10m, etc) that have different behaviours. The longer the wavelength of the band, the larger the ideal antenna would be. It is possible, however, to operate with a less-than-ideal antenna.
For shorter-ranged bands (70cm, ~440MHz, 2m, ~144MHz) it is possible to put the standard ideal antenna (a 1/4 wave is pretty standard) on a hand-held radio. It's a little awkward at 2m, but doable. You can also use what is called a "loaded" antenna, where there is a coil somewhere that makes the antenna resonate despite being too short.
For 2m, I most frequently use a hand-held radio, and it has a little 10" "rubber duck" antenna on it. I can put the radio on my belt and the antenna is short enough that it mostly stays out of trouble.
For 10m, I have a wire antenna in the attic that is about 7.5m long. It could be shorter if it needed to be.
The trouble is that the lower bands are the really-long range bands, and it takes a good antenna to be able to use them well.
You can also see if there are any ham radio clubs in your area that have sufficiently-equipped radio rooms. I am the treasurer of the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association and we have a reasonably well-equipped radio room that is available to any member who can demonstrate competence in using it and has the appropriate licence.
That's probably a longer answer than you expected, but I am very passionate about radio, and it is difficult for me to give short answers.... sorry:)
As anyone who has lived in the 3rd world can tell you, you can pick up TV on ordinary FM radios it is a matter of tuning it to the right frequency. I have seen these things in Asia for years.
This is 100% dependent on the frequency structure in the country in which you are located. To do this with an "ordinary" FM radio in the US, you can only pick up channel 6, at 87.75MHz (with 87.7 being close enough). If you have one of the Japanese radios that has extended coverage to do both the Japanese 72-93MHz FM and the American/European 88-108MHz FM bands, then you can also get audio from US TV stations on channels 4 (75.75MHz) and 5 (81.75MHz).
There are other radios out there that have got TV audio capability on them. They frequently only cover channels 2-13 because it is easier to build a VHF than a UHF radio.
For reference, the frequencies are as follows:
Channels 2-6: 59.75, 65.75, 75.75, 81.75, 87.75 (note the gap betwen 3 and 4 is 10MHz, not 6MHz as elsewhere)
Channels 14-69: 475.75, 481.75, 487.75, etc, every six MHz up to 805.75
Note also that frequencies within any vacant TV channels in the channel 14-20 range (470-512MHz) may also be licenced to business or public safety two-way radio users, especially in larger metro areas.
Last note, which I am providing to explain the huge gap between frequencies: the structure of a TV channel is this: It is 6MHz wide. The audio is 5.75MHz from the bottom of the channel, and uses the upper.5MHz of the channel (that is, 5.75MHz +/-.25MHz). The video is at 1.25MHz from the bottom of the channel to 5.5MHz from the bottom of the channel. Below the 1.25MHz point is cruft called a Vestigial Side Band. For example, on channel 2, 54.00-55.25 is cruft, 55.25 is the video carrier, 55.25 to 59.5 is video, 59.5 to 60.0 is audio, 59.75 is the audio carrier.
The novelty of profanity has been worn out to the point where it doesn't have the desired effect anymore. Therefore, I subscribe to the alternative: Using unique and creative utterings to describe my feelings.
This way, after people get to know me, and get used to me being profanity-free, and then one day I get REALLY pissed off and say FUCK, they know I MEAN IT!:D
I hear you on that one! In some cases, I may swear in other languages to reduce the impact on my immediate neighbours (cautiously.... "Ay chinga!" in the wrong company is just as impactful as its English counterpart), but on more than one occasion when I have said "fuck", it has gotten the reaction "Holy shit! Glenn Swore!"
It can really be quite amusing.
On another note, apparently Slashdot's lameness filter doesn't filter out Slashdot's own lameness--I can't put the requisite inverted exclamation point in front of "Ay chinga!"... piece o' shit!
At least, I have never read about any analog sound recording technology that reaches the 96 dB signal/noise ratio at up to 22 kHz that is possible with CDs.
I know of two choices:
2-track quarter inch reel-to-reel running at no less than 7.5 IPS with dbx (gets >100dB, 18kHz is easy and 22kHz is not unreasonable)
VHS Hi-Fi (uses FM, gets 96dB/22kHz)
On the objective/subjective front, there are at least five axes I know of along which "quality" can be measured: distortion, dynamic range, signal-to-noise, wow and flutter, frequency response.
That said, how do you compare, objectively, a system with a 15Hz-27kHz +/-3dB frequency response curve but only 48dB or so S/N ratio to a system with 96dB S/N but a 20Hz-15kHz frequency response? Neither one is perfect, and the only way to rank the two against each other is subjectively.
The same goes with computers. Your example, of an "instance", I consider not that bad... How do you phrase that better? "GAIM is already running"? Since such errors usually happen when you have a ghost process, I suspect most users would find that even more frustrating (I know how my grandfather would react - "God damn it, if I already had it running I wouldn't have tried to start it, you worthless pile of (stream of obscenties ommitted)").
I've got an even better idea. One of the few things Lotus Notes got right.... If you click the icon, and there's already an instance running, move the focus to the instance that is already running! Duh!
Oh, and your peeve about the task bar - Drives me absolutely batty. To re-quote the grandfather, "God damn it, if I wanted to switch to that window, I'd click on it, you worthless pile of (stream of obscenties ommitted)!".:)
Don't even get me started there, dude! This is my single biggest pet peeve with Windows.
I've got another one, too. If you want to put up a splash screen to acknowledge that I clicked on you to start, that's fine. DO NOT, however, act as though that splash screen is the single most important window in the world by making it always-on-top and having no way to close, minize, move or otherwise get it the fuck out of my way so I can see the thing I was trying to click while waiting for you to start up.... This one is specifically directed at Lotus Notes.
hurricanes can hit New York, heck Toronto was hit by a hurricane
New York was hit by Hurricane Floyd in 1999, IIRC. The effects were felt at least as far north as Poughkeepsie. I was working as a consuntant at the time, and had a lot of downstate cancellations because of no power to run the computers that I was supposed to work on.
I don't know first hand, though, because I live upstate (Schenectady, to be precise, a little West of Albany). All we got was a lot of rain.
I have been using Freshmeat.net for seven or eight years. It is a great place to get open source material. It includes not only sourceforge projects, but other OSS and non-OSS projects as well. The search function seems to work well enough for me to find good solutions to my needs.
The British dude who created the Empeg in-dash MP3 player (which, I believe, was the first commercially-available in-dash MP3 player... and it runs Linux) originally developed it to use in his Mazda MX5 (Miata in North America). Is it karma that Mazda would, therefore, be the ones to try this out?
I totally forgot about the old Quasar video camera my family had bought around 1983, which utilized a Newvicon tube.
>
I miss that camera -- with it being big enough to sit on your shoulder, your videos weren't nearly as shaky as they are with camcorders small enough to slip into your wallet.
Amen to that! I had a Panasonic camcorder that I bought in 1986 or 1987, I don't remember exactly when. It was one of the last models they offered with a Newvicon tube, and I bought it at a severe discount because it was a discontinued item and the floor model at that. It shot on full-sized VHS casettes, and I used it for about eight years before its autoexposure and white balance went haywire.
I replaced it with a Sharp 8mm, which was pretty good, and I've since replaced that with a JVC DV, which is fantastic. The Sharp was par with the Panasonic, but just didn't have the same feel to it. The JVC also doesn't have the same feel. It's kind of like the relationship between vinyl and CD.... they're both good, but just feel different.
The JVC shoots very nice video. It is just that sometimes I long for that newvicon feel.
It would be wicked cool if someone introduced a Newvicon HDTV camera. It would be kind of on par conceptually with using tube amps for audio.
Most probably don't recognize what a Newvicon tube is; it is the predecessor to the CCD, and was used to make video cameras.
These cameras produced a stunning picture. Even at SDTV resolutions, the details were crisp and the colours were vibrant.
The place where the Newvicon tube fell down and the CCD did a better job was when it came to high-motion footage (e.g. sports). The Newvicon tube tended to blur the motion a tad.
A couple of years ago, I saw, on VH1 Classic, some footage of U2 in a live performance of Sunday Bloody Sunday shot around 1982 or so. It was clearly shot with a Newvicon, because the torches that were in the stage setting left streaks whenever the camera panned. The motion captured, otherwise, was super smooth.
I still have a good-sized collection of 80's and 90's (and some 70's) vinyly records. Some of them are a little scratched, but most of them sound great.
Actually, my collection has been growing in recent years as people are ditching their collections at yard sales.
Let me head off the likely next comment, though. Vinyl doesn't sound better than CD's, neither does it sound worse, for the most part. It sounds different. I have a good turntable, though, and that makes a big difference. The highs seem a tad crisper on my sound system from vinyl than from CD, but the noise floor is higher, and there is more frequent distortion on the vinyl.
Slashdot Mirror
If there was a current limited control on the entire engine system then it would work very well. But you would have to risk selling vehicles that don't do 0-60 in
Let me offer another view. (By the way, I remember the car you are talking about, it was called a Uniq. Popular Science gave it a nice write-up) What was lacking then that is available now is good battery technology. As a proof-of-concept, a company based in California built a very nice prototype electric (not hybrid) sports car.
The car was the T-Zero, built by AC Propulsion. They built four of them, primarily as a test platform for a drive train they were developing. There was a dramatic improvement in performance between the third and fourth prototypes. #3 went from 0-60 in 4.7s, if I recall correctly, and #4 in 4.3s. The real difference, though, was in the range. #3 had a range of 60-100 miles, and #4 had a range of 300-450 miles. Both had regenerative braking. The difference between #3 and #4 was that #3 used a lead-acid battery and #4 used a lithium ion battery pack. This both reduced the weight of the car and increased the current-handling ability of the pack.
The exact same principle is applicable in a hybrid car. The only difference, in the case of a serial hybrid, is the presence of the engine-driven generator. Applying newer battery technology to the problem might solve the explosive issue of current handling.
P.S. On the issue of hybrid vs. diesel, I'd like to suggest, instead, hybrid plus diesel, i.e. hybrid with a diesel engine.
Wow, that was lame. I was trying to say it is one of those f^<k!ng Mirrordot-proof sites that insists on putting each sentence on a different page.
Slashdotted already.
Even worse, it's one of thos f^
I believe that you are holding a majority opinion there. I have recently come to that opinion myself. Let me tell you why.
About three years ago, I bought a HDTV. It was a low-end model, a 27" 4:3 Samsung, but it can take an input of 480i, 480p or 1080i. There were a couple of others in its price class, but the point that sold me on this TV was that it included a line doubler so that 480i input would get upgraded to 480p. SDTV has never looked better.
The problem, however is that it has only analogue inputs. Composite, S-Video, Component. No DVI, no HDMI, and, obviously, it therefore has no HDCP ability.
With both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray consortia declaring independently of each other that they will not allow any player to produce >480p through analogue outputs, and that HDMI+HDCP is required to get HD output from these players, it officially puts HD-DVD and Blu-Ray at precicely the same level of usefulness I already enjoy from my DVD player. Without upgrading my TV (which, historically, I do very infrequently), HD-DVD and Blu-Ray give me no advantage, despite having a HDTV.
I feel violated. When I bought my TV, I went out of my way to get one that I believed would be highly future-resistant. As the early adopter who helped fund the R+D, I got boned. Well, fuck 'em. Who needs 'em?
Ironically, Sony are one of the few big names whose set top DVD recorders ARE dual format.
Also, Lite-On has an all-format DVDR under the make of "All Write." IIRC, I think it may work with DVD-RAM as well as DVD[{+|-}R[W]].... not that anyone cares.
Seriously though, its a wonder to me that each device continues to insist on its own PSU
I have a project on the drawing board to deal with this. The power supply will primarily be 12V, with the primary being a mains-powered converter, and the secondary being a bundle of batteries. A Mini-Box DC-DC converter will be snapped to each motherboard (these are about 95% efficient), cable modem already runs on 12VDC (so it would just be tied into the power rail) and I have some custom work on the drawing board to set up a DC source for switches, etc.
Also, high-efficiency lighting and some other non-computer equipement (CB + 2 ham radios) are in the plan also to run off of these 12VDC rails.
Before anyone mentions it, no, POE isn't in my plan, nor is it likely to be.
When you write on the silvery label you're actually writing on the back of the recording medium.
Of CDs: true. Of DVDs: False. DVDs sandwich the recording medium between two layers of substrate, rather than having it sprayed on the one side of the disc. This has several benefits:
On labels, we have a problem here at my workplace in that we receive data from a certain other department on DVD. Regulations require that the DVD be labelled in a particular fashion (doesn't say use a label, does say $wordy_legal_boilerplate must appear on the disc) and the other department refuses to cease using sticky labels to do this. Our department all use laptop computers (because we all have to work weekends from home occasionally) and the sticky label causes the disc to warp slightly as it heats up in our machines, thus causing it to stop being legible after about 15 minutes unless you keep it 100% spun up the entire time. Labels on optical discs are evil
I think you're confusing probaility with randomness. Cards are dealt in poker at random, but it is still possible (though improbable) to get a straight 5 hands in a row.
Your point is taken. I have had a game recently where I got quads in one hand (8's), and a straight royal flush in the next (10-J-Q-K-A spades). Too bad we weren't playing for money :(
However, I play poker nearly every day. I fly once every few years. I have not flown since this six of six incident, which was about four years ago, and it had been a few years before that since I'd previously flown. (I'm stating that mostly to indicate that I don't fly much, but that my not flying much has little to nothing to do with 9/11 or the six of six incident).
Right or wrong, there is no doubt that "random selection" has become a euphemism for racial profiling.
Well, my firsthand experience is that it is not racial, but definitely not random. I took a trip early in 2002 from Albany NY to Tulsa OK, which involved three flights each direction. Somehow, I got "randomly" selected six times out of six. That's not very random.
Sure it's illegal as all hell, but when the balloon goes up who cares?
Normally I don't answer ACs, but this one needs a response.
The last thing we need when the shit hits the fan is a bunch of untrained idiots clouding up the airwaves. Get the licence, then get the experience operating. Not only do you increas your odds of survival, but you also decrease the chance that you will aid in someone else's demise.
Get trained, or get off the air!
Six MEGAHERTZ??
I know, amazing, isn't it? ATV is the same way.
Digital TV is also 6 MHz wide, but the broadcasters don't have the bandwidth so rigidly allocated, and can run multiplexed signals over it at reduced bitrates.
The part that is most out of place in analogue TV is the 1.25MHz of cruft at the bottom of the signal. That's the result of mid-20th century technology being state of the art when the standards were defined. In a more modern context, they would probably have gone with USB with full carrier rather than VSB-- putting the carrier right on the channel boundary, or at least a lot closer to it than it is. This would have given either (a) a sharper picture or (b) a lower bandwidth.
Incidentally, if memory serves me, European TVs are 8MHz wide, which is partly (though not fully) responsible for PAL producing a more detailed picture than NTSC (typically 400 lines vs. 320).
Taking it a step further, Japan has (or had, not sure) the MUSE standard, which is a superset of NTSC. MUSE TVs use 12MHz to produce a high-definition picture in the analogue domain.
73 DE KC2IDF
See and this is why its good to have ham radio friends :)
Exactly.
I realised after I posted, though, that I think I may have overstated the bandwidth on the audio. I was working with that off the top of my head.
Oh well. The principle is still good. 73 DE KC2IDF.
Since my question is off topic, I will post AC. I have a dumb question (there are no dumb questions, just dumb people asking questions...). Is it possible to be a Ham if you don't have anywhere to mount the antennae? Like if one lives in an apartment?
Not a dumb question, and not really off topic, either, I think. The mods can differ with me if they want; I've got karma to burn.
Yes. It is limiting, but not a show stopper.
Ham radios themselves come in all shapes and sizes, from some very tiny radios that will fit in a shirt pocket to some monsters that will take up a rack or two.
Ham radio has a number of different bands (usually referred to by approximate wavelength, e.g. 2m, 6m, 10m, etc) that have different behaviours. The longer the wavelength of the band, the larger the ideal antenna would be. It is possible, however, to operate with a less-than-ideal antenna.
For shorter-ranged bands (70cm, ~440MHz, 2m, ~144MHz) it is possible to put the standard ideal antenna (a 1/4 wave is pretty standard) on a hand-held radio. It's a little awkward at 2m, but doable. You can also use what is called a "loaded" antenna, where there is a coil somewhere that makes the antenna resonate despite being too short.
For 2m, I most frequently use a hand-held radio, and it has a little 10" "rubber duck" antenna on it. I can put the radio on my belt and the antenna is short enough that it mostly stays out of trouble.
For 10m, I have a wire antenna in the attic that is about 7.5m long. It could be shorter if it needed to be.
The trouble is that the lower bands are the really-long range bands, and it takes a good antenna to be able to use them well.
You can also see if there are any ham radio clubs in your area that have sufficiently-equipped radio rooms. I am the treasurer of the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association and we have a reasonably well-equipped radio room that is available to any member who can demonstrate competence in using it and has the appropriate licence.
That's probably a longer answer than you expected, but I am very passionate about radio, and it is difficult for me to give short answers.... sorry :)
And finding a way to listen the Hams is always good, even when you aren't in an emergency.
For that matter, it also doesn't hurt to become a ham. It isn't that hard.
73 DE KC2IDF
As anyone who has lived in the 3rd world can tell you, you can pick up TV on ordinary FM radios it is a matter of tuning it to the right frequency. I have seen these things in Asia for years.
This is 100% dependent on the frequency structure in the country in which you are located. To do this with an "ordinary" FM radio in the US, you can only pick up channel 6, at 87.75MHz (with 87.7 being close enough). If you have one of the Japanese radios that has extended coverage to do both the Japanese 72-93MHz FM and the American/European 88-108MHz FM bands, then you can also get audio from US TV stations on channels 4 (75.75MHz) and 5 (81.75MHz).
There are other radios out there that have got TV audio capability on them. They frequently only cover channels 2-13 because it is easier to build a VHF than a UHF radio.
For reference, the frequencies are as follows:
Channels 2-6: 59.75, 65.75, 75.75, 81.75, 87.75 (note the gap betwen 3 and 4 is 10MHz, not 6MHz as elsewhere)
Channels 7-13: 179.75, 185.75, 191.75, 197.75, 203.75, 209.75, 215.75
Channels 14-69: 475.75, 481.75, 487.75, etc, every six MHz up to 805.75
Note also that frequencies within any vacant TV channels in the channel 14-20 range (470-512MHz) may also be licenced to business or public safety two-way radio users, especially in larger metro areas.
Last note, which I am providing to explain the huge gap between frequencies: the structure of a TV channel is this: It is 6MHz wide. The audio is 5.75MHz from the bottom of the channel, and uses the upper .5MHz of the channel (that is, 5.75MHz +/- .25MHz). The video is at 1.25MHz from the bottom of the channel to 5.5MHz from the bottom of the channel. Below the 1.25MHz point is cruft called a Vestigial Side Band. For example, on channel 2, 54.00-55.25 is cruft, 55.25 is the video carrier, 55.25 to 59.5 is video, 59.5 to 60.0 is audio, 59.75 is the audio carrier.
The novelty of profanity has been worn out to the point where it doesn't have the desired effect anymore. Therefore, I subscribe to the alternative: Using unique and creative utterings to describe my feelings.
This way, after people get to know me, and get used to me being profanity-free, and then one day I get REALLY pissed off and say FUCK, they know I MEAN IT! :D
I hear you on that one! In some cases, I may swear in other languages to reduce the impact on my immediate neighbours (cautiously.... "Ay chinga!" in the wrong company is just as impactful as its English counterpart), but on more than one occasion when I have said "fuck", it has gotten the reaction "Holy shit! Glenn Swore!"
It can really be quite amusing.
On another note, apparently Slashdot's lameness filter doesn't filter out Slashdot's own lameness--I can't put the requisite inverted exclamation point in front of "Ay chinga!"... piece o' shit!
I would like to see some words changed to swear words though . . . perhaps also Blogging as it does sound like some odd fetish sex act
Bloggery!
Sounds a lot like "buggery", doesn't it?
At least, I have never read about any analog sound recording technology that reaches the 96 dB signal/noise ratio at up to 22 kHz that is possible with CDs.
I know of two choices:
On the objective/subjective front, there are at least five axes I know of along which "quality" can be measured: distortion, dynamic range, signal-to-noise, wow and flutter, frequency response.
That said, how do you compare, objectively, a system with a 15Hz-27kHz +/-3dB frequency response curve but only 48dB or so S/N ratio to a system with 96dB S/N but a 20Hz-15kHz frequency response? Neither one is perfect, and the only way to rank the two against each other is subjectively.
The same goes with computers. Your example, of an "instance", I consider not that bad... How do you phrase that better? "GAIM is already running"? Since such errors usually happen when you have a ghost process, I suspect most users would find that even more frustrating (I know how my grandfather would react - "God damn it, if I already had it running I wouldn't have tried to start it, you worthless pile of (stream of obscenties ommitted)").
I've got an even better idea. One of the few things Lotus Notes got right.... If you click the icon, and there's already an instance running, move the focus to the instance that is already running! Duh!
Oh, and your peeve about the task bar - Drives me absolutely batty. To re-quote the grandfather, "God damn it, if I wanted to switch to that window, I'd click on it, you worthless pile of (stream of obscenties ommitted)!". :)
Don't even get me started there, dude! This is my single biggest pet peeve with Windows.
I've got another one, too. If you want to put up a splash screen to acknowledge that I clicked on you to start, that's fine. DO NOT, however, act as though that splash screen is the single most important window in the world by making it always-on-top and having no way to close, minize, move or otherwise get it the fuck out of my way so I can see the thing I was trying to click while waiting for you to start up.... This one is specifically directed at Lotus Notes.
hurricanes can hit New York, heck Toronto was hit by a hurricane
New York was hit by Hurricane Floyd in 1999, IIRC. The effects were felt at least as far north as Poughkeepsie. I was working as a consuntant at the time, and had a lot of downstate cancellations because of no power to run the computers that I was supposed to work on.
I don't know first hand, though, because I live upstate (Schenectady, to be precise, a little West of Albany). All we got was a lot of rain.
I have been using Freshmeat.net for seven or eight years. It is a great place to get open source material. It includes not only sourceforge projects, but other OSS and non-OSS projects as well. The search function seems to work well enough for me to find good solutions to my needs.
The British dude who created the Empeg in-dash MP3 player (which, I believe, was the first commercially-available in-dash MP3 player... and it runs Linux) originally developed it to use in his Mazda MX5 (Miata in North America). Is it karma that Mazda would, therefore, be the ones to try this out?
I totally forgot about the old Quasar video camera my family had bought around 1983, which utilized a Newvicon tube.
> I miss that camera -- with it being big enough to sit on your shoulder, your videos weren't nearly as shaky as they are with camcorders small enough to slip into your wallet.
Amen to that! I had a Panasonic camcorder that I bought in 1986 or 1987, I don't remember exactly when. It was one of the last models they offered with a Newvicon tube, and I bought it at a severe discount because it was a discontinued item and the floor model at that. It shot on full-sized VHS casettes, and I used it for about eight years before its autoexposure and white balance went haywire.
I replaced it with a Sharp 8mm, which was pretty good, and I've since replaced that with a JVC DV, which is fantastic. The Sharp was par with the Panasonic, but just didn't have the same feel to it. The JVC also doesn't have the same feel. It's kind of like the relationship between vinyl and CD.... they're both good, but just feel different.
The JVC shoots very nice video. It is just that sometimes I long for that newvicon feel.
It would be wicked cool if someone introduced a Newvicon HDTV camera. It would be kind of on par conceptually with using tube amps for audio.
Most probably don't recognize what a Newvicon tube is; it is the predecessor to the CCD, and was used to make video cameras.
These cameras produced a stunning picture. Even at SDTV resolutions, the details were crisp and the colours were vibrant.
The place where the Newvicon tube fell down and the CCD did a better job was when it came to high-motion footage (e.g. sports). The Newvicon tube tended to blur the motion a tad.
A couple of years ago, I saw, on VH1 Classic, some footage of U2 in a live performance of Sunday Bloody Sunday shot around 1982 or so. It was clearly shot with a Newvicon, because the torches that were in the stage setting left streaks whenever the camera panned. The motion captured, otherwise, was super smooth.
I still have a good-sized collection of 80's and 90's (and some 70's) vinyly records. Some of them are a little scratched, but most of them sound great.
Actually, my collection has been growing in recent years as people are ditching their collections at yard sales.
Let me head off the likely next comment, though. Vinyl doesn't sound better than CD's, neither does it sound worse, for the most part. It sounds different. I have a good turntable, though, and that makes a big difference. The highs seem a tad crisper on my sound system from vinyl than from CD, but the noise floor is higher, and there is more frequent distortion on the vinyl.