Most modern receivers allow to set speaker delay, so this problem can easily be fixed by increasing the delay by 60ms. TV and movies should be ok; it won't fix gaming and videocon sync problems though.
I love how everyone seems to be bitchin' and moanin' about projector's limited bulb life. I was worried about it too when I was choosing my projector but then did some math and calmed down.
The bulb life on my Sony VPL-HS20 is 3000 hours in "cinema mode". I figure that with my schedule I won't be able to watch more than 1 hour per day (aside from an occasional LOR marathon). So that gives me a whooping 3,000 days before bulb goes caput. That's over 8 friggin' years! I figure that in eight years technology will advance so far that instead of spending $$$ on a new bulb I'll get a new projector or whatever the imaging device de la creme will be. (300dpi wall-to-wall imaging nanopaper, anyone?)
As for people saying that projectors are expesnive, I have to disagree. I get an eyepopping 120" diag. image for under $3K. Even if plasma screen of this size existed, it would probably cost over $100K. Of course, a nice Home Theater PC that is hooked up to the projector through DVI and an excellent 120" sceeen from Carada.com cost me an extra 1.5K, it is still a bargain. The only drawback is that the room has to be relatively dark, but this is not a problem in my case because it is in the basement.
For some reason I haven't seen many laptops with DVI output.
This is a very useful feature especially if you have a dedicated home theater and would like to occasionally hook up your laptop to use the "big screen".
Athlon64 3200+ 1G RAM 200G Maxtor HD ATI Radeon 9800 Pro DVD ROM, 1 Gigabit Ethernet
The total was $1,280 (including shipping) So why would I want to pay almost 3x to get a 9 pound monster? The 2K+ premium for (semi)portability is simply too high...
For those poor souls who are still using IE, there is an easy way to verify that you are indeed lead to a correct site - just right-click on the page in question and choose properties. URL displayed there is not truncated.
I know it is a pain, but it is much easier than copying URL, restarting IE, and then pasting it back in...
At first glance, blacklisting spammers might seem like a good idea, and it even might produce positive results in a short term, just like prohibition did. In a long run, however, it will make things worse because "hardcore" spammers will adopt to get around blacklisting while countless businesses will suffer from being blacklisted in error. One other dangerous side effect is that blacklisting may be used as a tool of political censorship.
It is clear that more fundamental solution is needed. How about making use of micropayments so that sender's account is charged some nominal amount that goes into receiver's account? Otherwise, e-mail gets bounced. This should have almost no impact on the average Joe user who sends a few dozen e-mails per week. However, it might wipe out spammers profit margin since real spammers need to send millions of e-mail out to make a decent living.
I've just seen this awesome commercial on Tech TV by the "Video Professor". It said "buy three CDs for the price of one and learn everything you want to know about computers in a matter of hours!"
Kylix is (was?) a pretty decent app, but I have a feeling that even a great developer's app won't make an average UNIX developer much more productive vs. using plain old emacs. Things are very different in MS Windows programming world where I see a serious API bloat, and it would be very frustrating to get around without things like AutoComplete, ClassView and context-sensitive help. They would come in handy in UNIX app but they won't be nearly as useful.
This pales when compared to some other things AWOL is doing to their unsuspecting customer's machines. Over several years of having to support numerous AOL users, I came across and had to work around over a dozen changes it silently performs that break other programs.
A few that come to mind:
It transparently converts all.jpg and.gif files requested over HTTP to its proprietary ART format.
It replaces many system.dlls with its own version.
It breaks so many things in its Web Browser (which is basically an IE container) that when combined with numerous native IE bugs makes supporting it a nightmare.
They cache content so aggressively that they ignore no-caching directive in HTTP request header when they choose to
I know that AOL is getting it up their butt financially, and I can't say I feel sorry for them.
Based on my personal experience, I'd expect at least one third of all Win95, Win98 and Millennium to crash 2+ times a day.
As for NT, Win2k and WinXP, I'd expect them to crash much less frequently. In fact, I can't even remember Win2k or XP ever BSODing on me "out of the blue" and I do quite a bit of development on them at work. I think a great majority of BSODs on these systems happens due to a faulty hardware (like RAM), or crappy drivers. So, mod me down all you want, but MS got over BSOD hurdle starting Win2K.
That is not to say that there are no stability issues. I bet if I were to count number of times I had to reboot my system after:
a. Applying security update b. Installing some seemingly innocuous application c. Having my system become unbearably slow after copying/moving/deleting a large number of files. d. Having my system go nuts with IE windows coming up dead, apps failing or taking forever to start, windows not repainting properly, etc.
Every time I come back to my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop, even after a short break, I get an electric shock of orgasmic proportions the first time I touch Ctrl key. I can actually see a quarter-inch lightning bolt piercing the air. I had to come up with a solution to avoid electrocution - I take a straightened out paper clip and touch Ctrl key with it first... then watch sparks fly.
How come there was no recall on my laptop? I am jealous!
Public transportation, standing in the open, and moving at high speed don't go well together. They are having problems at 9km/h and if they go much beyond that, more people are bound to freak out and make things ugly for the rest.
I think this problem was solved rather elegantly for downhill skiing lifts. Have you ever used a gondola-type lift? The idea is that multiple carts hung on a steel belt carry (sitting) people up the mountain at high speed. The tricky part is that when such cart approaches the landing zone, it is transferred from the rope onto rails. It decelerates and people get out. As it (slowly) rolls forward, it gets hooked on a belt again and picks up the speed.
Using this system for transportation makes even more sense since in the mountains it is (mostly) used for moving people in one direction whereas both directions can be utilized in this case. As for the cost, I think it will be much cheaper than the mountain version and quite competitive with the "travelator". After all, for a mountain lift, a bulk of the cost goes into making this system super-safe AND it has to function under extreme weather conditions (wind, cold, snow, ice, etc.). This should not be the case here.
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Most modern receivers allow to set speaker delay, so this problem can easily be fixed by increasing the delay by 60ms. TV and movies should be ok; it won't fix gaming and videocon sync problems though.
I love how everyone seems to be bitchin' and moanin' about projector's limited bulb life. I was worried about it too when I was choosing my projector but then did some math and calmed down.
The bulb life on my Sony VPL-HS20 is 3000 hours in "cinema mode". I figure that with my schedule I won't be able to watch more than 1 hour per day (aside from an occasional LOR marathon). So that gives me a whooping 3,000 days before bulb goes caput. That's over 8 friggin' years! I figure that in eight years technology will advance so far that instead of spending $$$ on a new bulb I'll get a new projector or whatever the imaging device de la creme will be. (300dpi wall-to-wall imaging nanopaper, anyone?)
As for people saying that projectors are expesnive, I have to disagree. I get an eyepopping 120" diag. image for under $3K. Even if plasma screen of this size existed, it would probably cost over $100K. Of course, a nice Home Theater PC that is hooked up to the projector through DVI and an excellent 120" sceeen from Carada.com cost me an extra 1.5K, it is still a bargain. The only drawback is that the room has to be relatively dark, but this is not a problem in my case because it is in the basement.
TPS reports, anyone?
Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Dirac, Faraday, Planck, Kelvin, Maxwell and Einstein believed in God. So do I.
Not to pick on you, but didn't the author just warn you against group think?
For some reason I haven't seen many laptops with DVI output. This is a very useful feature especially if you have a dedicated home theater and would like to occasionally hook up your laptop to use the "big screen".
I recently purchased the following system:
Athlon64 3200+
1G RAM
200G Maxtor HD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
DVD ROM, 1 Gigabit Ethernet
The total was $1,280 (including shipping)
So why would I want to pay almost 3x to get a 9 pound monster? The 2K+ premium for (semi)portability is simply too high...
Since the Opportunity's hardware is identical to Spirit, it has on average 19 days before freaking out.
It is good that Spirit's problem seems to be under control, so if something similar happens to Opportunity, the cure is already avaliable.
I this a more humane version of SCO, perhaps?
For those poor souls who are still using IE, there is an easy way to verify that you are indeed lead to a correct site - just right-click on the page in question and choose properties. URL displayed there is not truncated.
I know it is a pain, but it is much easier than copying URL, restarting IE, and then pasting it back in...
does not include assembly[!] or optional extras
Wait a second... you mean parachute is an extra???
At first glance, blacklisting spammers might seem like a good idea, and it even might produce positive results in a short term, just like prohibition did. In a long run, however, it will make things worse because "hardcore" spammers will adopt to get around blacklisting while countless businesses will suffer from being blacklisted in error. One other dangerous side effect is that blacklisting may be used as a tool of political censorship.
It is clear that more fundamental solution is needed. How about making use of micropayments so that sender's account is charged some nominal amount that goes into receiver's account? Otherwise, e-mail gets bounced. This should have almost no impact on the average Joe user who sends a few dozen e-mails per week. However, it might wipe out spammers profit margin since real spammers need to send millions of e-mail out to make a decent living.
I've just seen this awesome commercial on Tech TV by the "Video Professor". It said "buy three CDs for the price of one and learn everything you want to know about computers in a matter of hours!"
Now, how cool is that!!!
Kylix is (was?) a pretty decent app, but I have a feeling that even a great developer's app won't make an average UNIX developer much more productive vs. using plain old emacs. Things are very different in MS Windows programming world where I see a serious API bloat, and it would be very frustrating to get around without things like AutoComplete, ClassView and context-sensitive help. They would come in handy in UNIX app but they won't be nearly as useful.
Over several years of having to support numerous AOL users, I came across and had to work around over a dozen changes it silently performs that break other programs.
A few that come to mind:
- It transparently converts all
.jpg and .gif files requested over HTTP to its proprietary ART format. - It replaces many system
.dlls with its own version. - It breaks so many things in its Web Browser (which is basically an IE container) that when combined with numerous native IE bugs makes supporting it a nightmare.
- They cache content so aggressively that they ignore no-caching directive in HTTP request header when they choose to
I know that AOL is getting it up their butt financially, and I can't say I feel sorry for them.and, BTW, hackers are committing suicide at Microsoft's firewalls...
frolicking in the reality distortion field...
Based on my personal experience, I'd expect at least one third of all Win95, Win98 and Millennium to crash 2+ times a day.
As for NT, Win2k and WinXP, I'd expect them to crash much less frequently. In fact, I can't even remember Win2k or XP ever BSODing on me "out of the blue" and I do quite a bit of development on them at work. I think a great majority of BSODs on these systems happens due to a faulty hardware (like RAM), or crappy drivers. So, mod me down all you want, but MS got over BSOD hurdle starting Win2K.
That is not to say that there are no stability issues. I bet if I were to count number of times I had to reboot my system after:
a. Applying security update
b. Installing some seemingly innocuous application
c. Having my system become unbearably slow after copying/moving/deleting a large number of files.
d. Having my system go nuts with IE windows coming up dead, apps failing or taking forever to start, windows not repainting properly, etc.
those 5% could easily double.
Every time I come back to my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop, even after a short break, I get an electric shock of orgasmic proportions the first time I touch Ctrl key. I can actually see a quarter-inch lightning bolt piercing the air. I had to come up with a solution to avoid electrocution - I take a straightened out paper clip and touch Ctrl key with it first... then watch sparks fly.
How come there was no recall on my laptop? I am jealous!
Have you seen those awesome hovercrafts in Matrix? Recall all the lightning around them? These must be it: "Nebukadnezar - powered by ionic wind!"
Public transportation, standing in the open, and moving at high speed don't go well together. They are having problems at 9km/h and if they go much beyond that, more people are bound to freak out and make things ugly for the rest. I think this problem was solved rather elegantly for downhill skiing lifts. Have you ever used a gondola-type lift? The idea is that multiple carts hung on a steel belt carry (sitting) people up the mountain at high speed. The tricky part is that when such cart approaches the landing zone, it is transferred from the rope onto rails. It decelerates and people get out. As it (slowly) rolls forward, it gets hooked on a belt again and picks up the speed. Using this system for transportation makes even more sense since in the mountains it is (mostly) used for moving people in one direction whereas both directions can be utilized in this case. As for the cost, I think it will be much cheaper than the mountain version and quite competitive with the "travelator". After all, for a mountain lift, a bulk of the cost goes into making this system super-safe AND it has to function under extreme weather conditions (wind, cold, snow, ice, etc.). This should not be the case here.
the end of tatoo industry as we know it!