When I saw the article, it was only about a MINUTE old, and had ZERO comments. No, I did NOT expect it to have *already* been Slashdotted. I'm glad I was quick enough to at least get the Coral servers to grab SOMETHING as the deluge began, so people could at least see a *portion* of the site before it's servers smoldered.
It would appear that the Coral servers are acquiring bits and pieces as they are able. When I reloaded the link, I was able to see much more of the site than at first. Be patient... and try reloading in a few minutes.
It should be standard procedure when posting any article to Slashdot, to run it though Coral *FIRST*, so their servers can load and mirror everything. Then post the Coral link.
Same with my wife's laptop. I tried to explain to her that it is NOT running Windows, it was running LINUX (Ubuntu) so "Windows" errors were IMPOSSIBLE! She doesn't quite understand, so I just told her that if she sees anything like it again, to ONLY click the little [x] in the upper right.
Thankfully, no harm was actually done... but it did take forcing Firefox to close, then forcing another dialog to close to stop the loop!
The only thing she uses that computer for is Facebook, so there really is nothing of any value on it. That's why I installed Ubuntu on that machine... to keep it, and the rest of my LAN, safe!:)
There have been all too many jokes about this topic. It is good to see some serious thought and discussion about it.
Since "artificial gravity" is easily created with rotation, conception and pregnancy would have to be within a rotating chamber at least until the embryo develops far enough to tolerate zero-G without adverse effects.
I was aware of this rumor, which I believe Wr Wright confirmed in some interview somewhere. If my rusty memory banks are working right, I believe that the Sims emerged when the rest of the staff realized how much fun they were having with the little characters in it. Adding some AI and a lot more "personality" to the little people tuned it into a very different game than was originally planned... and a huge cash cow for EA.
Despite its limitations, they really did a pretty decent job of mixing realism into the mayhem with Sims 1. (As evidenced by some of the other "sadistic" comments here about ways to kill-off the Sims. Not my cup of tea. I prefer creativity over destruction.)
There is no question that the architectural design features of The Sims 1 are quite good. Now, I hear that they have already released Sims 3? Sheesh! I haven't even had a chance to try 2 yet! IMHO, the most interesting expansion for 2 looks like "Open for Business". (I'm sure I could spend far too many hours with that.)
There are lots of ways to do unusual things with The Sims. With Sims 1, you could add custom content, but had to use 3'rd party utilities that tended to rank rather high on the Geek scale in order to be able to use. Sims 2 gives you much more flexibility and in-game tools to create objects for the game. I wonder how much further they went with Sims 3, to give users the ability to add/modify/tweak things in the game.
The more advanced the users and the AI of the game, the more amazing things can be done/happen/made-to-happen.
I've used The Sims (1) to create some rather nice and pseudo-realistic drafts of some ideas my wife and I have for an expansion/remodel of our house. It worked quite well, despoite the limitations of this version of the game. Just create some random Sim, plop him on the property, pause the game, use the "rosebud;!;" cheat to rack up the Simoleans, and go to town.
I would like to try this with the Sims 2, seeing it provides much more flexibility and realism for such things. For now, though, those are my major "out-of-game" adventures.;)
I cannot even remember when I bought my first digital camera, (early 2001?) but I paid MORE than $430 for it. It's a Sony, with 3.2 megapixels. No audio, and very low-res "movies". Devours AA batteries. 1" built-in LCD screen. It still takes great pix, so I'm still using it.
We've come a long way. A similar camera nowadays is built into a cheap cell phone!
I am going to be looking for these to come onto the market. I kid you not. These are the coolest toys *ever*. I'm sure my nieces and nephews will love them, too.;)
Seriously, though, not only can they be a lot of fun just to "play" with, there is no question that they can be used as teaching tools. I also forsee educational/mind-stimulating uses with handicapped persons and "Special needs" children.
They are all around us... laptops, PDA's, etc. Even your TV remote! Much lower bitrates, obviously. Essentially, these guys used a laser beam instead of a simple LED.
Kicking it up to just above a Terabit per second is an impressive feat of technology. Unfortrunately, the range and throughput of such a system would be limited by various environmental factors- dust, smoke, and water vapor. Not to mention the power of the sun, outdoors. You also have numerous other sources of light pollution getting in the way. Using it within existing tunnels might be one way of avoiding stringing fiber through them... but it wouldn't take much to disrupt the beam. A spider's web in just the wrong place, for example, where the spider or one of its victims blocks the beam.
Still, it's pretty cool to get the data that fast through the air.
Your old school did, indeed, do the right thing. This one is not. The guy came forward with what he discovered, in good faith! It gives them the opportunity of preventing a malicious person from causing real damage... and they are going to punish him for this? That's just wrong.
In fact, it could theoretically turn many others into "black hats" that will go after them, just because they were so hard-nosed with this guy who was, let's be honest, doing them a favor!
Time for that school to get a clue. I'm really disappointed in their actions.
In my many years in Radio, I've digitized a considerable amount of music from LP's and 45's. In most cases, I could get moderately scratchy cuts to sound almost new. The transformation is pretty impressive, to say the least! However, I wouldn't even THINK of compressing it to MP3 until AFTER I had run it through an audio clean-up utility, like Cool Edit or Audacity.
I wonder how badly the MP3 compression affects the music with all of that hiss and crackle taking-up so much bandwidth? Also, how much would the compression artifacts affect the ability of the clean-up utility to do its job?
I think it is a laudable thing to preserve some of this priceless music! Kudos!
The majority of the links on the site (pictures, etc.) are now coming up "Unavailable" or 404 errors. It's lying to us... apparently it doesn't know how to say "I can't take it anymore!!!"
Can you tell me more about this "unofficial service pack"? This sounds VERY interesting! How much of XP's positive features does it bring into 98SE?
Another issue about keeping 98SE going is NEW HARDWARE. It doesn't know how to install itself from an SATA drive, for example. (I tried it... it bombed, bigtime.) Of course, new hardware does still have IDE capability... so I may just go with an IDE for the OS, and everything else goes onto the SATA drive. (I also keep OS images for all of my machines! For this machine, I clone the whole HD regularly.)
You're also right about 98SE being **MINE** (so-to-speak). I have bought a number of legitimate CD's of it over the years. (When I built someone a new box, I always got a "new" copy of the OS for it, just in case, and to keep everything legal.) It's nice that it doesn't "phone home" like XP, and isn't deliberately multimedia-CRIPPLED like Vista. I edit audio for a living, so I cannot tolerate that kind of garbage even for a moment! (I work for a radio station.)
Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it! Slashdot is a good resource, when you get connected with the right people.:)
My needs and wants really haven't changed much. Seriously. Personally, I absolutely *abhor* all this stupid "flash" garbage on so many WEBsites these days! EEEE-NUFF already! Gahhh! >:P Hey, different strokes, right?;)
Seriously, though, I am having no problems loading any sites on any of my systems. They come up very quickly with my 8Mbps download pipes! The only problems I see are with busy sites, where the *server* is getting hammered, and the activity light on the router just blinks, rather than lights "steady".
Even with "only" 256M of RAM on a 1900MHz machine, my FireFox 1.5 is doing great! (At work, it's a 2800MHz machine, 512M RAM. EVERY machine is AMD, BTW.) I think that the only reason a pre-XP machine can't keep up, is because so many people have so much CRAP installed, it's a wonder the poor machine even boots at all! (One machine I worked on took *five minutes* just to boot!!! When I was done, 40 seconds.)
I have seen as many as a DOZEN icons in the System Tray! (That machine, above.) I have uninstalled/disabled lots of that kind of crap for people over the years, and they have all remarked at how much faster their machines run, and how much more stable they are, too! Another thing that often gets overlooked in 98SE is the DMA setting for the HD! I have seen up to 400% speed increases just by turning that on! (It defaults off.)
I do know that the world, she is a-changing. I don't even know if I could get replacements for the MoBo's & processors anymore. (AMD XP1900+ & XP2800+) I recently built a machine for a friend with one of the newer 64bit AMD's (the 940 pin, I think) with XP and a SATA drive. 98SE wouldn't even install on that hardware. (I tried it just as a test.)
So, unfortunately, it's going to have to be either XP or a good Linux box for my next major upgrade. My plan is to build a machine to function as a DVR to replace the aging VCR, so that I can use it like a "Tivo", and burn some good shows to DVD. I know that there are a good number of fancy video cards that will handle this, and plenty of cool software for Linux. The other (expensive, IMHO) option is XP... but I really dislike it's "phone home" crap. Vista? HA! Not a chance! >:P
So, if this machine keeps meeting my needs for another 10 years, I will probably still be using it.:) I still have some perfectly good older boxes up and running, dating back to 1996! (AMD K6/133's, P2/200's, etc.)
That's a very good question. First, myself and my employer are not at all into gaming.:) These machines are used mostly for Internet research or general surfing/e-mailing, as well as audio editing & word processing. (I work for a radio station.) At home, I would rather be using interactive sites like Slashdot, than playing a game. (I do have The Sims 1 and Sim City 4 that I play once in a blue moon, tho.)
The other reason should be obvious: *Familiarity*! I have been using/tinkering with Windows since V3.11 in the 80's. 98SE does absolutely *everything* I *need*...
1) It runs Cool Edit 2000 (abandonware) which is simply the best audio editor for the $$. (Was $70)
2) It runs Office 97. "Old"? Sure... but it does *everything* we *need* and more. Why change?:)
3) It runs *all* of my Ham Radio related software.
4) I already own it!:) (Several *original* "Genuine MS" CD's, in fact.)
5) It's quite easy to reinstall. No need for "workarounds" to satiate it's need to call MotherShip.
I could go on... but I think this makes the point rather nicely.;)
Linux is cool, and I have nothing against it. (I've used it to rescue files from crashed XP drives.)
My philosophy is: Why change just for change sake? Someday, yes, I know that I am going to have to make that change, and start running full-blown Linux systems... but as long as 98SE continues to run *everything* I need to run, and does it well, why change?
Oh yeah- these machines *seldom* crash. There are only the time, speaker, and Zone Alarm icons down in the "System Tray". 97% resources free at bootup. Not too shabby.
Did you not read my post, where I mentioned doing scans with AdAware & Spybot? That's on top of regular virus scans. (I didn't think I needed to spell it out so explicitly. Next time, I will know better.) I assure you, these boxes are clean. ZoneAlarm is our 2'nd line of defense. Believe me, if anything got past the router, it's highly unlikely to get past *that*.
I have at least a dozen WIN98SE boxes all running (home & work, combined), and most are on the Internet regularly. We're using FireFox and Thunderbird. FF has the AdBlock and NoScript utilities installed. (Worth their weight in gold-pressed latinum!) Annual sweeps with AdAware & SpyBot S&D show nothing more than a few "tracking cookies" once in a while. (In the IE days, those sweeps removed *dozens* of adbots, etc, every *month*!)
98SE, behind a standard router, with FF, is "safe enough" to use online, constantly. For one thing, how many virus writers are still actively targetting 98SE? In the past year, I have seen several serious virus warnings, all of which concluded with these words: "Windows 9x is not affected by this attack." to which I just smile, smugly.;)
98SE is a snap to reinstall if/when the thing blows up beyond repair. Unfortunately, the WindowsUpdate site is becoming very buggy! Many times, it thinks I'm using a Mac! What's with THAT? Reload, reload, reload, ah, there it goes! That's the typical pattern. I suspect that someone at MS has been tinkering with the site deliberately, to annoy the crap out of die-hards like myself who insist on keeping *fully functional* systems running as long as possible.
Vista? Yeah, that's the "New ME", alright. "Mistake Edition". They can keep it.
...that this article is 3 years old? Look at www.spaceweather.com, and you will see that right now (and for the past several days) the sun is BLANK. There are NO sunspots.
One of my biggest complaints is how they FORCE people to upgrade to increasingly fragile, vulnerable versions of Windows. They make it so that software vendors mush move along, thus leaving odler versions behind, and ensuring that new versions do NOT run on older versions of Windows.
They have also really upped the "Big Brother" role, where in some instances, perfectly legitimate installs of XP have been shut down by MS's update servers, claiming that they were bootleg or pirate copies. Then just TRY and get MS to unlock your system...? Have your credit card ready. NO THANKS!
There are still a lot of systems running under 98SE that are working just fine, thank you. I don't need or want to spend $200 for a version of windows that is more likely to "break" my currently running software, and won't run on otherwise perfectly viable/functional hardware. I also do not like the "phone home" and "Big Brother" aspects that are built into XP and the new Vista. My 98SE runs everything I need.
Oh, and don't even get me started on their super-vulnerable browser and e-mail clients.
It's designed for use on Amateur Radio frequencies, specifically between 3700-4000 Khz and uses basically the same technology as broadcast transmitters from the early days up to the 1960's.
The best part about it, is that I built it entirely from stuff that was headed to the scrap heap!
There are other interesting or unusual things I've built, which can be seen by following the links. In one especially unusual project, I used the analog circuits from a fried SoundBlaster card, and a CD drive as a modulator for a tube-based, low-power AM transmitter. Combining 2000's technology with 1950's. It worked, too!
Slashdot Mirror
When I saw the article, it was only about a MINUTE old, and had ZERO comments. No, I did NOT expect it to have *already* been Slashdotted. I'm glad I was quick enough to at least get the Coral servers to grab SOMETHING as the deluge began, so people could at least see a *portion* of the site before it's servers smoldered.
It would appear that the Coral servers are acquiring bits and pieces as they are able. When I reloaded the link, I was able to see much more of the site than at first. Be patient... and try reloading in a few minutes.
It should be standard procedure when posting any article to Slashdot, to run it though Coral *FIRST*, so their servers can load and mirror everything. Then post the Coral link.
But that would be too easy.
I can't believe it's already been Slashdotted! I was able to grab it on Coral, so now their servers have it, and should handle the load.
Here is that Coral link to this article:
http://www.sergebrunier.com.nyud.net/gallerie/pleinciel/index-eng.html
I genuinely enjoyed this! A very clever and imaginative work of art, I'd say. Lyrics, music, and visuals... two thumbs-up, for sure!
Same with my wife's laptop. I tried to explain to her that it is NOT running Windows, it was running LINUX (Ubuntu) so "Windows" errors were IMPOSSIBLE! She doesn't quite understand, so I just told her that if she sees anything like it again, to ONLY click the little [x] in the upper right.
Thankfully, no harm was actually done... but it did take forcing Firefox to close, then forcing another dialog to close to stop the loop!
The only thing she uses that computer for is Facebook, so there really is nothing of any value on it. That's why I installed Ubuntu on that machine... to keep it, and the rest of my LAN, safe! :)
There have been all too many jokes about this topic. It is good to see some serious thought and discussion about it.
Since "artificial gravity" is easily created with rotation, conception and pregnancy would have to be within a rotating chamber at least until the embryo develops far enough to tolerate zero-G without adverse effects.
I was aware of this rumor, which I believe Wr Wright confirmed in some interview somewhere. If my rusty memory banks are working right, I believe that the Sims emerged when the rest of the staff realized how much fun they were having with the little characters in it. Adding some AI and a lot more "personality" to the little people tuned it into a very different game than was originally planned... and a huge cash cow for EA.
Despite its limitations, they really did a pretty decent job of mixing realism into the mayhem with Sims 1. (As evidenced by some of the other "sadistic" comments here about ways to kill-off the Sims. Not my cup of tea. I prefer creativity over destruction.)
There is no question that the architectural design features of The Sims 1 are quite good. Now, I hear that they have already released Sims 3? Sheesh! I haven't even had a chance to try 2 yet! IMHO, the most interesting expansion for 2 looks like "Open for Business". (I'm sure I could spend far too many hours with that.)
There are lots of ways to do unusual things with The Sims. With Sims 1, you could add custom content, but had to use 3'rd party utilities that tended to rank rather high on the Geek scale in order to be able to use. Sims 2 gives you much more flexibility and in-game tools to create objects for the game. I wonder how much further they went with Sims 3, to give users the ability to add/modify/tweak things in the game.
The more advanced the users and the AI of the game, the more amazing things can be done/happen/made-to-happen.
I've used The Sims (1) to create some rather nice and pseudo-realistic drafts of some ideas my wife and I have for an expansion/remodel of our house. It worked quite well, despoite the limitations of this version of the game. Just create some random Sim, plop him on the property, pause the game, use the "rosebud;!;" cheat to rack up the Simoleans, and go to town.
I also used it to create sketches of a future radio station facility:
http://www.wphafm.org/concept
All done with The Sims (1)
I would like to try this with the Sims 2, seeing it provides much more flexibility and realism for such things. For now, though, those are my major "out-of-game" adventures. ;)
Just a short note, here. I opted out. Thank you for providing the link.
I cannot even remember when I bought my first digital camera, (early 2001?) but I paid MORE than $430 for it. It's a Sony, with 3.2 megapixels. No audio, and very low-res "movies". Devours AA batteries. 1" built-in LCD screen. It still takes great pix, so I'm still using it.
We've come a long way. A similar camera nowadays is built into a cheap cell phone!
I am going to be looking for these to come onto the market. I kid you not. These are the coolest toys *ever*. I'm sure my nieces and nephews will love them, too. ;)
Seriously, though, not only can they be a lot of fun just to "play" with, there is no question that they can be used as teaching tools. I also forsee educational/mind-stimulating uses with handicapped persons and "Special needs" children.
LOL! That's a good one. :)
They are all around us... laptops, PDA's, etc. Even your TV remote! Much lower bitrates, obviously. Essentially, these guys used a laser beam instead of a simple LED.
Kicking it up to just above a Terabit per second is an impressive feat of technology. Unfortrunately, the range and throughput of such a system would be limited by various environmental factors- dust, smoke, and water vapor. Not to mention the power of the sun, outdoors. You also have numerous other sources of light pollution getting in the way. Using it within existing tunnels might be one way of avoiding stringing fiber through them... but it wouldn't take much to disrupt the beam. A spider's web in just the wrong place, for example, where the spider or one of its victims blocks the beam.
Still, it's pretty cool to get the data that fast through the air.
Your old school did, indeed, do the right thing. This one is not. The guy came forward with what he discovered, in good faith! It gives them the opportunity of preventing a malicious person from causing real damage... and they are going to punish him for this? That's just wrong.
In fact, it could theoretically turn many others into "black hats" that will go after them, just because they were so hard-nosed with this guy who was, let's be honest, doing them a favor!
Time for that school to get a clue. I'm really disappointed in their actions.
In my many years in Radio, I've digitized a considerable amount of music from LP's and 45's. In most cases, I could get moderately scratchy cuts to sound almost new. The transformation is pretty impressive, to say the least! However, I wouldn't even THINK of compressing it to MP3 until AFTER I had run it through an audio clean-up utility, like Cool Edit or Audacity.
I wonder how badly the MP3 compression affects the music with all of that hiss and crackle taking-up so much bandwidth? Also, how much would the compression artifacts affect the ability of the clean-up utility to do its job?
I think it is a laudable thing to preserve some of this priceless music! Kudos!
The majority of the links on the site (pictures, etc.) are now coming up "Unavailable" or 404 errors. It's lying to us... apparently it doesn't know how to say "I can't take it anymore!!!"
Can you tell me more about this "unofficial service pack"? This sounds VERY interesting! How much of XP's positive features does it bring into 98SE?
:)
Another issue about keeping 98SE going is NEW HARDWARE. It doesn't know how to install itself from an SATA drive, for example. (I tried it... it bombed, bigtime.) Of course, new hardware does still have IDE capability... so I may just go with an IDE for the OS, and everything else goes onto the SATA drive. (I also keep OS images for all of my machines! For this machine, I clone the whole HD regularly.)
You're also right about 98SE being **MINE** (so-to-speak). I have bought a number of legitimate CD's of it over the years. (When I built someone a new box, I always got a "new" copy of the OS for it, just in case, and to keep everything legal.) It's nice that it doesn't "phone home" like XP, and isn't deliberately multimedia-CRIPPLED like Vista. I edit audio for a living, so I cannot tolerate that kind of garbage even for a moment! (I work for a radio station.)
Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it! Slashdot is a good resource, when you get connected with the right people.
Good post. :)
;)
:) I still have some perfectly good older boxes up and running, dating back to 1996! (AMD K6/133's, P2/200's, etc.)
:)
My needs and wants really haven't changed much. Seriously. Personally, I absolutely *abhor* all this stupid "flash" garbage on so many WEBsites these days! EEEE-NUFF already! Gahhh! >:P Hey, different strokes, right?
Seriously, though, I am having no problems loading any sites on any of my systems. They come up very quickly with my 8Mbps download pipes! The only problems I see are with busy sites, where the *server* is getting hammered, and the activity light on the router just blinks, rather than lights "steady".
Even with "only" 256M of RAM on a 1900MHz machine, my FireFox 1.5 is doing great! (At work, it's a 2800MHz machine, 512M RAM. EVERY machine is AMD, BTW.) I think that the only reason a pre-XP machine can't keep up, is because so many people have so much CRAP installed, it's a wonder the poor machine even boots at all! (One machine I worked on took *five minutes* just to boot!!! When I was done, 40 seconds.)
I have seen as many as a DOZEN icons in the System Tray! (That machine, above.) I have uninstalled/disabled lots of that kind of crap for people over the years, and they have all remarked at how much faster their machines run, and how much more stable they are, too! Another thing that often gets overlooked in 98SE is the DMA setting for the HD! I have seen up to 400% speed increases just by turning that on! (It defaults off.)
I do know that the world, she is a-changing. I don't even know if I could get replacements for the MoBo's & processors anymore. (AMD XP1900+ & XP2800+) I recently built a machine for a friend with one of the newer 64bit AMD's (the 940 pin, I think) with XP and a SATA drive. 98SE wouldn't even install on that hardware. (I tried it just as a test.)
So, unfortunately, it's going to have to be either XP or a good Linux box for my next major upgrade. My plan is to build a machine to function as a DVR to replace the aging VCR, so that I can use it like a "Tivo", and burn some good shows to DVD. I know that there are a good number of fancy video cards that will handle this, and plenty of cool software for Linux. The other (expensive, IMHO) option is XP... but I really dislike it's "phone home" crap. Vista? HA! Not a chance! >:P
So, if this machine keeps meeting my needs for another 10 years, I will probably still be using it.
If it works, and works well... why change it?
Here's the Coal link to it: http://www.miketyndall.com.nyud.net:8080/todd_gold man/
That's a very good question. First, myself and my employer are not at all into gaming. :) These machines are used mostly for Internet research or general surfing/e-mailing, as well as audio editing & word processing. (I work for a radio station.) At home, I would rather be using interactive sites like Slashdot, than playing a game. (I do have The Sims 1 and Sim City 4 that I play once in a blue moon, tho.)
:)
:) (Several *original* "Genuine MS" CD's, in fact.)
;)
The other reason should be obvious: *Familiarity*! I have been using/tinkering with Windows since V3.11 in the 80's. 98SE does absolutely *everything* I *need*...
1) It runs Cool Edit 2000 (abandonware) which is simply the best audio editor for the $$. (Was $70)
2) It runs Office 97. "Old"? Sure... but it does *everything* we *need* and more. Why change?
3) It runs *all* of my Ham Radio related software.
4) I already own it!
5) It's quite easy to reinstall. No need for "workarounds" to satiate it's need to call MotherShip.
I could go on... but I think this makes the point rather nicely.
Linux is cool, and I have nothing against it. (I've used it to rescue files from crashed XP drives.)
My philosophy is: Why change just for change sake? Someday, yes, I know that I am going to have to make that change, and start running full-blown Linux systems... but as long as 98SE continues to run *everything* I need to run, and does it well, why change?
Oh yeah- these machines *seldom* crash. There are only the time, speaker, and Zone Alarm icons down in the "System Tray". 97% resources free at bootup. Not too shabby.
Did you not read my post, where I mentioned doing scans with AdAware & Spybot? That's on top of regular virus scans. (I didn't think I needed to spell it out so explicitly. Next time, I will know better.) I assure you, these boxes are clean. ZoneAlarm is our 2'nd line of defense. Believe me, if anything got past the router, it's highly unlikely to get past *that*.
I have at least a dozen WIN98SE boxes all running (home & work, combined), and most are on the Internet regularly. We're using FireFox and Thunderbird. FF has the AdBlock and NoScript utilities installed. (Worth their weight in gold-pressed latinum!) Annual sweeps with AdAware & SpyBot S&D show nothing more than a few "tracking cookies" once in a while. (In the IE days, those sweeps removed *dozens* of adbots, etc, every *month*!)
;)
98SE, behind a standard router, with FF, is "safe enough" to use online, constantly. For one thing, how many virus writers are still actively targetting 98SE? In the past year, I have seen several serious virus warnings, all of which concluded with these words: "Windows 9x is not affected by this attack." to which I just smile, smugly.
98SE is a snap to reinstall if/when the thing blows up beyond repair. Unfortunately, the WindowsUpdate site is becoming very buggy! Many times, it thinks I'm using a Mac! What's with THAT? Reload, reload, reload, ah, there it goes! That's the typical pattern. I suspect that someone at MS has been tinkering with the site deliberately, to annoy the crap out of die-hards like myself who insist on keeping *fully functional* systems running as long as possible.
Vista? Yeah, that's the "New ME", alright. "Mistake Edition". They can keep it.
...that this article is 3 years old? Look at www.spaceweather.com, and you will see that right now (and for the past several days) the sun is BLANK. There are NO sunspots.
One of my biggest complaints is how they FORCE people to upgrade to increasingly fragile, vulnerable versions of Windows. They make it so that software vendors mush move along, thus leaving odler versions behind, and ensuring that new versions do NOT run on older versions of Windows.
They have also really upped the "Big Brother" role, where in some instances, perfectly legitimate installs of XP have been shut down by MS's update servers, claiming that they were bootleg or pirate copies. Then just TRY and get MS to unlock your system...? Have your credit card ready. NO THANKS!
There are still a lot of systems running under 98SE that are working just fine, thank you. I don't need or want to spend $200 for a version of windows that is more likely to "break" my currently running software, and won't run on otherwise perfectly viable/functional hardware. I also do not like the "phone home" and "Big Brother" aspects that are built into XP and the new Vista. My 98SE runs everything I need.
Oh, and don't even get me started on their super-vulnerable browser and e-mail clients.
That's my 3c worth.
It's designed for use on Amateur Radio frequencies, specifically between 3700-4000 Khz and uses basically the same technology as broadcast transmitters from the early days up to the 1960's.
1 46.htm
Here's a Coral link to it:
http://www.mymorninglight.org.nyud.net:8080/ham/6
The best part about it, is that I built it entirely from stuff that was headed to the scrap heap!
There are other interesting or unusual things I've built, which can be seen by following the links. In one especially unusual project, I used the analog circuits from a fried SoundBlaster card, and a CD drive as a modulator for a tube-based, low-power AM transmitter. Combining 2000's technology with 1950's. It worked, too!