BMW has a production version of a fully automatic manual transmission. It can be found in the M3 and it's called the SMG (semi-manual gearbox?). You can let the computer control all shifting or you can do it manually with paddles on the steering wheel. I drove a SMG equipped M3 and it's a strange experience. In the fully auto mode, it feels like you're driving a manual transmission but someone else is shifting for you. The shifts are a bit jerky - nowhere near as smooth as your typical automatic transmission.
Ferrari and Lamborghini have this available as well, and I'm sure there are a few others.
Modern automatic transmission are very good. I have a 2003 Accord and it's the best automatic I've ever driven. Shifting is very smooth, and downshifting occurs when it is supposed to. It uses what Honda calls "Grade Logic Technology" which basically detecs when you're going uphill or downhill to determine whether to downshift or upshift much sooner than older automatic transmissions. It's also a 5 speed automatic which helps a lot. I believe Mercedes has a 7 speed automatic in their newer cars though I haven't driven them.
Was that pun intended? Given the circumstances regarding their test run, that's pretty funny.
Keep in mind that CMU has two entries this year - Sandstorm (last year's design with upgrades) and H1ghlander (still a hummer, but using different systems and software). I haven't heard anything about Sandstorm's qualification run, but their website says "H1ghlander nudged a gate and tipped one cone."
I went to CMU, so obviously I'm cheering for them however I have a tremendous amount of respect for any of the smaller teams that don't have the massive budget that most teams have.
The city of Bombay in India recently changed to Mumbai, but the reason for the change isn't what you would think. The country is still India though I wonder what's India is called in it's native language or if it's even called the same thing in every dialect.
Another recent name change that stands out is the island of Chuuk, formerly called Truk.
Yes, the website for the Federated States of Micronesia really is "http://www.fm/" - I've never seen anything formatted like that.
If only it were so easy! Let me give you a little example. A common word in Tagalog (one of the main languages in the Philippines next to English) is "ng" which translates to the english word "of".
So, by your advice one would just pronounce it as it appears - which many non-Tagalogs would think "ing" which is not even close. It's a very difficult word to pronounce for non-native Tagalog speakers. The closet thing is the sound "na" but that's not even correct.
No, I really wasn't trolling. I know what the space program has brought us in terms of inventions. All of the items on that link are products that were developed as a result of trying to get into space; they're the same as the Tang and ice cream examples I gave. I guess I didn't word my post correctly. I don't see any examples of things that were discovered *in* space. Not yet at least - maybe we'll learn interesting things when we start drilling on the moon and mars. What I wanted to know is why do we go to space? What experiments are being done in space and how do they benefit us on Earth? I decided to not be so lazy and I found a NASA site that helps answer my questions.
What in the world are we doing in space? Why spend the time and resources to build a laboratory in space when we have plenty of them on Earth?
The answer is a unique tool called microgravity. Microgravity (also called zero-g) opens a new universe of research possibilities. It unmasks phenomena that gravity on Earth can obscure. Research in microgravity has enabled new insights into what happens inside a fire, how soil grains shift during an earthquake, why certain thick fluids flow easily under pressure, and what is the best way to spray water onto a fire. In this relatively new microgravity environment, experiments continue to yield surprising effects for researchers.
Scientists are putting microgravity to work to understand the growth of proteins as near-perfect crystals (often not possible on Earth), allowing them to decode the protein's role in health or disease. Cells grown in space can also produce longer-lived cultures to help us understand the growth of tumors and perhaps give insight into how we might control this growth process.
The work they are doing right now in space is almost entirely peace-oriented, even if the science could easily be turned to make weapons.
I'm not trying to troll here, but what kind of experiments are being done in space and how do they benefit us? Since the start of the space program, how have we benefitted aside from getting dried ice cream and Tang?
It's nice to learn more about the environment we live in, but I can't think of anything offhand that has come out of space exploration other than learning about our surroundings, getting pretty pictures, or development of better materials that were driven by the desire to get into space.
I'm sure there are many valuable things that we have learned as a result of being in space, but most people just don't know about them. Most average non-techies probably do not understand exactly why we're going into space so much - I'm even a nerd and I don't understand. Perhaps the public needs to be enlightened, and they'll be able to appreciate the space program.
I'm not a linux (or Mac) nerd by any means, but I wonder if this fancy protection scheme will only work for Windows files.
When SanDisk starts manufacturing DRM-protected thumb drives and PNY or other manufacturers continue to sell unprotected thumb drives, I think the market will do the talking.
I'd have to agree. I went to Carnegie Mellon which is a pretty decent engineering school. I almost went to Penn State. Not only does Penn State cost a lot less, I was offered a very generous scholarship and financial aid package.
I don't like paying my student loans now, but I don't know if I'd be where I am now had I gone to a Penn State. It isn't bad by any means, but the Carnegie Mellon name carries a lot more weight in the engineering world outside of Pennsylvania.
Now that I've been working for a few years I'm seriously considering going to Penn State for a masters degree. It is a good school.
I just pointed out to my wife that the cheese she buys doesn't mention the word cheese anywhere on the packaging. They're called American Singles or Kraft Singles. It's made with a little milk and a bunch of other chemicals, but it's not cheese.
Dairy Queen's ice cream is similar. This past weekend I was at Dairy Queen and noticed that they don't actually sell Ice Cream. I looked, but couldn't find the words "Ice Cream" anywhere in the store. They had a big poster on the wall about DQ's history, and even back in the 1950s they didn't call it Ice Cream. It's called "Delicious Frozen Treat" or "Soft Serve". Is it not Ice Cream? Why don't they call it ice cream? Is there some USDA rule that won't allow them to call it ice cream?
Back to the cheese thing; there are many Americans who know good cheese, as indicated by comments to a previous slashdot poll. I'm not a die-hard cheese fan, but once in a while I'll go to the local gourmet shop and pick up something fancy.
Seriously though if you really are a Sprint customer, have you noticed an unusually high number of incidents where you try to place a call only to hear "We are unable to complete your call." I live in the New York area and usually can't make a call until the third or fourth try.
He's from Poland too. I'm not familiar with Poland's economy but I'd be willing to bet that $10,000 goes much farther anywhere in Poland than it does in the bay area.
What about popups that look like Windows dialog boxes?
I find it amusing that I'm running Windows 2000 and a bubbly popup appears that looks like a WinXP dialog telling me my computer is infected with viruses and asking me if I want to fix it. It's obviously an sneaky advertisement, but someone like my mother who doesn't use computers much will fall for it and immediately click it thinking it's a legitimate warning.
I share those same thoughts, and I think that's why the real estate market has gone up ridiculously. Interest rates drop and banks relax their lending qualifications, then smart investors take advantage of it. Next thing you know, all you hear about are people making money in real estate. People who normally can't afford a house and normally wouldn't qualify for a loan are getting interest-only loans on homes they can barely afford. Before you know it everyone is in a frenzy and the prices are sky high.
I can't find the link, but I read a survey on CNN Money or MSNBC that asked people about their loans. Only about 25% of the people surveyed actually knew and understood all the details about their home loan. The remaining 75% were unsure, with many people not knowing how interest-only or reverse amortization loans work. I'd guess that a lot of people are only concerned with their monthly payment, even if they don't realize they're not paying any principal at the moment.
Despite these prices, many people including realtors continue to say that the real estate market is not going to go down anytime soon. They say this publicly, but I'd like to know what they really think. Where are they willing to put their money? I know if I earned a 6% commission on every sale, I'd be trying to dismiss any concerns about a market collapse and try to sell as many overpriced homes as I could. Selling one $250,000 house gets you a cool $15,000 (gross) which is probably equivalent or even more than what many engineers make in three months.
I graduated from college in 2002 and missed my opportunity to buy a reasonably priced home at the start of this explosion. Despite not having enough saved for a downpayment, I still felt that prices in the area I lived (Los Angeles) were too high. Since then they've gone up by over 30%. I now live in New Jersey where prices are just as bad and sometimes worse considering that the homes here are generally older and need more repairs. My wife and I earn a decent income that is higher than the average salary for the town we live in, and we cannot afford a house! There are some affordable houses nearby, but they're old homes that need repair and they're in neighborhoods that we wouldn't be comfortable living in. I have an acquaintence in Southern California who is a doctor earning a nice six figure salary and he's having difficult finding an affordable home.
I wonder where people get their money to afford a house in today's real estate market (at least in NY/NJ and CA). Does everyone just have a lot more money than I do, or are a lot of people getting themselves into a financial mess where they'll be spending 75% of their income to pay for their house when their interest-only period is over? For now I'm happy renting, especially when you consider that what I pay in rent is less than what most homeowners near me pay in property taxes!
I read somewhere that the GameBoy Micro won't support original GB and GBC games. I've been thinking of picking one up (4 more days!!!) but I want to make sure they work with the flash carts.
Only Motorola is allowed to use names like that. I wonder if they're planning on releasing a MP3 player anytime soon?
On a side note, for a school project I built a MP3 decoder using two Motorola 68HC11 processors. It didn't play in real time, but it was still a fun project were I learned how to decode MP3s with some custom hardware (using an custom made DSP that I loaded onto a FPGA for some of the intensive portions that would take forever on the processor)
What exactly does that do when I set domain.tld=5? I did as you suggested and sure enough it fixed the problem! Thanks! Now, I'm having some trouble with my bank's website. When I'm viewing my account, there's supposed to be a link to log out of their system. Instead of being a link, it's just plain text. I tried doing the same thing to the UA.ini file for Washington Mutual's Website but it still doesn't fix the problem (though it did fix some menu alignment issues).
Why is this happening? Firefox and IE don't require any special configuration settings. I don't want to bash Opera as I like what I see so far, but it seems troublesome at the moment.
Does anyone listen to Howard Stern? This morning, some lady called in trying to plug her online store. She and her husband are selling electronics that were looted from New Orleans stores. She claims they're doing it to help them recover financially. Isn't that a great business idea? Sell stuff that costs you nothing to buy?
She also didn't have any regrets about doing it. She claimed that no one gets harmed this way and the owners of the store don't mind a bit because they get reimbursed by the insurance companies for looted and damaged items.
This lady failed to realize that the insurance companies are the ones getting screwed, and they're just going to pass the costs on to their customers in the form of higher rates.
I often wonder how insurance companies and stores handle items that weren't necessarily damaged. Suppose you have several 42" LCD TVs that have boxes that are slightly wet but the actual product isn't damaged. Are these sold as new or sold at a discount? If they're written off as a loss or as damaged goods, then what happens?
Wasn't CB licensed the same way that GMRS is now? You technically need a license, but most people don't even bother.
Most GMRS radios cover both FRS and GMRS bands, and the radios that I've used don't provide a clear distinction as to which service you're broadcasting on. Most users of FRS/GMRS radios only see channel numbers, which the manuals usually idicate which service the channel corresponds to.
--a HAM operator who isn't very involved anymore and doesn't want to post his callsign on/. because his personal info can be looked up too easily
I went to a boarding school full of international students. One of my best friends was from Belarus, and when we first met he didn't know Engligh very well. The first things I taught him were all the curses and how to use them appropriately without sounding like an idiot who's trying to be cool (as was the case with most international students trying to 'fit in' by speaking normal English that high school kids use.
I couldn't properly pronounce any of the curses he taught me in Russian, but I did learn how to say "What's up, Bitch!"
I also had some Japanese and Thai friends teach me some very vulgar expressions that made me very popular with the Japanese and Thai girls at school.
Devices that do video... have not been successful yet. No-one's figured out the right formula.
Sony came close. The PSP has a very nice screen and is very portable. In fact, it would make an ideal video player except for the fact that UMD movies are so expensive! Why buy the UMD when you can get the DVD for half the price?
I'd have to agree with you - a PSP with a 20GB hard drive or better yet a 60GB hard drive would be very nice. It'd be even nicer if we could rip all the games and movies directly to the hard drive - that's the ultimate convenience, but unfortunately it leaves the door wide open for piracy.
Slashdot Mirror
Modern automatic transmission are very good. I have a 2003 Accord and it's the best automatic I've ever driven. Shifting is very smooth, and downshifting occurs when it is supposed to. It uses what Honda calls "Grade Logic Technology" which basically detecs when you're going uphill or downhill to determine whether to downshift or upshift much sooner than older automatic transmissions. It's also a 5 speed automatic which helps a lot. I believe Mercedes has a 7 speed automatic in their newer cars though I haven't driven them.
Was that pun intended? Given the circumstances regarding their test run, that's pretty funny.
Keep in mind that CMU has two entries this year - Sandstorm (last year's design with upgrades) and H1ghlander (still a hummer, but using different systems and software). I haven't heard anything about Sandstorm's qualification run, but their website says "H1ghlander nudged a gate and tipped one cone."
I went to CMU, so obviously I'm cheering for them however I have a tremendous amount of respect for any of the smaller teams that don't have the massive budget that most teams have.
Didn't Apple change their "Think Different" slogan? I think they're now using "Designed by Apple in California, Made in China"
Another recent name change that stands out is the island of Chuuk, formerly called Truk.
Yes, the website for the Federated States of Micronesia really is "http://www.fm/" - I've never seen anything formatted like that.
So, by your advice one would just pronounce it as it appears - which many non-Tagalogs would think "ing" which is not even close. It's a very difficult word to pronounce for non-native Tagalog speakers. The closet thing is the sound "na" but that's not even correct.
I'm not trying to troll here, but what kind of experiments are being done in space and how do they benefit us? Since the start of the space program, how have we benefitted aside from getting dried ice cream and Tang? It's nice to learn more about the environment we live in, but I can't think of anything offhand that has come out of space exploration other than learning about our surroundings, getting pretty pictures, or development of better materials that were driven by the desire to get into space.
I'm sure there are many valuable things that we have learned as a result of being in space, but most people just don't know about them. Most average non-techies probably do not understand exactly why we're going into space so much - I'm even a nerd and I don't understand. Perhaps the public needs to be enlightened, and they'll be able to appreciate the space program.
When SanDisk starts manufacturing DRM-protected thumb drives and PNY or other manufacturers continue to sell unprotected thumb drives, I think the market will do the talking.
I don't like paying my student loans now, but I don't know if I'd be where I am now had I gone to a Penn State. It isn't bad by any means, but the Carnegie Mellon name carries a lot more weight in the engineering world outside of Pennsylvania.
Now that I've been working for a few years I'm seriously considering going to Penn State for a masters degree. It is a good school.
Dairy Queen's ice cream is similar. This past weekend I was at Dairy Queen and noticed that they don't actually sell Ice Cream. I looked, but couldn't find the words "Ice Cream" anywhere in the store. They had a big poster on the wall about DQ's history, and even back in the 1950s they didn't call it Ice Cream. It's called "Delicious Frozen Treat" or "Soft Serve". Is it not Ice Cream? Why don't they call it ice cream? Is there some USDA rule that won't allow them to call it ice cream?
Back to the cheese thing; there are many Americans who know good cheese, as indicated by comments to a previous slashdot poll. I'm not a die-hard cheese fan, but once in a while I'll go to the local gourmet shop and pick up something fancy.
Seriously though if you really are a Sprint customer, have you noticed an unusually high number of incidents where you try to place a call only to hear "We are unable to complete your call." I live in the New York area and usually can't make a call until the third or fourth try.
He's from Poland too. I'm not familiar with Poland's economy but I'd be willing to bet that $10,000 goes much farther anywhere in Poland than it does in the bay area.
Ice?
I picture that same platoon you describe surrounding my house with their evil leader saying to me, "All your base are belong to us."
I find it amusing that I'm running Windows 2000 and a bubbly popup appears that looks like a WinXP dialog telling me my computer is infected with viruses and asking me if I want to fix it. It's obviously an sneaky advertisement, but someone like my mother who doesn't use computers much will fall for it and immediately click it thinking it's a legitimate warning.
I can't find the link, but I read a survey on CNN Money or MSNBC that asked people about their loans. Only about 25% of the people surveyed actually knew and understood all the details about their home loan. The remaining 75% were unsure, with many people not knowing how interest-only or reverse amortization loans work. I'd guess that a lot of people are only concerned with their monthly payment, even if they don't realize they're not paying any principal at the moment.
Despite these prices, many people including realtors continue to say that the real estate market is not going to go down anytime soon. They say this publicly, but I'd like to know what they really think. Where are they willing to put their money? I know if I earned a 6% commission on every sale, I'd be trying to dismiss any concerns about a market collapse and try to sell as many overpriced homes as I could. Selling one $250,000 house gets you a cool $15,000 (gross) which is probably equivalent or even more than what many engineers make in three months.
I graduated from college in 2002 and missed my opportunity to buy a reasonably priced home at the start of this explosion. Despite not having enough saved for a downpayment, I still felt that prices in the area I lived (Los Angeles) were too high. Since then they've gone up by over 30%. I now live in New Jersey where prices are just as bad and sometimes worse considering that the homes here are generally older and need more repairs. My wife and I earn a decent income that is higher than the average salary for the town we live in, and we cannot afford a house! There are some affordable houses nearby, but they're old homes that need repair and they're in neighborhoods that we wouldn't be comfortable living in. I have an acquaintence in Southern California who is a doctor earning a nice six figure salary and he's having difficult finding an affordable home.
I wonder where people get their money to afford a house in today's real estate market (at least in NY/NJ and CA). Does everyone just have a lot more money than I do, or are a lot of people getting themselves into a financial mess where they'll be spending 75% of their income to pay for their house when their interest-only period is over? For now I'm happy renting, especially when you consider that what I pay in rent is less than what most homeowners near me pay in property taxes!
I read somewhere that the GameBoy Micro won't support original GB and GBC games. I've been thinking of picking one up (4 more days!!!) but I want to make sure they work with the flash carts.
On a side note, for a school project I built a MP3 decoder using two Motorola 68HC11 processors. It didn't play in real time, but it was still a fun project were I learned how to decode MP3s with some custom hardware (using an custom made DSP that I loaded onto a FPGA for some of the intensive portions that would take forever on the processor)
Just like El-Al Airlines? I've never flown them, but I hear they have heavily armed guards on each flight.
And yes, it appears that Slashdot changed the "Poste Comment" page.
Why is this happening? Firefox and IE don't require any special configuration settings. I don't want to bash Opera as I like what I see so far, but it seems troublesome at the moment.
She also didn't have any regrets about doing it. She claimed that no one gets harmed this way and the owners of the store don't mind a bit because they get reimbursed by the insurance companies for looted and damaged items.
This lady failed to realize that the insurance companies are the ones getting screwed, and they're just going to pass the costs on to their customers in the form of higher rates.
I often wonder how insurance companies and stores handle items that weren't necessarily damaged. Suppose you have several 42" LCD TVs that have boxes that are slightly wet but the actual product isn't damaged. Are these sold as new or sold at a discount? If they're written off as a loss or as damaged goods, then what happens?
Most GMRS radios cover both FRS and GMRS bands, and the radios that I've used don't provide a clear distinction as to which service you're broadcasting on. Most users of FRS/GMRS radios only see channel numbers, which the manuals usually idicate which service the channel corresponds to.
--a HAM operator who isn't very involved anymore and doesn't want to post his callsign on /. because his personal info can be looked up too easily
Mother mother fuck. Mother mother fuck fuck.
Mother fuck mother fuck.
Noise noise noise.
1 2 1 2 3 4
Noise noise noise.
Smokin weed, smokin weed.
Doin' coke, drinkin beers.
Drinkin beers, beers beers.
Rollin' fatties, smokin blunts.
Who smokes the blunts? We smoke the blunts.
Rollin' blunts and smokin um'
15 bucks, little man, put that shit in my hand.
If that money doesn't show then you owe me owe me owe.
I couldn't properly pronounce any of the curses he taught me in Russian, but I did learn how to say "What's up, Bitch!"
I also had some Japanese and Thai friends teach me some very vulgar expressions that made me very popular with the Japanese and Thai girls at school.
Sony came close. The PSP has a very nice screen and is very portable. In fact, it would make an ideal video player except for the fact that UMD movies are so expensive! Why buy the UMD when you can get the DVD for half the price?
I'd have to agree with you - a PSP with a 20GB hard drive or better yet a 60GB hard drive would be very nice. It'd be even nicer if we could rip all the games and movies directly to the hard drive - that's the ultimate convenience, but unfortunately it leaves the door wide open for piracy.