I suggest a different and much cheaper initial approach: a virtual microscope. Companies like Aperio have created digital slide scanners with freeware web viewers. Many labs and universities use these scanners to create educational virtual slide banks. Do a web search for "virtual slidebox" and follow the links to thousands of diagnostic quality microscopy slides, often with explanations of what to look for.
As for a true microscope for home use, I would stay away from light microscopes. Economical + kid friendly = lousy optics, low quality light path, and scarcity of things to look at. You're much better off with a dissecting microscope (aka stereo microscope). No need to rely on availability of interesting slides, and kids have a lot more fun looking up close at 3D objects.
What makes him an asshole? He was in a really difficult position. He played lots of mind games with US, South Korea and rest of the world because he had to. This whole thing predates his leadership.
What makes him an asshole? Are you serious? Lets see... making sure his army was fed before anyone else while watching over a million (!) civilians starve to death. Forced labor camps with conditions not much better than Nazi concentration camps. Clandestine kidnapping of Japanese nationals. Stunts like the unprovoked sinking of his neighbor's vessels, and firing medium range missiles over the border, then stamping his feet like a spoiled brat with demands for increased food aid. Shooting of tourists for wandering away from their "resort" compound. Aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons and military might while ensuring that his people were too hungry and scared to revolt. Establishing a god-king cult of personality. Having anyone who wants to leave that hellhole of a country executed on the spot. Punishing entire families (including small children) for "crimes" of individuals. Secretly compiling a vast store of luxury goods and spirits for disbursement to his party elite, while claiming to be a shining example of humble socialist perfection. Raising his son to believe he's the rightful heir to the universe, thereby ensuring that the cycle of arrogance and brutality continues for another generation. That, my dear reader, fulfills my definition of a grade A asshole.
Why was this functionality removed? For the love of Jebus, can we please be allowed to turn the file tree view on and off with a click of a button, etc? I spend a lot of time moving files around, and the locked down Windows Explorer is one of the most annoying "features" I've encountered in Vista.
Audiobooks. At the end of the day, what matters is the information, not the method of sensory input. Listening to a book allows one the opportunity to be entertained/informed during periods of time which would otherwise be wasted (commuting to work, walking the dog, doing chores, exercising etc.). Visual or even tactile methods of "reading" a book are not nearly as efficient, or as fun for that matter.
The *only* reason I use Vista is for DirectX10 gaming, and even that has been slow in coming. It also looks pretty, but I don't really care about that. After using Vista for about 6 months now, in my opinion it gets a failing grade in all other respects. File copy operations are stupid slow. I mean, just what the heck is it doing? Accessing network shares is slow. Copying files from a cd is so slow that I actually get up, walk to my file server in the other room, copy the files from the server cd drive to the shared directory, and then copy the files from the server to the workstation... and it takes less time to do this than natively copy them from the cd drive attached to the Vista machine! Finally, the most annoying thing of all, Vista refuses to remember my Explorer view settings. I set it to 'list view', and 30 minutes later, it switches to 'details view'. Windows Explorer lacks the 'folders' button that XP had, and won't let me get rid of that stupid 'burn' button. After months of these and many other annoyances I'm ready to hit the reformat button. In short, Vista truly truly sucks, and I speak from experience. It is these constant minor frustrations and general lack of elegance that adds up to a really bad user experience. I REALLY hate Vista, use it grudgingly, and warn everyone I know to stay away from it unless they want to play DX10 games.
"I recently spoiled myself with a OC'd 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM, two 150GB Raptors in RAID 0..."
Off-topic comment: ditch the RAID-0 config. You'll see better performance and double your capacity if you use separate partitions, and put your swap file on the second drive. Raptors in RAID-0 offers no real-world performance advantage over single drives. Not intuitive, but that's the reality of the situation. See here for details: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2101
Scroll down for the relevant bit: "Bottom line: RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."
Literally correct. In the absence of sufficient O2, you wouldn't be able to keep a cigarette lit, let alone burn the lake. Bring that lake to Earth, however, and it's a different story.
The squad tactics used by the human commandos in Half-Life 1 are very slick. Hide behind a corner, and one guy will lob a grenade to flush you out, while another takes up position to shoot you when you move. I fell for that on more than one occasion.
So glad you asked.
I'm sure a lot of Slashdotters will chime in with the default Linux answer. It's valid, and I accept that it works well. However, once you've worked with OpenBSD's PF packet filter syntax, you'll never want to look at another iptables ruleset again. Kerio / Sunbelt Personal Firewall is ok for a standalone WinXP machine (I've got it running on my mother's pc). I would not want to trust Microsoft's built in firewall or internet connection sharing tools. I used to use Kerio Winroute on my file server before migrating to OpenBSD, and it worked nicely for a few years. But the newer versions of WinRoute have gotten really expensive, bloated, and encumbered. The day WinRoute phoned home to check it's license was the day I ditched it for OpenBSD.
Why not make your own carbonated drink: mix Perrier or other carbonated water with 100% fruit juice. Start with a 50/50 mix, and taper to 2/3 carbonated H20 to 1/3 juice as you get used to reduced sugar content. Tastes great, and a lot less sweet than a canned drink. 100% natural. Cranberry juice works best, followed by a mixed berry juice. I'm not a fan of apple or orange for mixing (they taste too acidic for my liking). Make sure you buy 100% juice (it will say 100% on the label), as a lot of bottled "juice" is actually just flavored water with extra sugar added. As a bonus as we enter summer, add a shot of Vodka and a lime slice, and you've got yourself a cooler for a fraction of the cost of buying one at the liquor store. Oh, and ditch the caffeine. Contrary to popular belief, you body will continue to function without the chemical crutch.
Then the guy didn't have it configured properly. I own a Lexus RX330 with a DVD navigation system. By default, the screen automatically switches from a light to a black background when it gets dark outside. You also have the ability to dim the screen to your liking. If it was shining like the sun, blame the user. When driving in my home city, I usually just keep the system off, but on the highway I use DVD navigation exclusively and love it. The system always picks the most direct routes, which often means cutting through little known back roads that add novelty to the trip in addition to saving time.
I can't get enough of the Thief series. Thief 1 & Thief 2 don't get along with WinXP and modern video cards, so I set up a separate "Thief Machine" out of spare parts running Win98 just so I can get my fix. Amazing story line keeps me coming back time and time again.
Why would I install spyware to scan my hard drive with the claim that it will play some stupid random selection of what it finds, with limits on content, annoying DRM, and an unclear business model that you know is more sinister than it's letting on? Services like Shoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com/) have been around for years, work very well, and have no spyware or content issues that I know of. This is why I never waste my time with P2P apps.
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I suggest a different and much cheaper initial approach: a virtual microscope. Companies like Aperio have created digital slide scanners with freeware web viewers. Many labs and universities use these scanners to create educational virtual slide banks. Do a web search for "virtual slidebox" and follow the links to thousands of diagnostic quality microscopy slides, often with explanations of what to look for. As for a true microscope for home use, I would stay away from light microscopes. Economical + kid friendly = lousy optics, low quality light path, and scarcity of things to look at. You're much better off with a dissecting microscope (aka stereo microscope). No need to rely on availability of interesting slides, and kids have a lot more fun looking up close at 3D objects.
What makes him an asshole? He was in a really difficult position. He played lots of mind games with US, South Korea and rest of the world because he had to. This whole thing predates his leadership.
What makes him an asshole? Are you serious? Lets see... making sure his army was fed before anyone else while watching over a million (!) civilians starve to death. Forced labor camps with conditions not much better than Nazi concentration camps. Clandestine kidnapping of Japanese nationals. Stunts like the unprovoked sinking of his neighbor's vessels, and firing medium range missiles over the border, then stamping his feet like a spoiled brat with demands for increased food aid. Shooting of tourists for wandering away from their "resort" compound. Aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons and military might while ensuring that his people were too hungry and scared to revolt. Establishing a god-king cult of personality. Having anyone who wants to leave that hellhole of a country executed on the spot. Punishing entire families (including small children) for "crimes" of individuals. Secretly compiling a vast store of luxury goods and spirits for disbursement to his party elite, while claiming to be a shining example of humble socialist perfection. Raising his son to believe he's the rightful heir to the universe, thereby ensuring that the cycle of arrogance and brutality continues for another generation. That, my dear reader, fulfills my definition of a grade A asshole.
Why was this functionality removed? For the love of Jebus, can we please be allowed to turn the file tree view on and off with a click of a button, etc? I spend a lot of time moving files around, and the locked down Windows Explorer is one of the most annoying "features" I've encountered in Vista.
Audiobooks. At the end of the day, what matters is the information, not the method of sensory input. Listening to a book allows one the opportunity to be entertained/informed during periods of time which would otherwise be wasted (commuting to work, walking the dog, doing chores, exercising etc.). Visual or even tactile methods of "reading" a book are not nearly as efficient, or as fun for that matter.
The *only* reason I use Vista is for DirectX10 gaming, and even that has been slow in coming. It also looks pretty, but I don't really care about that. After using Vista for about 6 months now, in my opinion it gets a failing grade in all other respects. File copy operations are stupid slow. I mean, just what the heck is it doing? Accessing network shares is slow. Copying files from a cd is so slow that I actually get up, walk to my file server in the other room, copy the files from the server cd drive to the shared directory, and then copy the files from the server to the workstation... and it takes less time to do this than natively copy them from the cd drive attached to the Vista machine! Finally, the most annoying thing of all, Vista refuses to remember my Explorer view settings. I set it to 'list view', and 30 minutes later, it switches to 'details view'. Windows Explorer lacks the 'folders' button that XP had, and won't let me get rid of that stupid 'burn' button. After months of these and many other annoyances I'm ready to hit the reformat button. In short, Vista truly truly sucks, and I speak from experience. It is these constant minor frustrations and general lack of elegance that adds up to a really bad user experience. I REALLY hate Vista, use it grudgingly, and warn everyone I know to stay away from it unless they want to play DX10 games.
"I recently spoiled myself with a OC'd 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM, two 150GB Raptors in RAID 0..."
Off-topic comment: ditch the RAID-0 config. You'll see better performance and double your capacity if you use separate partitions, and put your swap file on the second drive. Raptors in RAID-0 offers no real-world performance advantage over single drives. Not intuitive, but that's the reality of the situation. See here for details: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2101
Scroll down for the relevant bit: "Bottom line: RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."
Literally correct. In the absence of sufficient O2, you wouldn't be able to keep a cigarette lit, let alone burn the lake. Bring that lake to Earth, however, and it's a different story.
Are you sure this is a good idea? They don't make Bastille for OpenBSD. Oh wait....
The squad tactics used by the human commandos in Half-Life 1 are very slick. Hide behind a corner, and one guy will lob a grenade to flush you out, while another takes up position to shoot you when you move. I fell for that on more than one occasion.
So glad you asked. I'm sure a lot of Slashdotters will chime in with the default Linux answer. It's valid, and I accept that it works well. However, once you've worked with OpenBSD's PF packet filter syntax, you'll never want to look at another iptables ruleset again. Kerio / Sunbelt Personal Firewall is ok for a standalone WinXP machine (I've got it running on my mother's pc). I would not want to trust Microsoft's built in firewall or internet connection sharing tools. I used to use Kerio Winroute on my file server before migrating to OpenBSD, and it worked nicely for a few years. But the newer versions of WinRoute have gotten really expensive, bloated, and encumbered. The day WinRoute phoned home to check it's license was the day I ditched it for OpenBSD.
Why not make your own carbonated drink: mix Perrier or other carbonated water with 100% fruit juice. Start with a 50/50 mix, and taper to 2/3 carbonated H20 to 1/3 juice as you get used to reduced sugar content. Tastes great, and a lot less sweet than a canned drink. 100% natural. Cranberry juice works best, followed by a mixed berry juice. I'm not a fan of apple or orange for mixing (they taste too acidic for my liking). Make sure you buy 100% juice (it will say 100% on the label), as a lot of bottled "juice" is actually just flavored water with extra sugar added. As a bonus as we enter summer, add a shot of Vodka and a lime slice, and you've got yourself a cooler for a fraction of the cost of buying one at the liquor store. Oh, and ditch the caffeine. Contrary to popular belief, you body will continue to function without the chemical crutch.
Then the guy didn't have it configured properly. I own a Lexus RX330 with a DVD navigation system. By default, the screen automatically switches from a light to a black background when it gets dark outside. You also have the ability to dim the screen to your liking. If it was shining like the sun, blame the user. When driving in my home city, I usually just keep the system off, but on the highway I use DVD navigation exclusively and love it. The system always picks the most direct routes, which often means cutting through little known back roads that add novelty to the trip in addition to saving time.
I can't get enough of the Thief series. Thief 1 & Thief 2 don't get along with WinXP and modern video cards, so I set up a separate "Thief Machine" out of spare parts running Win98 just so I can get my fix. Amazing story line keeps me coming back time and time again.
Why would I install spyware to scan my hard drive with the claim that it will play some stupid random selection of what it finds, with limits on content, annoying DRM, and an unclear business model that you know is more sinister than it's letting on? Services like Shoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com/) have been around for years, work very well, and have no spyware or content issues that I know of. This is why I never waste my time with P2P apps.