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  1. J

    Not your Father's Cadillac

    Yes e_dawg, I know the feeling. Cycling is great 95% of the time but on those miserable days like you described, forget about it. I remember one ride I took with my brother to the Green Acres Mall about 18 or 19 years ago. It's about a 40 mile round trip from where I am. Going there with a...
  2. J

    Not your Father's Cadillac

    You might be right about this. Truthfully I've never noticed, but then I usually don't ride right on the limits of adhesion. As for braking, as you're aware the rear wheel locks up quite easily, so maybe I'll do some tests with different tires just for kicks. Sliding isn't a problem with the...
  3. J

    Not your Father's Cadillac

    On a few occasions. I had my learner's permit shortly after I graduated college but nobody I knew had the time to take me out to practice so it expired before I could take the driver's test. After seeing people's sloppy driving habits, traffic congestion, and high insurance costs, I concluded...
  4. J

    Not your Father's Cadillac

    It depends on the rubber compound. The low rolling resistance(at least for bike tires) is due to a higher inflation pressure. Car tires might also use rubber that flexes less. I wouldn't worry about it too much since even crappy tires have an adhesion coefficent of something like 0.7. This...
  5. J

    Not your Father's Cadillac

    What makes you think a car like I proposed is more expensive? Look how cheaply something like a hard drive has been made through mass production. Electric motors are cheaper than a complex mechanical transmission. Add in a larger battery for energy storage and a few large capacitors for the...
  6. J

    Not your Father's Cadillac

    It seems clear that more than a few people here could use some lessons on exactly what affects fuel economy. For starters, engine displacement certainly has some effect due to the reasons Clocker mentioned, and also the fact that you're lugging around more weight. However, it does not have as...
  7. J

    Mindless Zecurity Folliez

    To add one to the list my brother's 84-year old landlady flew to California a few weeks ago to stay with her niece. She suffered a stroke several months ago, had just gotten out of rehab, and plans to stay with her niece for probably the remainder of her life. In any case, she was born in the...
  8. J

    Bon Voyage Concorde

    The fact that entrepreneurs are seriously studying the idea evidently means that it's economically and technically feasible. The concept really isn't that much different than today's floating oil drilling platforms which are anchored to the sea bed. BTW, you won't be "taking your chances" if...
  9. J

    Bon Voyage Concorde

    We'll have something better in time. Boeing dropped it's supersonic transport project. I don't believe hypersonic transports will see the light of day, either, especially in light of 9/11. A fully fueled HST has the explosive power of a small atomic bomb, and there is no way that it would be...
  10. J

    WTB: 4GB-ish IDE driveS

    No kidding. $5 each would be more like it being that you can buy new drives for less than $1/GB, and a drive that old might not have much usable life left. I'm amazed there's that many people willing to pay those kinds of prices. I used to like eBay but lately it's been mostly a collection of...
  11. J

    My cats hate books

    This behavoir comes as no surprise to me at all. Of course cats will try to interpose their bodies between your eyes and whatever you're looking at. It is simply beyond their comprehension why you would want to look at anything else when you can have the privilege of looking at something as...
  12. J

    Speechless - thank you everyone!

    It was a privilege to be able to give thanks to you for all the effort you put into SF. Three cheers for Doug! :thumbleft: :beer: :jumpin: :beer: :thumbright:
  13. J

    Hard drive predictions for 2003

    I've noticed all of CompUSA's specials lately are 7200 RPM. I'm sure they still have 5400 RPM in stock, but at this point I don't see them advertised. I'm hoping they have a nice clearance sale soon on 5400 RPM. I'll stock up on some bulk storage. :)
  14. J

    Clocker: What is this SHEP stuff?

    Interesting. Don't forgot, though, that this is on a road classified as "steep", which is even worse than "mountain". The places where such steep gradients exist are likely curvy mountain roads where speeds of more than 30 or 40 mph would be unsafe anyway(since you could drive off a cliff on a...
  15. J

    So, who's getting a WD Raptor?

    To put things in perspective, the access times are less than a factor of two improvement over even run-of-the-mill 5400 RPM drives. Even an X15 is only about 3 times faster than 5400 RPM. Unless it's about the same price per GB, just as cool, and just as quiet, I simply couldn't justify it...
  16. J

    Clocker: What is this SHEP stuff?

    It doesn't need to. A 35HP engine has enough reserve power to do that on it's own provided the car is designed with a low drag coefficient(~0.2) and fairly low rolling resistance tires. I'm doing the example with a 4% gradient as 6% gradients simply don't exist on any Interstate highways...
  17. J

    They've lost me this time

    If you think what I wrote is scary then it's a good thing one of my cousins doesn't post on this board. This is a person who considers Hitler one of his personal heroes, and he's far from the only one. A person my brother works with has feelings to the same effect. The point here is that if...
  18. J

    They've lost me this time

    Tannin, you probably would have come to that realization by the time you were about six if you lived in New York. For many reasons, the Jews have been a thorn in my side ever since I could remember, and current events have only increased my feelings in this matter. Yes, Israel is unreasonable...
  19. J

    Clocker: What is this SHEP stuff?

    I remember reading about this in Popular Science in the 1980s. Ultimately, I think what killed the idea was a combination of cheap gas prices coupled with advances in electronic components like GTOs and capacitors. It was possible to contain the flywheel if it failed(they even showed some...
  20. J

    Unlocking Tbreds

    While we're on the subject, does anybody know if it is possible to unlock the multipliers on either the Pentium II or the Tualatin Celeron? I've never seen any references to this, although there are plenty of sites showing how to unlock AMD processors. My M/B has 112 MHz and 133 MHz FSB...
  21. J

    Clocker: What is this SHEP stuff?

    It may not answer your question, but I suggested another, in my opinion more feasible, approach to accomplish essentially the same thing:
  22. J

    Iraqi crisis explained...

    Once it's general knowledge that the cancer caused by pollution kills millions each year I think you might very well generate a war with environmental causes. I can just imagine oil company executives swinging from lamp posts. :lol: Coug, feel like blowing up a couple of pipelines and...
  23. J

    Iraqi crisis explained...

    You can't, but you can create a world where it is impossible to create widespread death and destruction because of those differences. One problem is that many countries, especially younger Western ones, feel that their way is the only way, and that they need to impose this way on the indigenous...
  24. J

    Iraqi crisis explained...

    To elaborate: 1)Nationality: the only reason large nation-states exist is to protect their populations from.....other large nation-states. Some nations will attack their neighbors for various reasons-territory, resources, religious differences, etc. Get rid of the nation states everywhere and...
  25. J

    Iraqi crisis explained...

    Maybe one day we'll have a world without borders. It's always been a hope of mine. Race, religion, and nationality are all things that have been used to divide people, create an us versus them mentality. I doubt it'll change in my lifetime, but someday. Yes, someday.
  26. J

    The search for intelligent life in America

    Of course I'm proud to be an American. Proud to be from the same country as Britney Spears and Michael Jackson Proud to be a citizen of the world's greatest polluter Proud to be an elite member of the world's most hated country Proud to be part of a country whose educational system is...
  27. J

    Holographic Storage

    Cold fusion was initially ridiculed by the scientific community when it was first discovered. During the last few years it has seen increasing acceptance as more of the experiments have been duplicated. We still have a while to go before it becomes a practical energy source but once it does...
  28. J

    Holographic Storage

    It's obviously been a while since this idea was first proposed. Just look at one of the comparisons: I seem to remember 1 GB hard drives were the norm around 1995 or 1996. Evidently, there's still R&D to be done before we have a manufacturable product. Still, should the idea be developed...
  29. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    Thanks for the tip. I managed to find the SHSMOD utility. I had done the registry tweak a while ago to get my modem to connect at higher than 115,200 bps but my ports seemed to bottleneck it. Anyway, the utility works and I'm connected at 230,400 bps. Text page loads do indeed seem much...
  30. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    I've heard good things about Road Runner myself. The main thing stopping me is the cost-$50/month vs $9.99/month. The phone plan we're on allows unlimited local calling so phone costs for dialup are a non-issue. Given that I only average about 30 MB/day downloading(about 90 minutes worth)...
  31. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    You're not the only one. My sister had her house built new on Long Island about 7 years ago, and the electrical wiring left quite a bit to be desired. I think the phone line was OK though. It's getting increasing hard to find people who want to do that type of work, so it's a crapshoot as to...
  32. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    I'll try a few of the suggestions here and see what happens. So far my lines look to be in good shape. I checked the lines coming off the pole to my house yesterday(I shimmied up the telephone pole). They seem to be in good shape as best I can tell(no corrosion, water damage). Of course...
  33. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    I sent it to you in a PM.
  34. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    I use Opera exclusively for downloads. I can pick up where I left off usually, even after a reboot. Occasionally, however, an error occurs and Opera just loses track of what it already has, and then I need to start over again. This is maybe one out of 50 downloads. Since most of my downloads...
  35. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    It can't hurt to send me the docs. Usually my download speed runs from about 5.5 KB/sec to 5.9 KB/sec, so I don't think I'll be able to do much better, but it can't hurt to try. Thanks for the offer with Opera :), but I already have it installed
  36. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    I'm using a Motorola ModemSURFR 56K External PnP. Since it connects through my serial port, the connection speed always appears as 115200 bps regardless of the speed the modem is actually connected it. Part of the problem with dropping down in speed here are the cordless phones in my house...
  37. J

    Any way to speed up a 56K connection?

    The reason I'm asking this is because I'm at the end of my rope right now. I was doing a 50MB download with Opera, which lets me stop and resume downloads. However, even with this feature sometimes errors occur and the entire download starts over again. This happpened twice already with the...
  38. J

    Fans, fans, fans

    I'll echo the sentiments about putting fans on the Northbridge or video cards. A large passive heat sink will do just fine in either case, or if you really must have a fan, don't have one of those miserable 25mm jobs that move less air than a moth and sound like mosquitoes on steriods. When my...
  39. J

    Help me choose my wedding transportation

    If I had to suggest something, it would be a ride on the TGV, but since that's not local to you maybe Amtrak will be an OK if somewhat half-assed substitute. Mercutio also offered a few interesting if unconventional suggestions. Autos, whether limos, rent-a-cars, whatever, are just too mundane...
  40. J

    Iraqi crisis explained...

    Since it looks like war is inevitable at this time, I suggest everybody, especially Americans against the war, put aside their personal feelings and unite to make sure the troops over there get all the support necessary to get the job done as quickly as possible. We don't need this to turn into...
  41. J

    Iraqi crisis explained...

    I found I very long list of hits when I searched for "Israel" and "war crimes", so rather than bore everyone with hundreds of links I just picked two more or less at random. http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/deno/html/deno2.htm Nice list, isn't it...
  42. J

    Iraqi crisis explained...

    Although I fully supported the attacks on Afghanistan following 9/11 because we were going after those directly responsible I really can't make up my mind one way or another about Iraq. To be sure, Iraq sponsors terrorism and Iraq may acquire WMD in the future if nothing is done. Saddam will...
  43. J

    Determining number of directory levels

    The limit for the Joliet file system is a 64-character filename. The ISO standard allows up to 255 characters in a path(31 characters for MS-DOS 8.3 compatible level 1 ISO). Nero has an option to allow more 255, but I'm not sure if any other burning software does. As some here mentioned, the...
  44. J

    hdd mod (in the box)

    1 silent hard drive: priceless The best things in life are free. For everything else there's MasterCard­®
  45. J

    I reboot my computer(s)...

    I've always been a bit puzzled as to what those rolling blackouts actually accomplish as far as saving energy. Shutting everything down in only one small area every few weeks seems to me like it would save at most a fraction of a percent, and cause great inconvenience as well. Wouldn't simple...
  46. J

    I reboot my computer(s)...

    I think everyone here knows I'm still running Win98SE. That usually means daily reboots, sometimes precautionary, sometimes involutary. My Linux box was actually up a full week before I had to reboot into Win98 to run some taxicam repair software. I've also had Win98SE running on that machine...
  47. J

    hdd mod (in the box)

    Sounds good to me. I've had similar issues with lead where it doesn't take all the details of the mold. I think it's because the mold cools the lead very fast before it has a chance to flow everywhere. No matter, it should fit good enough to take the heat away from the drive. We're not...
  48. J

    Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 6800 13.6GB 7200 RPM

    Thanks. Sounds good to me. :) I'll be happy to take it for that price if nobody buys it. BTW, I checked eBay yesterday and I saw drives smaller than that going for $30+. I even saw someone who had a 540 MB drive for a $15 BIN price, although he had no takers so far. I wouldn't be surprised...
  49. J

    Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 6800 13.6GB 7200 RPM

    How much? Honestly, I'm willing to pay around $1 per GB plus shipping(no hurry-UPS or USPS ground is fine). Less is the drive flaky, more if it's brand new, never used. I'm looking to pick up a few used IDE drives in the over 2GB class, but they're currently going for ridiculous prices on...
  50. J

    hdd mod (in the box)

    Interesting thought. I'm thinking with the proper tools you could machine something to more or less fit the top of the drive instead of using lead. Also, someone pointed out above that the sides of the drive get hottest, meaning this is the best place to attach a heat sink. Since I want to...
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