Search results

On site I definitely wouldn't hesitate to charge full rate. At home I would allow some leeway, depending upon several factors-possibility of repeat business, ability to pay, possible referrals, whether or not they were a PITA, how much of a rush the job was, whether or not I'm being paid cash...

Intriguing idea, although I'm not sure offhand if there would be enough of a market to justify the hard drive makers doing the R&D work. Once enough home users are into video something like this will definitely make sense. Right now we can get 320 GB in a 3.5" standard form factor IDE drive...

Mercutio, in a case like this I would have absolutely no problem charging $100 per hour for the four hours you were watching ERP do it's thing. This is a case of customer responsibility if I ever saw one, and the fact the you probably won't get much meaningful repeat business from this client...

The low-medium-high is just the blower speed. The compressor is still either on or off. I have yet to see one that does what I would want(continuously variable compressor speed). There are some commercial units that do this, but I don't need 100,000 BTU. ;) On second thought, a room at 0°...

I've had some devices look worse than that after 10 minutes at 212°F. The plastic would be melted a lot more badly than that if it were really 20 minutes at 400°, and there is no way it would work. That would be plenty of time for the heat to work it's way into the internal parts. Heat would...

95°F, 100% humidity, all sorts of flying insects, and the smell of air pollution(which always smells worse in summer) are a couple of good reasons. As of late I've grown to hate summer with a passion. There just aren't any redeeming features in my book. The types of females I prefer don't...

You would be surprised how quickly the body acclimates itself. When fall starts, even 50°F feels chilly. By the time winter's over, 35°F actually feels warm. Winter is good in that you can always put more clothes on if it gets colder. Summer sucks. Once you're down to shorts and a T-short...

No mention of the oven temperature. Somehow I doubt it was on anything much higher than about 250°F by the looks of it. I thought this thread was about NYC last summer until I looked at it. We had what seemed like an endless string of days in the 90s and 100s. :( We're finally having a real...

In part it is definitely due to the density. I've noticed it's usually at least a year before you'll see SCSI drives with similar platter densities but much lower seek times. For example, right now SCSI drives with 36 GB/platter are common. IDE was using 40 GB platters over a year ago. Yes...

You make an excellent point here. I've often wondered what's the point in going from 5400 RPM to 7200 RPM and continuing to use the same activator when you can accomplish the same reduction in access time by using an activator that's 1.4 ms faster and keeping at 5400 RPM(which will save you...

:lol: :mrgrn: :lol:

Honestly, it's a tough call to make. On the one hand, a reusable vehicle is subject to repeated stresses that a one-use vehicle isn't. On the other, a reusable vehicle must be built more robustly to repeatedly survive the stresses of launch and reentry. I wouldn't base my decision on the...

It becomes second nature after a while. I've long drilled into my head the idea of going limp whenever I fall off my bicycle. Although I haven't had a crash in something like seven years, the idea has served me well in the past. One time I hit a pothole doing 37 MPH. The front wheel bent and...

Here's a link to deadly space accidents: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20030201-0930-space-accidents-chronology.html Combined you have at least 145 deaths(that they'll admit to) versus 17 for the US(3 in the Apollo fire, 7 on Challenger, 7 on Columbia). Yes, almost an order of...

A thermistor is just a resistor whose resistance varies with temperature. There is no polarity. If the fan is using a transistor junction or other electronic temperature sensor then the wrong polarity will definitely cause a problem. As for the components that do have polarity, we have...

Due to the nature of the defunct Soviet Union's government, it is difficult getting an exact accounting of deaths connected with their space program, but suffice it to say the number is an order of magnitude above America's losses(17 in all). I think something like 4 cosmonauts were lost on...

It can be argued that the overuse of antibiotics is helping to create more resistant strains of bacteria and virii. And guess who produces antibiotics? No doubt in my mind the drug companies, aided by doctors, are helping to create these resistant bugs on purpose. They get more money now for...

Just to clarify, what I mean is a jumper on the M/B that remaps at least the first 1M to the video card RAM. Or perhaps you can use all of the video card RAM except 1 or 2 MB so you have graphics capability and the use of almost all of the 32 or 64 or 128 MB on the video card. In the...

It's MS by a close margin for me. Although as of late their operating systems has become reasonably stable, I am thoroughly annoyed with their stupid PA. one license per machine, and pending adoption of DRM. PA and DRM are highly intrusive schemes that I personally wouldn't tolerate on any...

About all the mission control data tells us so far is that it was a sudden, catastrophic failure of some kind. An educated guess would be that some tiles came slightly unbonded during launch, and the stresses encountered during reentry caused them to fall off. It only takes a few tiles in a...

Looks like me and SteveC started a thread on this at the same time.

I turned on the TV today and was astonished at the news: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=1&cid=578&u=/nm/20030201/ts_nm/space_shuttle_debris_dc Too early to speculate on the causes. It is not yet known if there are any survivors. A full scale search for debris is...

Don't worry, it will only get slightly warm, not hot enough to burn. Look on the bright side-you can also have an integral coffee cup holder designed to keep your beverage hot mounted right on the hottest portion of the case/sheet sink. This time around I didn't mean enough to run Windows or...

I hate to admit that I use IE 5.5 for most of my browsing, but exclusively Opera for downloads. Opera has the built-in ability to stop a download and restart at a later time. This functionality comes in very handy with 56K if you're downloading a 50MB file and someone needs to use the phone...

1)Cases designed with fans that only suck air in, and power supplies that do likewise. By placing a filter over the input to each fan, this would eliminate dust in the case. Of course, you'll need to occasionally clean the filters, so perhaps an auditory reminder every 50 hours or so of...

There were a couple of gems in that article: "Rather than suing to protect their right to target an unwilling population, DMA members might examine why their chosen form of marketing is so ineffective in the first place and address the relevant problems." "Spam email, by its definition, tends...

Well, the fines for unwanted calls are about to make it a heck of a lot less economically viable. :mrgrn: I like to think they do the types of studies you mentioned, but surveys show a universal dislike of telemarketing. Answering the phone requires you to drop what you're doing, and when you...

How about neither? Seriously, if I want to buy something, I don't need to be pressured. Add to this the fact that the most annoying ads are for irrelevant, useless products(which is probably why they feel the need to push them so hard). If they would actually start selling just things people...

My heart bleeds for them. Seriously, some of their claims are ludicrous: "In the suit, the DMA and four telemarketing firms said the FTC's effort would violate free-speech laws and discriminate against an industry that provides millions of jobs." First of all, I doubt that the industry...

After a little more detective work I found out that I have a Toshiba Infinia 7160: http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/1996_09/pr1101.htm Where do they get these names from, BTW? Anyhow, the motherboard is an Intel board(it can even be flashed with an Intel BIOS which I did), and their...

Actually that quote by Mark is from the original series, specifically the episode called "Amok Time"(no, I don't know all the episodes by heart). Spock goes into heat(for lack of a better word), returns to Vulcan to marry, his bride-to-be issues a challenge and chooses an opponent(Capt. Kirk)...

Virge S3 with 2MB RAM. 86C325 chip to be exact.

Take solace, Buck. This is the first halfway decent machine I've found. My other "finds" are: 386SX-25(no RAM, 40 MB HDD)-working with 8 MB RAM IBM P/S2 Model 70(proprietary HDD, floppy, 6 MB RAM)-dead battery, unable to set CMOS because it apparently defaults to 5.25" 1.2 MB floppy and...

Believe or not, I found a fully functional computer(minus monitor) while going for a walk yesterday. The machine was complete with 2 CD-ROM drives(8X and 32X), floppy, 2GB hard drive, 166 MHz Pentium processor(with a huge heatsink), and 16 MB RAM. It started right up once I let it come to room...

Thanks for the link. That site contains a wealth of information and I spent a good three hours reading articles. I found out why utilities choose sodium street lights(because the only selection criteria was lm/watt), and why they stink(has to do with differences in day and night vision)...

That was Dr. Bashir on Deep Space 9.

Mercutio, that was a very lucid analysis of the situation as I see it. I still live with my parents at age 40, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, because there is no way a single person can afford to be on their own in New York City given the types of jobs that are available. Assuming I gave up...

Lucky you, although at least I had both parents living with me(still do), which was a plus. I also had a gun pointed at me once, in the subway about 14 years ago. The guy was stoned, and I managed to disarm him, but it was still scary, nonetheless. I actually saw a dead body on the Times...

Another Slackware Linux. :-? This is starting to get freaky. My favorite question was which villian would you be. Naturally, I choose Darth Vadar. He's the person I would least like to meet in a dark alley. I could picture myself now:"President Bush, you have failed me for the last time!"

You couldn't be more wrong, and that is precisely why I support some system like you mentioned where only the gifted and financially able are allowed to have children. I lived in a NYC Housing project for the first 15 years of my life. We didn't even have a car until I was 9, not that you...

I look forward to your reply, Mercutio. We don't usually disagree on many topics, at least not this strongly. It seems that one of the reasons you like public schools is because you can have some input on the curriculum through local school boards. Think again. Local school boards have...

I used to be a big supporter of public education but as of late I find the concept less and less appealing. First and most importantly, the public schools by and large are failing miserably at what they do. They have become patronage mills for labor unions and political hacks. Teachers seem...

I found this comment on that site Tea linked to particularly disturbing: If that ever comes to pass, I think I'll just cancel my Internet service. :( All the bad points about Flash that the author alludes to are so true. Anything that Flash can do HTML and animated GIFs can do as well or...

Here's some FAQs about white LEDs that I just found: http://www.caves.org.uk/led/led-myths.html Some other interesting links: http://www.osram-os.com/news/news_luzern.html http://www.ccrane.com/120_volt_white_led_bulb.asp http://www.osram-os.com/news/news_worldpremiere.html...

I guess "squiggle" was the first word that came to me to describe those. :) Not as accurate as "spiral" but it conveys a similar picture. And yes, it's amazing how much better and cheaper those spirals have gotten. I remember when they cost $25 and were much larger than a bulb(they weren't...

As I said, the warm whites are not bad, much better than a standard incandescent anyway. In fact, the light coming from the "squiggles" seems to approximate halogen pretty well, so at least it's a fairly "good" type of incandescent lighting that they try to approximate, not those awful bulbs...

It looks like Eugene removed that disgusting thread. Better late than never.

For point of comparison, I have some 23-watt squiggle fluorescents(OK, iGary?) that give off the light of a 100-watt incandescent bulb, last 8000 hours(instead of 750), and only cost me $4 each(a bargain when you consider that bulbs run at least $1 and this replaces about 11 of them). The same...

They've been down for me all day as well. Yesterday, SR was down for a while, and then SF not too long after. I also had some problems with train-sim.com and uktrainsim.com. The denial of service or whatever it is seems to be making the rounds.

You might also try to find one of those Evergreen 486 upgrades on EBay that turn a 486 into the equivalent of a Pentium 75, or perhaps even look for a Pentium or Pentium MMX motherboard+processor instead. Many of these come in the AT form factor, and you can usually get them fairly cheap(<$20)...