Search results

  1. J

    Cycling

    2K feet in 15 miles is around 2.5%-shallow enough not to be obvious that you're climbing, but steep enough to slow you off your "flat" pace by quite a bit. Winds can have the same effect as hills. Yesterday riding out of the city I was getting into the high 20s quite a bit on roads which were...
  2. J

    The destruction of liberty

    Extradition to the US is fine if the person is a committing or plans to commit crimes which cause injury or death to US citizens. What we're talking about here is at best financial loss, and even that part is debatable. The majority of people who download stuff illegally aren't people who...
  3. J

    How to deal with wind chill?

    Incidentally, the time I felt the coldest in my life was one day in February 2007 when I went to Chinatown for Chinese New Year with my mom. It was about 15°F when we left that afternoon. By the time we came home late that night, it was single digits. To make things worse, when we got off the...
  4. J

    How to deal with wind chill?

    Don't know whether this belongs here or in the cycling thread, but I did an hour on the Airborne yesterday when it was hovering right around freezing. Today it was 23°F when I went out but I still lasted 6 miles and 23 minutes. In both cases I only stopped riding when my fingers were numb to...
  5. J

    Cycling

    Thanks for sharing. Sounds like an epic ride. What sort of data did you need to upload to the site, and would I be able to do the same (I have Garmin .gdb files of my rides)? Nice ride earlier today. 24 miles on the Airborne, about 4 miles past city limits and back, in 1:31. Nice tailwind...
  6. J

    RIP FIC AU13

    This thread may be of interest. If you see bulging caps and are handy with a soldering iron, you can probably effect a repair yourself for under $15 (plus some of your time). Other than that, I agree with Coug. It's just not worth investing large amounts of cash in otherwise obsolete...
  7. J

    Cycling

    I rode my Airborne this past Saturday and Sunday in 36° to 38° F temps, 42 miles in total, both rides averaging in the high 15s. If you're not already wearing them, gloves are a must for any riding when it's much under about 45°F. Even with that, my tolerance for riding in this kind of weather...
  8. J

    Synchronizing to an NTP server over LAN

    /setsntp: wasn't even a valid switch in Vista for w32tm. Before I even started this thread, I did try net time /setsntp: which worked just fine for setting the NTP server ( so does w32tm /config /syncfromflags:MANUAL /manualpeerlist:time_server_name /update ), but w32 time refused to synchonize...
  9. J

    Synchronizing to an NTP server over LAN

    I recently set up my desktop PC as an NTP server ( don't ask-it's a really long story ). Everything works well, time seems to match my G-Shock solar atomic watch exactly. I even set up my laptop to synchronize to the desktop over the LAN every 15 minutes. I used task scheduler to run the net...
  10. J

    How to deal with wind chill?

    Layers works for me. If it's really cold, I need a nylon windbreaker somewhere among the layers. We're actually finally getting into good cycling weather around here (by my standards, anyway), so long at it stays above about 35°F.
  11. J

    Shaving solutions, or, what do Gilette and all those companies do with all their $?

    In the case of humans that might make sense if hairiness was universal. It isn't. Some adults have little or nothing in the way of pubic hair or body hair. My own preference is hair on the head and eyebrows, only. The second I see hair anywhere else, it's a huge turnoff. I've actually known...
  12. J

    Something Random

    Thanks guys for the birthday wishes! And thanks CityK for the birthday gift! The #7 train in the beginning, and the shot of Queensboro Plaza 50 seconds in, is definitely on my list of NYC experiences-I've ridden that line literally hundreds of times, if not more. Really, anything subway is...
  13. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    Ouch. :-o I'm going to hazard a guess that you either had an accident doing stuff around the house, or riding your bike. I'll let you know either way as soon as I make an attempt at it. A nice custom-machined enclosure would be nice. Heck, if we end up going that route, might as well...
  14. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    I was pretty sick for much of the last few weeks, so things haven't progressed as rapidly as I thought they would. Don't forget also I'm basically designing this from scratch. If I was just copying an already built and proven design, it might have been done already. Just to update you, I've...
  15. J

    Llano for HTPC?

    I was (maybe still am) seriously considering either Llano or the next generation APU for my next system. The reason is I anticipate eventually needing more graphics capability than either most onboard, or Intel's integrated graphics, provide but I don't want to buy a discrete graphics card. I...
  16. J

    New motherboard supports 288GB of RAM

    I'm planning on 16 GB for my next upgrade. Even that I consider gross overkill but RAM now is stupidly cheap. I can't imagine what anyone would do with 192 GB.
  17. J

    The shock, the horror!

    They most definitely did. One of my grandfathers had an AMD VTCPU-01 1-bit vacuum tube processor running at 3 KHz with 12 bits of relay-based RAM. This was considered state of the art for the time. :rofl:
  18. J

    Large-scale water cooling (heat transfer)

    The goal of this project seems to be to recover the heat from machines which will be running regardless. Obviously if heating is your only goal it's easiest to just use a conventional heating set up. Incidentally, the one PC I have on in my bedroom 24/7 seems to make that room about 5°F warmer...
  19. J

    Large-scale water cooling (heat transfer)

    These are about as simple as you can get. I'm actually using something similar on the water block of my thermoelectric temperature chamber as a failsafe in case water flow is cut off. Mine came with some surplus TEC assemblies I bought.
  20. J

    Shaving solutions, or, what do Gilette and all those companies do with all their $?

    Norelco 7345XL for me. I shave every day because I find stubble annoying. When I used to use a blade my face was always irritated, especially my neck. When I was in college I started using electrics. Big difference. Maybe they don't shave quite as close as a blade, but the advantages make...
  21. J

    Large-scale water cooling (heat transfer)

    This isn't a bad idea and I'm wondering if it could be taken a few steps further. I'm thinking along the lines of a hot water heating system for the entire house where the water is preheated first by low-level waste heat from various appliances ( computers, refrigerators, LED lighting ) before...
  22. J

    Christmas 2011 PC for Wife

    From my reading, one of the strengths of Llano is the integrated graphics are good enough to tolerably play many games, 2-3 times better than iCore, and better than just about all integrated motherboard graphics. Downsides are the regular computing performance and to some extent the price...
  23. J

    Poll: How much data do you take care of?

    Unique data for me is what's on my hard drive. I have a combination of pictures I've taken, documents (Excel, MSWord), PC board CAD files, downloaded files of all sorts (images, news articles, data sheets, trainsim stuff, etc.), and my OS/apps. It still fits on my 200 GB boot drive, barely...
  24. J

    Idea: Mounting Rail for Bicycle Stem

    I'm putting the battery box and light engine together for my light because I don't want to run extra wires. Do you prefer that option for yourself also, or would you prefer the battery box to be separate (in which case you could put it in one of your water bottle cages)? The battery box needs...
  25. J

    Idea: Mounting Rail for Bicycle Stem

    That is a nice idea. My handlebars always get crowded with all the junk I mount on them. The stem seems a natural place to put stuff. I've yet to see anything exactly like you suggest. Seriously, I think the idea might be patentable. It's certainly marketable. The closest thing I've seen...
  26. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    Yeah, they're all in series so if one goes open the string won't light. That's not really a concern though because LEDs almost never fail open circuit, and these aren't being overdriven. XP-Gs are speced for 1.5 amps. I'm only driving them at 1 amp tops. Most of the time it will be way less...
  27. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    I would just put enough LEDs in series to come fairly close to the minimum operating voltage of the battery back (in this case about 10 volts so I would use 4 red LEDs in series), and then have a linear current regulator to absorb the remainder of the voltage difference. Another option is to...
  28. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    Not hard at all. I've actually been running a similar setup on the Raleigh where I have a plug/wire to draw power from the headlight batteries for the taillight. It saves me the bother of messing with batteries for the taillight.
  29. J

    Cycling

    Yeah, that's kind of like the difference between my Raleigh and the Airborne. Unfortunately, I've yet to take the Airborne on a decent ride because it lacks a headlight. I ordered the batteries today, and this made my life worlds easier. I don't have to spend time designing a protection...
  30. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    I've been designing and repairing electronics for over 25 years. To me my PC was just another broken piece of electronic equipment which could potentially be repaired. I hate discarding things which still have some useful life in them. That made attempting repair second nature. Now if this...
  31. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    That's exactly the reason. In the scheme of things, spending an extra $50 on my next upgrade won't break the bank. I'm also interested in future-proofing any upgrade as much as possible since I tend to use systems for a long time in between upgrades. 16GB may seem outlandish now, but I might...
  32. J

    Annoyance of the day - ATM charge for usage

    I'm strictly cash in brick-and-mortar stores except for large purchases (and I put those on credit card). The big problem for me with debit cards is keeping track of how much you have left in the account. My debit card draws on my checking account. Generally, I only put enough in there to...
  33. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    For what it's worth, the time value of my money at this point is under 2%. Assuming I went with 16GB and spent $100 now, if it's selling for over $102 in 6 months I'm ahead. And there's a very good chance I might be upgrading in less than 6 months anyway. The graph looks like it bottomed out...
  34. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    I've had the PC running now for 24 hours straight. I swapped in the supply from my mom's PC because the 5V rail was marginally better (21A instead of 20A) and my MB converts the CPU power from the 5V rail. Even though it's fixed, I'm probably going to upgrade sometime in the next 6 months...
  35. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    I placed the order with Cutter. It usually takes 2 weeks give or take a few days. It'll probably take close to that long to finish up everything else anyhow. This place also had XP-Es, but mounted on a 20mm board. I would have had to dismount them from the 20mm board, and remount them on the...
  36. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    Regarding not choosing the tint bins, it shouldn't be that big a deal. Cree (actually all the LED manufacturers) are getting pretty good in that you don't get horribly green or purplish tints any more. As for flux bins, Mouser appears to be selling by flux. The downside is they only have the...
  37. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    Yeah, it would be something like that. I'm working out whether I can safely charge several of those cells in series at low current (i.e. overnight charge) without adding circuitry for cell balancing. I need to order emitters/optics from Cutter, which is probably 2 weeks to get to me. If...
  38. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    Getting to some specifics, the setup I have uses 6 XP-Gs with 10mm optics. In retrospect it would have made more sense to use XP-Es, even though the raw lumen numbers are less, because the smaller die would be focused into a tighter beam by the optics. Right now I have about 7300 candela and...
  39. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    Here's some pictures of the headlight I'm building. I still need to make the battery box and mounting bracket. Regulator board (ZXLD1370-can be configured as boost, buck-boost, or buck):
  40. J

    Cycling

    I think the 21 speeds probably includes super low gears which would make sense for the type of rider this bike is designed for. Obviously they're not going to climb 4% or 5% grades in a 42-26 gear at 12-14 mph like I do. ;) Since you wife hasn't ridden in 25 years, this is probably a good...
  41. J

    Cycling

    Is there any reason for getting a bike with a step-through frame? Those used to be used a lot back when women wore long, bulky dresses which would have made mounting a bike with traditional tubing difficult. The majority of women nowadays ride the same types of bikes men do. As for...
  42. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    Actually, I think the MB is closer to 8 years old. I considered the work worthwhile because this was considered a high-end MB back in the day, at least judging from the reviews on the Newegg product page. Now whenever I upgrade the system can do limited duty as a second/backup machine.
  43. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    I did it more to see if I could than anything else. I figure if I saved $300 in the short term it was probably worth the 5 or 6 hours spent on actual repair time. As a bonus, I also did some advance research for my next upgrade. ;) Here's a picture with the caps I replaced maked in red. One...
  44. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    I think I got it fixed. It ran for 48 hours with the side cover off before I shut it down today to replace the 3300 uF caps. Not enough room to replace all the caps because the ones I had were larger diameter. I put in 4 out of 8. System booted into XP with the cover on just fine. So far it...
  45. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    I tacked the caps onto a parts order for another project 25 pcs 1000 uF caps at 0.21 each = $5.25 15 pcs 3300 uF caps at 0.68 each = $10.20 sales tax = $1.37 TOTAL = $16.82 (actually less because I'll have nine 1000 uF caps and seven 3300 uF caps left over for other projects) I'm not counting...
  46. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    I put in the 1000 uF caps. Still the same thing-stable with the cover off, shuts down randomly with it on. Last thing to do is change out the 3300 uF caps around the CPU. The caps I bought were too big. I need to order 10mm Sanyos on eBay. Even though the caps on my MB weren't the...
  47. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    I haven't yet replaced the 13 1000 uF caps but the system has been running all night without shutting down. I noticed a funny thing-the system seems stable so long as I have the case open. And it doesn't appear to be a thermal issue. The system was unstable with the case closed even from a...
  48. J

    Bicycle LED headlight

    Everything in the first post sounds reasonable. Give me some time to get back on specifics. I'm posting now from my A78NX which is marginally stable. I'll post in more detail when I'm on a machine which isn't in danger of randomly shutting down.
  49. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    I replaced the 2 820 uF caps which were bulging. The eight 3300 uf caps near the microprocessor seem OK. They're Rubicons, not the problematic Nichicons. The system is better, but still not 100% stable. In fact, I'm writing this post from it right now. I suspect I may need to replace the 13...
  50. J

    question PC may have died-need some feedback on MB/CPU/RAM

    More updates. I removed the extra caps on the graphics card but the system is doing the same thing. Now it won't even boot to XP. Since the graphics card caps were indeed bad, and I replaced them, we can pretty much assume now the graphics card wasn't the problem, although it may have made...
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