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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)...

I wasn't sure which you meant, but a flourescent flicking at 60 times per second is definitely noticeable, which is why they've used the full wave for quite some time. At 120 times per second it isn't, but the flicker still makes a great strobe which I've used to get a rough approximation of...

Read all about it here: http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,107744,00.asp http://www.beststuff.com/article.php3?story_id=4393 Even though it's classified as a TV, it has enough resolution(1920x1080) to make a decent monitor. I would love to see MS Train Simulator on this...

Tungsten lights give off their light solely by heating a filament. The time it takes the filament to heat or cool is up to a few seconds long. Even the time to cool enough to give a noticeable change in light output is longer than the period of one AC wave, so you would not get noticeable(or...

Thankfully, I didn't notice that thread on SR. And even more thankfully, I wasn't eating when I viewed it just now. :crap: SR seriously needs some moderation. And the jerk that posted that garbage should apply for a guest slot on The Jerry Springer Show instead of defiling SR. SR is a...

Too bad you don't have Bill Gates' wealth, Mercutio. You could undoubtably accomplish a great deal of good in this world. Many of those with wealth tend to spend it on stupid conspicuous or even contemptuous consumption rather than trying to do some good with it. If I had the resources, I...

Funny, I'm running a 15" KDS monitor at 1024x768 also at 60 Hz, and I don't get headaches or eyestrain most of the time, either. The only exception is when I'm at my computer for 24 hours straight or more. One time the lines of text were actually jumping out off the screen after I had been...

Tannin, my father likes to make lists of things also. Sounds like him and Tea would be a perfect match. When he had an aquarium he used to make lists whenever the fishes gave birth, as well as lists of his many collections. It drives me and my mom crazy. He doesn't even use a PC for his...

Here's some numbers from one week where I worked a lot of overtime back in 1990(deductions were made each week based on an annualized basis): Net Pay:$1076.00 FICA Tax: $82.31 Federal Income Tax: $227.58 State Income Tax:$67.24 Local income Tax:$28.88 Union dues: $2.77 Total...

:o I thought you were just suffering from multiple personality disorder but now I see you have other, shall we say, issues. I guess living with Tannin will do that to you. Poor Tea. :( I feel your pain. :cry: I really do. Are the numbers supposed to be pointing me at a web site, or...

I know a lot of people making $40,000 per year or more who pay nearly half in taxes. If there is to be a tax cut, it should be mainly for the $25,000 to $100,000 tax bracket. These people are not rich by any stretch of the imagination, yet they still pay up to half their income in taxes. As...

I think by insane I meant a danger to others, as in criminally mentally ill, not chronic organic depression. Given what happened to you during the last year, almost anybody would be severely depressed, even suicidal. I'm still very depressed over the death of Tiger almost 4 months ago even...