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The amount of force increases with the square of the wind speed. And I'd guess the system currently stops at category 5 because there are few hurricanes powerful enough to merit another category (although that may change as we're leaving a century of relatively low hurricane activity-hence the...

I heard on a special on hyperhurricanes that they're planning to go up to 8, probably using 20 or 25 mph increments: Category 6: 176 mph to 200 mph Category 7: 201 mph to 225 mph Category 8: > 226 mph Under the revised system Katrina was very briefly category 7. So far there has been no...

It looks likely to hit west of NO this time, but it still won't be a picnic. Radar shows the storm to be nearly the size of the entire Gulf. And yes, it may become a Cat 5 or even Cat 6 (sustained winds > 175 mph) before it makes landfall.

Done. Done. Done. I agree with the point you so delicately drove home here, and most websites work fine in other browsers. I'm having a huge problem with my Yahoo email however. It's as slow as sh*t in Opera. As I just mentioned in Dave's XP Antivirus 2008 thread, I really hope they get...

I've had this, XP Antivirus 2009, and I think MS Antivirus 2008 pop-ups more in the last week than ever before. It seems the SOBs are really persistent. And nothing seems to be able to prevent these pop-ups from happening despite using Spywareblaster, Spybot S&D, and AdAware. The only safe...

Some decent 12V power bricks can exceed 80% efficiency. The best bet is to get one with fairly high current capability (i.e. over 10 amps). Since it has to be fairly efficient at high currents to keep from melting, that means it uses heftier active elements (MOSFETs, diodes). This will mean it's...

I recently was bothered by something called MSAntivirus 2009 which redirected me to a site attempting to get me to download malware. Anyway, I came to the conclusion that I should have been selectively blocking cookies but never got around to it. Today I started adding sites to my blocked cookie...

Vacation time and working hours are two good points to negotiate. If it were up to me I'd rather work 3 longer days than 5 regular ones. Four day weekends all the time would be a nice perk. Having the company pay for your housing, especially if you need to relocate to an expensive area, is...

Living in an area with many Asians, I can tell you for a fact that you'll occasionally have someone college age who might pass for 11 or 12. This isn't as common as it used to be with the better nutrition nowadays, but nevertheless some of these girls are both tiny and have childlike features...

Just for kicks I connected my mom's HDTV to the roof antenna a few months ago. Yes, I did pull in quite a few stations, even some from areas where I could never pick up an analog signal. It seems to me that DTV might well carry further than NTSC in the absence of things like mountains (obviously...

Interesting article on resolutions. Based on my own viewing habits (I watch my mom's 40" 1080p HDTV from about 4 feet) I would benefit from 1440p. However, much closer to the screen and the sides fall out of my view. Therefore, resolutions higher than 1440p probably wouldn't be of much use as...

It's a shame the movie makers and TV makers can't get on the same page once and for all regarding aspect ratio. While 1.85:1 might be passable on a 1.77:1 screen in that you don't have huge black bars, 2.4:1 isn't. My guess it this is all part of a ploy to get people to upgrade again when they...

I personally can't wait until it's all HD digital. I'm tired of a gazillion different formats being used, especially with commercials, whenever I watch a program in HD. First you'll have the program in regular HD filling the entire screen (or maybe not if the producers don't know what they're...

Putting aside the environmental aspects of lower power processors, I'd like to see them for the ease of cooling. It would be nice to have multi-core processors running at a decent clock speed, but dissipating 10 watts or less. That means passive cooling would be possible. Couple that with a...

I agree that NBCs coverage stinks. If you didn't know any better you would think all the Olympics had was beach volleyball, swimming, diving, and gymnastics. It's a pity one of the big networks has to have a virtual monoploy on coverage. That being said, it is exactly the fact that I see most of...

Not to mention that in general when a product needs heavy advertising to sell it's proably a case of a company trying to sell what they feel like making as opposed to what the consumer wants. Good products sell themselves via word of mouth.

I'm not bragging about anything. I just wanted to see if anyone on TWC was getting more than the advertised 16 Mbs. By the way, my service was down most of yesterday. When it came back I did a few more bandwidth tests. Best result was 26695 Kbps. I read up a little more about so-called...

It was the original one on mine also until I refreshed the page.

No, just standard which was recently bumped from 10 to 16 Mbps. This surpised me because prior to the most recent speed bump I was getting just under 10 Mbps late nights (and usually less other times). Now I'm getting 20+ Mbps late nights. Maybe they just opened the pipe all the way, figuring it...

After getting in the area of 10 Mbps for the last year or so I had heard RoadRunner bumped the speed to 16 Mbs. Turns out I'm even getting a bit more than that: Anyone else experiencing similar speeds now?

What wattage were you using? The regular 14 watt ones are actually smaller than an incandescent lamp in many cases. I think Home Depot also carries these. They look like a regular bulb. The downside is that they're only available in up to 14 watts, and likely use the same slow-starting amalgam...

Don't know about Osram but there are generally about six months to 1 year in between a lab announcement and actual product with Cree. The GE outdoor lighting sounds exciting: "The GE outdoor LED area light improves visibility and quality of light versus standard HID systems by providing a...

One interesting difference between the regular and downlight type CFLs besides the longer starting time is the lumens. The 14 watt warm white downlights are 640 lumens. The regular 14 watt soft whites are 900 lumens. The losses are undoubtedly due to the reflector and the enclosure but it can be...

No, I was referring to their 4-packs of standard 14 watt spirals. Our local Home Depot usually has them. They would work just fine in a downlight also although you might lose some lumens compared to a CFL with a reflector. They look like this:

Won't do anything for the smell however. If this smells as bad as the gas tools the local gardeners use I wouldn't want to be anywhere within 100 feet. Cool robot though. Am I the only one thinking it would look and sound like a giant mosquito if you added another pair of legs, wings, and a long...

Yes, the downlight type CFLs usually use a mercury amalgam to better deal with the temperatures. It's also better for fixtures with frequent starting. The downside is the long warmup time. The 4 pack of 14 watt CFLs I had recommended has no such problem. They come to about 75% brightness pretty...

MPJA has a whole bunch. You need 12 volts and I'd say around 4 amps. This one might do.

That might be a timer of some sort. Either way, so long as the circuit doesn't use an electronic switch then a CFL should be OK. If you hear a click right before the lamps go off then it's using a mechanical relay and all is well. It it's totally silent then it might be using a triac. This may...

Tim, if you get fairly low wattage CFLs (i.e. 13 or 14 watt which is equivalent to 60 watt incandescent), then it shouldn't be a problem in your open fixtures. Home Depot has a great line of n:vision CFLs. I have a pair of 14 watt ones operating in a totally enclosed fixture with no problems. It...

No, I'm against people feeling they're entitled to live in a certain way just because artificial factors have made that way of life possible in the past. The era of cheap energy and sprawl is coming to a close. There's just no way the free markets you love can sustain it. Government shouldn't...

You're 100% right but hasn't the model for business in the US in the last decade been "private profit, public risk"? When you have companies like Walmart who actually tell their employees how to get Medicaid and welfare subsidies instead of paying them a living wage, well, you don't think other...

Speaking of socialism, you conveniently left out a few socialist aspects of government which you probably benefit from: 1) The home mortgage interest deduction is effectively the government paying part of your mortgage interest in the form of reduced taxes. If a similar break was available to...

Price parity I'd say within two years for notebook drives, perhaps 3 to 5 for desktop drives. I'd be willing to pay a 50% premium at this point for SSD, and I'm cheap. I imagine there would be a huge market even at 100% premium. Let's not forgot hard drives were once $300 items even on the low...

Flash without a doubt takes the cake. It may fail your second criteria sometimes, but I say it's still bad doing what it's designed to do because animated .gifs and scripting can be made to do practically the same thing. Now that I've been on broadband for a few years I've almost forgotten how...

Honestly, those conditions are no worse than many jobs I've worked. 80 hours a month overtime is 20 hours per week. I did that and more for months at a time. That engineer probably had health issues which would have killed him even with a 40 hour week. Besides that, on all of the jobs I had I...

I saw this a while back. Seems to be geared more towards streetlighting/warehouse light than home lighting due to the enormous output (not that I wouldn't mind one in my workroom ;) ). I wonder if it can be scaled down to a 20 to 50 watt size more appropriate for home lighting without losing...

I think the case/PSU is the best thing to give her if you can convince her to upgrade. A good case can last forever, and the PSU is arguably the most important part of the computer. I use the Lian-Li PC-60 on all my builds along with a Seasonic high-PFC power supply. It probably adds over $100...

Actually, BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight. BMI>30 is obese, or "obeast" as my late father used to pronounce it. Still, point taken-Americans are the fattest people on Earth, but the EU is catching up.

You ever think this bill will even see the light of day? The cost of compliance would put most small retailers out of business.

Here is another interesting read on the subject. What is really happening is inevitable. Think about it for a while. Suburban living is basically spread out living, but with infrastructure close to the standards of a more densely populated city. A mile of sewer pipe or electrical line or road...

Just taken a few minutes ago: Humidity is at or near 100% as well. Probably feels like 120°F. :( I almost got heat stroke just opening the door.

Are they using incandescent lighting in the trains or just in the stations? Honestly, I'm surprised they're still using it at all. NYC has been using fluoro in the trains since the R10 in 1948, and in most of the stations since the 1970s/early 1980s. From my childhood I remember the D line when...

Actually it doesn't quite work that way. Our house naturally holds about 20 to 30 °F above the outside temperature due to solar heating, body heat, and electrical appliances. As a general rule we don't need to heat until the outside temperatures drop under about 45° to 50°F. Even if it's 20°F...

Yeah, a Mr. Fusion would be nice but there is such a thing now. It's called the electric car and electric train. A nuclear power plant generates the energy which charges the car's battery, or in the case of the train powers the catenary from which it draws it's power. And yes, at the current...

Besides the problems I mentioned, simple lack of money prevents access to medical care if you're unisured like I am. My income is low enough to qualify for EIC. You do the math. I can neither afford medical insurace nor can I pay out of pocket. I don't qualify for any of the insurance programs...

It works for me but here's a link to an article on Yahoo News about the same study.

I doubt I've even close to that number, and I'm 18 years older than you are. The only prescription drug I recall taking was penicillin/amoxicillin when I had root canals done. Very occasionally I'll take an OTC cold/fever remedy if aspirin doesn't work. In a way it's a blessing that I react...

Really disturbing article: Over half of Americans on chronic medicines Now I can understand an unfortunate person with a chronic genetically caused condition or injury of some sort needing medication, but according to the article a lot of these medications are simply used to counter an...

Not really. You have to put them on every train for starters. That makes it way more expensive. Electronic equipement and trains don't mix due to the huge amount of RFI generated by the motors. And many tunnels might not make decent projection screens. This is especially true in NYC where you...

In essence supporting a person takes neither air nor water nor food because all of those can be recycled indefinitely given an arbitrarily advanced technology and a certain amount of energy. Energy is really the only external input life of any sort requires. On a global scale, that's exactly...