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This is definitely the way to go in my opinion. The only problem is it's really only useful for single family home situations. In a city like New York it is possible in theory to put a 50-story apartment building underground but the costs would be enormous compared to the energy savings. In...

While it's quite normal to feel resentment after break-in robberies, and I have myself, in the end all that's missing are material things which can be replaced. What really harbors resentement in me are those who accost people in order to rob or rape them. My mom was pushed to the ground by...

I had 2 bicycles stolen from the garage about 20 years ago. Most of the houses around us had multiple break-ins from the late 1970s through the early 1990s(this was before Guiliani cleaned up the city). About the only thing that saved us from more robberies is the fact that somebody is usually...

I came across this article when researching white LED efficiency. By a stroke of luck, some scientists studying the properties of indium nitride as a light emitter found that it had properties that could make it an effective light to electricity converter. Current solar cells have efficiencies...

Not yet but I'll keep an eye out for it on cable. The site you linked to was down when I tried it but I'll take your word that it's worth watching. BTW, it's nice that someone heard of another one of my fairly obscure titles. Quite refreshing actually that people here don't just stick to the...

I don't doubt the greenhouse effect is for real either Tea. We've had crazy weather here the last 10 or 15 years. Mostly, it's been hotter, but also erratic as well. When I was young it was rare to have a day over 90° F in summer. Most summers in the last decade have strings of days over 90...

I wasn't aware they put it on DVD. Any differences or additions that make it worthwhile to buy? BTW, I'm glad somebody besides myself actually knows this film exists. It's definitely worth watching as it shows the sheer insanity of how we live nowadays without a single word of dialogue. A...

Honestly, I'm not sure which since I read about the problem on SR but didn't experience it firsthand. I remember somebody(I think it was Gary H) saying that they had a whole bucket full of dead 6.4 GB WD drives of a certain model number at work. Regardless, a pattern like that is enough to...

Pros: 1)Finds a productive use for waste(hopefully garbage dumps can eventually be reclaimed) 2)Eliminates dependence on foreign oil(no more money flowing to sponsors of terrorism) 3)Municipalities can produce their own oil rather than being at the whims of oil companies 4)If universally adopted...

They've been on my shit list since that 6.4 GB fiasco. Despite their much improved reliability record, it takes a really long time to win back my trust after something like that. IBM's also on my shit list for obvious reasons. That leaves Maxtor, Seagate, and Samsung. No experience...

CougTek, I have three more reasons for you to hate us Americans: 1. 128MB SmartMedia card for $23 at NewEgg(purchased for a digital camera) 2. 80GB, 8 MB cache DM9 purchased for $69.99 after rebates($99.99-30 mail-in rebate) at CompUSA. BTW, I went 5 days after the sale started, and I got the...

Here's my short list in no particular order: 2001:A Space Odyssey The Andromeda Strain Blade Runner(I agree with Mercutio-best science fiction film ever) Silent Running 1984 Total Recall The Hunt For Red October Saving Private Ryan Heaven and Earth Predator The Terminator T2:Judgement Day...

I don't know what's scarier-the people that think up things like this, or the morons who actually believe this crap. Evidently enough people fall for gibberish like this or it wouldn't be so widely used. WTF is a "Grander Penergiser"? Is that something that energizes your penis perhaps? Or...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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:

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. :)

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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)...

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...

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...

I sent it to you in a PM.

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...

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

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...

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...