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Same here. I have zero need to make or receive phone calls when I'm out. In fact, I consider getting phone calls in general pretty annoying so I certainly don't want to get them when I'm out.

Well, that's certainly great news, especially since this guy seems like a greedy pig. The article said he was making $500,000 a year in the 1980s with insurance. I could probably retire after a few years with that kind of income yet he had to be greedy and make even more money with spam. I'm...

One thing I'm puzzled by here is what self-respecting vet would euthanize a perfectly healthy cat? I tend to think most would just send them off to a no-kill shelter if they were unwanted. I'm also somewhat disgusted by some of the reasons mentioned here that people use to euthanize an animal...

Same here. I just measured my wrist at 6 3/4". A lot of females have wrists larger than that.

I'm with LunarMist and ddrueding on wrist watches. The only time I wear one is when I go on the subway so I have an idea of the time. 99% of the time I go out without a watch. I don't wear rings either. It's too much of a chore worrying about stuff like that. My watch preference is for 100%...

I'm terribly sorry to hear that. It doesn't get any easier, either. Three years ago Tiger passed away. To this day I still miss her. If fact, a few days ago I was having a couple of good crying episodes thinking about her. The way Suzette died was similar to what just happened to you...

I agree this law is beyond ridiculous but I really wish the film industry would voluntarily stop sticking gratuitous sex scenes in practically every movie. I for one don't enjoy them at all. I feel they overuse this plot device due to simple lack of creativity. I also question whether the...

Same here, and that's saying a lot because I'm basically a city person. However, those areas look so remote, so alien, so completely mystifying that it almost makes me want to drop everything I'm doing and spend a few weeks in the outback. Not at all like the "country" around the Northeast...

I never thought of this, but apparently you can tape those postage-paid return envelopes to a package. See here. I'm tempted to mail some of the worst offenders a nice box of used kitty litter. :evil:

I'm not sure I even consider a drive based on DRAM or SRAM drive a real SSD. To me an SSD doesn't require battery backup. Admittedly these have their uses, although just buying a system capable of taking a large amount of RAM will accomplish almost the same thing. Perhaps if we're lucky...

After a brief respite from the heat a few days ago we're back into the high 70s with high humidity. Very uncomfortable and I might add very annoying for October. We've had heat since early June, with the exception of maybe one week in mid-June. :evil: That's 4+ months straight so far. I'm...

Thinking about this a bit more, I can up with a good analogy-LEDs. LEDs have existed commercially for ~35 years but were relegated to niche uses like displays and indicators until the advent of white LEDs about 10 years ago. Between ten and five years ago LEDs made inroads into some small...

Look for the price of these SSDs to drop rapidly once they're mass-produced, and for the capacity to increase. I think mechanical and solid-state disks will co-exist for a while, at least until SSDs reach price parity, with the SSDs being used for boot disks and the mechanicals for bulk, slow...

If I had the room for it, I'd put a train horn on my bike. Nothing else seems to get people's attention these days.

Yep, I've often wondered why have celibacy requirements for priests/nuns unless they're also willing to go the snippity-do-da route so as to all but eliminate their sexuality? I'd say all of the above, but mostly that these societies simply accept behavoirs we don't in America. If you remember...

Even that crosses a gray area because of our ridiculous age of consent laws (as high as 18 in some states IIRC whereas I believe it is around 13 in most other first-world nations). It might be technically illegal to have relations with a 14-year old in many states but it doesn't mean one is a...

Given that quite a few churches have altargirls now weeding out homosexual priests isn't going to completely solve the problem. And how on earth would they do that anyway? Plenty of homosexuals have gotten married to someone of the opposite sex, had kids, lived, and died without anyone ever...

Actually, i, burning the coal at a power station and then using the energy to charge batteries in electric cars is more efficient than coal-to-oil in terms of how much of the energy in the coal actually comes out at the wheels of the car. Let's start with the coal burning power plant. These...

No, there isn't one single thing that can do what fossil fules do, but then we does there have to be? Diversity in energy supply is a good thing, not a bad thing. Right now we can put solar panels on every single family home which will supply most of their power needs. We can switch to...

Yep, the whole point of the degree is to get you to think in a certain way and also to be able to access and learn what you need to know. More than any other profession except possibly computer science, being a good engineer is a continual learning process. Technology waits for no one. By the...

While we're talking about rounded education before college, I vaguely remember some of my teachers talking about how much more students used to learn in the early grades. I think we read some soldier's diaries from WWI where they were quite familiar with classic literature, music, basic...

That's a product of going into a field for all the wrong reasons, Merc, rather than a symptom of being a "typical" engineering undergraduate. I'm guessing you'll find the same thing in law schools and pre med programs. Unfortunately, it's a trend that's growing. You should go into a field...

Not news to me. I've known for years that most lawyers are engineering and med school dropouts. It pisses me off that lawyers make more despite engineering being a harder profession to break into. As to the quality of instruction, I have to say my teachers at Bronx HS of Science were way...

Best of luck riding out the storm, Gary. I hope it's not as bad as they say and you find something left to return to. I don't know what I would do if I had to pick which of my possessions to take on short notice. If you can check in after Rita passes.

Note the units here, Tim- litres per 100 km. If you're using fewer litres per every 100 km then that means you're getting better fuel economy, not worse. Smaller numbers are good here. Miles per gallon is just the opposite. For example, 10 miles per gallon = 23.6 litres per 100 km and 50...

I'm happy for you that she came back. :D Believe me, cats know where home is. Even though she was feral earlier in her life, I'm sure she is quite attached to you by now so it's no surprise she seems happy to be back. Cleo had a similar background. Some of my brother's friends found her in...

Maybe he died of natural causes a long time ago. Anyone here remember the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in the 1980s? IIRC he was dead, having lived to well over 100 (and looked it too), but for many years they paraded his preserved corpse and even motorized it to make it seem like he was waving...

Yes, Dave, I'm still following this thread. As to your question, driving LEDs directly off 120 VAC is fairly easy. You need a capacitor which functions as the reactive element to limit the current to the LED, a bridge rectifier, a filter capacitor, and a few other parts. You can easily make...

My brother's cat ran away in April 2004. I went by his house that night looking everywhere but she was nowhere to be found. He put some food out. Next day she was outside his door. Two months later my brother moved in with us. In January he moved to his new house but didn't take his cat...

Tannin, do Aussies use "straight away" instead of "right away", and do they pronounce aluminum as "a-lu-mi-ni-um"? Just curious because those are some of the more charming parts of British English which I use myself on occasion. You should see the looks on people's faces when I say "Can I have...

I actually find the use of last more confusing as relating to months rather than days of the week. If someone says something happened in July, then we can safely assume that they meant July 2005 because July 2006 hasn't occurred yet and they're (their :mrgrn: ) using the past tense. However...

While on the subject of improper usage newscasters drive me nuts. For example, they'll refer to yesterday as "last Sunday", assuming that today is Monday. Now the way I learned it "last Sunday" means the Sunday before the one that just passed, and you simply say Sunday when referring to the...

I give up. :evil: When unemployed/underemployed US consumers have no more money to buy all these good and services which are outsourced the asininie CEOs will realize that they shot themselves in the foot. Oh wait a minute. They don't care because they have their golden parachutes.

I actually read the whole article, mubs. As much as the doctors are emerging as heroes now, the public is fickle. In a few weeks it will all be forgotten and they'll be back to the usual celebrity worship. It's a shame that the public can't appreciate those who sacrifice to have a career...

I had considered contacts a while back but decided against it because of the expense and having to take them in and out each day. I rarely remember to do anything on a daily basis except eat so with me it's likely the contacts would stay in for several days. Also, outside of when I watch TV I...

Funny, the exact same thought occurred to me, and the more I read about it the more I think this is exactly what they had in mind but will never publicly admit. And it seems like they succeeded in doing just what they wanted. Most of the poor in New Orleans are spread out among other states...

Even assuming that I'm willing to uproot my entire life and move, most places I'd be willing to live in are far worse than NYC, jobwise and amenity-wise. At least in NYC I don't have to provide my own transportation, plus I get physically ill from car travel of more than a few minutes anyway...

I never said money is what it's all about, but it's about the only thing that is going to get me or most other people to give up the ten years or more of our life that being a doctor might require. The last time I was idealistic enough to think otherwise I was in high school. No matter how...

I agree with some of what you're saying bahngeist but I have yet to meet anyone who would go through all that being a doctor requires solely for job satisfaction, helping their fellow man, etc. There has to be some perk, perhaps not necessarily monetary, in order to go through all that. Don't...

I thought this was interesting about Norway: Now where exactly is the incentive to do all the years of schooling and sacrifice it takes to be a doctor if you end up earning what a factory worker does? Maybe I'm missing something here. Also, in a country where many necessities are practically...

Let my niece use the computer for a few hours. My sister had her computer cleaned about four times already (three by me and once by someone else for $100) and the junk keeps coming back. They all swear that they don't go to any sites that have spyware (yeah, right). I don't know what my niece...

$40 billion?! Well, I really hope they have a good system of accountability on how and where it's spent. Louisiana and Mississippi are the 3rd and 1st most corrupt states in the union. You think the looting in New Orleans was bad? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet! On another note, I don't...

I wrote this on CandlePowerForums when someone asked the question "How do you call up the National Guard when the power is out, phone service is gone and most roads are blocked in LA, AL, and MS?" It seems very relevant to Tannin's rant about the lack of leadership in the US (which is true on...

You want to hear something completely odd, Merc? Maybe it has to do with the circles of people I usually end up hanging out with, but I've never personally known a gay or lesbian, at least not one who would openly admit it. Given that I live in an area of the country which probably has an...

I still definitely want your old stuff Merc just in case something else in my system goes. The combo you mentioned sounds good. I should be able to spring for the 184-pin RAM once I get paid for some work I did recently. Once you get it all together just PM me for the shipping address, and...

Sure it seems like GWB doesn't give a shit about the average person but he's far from the only leader to do so. In general politicians treat their constituents as cash cows to finance the programs which get them reelected. Both parties are guilty of this. The Dems were actually the champs at...

While it's convenient to blame GWB for the economic problems this country is facing, the fact is that there are long-term global forces at work here responsible for the rise in poverty. It's a fact that Americans can't compete with the $75 a month labor readily available in India and China. To...

Amen to that, Splash excepted of course.

Some good news. The guy who sold me this is actually taking care of the problem. I returned the processor today. He said it is likely that the adaptor board is bad. If so, he'll replace it a no charge. If it's the processor, he'll sell me a new one at his cost (~$40). Either way, this will...

At first it looked like New Orleans dodged a bullet but now I heard that the levees are leaking, slowly filling the city with water. They also said it might as long as two months before the water is drained. This isn't pristine lake water we're talking about, but fetid, filthy water resembling...