appalachian_fox

I believe it's going for $2.60 on average around here (Well, $2.59 9/10 if you really want to shave that tenth of a penny). I think I saw the lowest station (which is conveniently near my house) for $2.54 9/10 the other day.

It used to be the cat's scat to sign up for the unlimited phone net (MEdia net?) for whatever it was, $20 a month or so, and use a Bluetooth phone to hook up your PDA/laptop. Certain phones, apparently, worked quite well as a Bluetooth modem. Cingular started freezing accounts when they saw some people were sucking ridiculous amounts of bandwidth. I don't think a reasonable amount of Skype usage would qualify, but if they are watching the type of traffic that is passing, I'm sure that'd be against their TOS. I'd make sure you know the terms of the account (as I recall, you do need a voice line as well to get the data rate, but they seem to change fairly regularly) and I'd test the theory out on your current service and pay by the half-bit or whatever small unit they charge by to make sure you can reliably place and receive Skype calls. Contracts can really suck if you get stuck in one and find out that Skype doesn't work as well as planned. I am interested to know how it works, though, because I've considered doing something similar with a PDA/phone link to a desktop PC at home.

If only I could get her drunk, that would work wonders. I'd use the, *ahem*, "old standby", but it's a well-known fact that married people don't have sex.

One major difference between some of the Quadros (perhaps all of them, I'm not sure) is that they have an output which send a refresh/redraw synchronization signal for use with various 3D viewing solutions such as LCD shutter glasses. Completely unnecessary, but a cool application if you ever get the chance to use such a setup.

That would be sexy. Gotta talk to the better 15/16ths and see if she's on board.

lololroflcopterlm*ololol!!1!1!!one!eleven!1!!!

This might be the excuse I've been looking for.

Perfect timing...My [insert part here after troubleshooting] just died, and I need a new [insert other parts which are working but are six years old] anyway! Plus I get a snazzy case that's not made of cardboard and Bazooka Joe.

You can also try a Snakebite. I mean, if you're trying, why not?

Guinness is good, but the be-all, end-all it is not. Some people *gasp* don't even like it (but I don't think highly of them, 'Mo). If you feel that drinking is part of the socialization, then you've got the opportunity to try a bunch of things. I'll pitch in Blue Moon with an orange slice. It's worth a shot. Of course, I'll say the the usual "if you don't want to drink you shouldn't feel like you must," but that doesn't seem like it's up for discussion, so here's to hoping you find something you like!

It's unlikely. There wasn't much confidential going on (though there was a large recovery operation for as long as a year afterwards, and while not confidential per se it would still be quite unpleasant if visible). Atmospheric conditions and the cost of running the aerial photography at that resolution are probably the primary factors. Remember, Keyhole (An In-Q-Tel funded operation) was only a software company. They did not own satellites themselves, and were not related to the Key Hole satellites (which, iirc, is an outdated satellite series anyway). Besides, images from that time frame are not hard to come across, you just have to look. There were many LIDAR image taken of the site post-collapse, and those were of much higher spatial resolution. Of course, that doesn't preclude the possibility of hiding confidential information. If you spend enough money at Space Imaging/GeoEye or Digital Globe you can have exclusive access to imagery, so I'm sure the government can black out areas if it wants (and indeed, I read some pretty good speculation that they did so in Iraq during the initial invasion a few years back).

IP over semaphore: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4824.txt?number=4824 Not as good as IPoP (IP over Pigeon, for the uninitiated) but less "dropped packets".

I'd like to see 50% of you go. That could be entertaining.

Preposterous! "And the winner is...Number 3 in a quantum finish!" "No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!"

That is simply awesome. I think we all at one point in time or another wanted to make something like this, but these guys went out there and actually did it. You should totally lie all you have to so they will come to FF. If I'm not mistaken, one of the pictures said it was at PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. Just tell them we have, what 10,000 or so attendees...

Patience. Just like Duke Nuke'em Forever, it shall be out soon.

You know, it occurs to me that watching him watching TV could be a really ghetto-DVR. And what if he keeps doing this as baseball season rolls around? Can he put his life on the Intardweb without the express written consent of Major League Baseball? And talk about boring, how boring would it be to watch someone watching baseball...

Spend five minutes figuring out how much it would have cost to stage this and compare that to whatever you would get out of it. I know southerners can display an exceptional lack of common sense but even then they wouldn't spend money to put something on the web (if they know what it is) My apologies, the sarcasm wasn't meant to imply that EVERYTHING on the Internet is faked, just to imply the materials should be suspect because of the nature of the medium. I can assure you that this post is mine, and has not been faked at the time I posted it. Equating something with everything is a dangerous practice. Again, I haven't watched it, but if you really want me to present plausible explanations I'd be glad to watch it at some point and see if anything comes to light. No guarantees, but I have access to a police officer, his vehicle, another vehicle and a camera. Add in some software and you could even make it look like an official news report for the cost of gas. That, and it was certainly intended to be funny more than "insightful". Glad BSax got it

Anecdotal evidence FTW. Though it does prompt questions about the accident rate on highways in Dubai... Oh, and as far as the driver goes? Moron...

Remember, nothing that you can find on the Internet is staged. Nothing. This is the basis for the "No Photoshopping has ever been done" corollary for images.

I won't knock it, seeing as I haven't actually watched any, but I must admit it sounds like one of the most painfully boring ways to kill time. At least, that's assuming his life is ten times more interesting than mine. I just imagined someone watching my life all day...Even when I'm not at work, it'd reduce even the most resolute of men to tears.

I have to agree with Boilersax...Yes, their support is outsourced, but it's not really bad, especially if you are (1) knowledgeable about computers and (2) Not arrogant about it. A bit of patience and the ability to convince the tech support person you do know what you are doing without sounding like you're better than them go a long way, and I've never had a support ticket for anyone run over an hour. I usually recommend Dell to people, and I used to work in an all-Dell shop, so I've had a fair amount of experience with their tech support. I've also had experience with Compaq's and HP's tech support recently, and can't say I've had the same luck, but it hasn't been nearly as much experience. Sorry to say, it's really about picking the best of the worst these days. Something I might recommend, depending on what they charge for it and what the laptop costs, is the Accident Protection plan. I don't know if this is still true, but the accident protection requires you also purchase the extended warranty or whatever they call it (it used to be figured in to the price, I assume it still is) and it comes with all sorts of fringe benefits: My tech support calls are always answered nearly immediately, and if I say I want a replacement part I get a tech to come out with the part NIB and have him/her install it. Plus, on a laptop, it used to cover ANY accident completely: Even if you dropped the machine or spilled coffee on it (I assume it still does, but I'd check first). Not so useful for a desktop, much more valuable for a laptop. Just something to consider. It's a peace of mind thing, sure, but there's actually a good bit of value to it.

I think you can rent a mini fridge for something reasonable like $10/day. At least, you could when I was there two years ago...

I hate to be the crazy guy ("Coke and Pepsi are the same thing...Wake up, people!") but you might not want to get into the whole building for other people scene. Once you do that, you become their de facto tech support, even if it's agreed to otherwise. I've been in a similar situation several times before, and I usually point towards a big box maker. Not as custom, and not a good learning experience for them (having the kid help build the PC could be a great opportunity for him), but it takes me out of the "responsibility" loop. Just a caveat.

Wait, I thought that's how met baby seals? I thought they were all over the club scene. :dodges tomatoes: Oh, yeah, and home theatre PCs rule. You know, the on-topic thing. Digital Audio FTW.