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Comment Re:Knowing Jeep Recently (Score 1) 102

I tried several times while we were dating. She would be doing pretty well, stall it out, then start crying. :-) "I'm afraid I'm gonna break your car!"

There's also ergonomic issues (she's not very tall).

But I've pretty much given up on it at this point. As I said, I have "physical issues" (I have multiple sclerosis....left leg is dodgy sometimes lately) that might prevent *me* from driving one soon.

Comment Knowing Jeep Recently (Score 1) 102

They'll probably try to sell a lot of the Unlimited models as 2WDs with the cheapo automatic transmission. I'm sure there's a market; it's easy to pay more than that for a far less substantial vehicle.

But, it's probably a good move for Chrysler, considering prior to the bankruptcy, the Wrangler was one of two vehicles they actually made a profit on (the other being the Ddoge Viper).

I've owned two Wranglers; I probably won't buy another, despite whatever marketing ploys there are. Not so much because I think it's a bad vehicle, but because I don't need the capabilities any more at this stage of my life. (Married, thinking about kids, wife can't drive a manual transmission, live in a place with tough parking, I may not be able to drive much longer due to physical issues, etc. etc.)

Comment Re:Acrobat, Java, and Microsoft (Score 1) 86

A thousand times this.

But, then, I suppose the people who wrote TFA, or are commenting here, don't have a single unpatched copy of Acrobat Reader or JRE around. Am I right?

Cluestick time: while there's problems in government IT, I can guarantee you that many, many large corporations would have fared worse on a similar audit.

Comment Re:Article is from the UK (Score 1) 61

Yeah, this was all at a radio station, so the important stuff was on conditioned power. Still doesn't like getting wet. :-) Luckily, most of the broadcast equipment stayed dry. The sales floor, where nothing was on UPS power, well....

Let's just say that it was really a good thing that a local equipment company we did lots of work through happened to have ten PCs in stock.

On a similar note, when the power company would near peake capacity, we'd have to go to generator on a couple of our transmitters (one 100 kW, one 50 kW). I'd assume the power company had similar deals with lots of other big-time consumers (hospitals, data centers, etc.).

Comment Article is from the UK (Score 1) 61

....where they don't have hurricanes.

My summer IT disaster story? Imagine a large office building. Now imagine A/C units fed by a central chiller pipe. Now imagine 20 floors' worth of chiller water coming out on the floor above yours. Then imagine water cascading down the windows, and across the drop ceiling.....

This was me in July 2005. One of the few times I didn't get dirty looks for wearing shorts and tevas in the office.

Comment Re:I wrote a column on Dr. Demento (Score 2, Informative) 206

WW1 was the big dog for a long time, but much of their reach was through the CBS and Mutual (how's that name for a blast from the past?) radio affiliates. Many of the music stations don't have any network connections at all these days. Many of the shorter network features that stations used to buy sat equipment for now come via mp3. Why spend #20k setting up a dish and a receiver, when you can just download all the history of rock morning prep clips over the internets? Pretty simple economics, unfortunately.

But the radio networks have also undergone several major upheavals. I can remember scanning the SEDAT channels back in the late 90s for talk programs. Today, pretty much everything's encrypted, and there's only four shows on live -- Premiere/CC, CBS/WW1, and then the sports networks. There's probably 150 stations in the US with the same lineups 0900-1900 Eastern (9-n Beck, n-3 Limbaugh, and 3-7 Hannity). Certainly didn't see that back when Dr. Demento was getting syndicated.

Comment Re:I wrote a column on Dr. Demento (Score 2, Informative) 206

Nice write-up.

I agree he'll be missed, but, really, he hasn't been around for most stations since he left WW1. Music radio today doesn't even begin to resemble music radio in 1990. By the late 80s, most music stations didn't have network affiliations, much less run regular programming. The AOR formats of the 70s put a nail into that, as well as shows like Dr. Demento's. The stations who still do have significant network ties are overwhelmingly news/talk outlets. Why put on Dr. Demento when you can run three hours of Art Bell repeats free of charge?

I used to listen to him as a kid on AFRTS. Was always enjoyable. At nearly 70 years old, the Doc probably should be hanging it up, and enjoying retirement.

Wonder if he could guest with Joey Reynolds; that would be a ton of radio history to hear!

Comment Gentoo? (Score 1) 179

Or did all the Gentoo fanboys migrate to Ubuntu? Like the Millerites became Seventh Day Adventists (well, those who didn't declare the whole thing batshiat crazy and leave after Jesus didnt' show back up in 1844).

Comment Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed (Score 2, Informative) 617

general grants of authority given to Virginia universities to craft their own rules.

Which cannot differ from the rules set out by the General Assembly. This is the primary difference between Virginia and many other states (PA, KY, and MA excepted), in that localities, or in this case Commonwealth-owned corporations, have no legal power other that what's granted them by the GA.

It's akin to the USPS giving an okay to interstate shipments of medical marijuana by mail; they can't just arbitrarily do that without Congressional authorization. Hell, they can't even raise postage rates without Congressional approval.

Comment Re:This is terrible news...but here's the doc (Score 1) 790

Yep. Mod up, please. No dissension among the three judges, meaning probably no en banc review. FCC overstepped its authority. Congress can fix this pretty easily, but I doubt they will. The communications industry has too much influence in the Democratic Party. Look at the DTV delay, which primarily benefited on cellular provider. The cellular companies have big interests here; it's not just cable companies.

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