Getting 240p to display properly on HDTVs is a huge pain for retro gaming enthusiasts.

It largely comes down to the quality of the scaling hardware within the display and the assumptions it makes about the signal. I knocked together an RGB-to-component converter for the Apple IIGS recently and tried it out with the LCD displays I had on hand: three TVs (two name-brand and one not-so-name-brand) and a monitor that also has component input (and S-video and composite, in addition to the usual VGA and DVI). The monitor kinda worked, but it chopped off the first line of text IIRC. The not-so-name-brand TV didn't work at all. The other two TVs worked: the entire screen area was visible. Color quality and 40-column text were pretty good. 80-column text was usable, if a bit fuzzy. I had hoped to use it with the monitor in the computer room, but the missing line of text would be a bit of a problem (it's like it's not syncing up until it's too late). None of them are as clear as the ancient NEC MultiSync 3D I normally use with it, but who knows how long that will continue to work? It already takes several minutes to settle down and run right after a cold start. I suspect a CRT TV with component input would be better than the LCDs, but I haven't had one of those for several years.

(While the adapter is intended to plug straight into the IIGS's RGB output, you could lash up an adapter to use it with other devices. In addition to red, green, blue, and composite sync, it also needs +12V and -5V. It only cost me about $50 to build, and maybe $20 of that was two extra boards from OSH Park, which ships in multiples of 3.)

Will Handbrake take a MKV and turn it into a MP4 without recompressing the video?

No. IIRC, the CLI tool MP4Box will mux into .m4v, but you'll probably need to use mkvextract (another CLI tool) to demux your .mkv source file to separate video/audio/subtitle streams first.

I've never understood why passwords can't be sentences, like "I'm going to take my dog, Spot, to the park today."

They can be, but it would be incredibly stupid to use something like that. A dictionary attack would crack that password in seconds.

Are you sure about that?

Oh, I hate blue LEDs. When they first came out I thought they were so awesome, then I mistakenly bought an alarmclock that had a blue display. Two layers of automotive window tint later and I still couldn't stand it, had to switch back to red. The blue one now lives out in the tool shed so that its radio can be used while doing yard work.

I have an access point in the bedroom with some obnoxiously bright blue LEDs. They're bright enough that you can almost read by the light it throws off. To make things even more obnoxious, the WiFi indicator blinks constantly once it's fully up and running.

Fortunately, all of that is fixed with a strip of electrician's tape. It doesn't even look too out-of-place. Tape wouldn't work too well for a clock (my Moto X is my alarm clock), but it'll tame blue LEDs in most other devices.

WRT54G is well known for its stability and reliability.

I keep hearing that, but I've owned four of them and I kept having overheating problems or similar. I'd have to power cycle them once a week or more. The last one would shit itself when my lady fired up her Fujitsu T900 for no known reason.

What firmware were you using? I've been using a WRT54GL for somewhere around 10 years. I had OpenWRT on it for the first few years, and it mostly worked...had to power-cycle it every once in a while. I think it only started acting consistently weird when I started hammering it with BitTorrent traffic. I switched over to Tomato because I wanted easier-to-configure QoS, and it's been pretty smooth sailing ever since. It's currently using a Shibby build. The last time it was rebooted was when I was troubleshooting what turned out to be an outage in Cox's network.

All that said, I suspect my 25/5 connection might be approaching the limit of what it can handle. I've augmented my network with a D-Link DAP-1522 to add 802.11a/n, but that's all it does. One box that could replace both and have enough processing grunt to keep up with a faster connection would be nice, and I'm inclined to stick with something that runs Tomato. I'm leaning toward the Asus RT-N66U, as that's gotten favorable comments here and elsewhere, but I've not yet pulled the trigger on one.

IIRC, AOL didn't offer actual internet access until pretty late in the game.

Today's date is Tue Sep 7644 07:32:08 PDT 1993

but this is the perfect example of american greed the most pure and wasteful greed i have ever seen.

If you'd taken ten seconds to click over to TFA, you would've learned it's in this Georgia, not this Georgia, you America-bashing twat.

it has run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible

Are you sure it's not merely pining for the fjords?

I love the quote, "Five hundred kilometres is pretty much as far as a normal person would want to drive in a single day." Oh, man, I've driven further to see a live show, and driven back essentially the next day

Indeed. Aren't things in Australia nearly as spread out as they are here? 300 miles is nothing. 300 miles won't even get you from Las Vegas to San Diego. I've done that as a same-day round trip. I've driven from Las Vegas to Denver in one day. 770 miles makes for a long day behind the wheel, but it's doable. You can cover 600 miles in 8 hours at 75 mph.

So my question is: what is holding everyone else back from freeing themselves from contacts and glasses?

I don't need contacts or glasses, you insensitive cl...oh, wait.

google broke into internet search with the page rank algorithm whose essential purpose is to combat "search engine optimization."

Yeah. They destroy legitimate businesses with their wonderful algorithms...

SEO isn't a legitimate business. If your website is getting pushed into the search-result basement, odds are you're doing it wrong.

I think most doctors believe its beneficial but I also think they somehow see acetaminophen opiate formulations as some kind of bulwark against abuse. Either because they believe it is so much more effective paired with acetaminophen and you'll be inclined to take less overall or that people "know" acetaminophen is bad in quantity and it will serve as a deterrent to excessive dosage, especially people with a history of drug abuse.

Also, the DEA watches doctors who prescribe opiates very carefully. If some government goon believes a doctor's handing them out like candy, the doctor's most likely going to be called in for some very uncomfortable questions. See chapter two of Three Felonies a Day for some examples.

The way scripts for opiates are handled is also quite different. My wife's oncologist was able to submit the vast majority of prescriptions to her preferred pharmacy electronically; they would be ready for pick-up a short time after. The one time she was prescribed straight oxycodone (or whatever opiate), it was printed on security paper to thwart attempts at altering or copying. It was signed, and some sort of DEA ID number issued to the doc was printed in the header. I had to deliver the prescription to a pharmacy. Her usual pharmacy didn't have it in stock, so I had to find another that did. Once it was filled, I had to sign for it in a logbook (similar to when you buy products containing pseudoephedrine).

Android 4.x devices like the Nexus 7 don't have a dedicated menu button. And in this copy of Google Maps, there's no "tricolon" button where the overflow menu is supposed to be.

https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/6054498?p=maps_android_tips_tricks&hl=en&rd=2

The first thing that came up on my phone for this? "Popular tip: View maps offline." I got to it from within Maps by opening the menu off to the left side and hitting "Tips and Tricks" down at the bottom.

(This was on a Moto X running Android 4.4. YMMV.)

why the sarcasm tags?

To make clear that it was a sarcastic remark. The two nitwits who put in -1, Troll downmods are apparently too dense for even that to register.

I wonder if they registered with fincen. Otherwise, they are setting the precedent of of auctioning bitcoins as a loophole...

<sarcasm>
When the government does something, it's not illegal.
</sarcasm>