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Comment Re:Discrimination (Score 1) 579

Wikipedia's WikiProject Editor Retention has looked at the same problem, but from a retention point rather than the perspective of attracting new women. There were no real answers, just lots of speculation. Lots of people blame the culture, or say the place is too "rough and tumble" but I found that conclusion rather sexist, as it says that women can't compete for ideas in the same environment as men. There doesn't seems to be a difference in retention of men and women, they just aren't coming to Wikipedia to begin with.

Comment Re:Yes it is (Score 1) 167

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.)

Comment Re:CODEC (Score 1) 126

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.

Comment Re:new dmca brickdown request... (Score 1) 299

Yes...this will be the best way to stop criminals...especially IP thieves and copyright violators. Just brick everyone in the bit torrent swarm by court order. The next step is to extend this to all computing devices...AMD and Intel and homeland security can come up with a bricking standard that runs in like ring negative three :)

Hey once the ability is there, why not?

Comment Re:What trolls (Score 2) 382

Exactly and literally. Smokey and the Bandit was still in or just coming out of theaters when I was 14. And yes, we were trolls (not on CB though). We did real world trolling. Smoke bombs, bottle rockets, bb guns, sling shots, chunking wax balls from those stupid wax sippy candy at cars (no damage, in case you got busted) etc. We used to do all kinds of crap that would have gotten our asses kicked if we didn't know the alleys and yards you could jump fences in without a dog biting you. Trolling on the internet is for pussies. We were bored, but we got a good work out, without inflicting TOO much damage. I don't recommend what I did, but kids that think that they are breaking the rules, trolling, from behind a laptop that mummy and daddy bought them aren't exactly rebels. They are just cowards.

Comment Re:Ticket ToS (Score 1) 226

Not exactly. There is no freedom of panorama in the US, so sorry, but you are mistaken. Some photos of the inside might be ok, but anything that has arguably has artistic content (ie: more than text) would be fully copyrighted by the designer. You could argue "Fair Use", but the copyright still doesn't change hands, it isn't yours. Years of arguing with lawyers and such on Commons will teach you that.

Comment Desert (Score 1) 246

No question, particularly in Arizona. The lack of rain makes it "older" on the surface, less erosion. I would love to build a giant metal detector and go searching for meteoroids and the like. I lived in Phoenix and miss roaming around the govt. land, which is plentiful, so there isn't anyone to ask permission. Just do the roaming in the winter, which is very mild, bring lots of water and curiosity. The mountains are climbable and everything is fairly accessible. You can bet most every day will be sunny and clear.

Comment Re:how dark can it be on the ISS? (Score 1) 106

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.

Comment Re:DD-WRT's information (Score 1) 427

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.

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