Just like this one. And this one

(I'd been saving those two. Like one would save a S.B.D. :) )

---PCJ

Correction: 25 sleepers. There is an option to expand the total order.

(Funny, I thought the 'submit' button was only available after you previewed your post.)

---PCJ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewliner#Viewliner_II

An order for at least 50 of these was placed less than a couple of months ago, among other cars built on this platform.

---PCJ

This past month I was in Myrtle Beach, SC for a family function. Back in the '80's, my summer vacations would invariably come down here for a several-day stay. I didn't particularly care for the beach, but the amusement parks with their large arcades (particularly the Myrtle Beach Gran Prix (just learned it's defunct as of 2006)) were the highlight of my stays there.

We didn't go anywhere near those places this year--assuming any of them still existed (we were actually only staying in a rented condo just outside of the main strip during preparations for a wedding a couple of counties further east). I did however note the irony that the main reason I would have for going to these places was now sitting in the MAME folder on my laptop.

Once, arcade games were so commonplace that as a grade-schooler I compiled maps of neighborhood shops with coin-ops tucked inside, down to the layout of the store with the actual physical locations of the games therein. It figures that once I actually had an ample supply of quarters that all this would have long fallen by the wayside.

---PCJ

...since they're the heaviest users of cellphones. And (at least in the US) they are, for all intents and purposes, the only ones who wear rubber boots nowadays.

---PCJ

I found one item that fits the "DVR that works like a VCR" description--I needed a solution to the problem of DVD recorders that die after a year or two of service. The biggest problem is it's a discontinued item and it doesn't do high-def (I'm not on the HD bandwagon yet, and all of the old VCR recordings I want to convert are SD, so yeah). It's the Archos TV+, and although it did at one time offer a subscription-based tv guide function (now defunct, if I recall corectly), it will happily function like a typical VCR without it, down to in-person recording or VCR-style programming. Oh, it also does MP3 and photos.

On top of that, it can be hooked to your home network, and has USB ports for connecting mass-storage devices to view, transfer or backup recordings. Although I haven't tried it, it's also supposed to let you perform rudimentary edits (like removing commercials) on your recordings, either overwriting the original, or generating a new file.

Although it isn't advertised as such, it will play Flash Video files, although like the Archos 5-series PMP's it's based on, I think it's limited to those with Sorensen/H.263 compression. I haven't tried it with H.264 FLVs, despite the format list on its Wikipedia entry saying so (which I feel is suspect).

Too bad Archos didn't hype the device's ability to function without a subscription, there may have been enough interest in it to warrant a HD version.

---PCJ

Already done :) Texas High Speed Rail & Transportation Corporation. And lookie here, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are already part of the proposed route.

---PCJ

...when a slow ad-server holds the page hostage in a half-loaded state, forcing you to wait till the ad finishes loading before the browser un-freezes. Fastest way to make me decide I didn't need your content after all.

---PCJ (oh gee, 1337 votes [screenshot])

Minor trivia:

If you encode your uploads as Flash video with the previous codec used by YouTube, H.263 compression with less than 350kb/s audio+video bitrate, then they'll pass onto YouTube's servers unmolested. I do this, and my uploads are viewable within a minute or so of uploading, rather than spending several minutes "Processing, please wait".

When I re-downloaded one of my recent videos to examine it (using Super©*), it was still in H.263 format.

Why do this? Less CPU-intensive for older systems (videos of long model trains--which comprise most of my submissions--tend to highlight framerate issues), and it's compatible with my Archos 5-series media device (as well as their TV+ DVR), so I need not produce two versions of the same video.

---PCJ

*(yes they do make it tedious to find the d/l link. It's at the bottom of ths page if you're looking for it)

I was under the impression that YouTube was using H.264 for everything since early 2009. I found out about the changeover after I noticed my videos were showing really choppy framerates that weren't present on my pre-2009 videos. The effect was quite noticable since most of my uploads are of model trains (my YT username is the same as here if you want to examine them), and long continuously-moving objects tend to highlight shaky framerates..

Dinking around on Wikipedia revealed the changeover to H.264, and further searches revealed the consensus that H.264 is considered to be very CPU intensive (I'm using a 2Ghz Celeron laptop running XP). Employing as a basis some early tricks to get stereo sound before YouTube officially supported it), I began encoding my uploads to mimic the previous YouTube format (Flash video with H.263 compression/MP3 audio, and a combined audio/video bitrate under 350KB/s). The results?

(1) The videos were viewable within a minute or so of upload completion, instead of spending several minutes as "Processing--Please wait".

(2) The framerate issues are not evident on the uploads using the pre-2009 parameters.

Although I haven't downloaded those videos to confirm it, this suggests to me that the H.264 conversion was skipped. I don't know how long this tactic will work, but for now, I continue to format new uploads this way.

---PCJ

It also has something to do with the competence of the freight railroads. Last March, I rode Amtrak's Crescent from NYC to Atlanta, a 17-hour trip conducted mostly over Norfolk Southern trackage once leaving the Northeast Corridor. We arrived in Atlanta on time, much to my surprise (we did have to wait for at least one freight traveling in the opposite direction in the dead of night). On the return trip the Crescent, already 12 hours into it's trip from New Orleans, not only arrived in Atlanta on time, but arrived and left Washington DC on time, and arrived in NYC ahead of schedule. The NS portion of this route is identified as a future high-speed line. I quite frankly can't see how they'd do it--watching the line from the last car on the return trip through Virginia, you would not believe how much the line twists, turns, rises and dips over a fairly large chunk of the route.

I've taken a number of trips NYC-Pittsburgh via Amtrak's Pennsylvanian (a 9-hour trip), also using NS tracks after leaving Amtrak-owned lines. Most of these were on-time. In one trip, the conductor specifically credited NS dispatchers with getting us out of Harrisburg, PA ahead of two waiting freight trains, and another year, we arrived on-time in Pittsburgh after tailgating a high-priority UPS freight for several miles. We were switched onto the adjacent track against traffic, and arrived in Pittsburgh literally racing alongside the freight we were behind only minutes before. This line (Harrisburg-Pittsburgh) is also identified as a future high-speed route. Frankly, the mountainous regions are something to behold when you remember that for the most part, the tracks go up and over them rather than through. Approaching Horseshoe Curve, you'll notice a road high up the mountainside on the opposite side of the valley. Then you notice that it's not a road, but it's the railroad you're traveling on. Then you remember that mile-long freight trains run on this line too. It's enough to give one pause.

The biggest delay I've had on these trips was about 45 minutes on one Pittsburgh-NYC trip, when our locomotive died pulling out of Philadelphia, PA on the way to NYC. No spare locomotives were available there, and we were transferred to the next arriving Corridor train from DC.

---PCJ

Well, didja ever notice that rubber "rain boots" are an exclusively female phenomenon? (at least in the US it is, anyway)

---PCJ