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Comment Re:Acer Aspire-1 Netbook Power Supply or Battery? (Score 1) 715

Mine did this after it was in storage- what happens is that when the battery completely discharges the mobo has trouble reading the battery state, and refuses to charge it anymore. Unplug the battery, plug in the wall adapter, boot the netbook, and after your os loads and you get a 'running on AC power' indicator, plug in the battery. It might not display that it's charging, but just let it do its thing for a while and see what happens. Worked for me, anyway.

Comment Re:8800Ultra (Score 2, Informative) 715

Considering that I worked in a factory where we processed BGAs (which is probably what this is fixing) we didn't really have any sort of special ventilation or whatnot. The only real safety precautions were keeping lead dust (non RoHS products) contained. Using your oven once should not be a problem, although I would wash the cookie sheet carefully before making any food on it.

Comment Re:This requires federal government intervention? (Score 1) 171

I don't know if I'd even say a "lot" of mileage. Oftentimes, the break-in period for the engine is the same as the break in period for the clutch/transmission. After that, you're just introducing extraneous strain on the transmission by subjecting it to the large amounts of torque that can be transferred by the clutch. Floating the gears introduces less strain, and in the long run is less likely to cause damage to the vehicle. I've known drivers who float the gears and others who use the clutch on every single shift; the drivers who floated the gears tended to go longer between major transmission/clutch repairs.

Comment Re:This requires federal government intervention? (Score 1) 171

Speaking as a current smoker, I would like to call BS on

they fumble around lighting the smoke in the first place, take their eyes off the road to tap off the ash and if you drop it in your lap you bounce around trying to avoid it

. 95% of the time, when I light a smoke in the car I don't even look at it, my hand's are just used to positioning themselves where they are needed. The other 5% of the time, I'm smoking 100's, which are longer than what I'm used to. Additionally, unless I'm driving a vehicle which is different from the one I usually drive, I'm similarly accustomed to ashing either out the window or in the ashtray without looking. It's not a distraction, unless you're an idiot and drop the damn thing in your lap; in which case you swerve uncontrollably trying to put it out. However, this has never happened to me, nor has it happened when I have been a passenger in a car. This leads me to think that it is somewhat rare.

Comment Re:Why bother? (Score 3, Insightful) 70

If the commercials are actually funny ...I'll catch them on YouTube tomorrow.

If you do end up watching them on YouTube, then the advertisers will still have succeeded. They care less about where there ads are viewed, just the number of eyeballs viewing them. The reason they focus on the Superbowl is that it's a media extravaganza, and the ads are a big deal, simply because they're in the superbowl. So, a superbowl ad will more likely have more views on YouTube than just some random ad from TV.

Power

The Grid, Our Cars, and the Net 222

Wired is running a piece on the big idea of Robin Chase — the founder of Zipcar — that we need to build our smart power grid on open standards and include cars as nodes in a mesh network. "'Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and tanks and airplanes are running around using mesh networks,' said Chase. 'It works, it's secure, it's robust. If a node or device disappears, the network just reroutes the data.' And, perhaps most important, it's in motion. ... Build a smart electrical grid that uses Internet protocols and puts a mesh network device in every structure that has an electric meter. Sweep out the half dozen networks in our cars and replace them with an open, Internet-based platform. Add a mesh router. A nationwide mesh cloud will form, linking vehicles that can connect with one another and with the rest of the network. It's cooperative gain gone national, gone mobile, gone open."

Comment Re:Totally offtopic (Score 1) 261

Oh that?

That's just the good old All-American tradition of coming up with euphemisms for everything. What we now know as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was once known as shell shock. Being a fatass is now obesity. Old people are senior citizens. Now lab-rats are called 'animal models'. It's a vicious cycle designed to protect middle-class Americans from anything they might think is even remotely scary.

The Courts

Submission + - Girl sues ASUS for using fake CPU in her laptop (techarp.com)

crazyeyes writes: "David, in the form of a young Chinese girl , has finally slung a stone at the giant Goliath we know as ASUS. She sued the computer company for a cool 5 million US dollars after ASUS was caught using an Intel engineering sample processor in her laptop. The engineering sample is a free, uncertified processor Intel gives to companies like ASUS for test purposes. Intel maintains they must not be sold as they are not qualified parts and are often broken in some way, but the story claims that Intel is fully aware and even supports the misuse of those samples.

Coming at the back of reports of fake boxed Intel CPUs , that's pretty believable. The Chinese are obviously comfortable about counterfeiting everything from milk powder to eggs. What's a processor to them? Whether Intel actually supports their activities is something for all Slashdotters to ponder..."

Medicine

Submission + - Reliable Male Contraceptive in the Works

Hugh Pickens writes: "BBC reports that recent tests in China indicate a monthly injection of testosterone, that works by temporarily blocking sperm production, could be as effective at preventing pregnancies as the female pill or condoms and could revolutionize birth control. In trials in China only one man in 100 fathered a child while on the injections and six months after stopping the injections the men's sperm counts returned to normal. "Our study shows a male hormonal contraceptive regimen may be a potential, novel and workable alternative," says Lead researcher Dr Yi-Qun Gu, from the National Research Institute for Family Planning in Beijing, China who added that if further tests proved successful the treatment could become widely available in five years from now. Previous attempts to develop an effective and convenient male contraceptive have encountered problems over reliability and side effects, such as mood swings and a lowered sex drive. However despite the injection having no serious side effects, almost a third of the 1,045 men in the two-and-a-half year study did not complete the trials and no reason was given for this. The news was welcomed by family planning experts. "If a male contraceptive like this became available it would be great and would give people another choice," says Laurence Shaw, of the London Bridge Fertility Center. "It would empower men to make a decision which involves more than just a condom. At the moment the onus is on the woman and men do not have that much choice.""

Comment Re:Here we go! (Score 2, Informative) 466

If you're going to be a grammar Nazi, at least try to be an effective one. 'Queue' means line up, cue means "An action or event that is a signal for somebody to do something". Therefore, cue is the proper term here, he just misspelled it. You, on the other hand, managed to make yourself look like a jackass. Way to go man, way to go...

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