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Dr. Video Games 0050 posted:Tons of Asian people in the city here (Canada) use umbrellas or those poker-type hats with the huge brims on them. My Asian buddy said they just don't like being exposed to sun. Fair enough. I've seen traffic cops in Houston (as in, big, burly cops) holding an umbrella while directing traffic. I think people are sort of starting to realize that Asian women are on to something here.
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Sep 3, 2010 04:21
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Mak0rz posted:My new laptop has an Intel dual-core processor. I know what this means. However, each core is dual-threaded. What exactly does it mean for a processor to be multithreaded? I open Windows Task Manager and see four readings for processor usage. How does it compare to a true quad-core? There are two cores, which functionally means there are two CPUs. It's not quite the same (there are some differences in terms of how memory is accessed with a multi-core CPU, but it's pretty much the same). Having multiple threads means that each core "pretends" to be two CPUs as far as the OS is concerned. CPUs have a pipeline, or a series of "steps" that any work goes through. As long as the pipeline is full of calculations to work on, everything's all good and you're using the CPU efficiently. If the pipeline isn't full of calculations for whatever reason, then you're not getting the most out of the CPU. Hence, multi-threading is a pseudo-bootleg way to try to fill the pipeline more - so long as the OS thinks it's really two CPUs, the OS will keep trying to cram stuff in and the pipeline will ideally stay more "full" than it would otherwise. Note that for a single program that chews up the whole CPU (say, video encoding or 3D rendering), multithreading probably won't do much at all, and may even impact that performance slightly. This is where it definitely fails in comparison to a true quad-core. So long as the pipeline is full, multithreading isn't really gaining you much at all. For any sort of multi-tasking, though, it does a pretty solid job of squeezing efficiency out of your CPU. There is such a thing as CPU "RAID" for lack of a better term - high-end servers have a system where each CPU does the same calculation and they're checked against each other to verify that everything was correct. If you're referring to striping (RAID 0), then it also isn't quite there - again, it's nowhere near the performance of additional cores. TL;DR: you have two CPUs, and each CPU has a system that (for the most part) makes your CPU as efficient as it can be for multi-tasking.
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Sep 11, 2010 02:49
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kapalama posted:Here's my PDF question: all I want is a PDF reader that lets me do highlights (for Mac). I do highlights all the time in Preview. Shift + Command + H.
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Sep 27, 2010 00:13
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kapalama posted:I have heard that Preview did this before, but it has never worked for me. Does this do permanent highlighting? Does it highlight in non-OCR documents? Yes, it is permanent, at least as of 10.5's version (which is the only one I've highlighted in). Yes, I've used it for highlighting non-OCR docs - be aware that with those you're going to be dragging a box and highlighting within it, since Preview has no way of knowing what is and isn't text.
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Sep 27, 2010 22:33
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dokmo posted:Pseudoepehedrine chat... I don't know about up in Canuckistan, but down in the states liquids containing pseudoephedrine aren't restricted because it can't be used for meth production. There's not an enormous selection of liquid decongestants, but they work just as well as pills.
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Sep 29, 2010 23:58
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drat Bananas posted:Today I was thinking about how to save on my electricity bill. Would leaving the blinds/curtains closed to block out heat but turn on the lights be better than leaving the blinds open to let in light while leaving the lights off? Assuming the lights are CFL, closing the blinds and using the lights is probably a better choice. Somewhat obvious question: what temp do you set your AC to when you leave during the day?
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Oct 3, 2010 14:52
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Drevoak posted:Anyone know of a program that can monitor the network traffic? Many routers support logging traffic, and if yours doesn't you can probably install DD-WRT which will. You need to be logging at the router level, not on an individual computer.
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Nov 4, 2010 01:38
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Dudebro posted:Thanks for the answers on the circuit question. It was just confusing to hear that thrown out there in conversation when really you wouldn't know what they were talking about unless intimiately familiar with the state court system. I guess it's one of those TV legal drama things. I suppose there are some really well-known circuits though (where major cities are located?) Attorneys who commonly practice in those courts will be familiar with the general demeanor and leaning of that court. Additionally, in many states certain district/circuit courts only hear certain types of cases, so the 61st court might be a Family Court while the 125th might be a criminal court. Technically, either court could hear either type of case, but they structure the docket so that the judges are more familiar with what they'll hear. You're exactly right - it's a TV thing. Two attorneys who live in the same area might talk about "the 61st" and the "125th," which is why you'd see that on legal dramas. It's the legal drama equivalent of medical lingo on the doctor shows. I really can't think of a single circuit that an ordinary person would be familiar with, big city or no. The 9th Circuit in the Federal system is regarded as the most liberal and thus is a little better known; even then, I'd wager that less than 5% of Americans could tell you that.
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Nov 30, 2010 02:58
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Elijya posted:I suspect so, yes, but if you own no property and have no income - essentially you're a homeless drifter or have family/friends who put you up - you don't owe any taxes. But I'm pretty sure you're still supposed to file that you have no income. Do homeless people usually file? No. Many, many people who should file (even those who would get a refund of some sort) don't. Edit: This was widely publicized in 2008 or 2009 when stimulus checks were going to be directly issued to people rather than given piecemeal by lowering the tax rate. There was a big push to get a lot of non-earners or extremely low earners to file so that they could receive their checks.
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Dec 20, 2010 15:38
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Akuma posted:Can a device connected to a TV through a HDMI cable tell that TV to change it's current source to that connection? Is this in the HDMI spec, like it seemed to be for SCART? If so, is it dependent on the TV/device? Yes, there is a spec for signaling over HDMI. I don't think everyone's agreed on a standard, though, so Sony TVs will talk to Sony receivers and Sony Blu-Ray players, but not a Panasonic device. Not every device seems to have implemented the communication system, even within brands that have cooked up their own systems (i.e. not all Sony HDMI-equipped receivers will support the signaling system).
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Dec 20, 2010 19:53
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silversiren posted:Ahh, drat. Not the answer I was looking for. I tried to find an answer on the iTunes website but it's not really that helpful because they want me to schedule a call and I don't have time to do that. In the preferences menu, there's an option for iTunes to keep your songs organized and another option that shows the path to the iTunes music folder. If I remember correctly, the default is Users (Or Documents and Settings)/YourUserName/iTunes Music. Within that folder will be a shitload of individual folders, one for each of the artists. Copy all of those folders, paste them to a backup location, and go to town. If you don't have that option checked, you can do so and iTunes will automatically move everything to that folder structure, which can then be easily backed up. That's useful if your files are scattered to the four corners of your hard drive, as opposed to you preferring them in a folder labeled MP3 or whatever. Bonus: assuming you do encounter a catastrophic loss, you can just click file->Add Folder, point it at the iTunes Music Folder, and walk away for a while while it adds/adjusts audio settings for each song.
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Dec 25, 2010 16:24
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Abel Wingnut posted:Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly, but don't we already have Blu-Rays delivered and streamed via NetFlix and kin? Not even close. Blu-Ray's maximum bitrate is 48Mbps (with 1080p as the highest resolution), while HD Netflix encodes are at most 3.8Mbps (with 720p as the highest resolution). This is why fast action scenes in a netflix streaming video are grainy and blurry, while a Blu-Ray has much higher fidelity in the same scenario. Other differences: Blu-ray supports uncompressed, higher frequency sampling (better quality) audio than Netflix, and higher frame-rate (60 frames per second vs. 30). In short, Netflix can't come anywhere close to Blu-Ray in terms of quality, but that's not really it's goal anyway. Wanna watch something right now, or on a TV/sound system where it doesn't matter? Get it on Netflix streaming. Wanna watch something at the best quality currently available and see/hear the awesome details you dropped serious coin for? Get it on Blu-Ray. Note that the only thing really keeping Blu-Ray on top is the fact that very few people have the bandwidth necessary to get those super-high quality streams instantly - you'd be stuck with a Real Player-esque "buffering" message or you'd wait 30 minutes before the movie started. Give it 5 to 7 years and you should see Blu-Ray quality on home players (I hope). I highly doubt that there will ever be a physical media that follows after Blu-Ray; by that point, I think it will all be streaming.
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Dec 26, 2010 09:02
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Paccione posted:How come radio stations only play 'song x' of 'band x' and they only play that song over and over again until it's played out to hell, and then all switch to 'song y' of 'band x' and repeat the process? They obviously have access to the entire album. How come they don't/can't play some of the other good songs before everyone else does it? Piggybacking off of Gwar3k1's answer, in the US Payola is the illegal practice of paying a station to play a song. It is still openly and notoriously practiced. At least with mainstream stuff, a lot of work goes into determining which songs are most likely to be successful/hook the listener, and those are the singles (hence why they don't pay to play any old random track off of the album). Besides what the wiki points out, using third parties to avoid being totally obvious, the most common tactic now is that the station is expected to play artist X's song at least 10 times per day or else artist X probably won't be able to play station's holiday/summer/etc. rock concert featuring bunches of still-too-small-to-tour-on-their-own bands.
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Jan 3, 2011 13:16
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Binary posted:Completely random question, so I figure it'd go here. Does anyone in Texas know how Texas State University in San Marcos ranks for computer science as far as state schools go? Would a CS degree from there carry any weight ? Better than nothing, but it's a tier-2 state school without a particularly impressive science/math reputation. It's the internships and side work that really help determine your employability when you're fresh out of school with a CS degree, but all things being equal, see above. If you intend to continue on to graduate studies, I'd definitely say avoid. If you're a huge self-driven learner, you'll be okay. If you fall somewhere in between and are looking for maximum likelihood of employment immediately after graduation, roll up I-35 to UT-Austin. Of course, that assumes you can get into UT; if you can, the slight savings in tuition at TxState isn't worth the hit in status. Also, God I hope you're in-state or getting a scholarship. There's no reason to go to TxState if you aren't.
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Jan 6, 2011 02:45
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Binary posted:I've applied to UT as well, I should have stated earlier that I'm a transfer student and a Texas resident. My GPA is decent but not stellar. I want to move to Austin and know that UT would be a top choice, but I'm looking for a backup in case that does not go through. I'm not fresh out of school and have several years of legit work experience, I'm just looking for a bachelor's degree to capstone my resume and CS is the subject I have the most credits in. For that purpose would Texas State be sufficient if I have experience to put down and I'm confident that I can do and learn poo poo? If you've got legit work experience, this is a totally different question. Yeah, you'll be fine there.
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Jan 6, 2011 04:05
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kapalama posted:IIRC there was a place that translated into "Ye Olde English" or something. 1TB and 3TB, respectively. 2.5" Laptop drives are the largest ones that can be bus-powered, and they top out at 1TB. I assume with bus-powered you're asking for USB/Firewire-based models. While it could technically be possible to cobble up some bizarro enclosure that uses multiple USB ports to pull enough cumulative power to drive a 3.5" drive (or a pair of 2.5" drives RAIDed to appear as a single drive), I'm not aware of such a beast.
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Feb 24, 2011 04:36
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PlasticPaddy posted:What happens if a guy refuses to take a paternity test? The court can compel him to do so. If he refuses, he can be held in contempt, which can carry a fine or what is effectively an unending jail sentence (he won't be released until he agrees to submit to the test).
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Mar 24, 2011 01:44
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Encryptic posted:
I can't imagine wanting to carry the spare key in my pocket at all times. Try one of those magnetic key boxes that can mount in the wheel well. The new keys are thicker because unlike old keys, they often have a microchip the communicates with the car to allow it to start. The security controls are frequently mounted in the key because factory-installed security systems are far more common now and the chipped keys need to be thicker anyway, so you might as well combine the two. You can cut a copy of the key, but it won't let the car start; it will, however, open the door and be small enough to carry in your wallet. Once you're in the car, shut off the alarm with your real key. I'm not aware of any car that wouldn't let you get in the door with a generic, non-chipped key, but I'd obviously try it out before you're in a real bind.
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Mar 29, 2011 02:39
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Encryptic posted:Sorry, meant to respond sooner to this. That I can't answer. My instinct is that it's a CYA issue, but I'm not familiar enough with how "chipped" keys work to say for certain. I'd seriously recommend my second suggestion - it costs maybe $5 max to cut a non-chipped key, and if it opens the door then you've solved your problem.
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Mar 31, 2011 01:36
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tentawesome posted:Do astronauts receive any training for what to do if they encounter intelligent life while in space? A friend of mine worked mission control for the ISS and routinely trained astronauts on various tasks. He had all sorts of awesome stories and unusual knowledge about training and procedures (e.g. the manual has a procedure for how to deal with someone who has gone crazy). I'm pretty sure he would have mentioned alien training if it existed.
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Apr 22, 2011 00:57
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WHEEZY HIDE A EGG posted:They have so many loving decanters. If you can give me a few days I can catalog everything in pictures and you can make an offer. PM me if you're serious. Decanters, especially older ones, typically fetch decent money on ebay or etsy. Not crazy money or anything, but $30 or $40 for generic stuff. Shop around to see if theirs are out there.
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Apr 25, 2011 06:23
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alnilam posted:Say a mutual fund says "Initial investment: $500. Subsequent investment: $50." (This is on etrade, if it makes a difference) Unless there's some bizarre contractual requirement, that just means your next purchase (if you ever make one) must be at least $50. Since mutual funds are a giant collection of individual investments, you don't generally purchase them in single shares but rather in fractions based on how much money you want to put in. In other words, no one says, "I want to buy three shares of XYZ Fund," they say, "I want to buy $300 worth of XYZ fund," and they get 42.1756 shares. They're just telling you that your minimum purchase into the fund to start is $500 and that each subsequent purchase must be at least $50. Don't call them up with the change you found in your couch cushion and try to buy $1.57 worth of the fund. Automatic repurchases of the fund with dividend/interest earnings are usually exempt from these sorts of rules.
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Jun 27, 2011 20:18
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alnilam posted:In a related note on discourse, it seems crazy to me how people don't talk about "this business is doing just fine, but not growing" (which would make sense to me), but rather "this business is doing poorly because it's not growing fast enough." Apart from the "What's with growth?" question, I want to ask: what's with this discourse? Is that kind of talk aimed towards investors, who indeed would be upset if the company weren't growing? Is there anything wrong with operating a business that is doing just fine? On a personal level, not at all. If you're a small business owner and your business is doing well enough to support you and your family and maybe pay your few employees enough to do so, then I don't think anyone's going to fault you. Run your CPA business or whatever, pay your bills, and leave it to your kids or sell it to help fund your retirement. But, yeah, it's obviously aimed at the investors. If I've got $10,000 tied up in your business and you're not growing then I'm in a bad place. I'm not making any money off of my investment in you, and I could be doing better just loaning that money to someone else. Multiply that out by factors of a million and you've got the mindset of a fund manager who's handling, say, $40 billion worth of people's retirement money. If you loan GE $500 million and they have to pay back $550 million, then you've done well. If you buy $500 million worth of GE and they're not growing, then you're never going to get your return. If GE isn't growing then the likelihood that your $500 million will ever get you to a better place than the loan is kind of low.
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Jun 28, 2011 15:33
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Dudebro posted:Seems to me this is talking about first world nations and not third world nations. To help the latter, we just need to reallocate our resources and attention (not all of both, but just evenly). And it also seems to me that the earth's oil would last for many millenia if we didn't use it on the biggest consumers of oil right now. What you're saying is we should employ massive wealth redistribution from the first world to the third world. There are a number of problems with that suggestion: 1) A lot of people in the first world won't want to lower their standard of living in order to allow that. 2) We already do it to a certain extent, and it's not as beneficial as it first sounds. For instance, sending massive amounts of food to impoverished nations merely lowers the cost of locally grown food, putting farmers out of business. Which leads to no food. Which leads to the first world sending massive amounts of food to the third world, which lowers the cost of locally grown food. You get the idea. 3) Oil is actually a great example of this: there are lots of third world nations with massive energy reserves. The only companies with the talent and equipment to extract them are first world nations. The proper way to solve this dilemma is for third world states to sign contracts with the ExxonMobils and Shells that require them to use a certain number of local employees and engineers. The local intelligence level is bolstered, the people learn how to do those sorts of things on their own, and eventually you have state oil companies capable of genuinely contributing to their economies. The wrong way to do it is Nigeria-style: have the state do nothing more than keep a cut of the profit, which will get skimmed off by corrupt officials. There's a lot of D&D angle here - my answers aren't the only "right" ones to this problem. I will point this out, though: there's little economic benefit to anyone in the chain in preserving oil for millenia. There are lots of potential long-term downsides, but there's a major profit motive weighing against that, and the downsides often impact those who don't stand to profit. It's why there are huge debates related to carbon emissions, conservation, etc. Dudebro posted:I saw another documentary called Gas Hole that talked about patents from 50+ years ago that allowed cars (as heavy as the Hummer) get over 100MPG, but oil companies like Shell took up the patents or fought hard to keep them from the public. I'm not sure about this because this movie came off as amateurish and full of conspiracy theorist types and I wasn't impressed at all that they were touting hydrogen or vegetable oil as viable alternatives. There was some shady poo poo; GM, for instance, bought up and tore up a bunch of city streetcar tracks all over America to encourage auto purchases. Many oil companies are far from models of good citizenship. But that documentary is nonsense. dudebro posted:I'm taking the mindset that equal education for everyone is the most important thing ever now. Every stupid thing I see on YouTube, I'm thinking, "Wow, if these people had a better education/upbringing, they wouldn't be doing this stupid thing now." I mean I knew it was important before, but it just kind of sunk in for me. --------- Dudebro posted:And on this question of growth and investors. Why is Facebook (just one example) going public talked about like it's an inevitability? They seem fine to me the way they're growing. Why is it such a big deal that Facebook's exact value be known? I don't see how going public would benefit them when they're worth billions, but not sure exactly how many billions. And other top companies like Twitter. I wouldn't think you need to go public if you're already at the top of your field. It also does dick to buy a warehouse full of servers right now. If Facebook needs capital to expand their operation, they need to find someone willing to invest. In the beginning, that someone is going to be a venture capitalist - someone who's willing to buy a share of the company in a small-scale, non-publicly traded environment. The problem is that when that venture capitalist wants a return on his or her investment, he has two options: to sell that share in the company or to have designed his investment such that he starts getting X% of Facebook's profits each quarter (or, more likely, some combination of the two). Selling his share is trickier when Facebook isn't publicly traded. When I want to sell my shares of GE, I click two buttons on a website. When VC wants to sell his shares of Facebook, he needs to find a small group of people wealthy enough to afford his multi-million dollar stake. Lawyers and accountants are going to get involved because they want to accurately value what the company's worth. It's harder to value the company because, as a private company, they aren't required to disclose as much information about earnings, profits, liabilities, etc. The other wrinkle is that VCs work great for earlier funding, but you run the risk of eventually saturating those options: they want preferred status, they want better protection, they want more active decision making power than a regular shareholder of a public company gets, and eventually it's simply not as easy or convenient to access that money when compared to the public markets. The end result of this is that most VC's business plans are based around a pretty simple model: invest in a company before it goes public, then get the company to go public and sell your shares. So why so much talk about Facebook going public and what it's worth? What it's worth will (to a great extent) determine the final value and cost of those shares, and the fact that it could go public represents a big investment opportunity for the ordinary folks and a big payoff opportunity for the private investors.
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Jun 28, 2011 19:27
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Dudebro posted:Thanks for engaging me there. About the third-world situation. I didn't really mean send packets of money and food, but rather helping to improve infrastructure and education, stuff that's an important foundation for a functional society. It's hard to find the incentives without looking to large multinational corporations who may want too much control for "doing their part" to help. Stuff like donating money to set up water wells although I'm not sure how effective those are and the longevity of those things, but there's value in those projects if you go to the right places. And maybe sponsoring children there to get through K-12. I think it's a lot cheaper than people may guess (less than $500-1000/year for high school?). Of course, the counterpoint is that those multinationals may be just the ones suited to doing the work, and they may be willing to do it for no more reason than it ultimately benefits them. Third world shitholes don't buy cars. 1970s China didn't buy cars. If I recall correctly, GM sells more cars in China now than they do in the US. Similarly, a lot of the big oil companies do tend to try to fund stuff on their development sites because it's a net benefit to them. Angry people tend to mess up your operations, whereas people who see a direct benefit from the big natural gas project tend not to. ------- DudeBro posted:And how much say does Mark Zuckerberg have in Facebook staying private? I hadn't thought about the venture capitalists, but that makes sense. I don't think someone like Zuckerberg has any incentives for going public. How much say depends entirely on how his deals were negotiated. It's not uncommon to hear about founders of a company being pushed out by VCs because they're not willing to do what the money wants. On the flipside: Zuckerberg owns metric shittons (presumably) of Facebook stock even if it isn't already public. Non-public companies still have stock shares to refer to what individual owners own and to provide different benefits to different "classes" of shareholders. It is, for instance, very common for early founders to have a special preferred stock category that grants more powerful voting rights and dividend options while also being allowed to exchange out for a certain number of common stock shares (the regular stuff you or I could buy). Zuckerberg's "net worth" is a paper valuation - just like the VCs, if he wanted to cash out all or part of it now, it's much more difficult than just placing a call to a broker and selling stuff. If Facebook goes public, he could (probably) sell his common stock much easier when he wants to go do something else with the money. The Google guys had a very similar arrangement, and that's what they've done.
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Jun 28, 2011 20:09
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Pato posted:How do I go about making a will? I'm still in my 20s so I am not in danger of dying any time soon (I hope) but in case of accidents or anything I should probably have one. Do I have to have different documents for my money and my possessions? Different documents for different people? Or is it as simple as writing 'I leave X to my mum, X to my best mate and X to my dog' on a paper? I live in California in case it matters. (Not so) Short answer: You could probably do it yourself, and a single document is generally sufficient. That single document won't apply to certain other will-like instruments (life insurance or any joint bank accounts, for instance) that have their own internal rules. Not all states allow you to create your own will from scratch and have it be legal merely with your signature. Some states require a certain number of witnesses, in some places those witnesses can't be getting anything under the will or it'll fall apart (while in others it isn't fatal), and different states have different rules about how you can change it. Leaving money to your dog is actually far trickier than it sounds because dogs aren't people. It's not difficult to leave money to take care of an animal, but you need to know how to set it up. This is why the far more appropriate answer is: a will for you will be dead simple, a small-time lawyer will charge you $100 to $300 (at the top end) to do it, and it will be done properly with no question about what might happen. You can find decent references from the California Bar Association (I assume).
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Jun 29, 2011 22:15
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Randomity posted:When you buy a car, in some places, there is a law that says you have 3 days to change your mind and return the car before the contract becomes official. What is the name of this law? You aren't "making it up," but it's not terribly widespread as far as I know. The misconception probably stems from the fact that a lot of states DO have 3 day windows for rescission on telemarketing, timeshare, and door to door sales and various other things (Texas has one for gym memberships in addition to those above). Car dealers are HUGE campaign contributors at the state level, and are generally well-protected in state laws. Your husband is wrong - you don't get to arbitrarily withdraw any contract within X days, even as a consumer; states have generally set out specific contracts that fall into that category, and few seem to apply it to cars.
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Jul 20, 2011 20:51
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Don't ever overestimate the amount of money a movie star makes and the amount he or she spends. Bruce Campbell has a great bit in his Autobiography where he talks about how "you too can earn like a movie star" and uses his $500,000 salary for Army of Darkness as a basis for comparison. 10% to your agent, another 5% off to a business manager, about 34% in taxes once you factor in the marginal nature of tax brackets, and the fact that it might be the only movie you work on that year all adds up to not as much as it sounds like (in Bruce's example, he also owed 50% to his wife because of a recent divorce.) According to the Wiki, Drew Barrymore commanded $10-$12 million per role in 2006. She seems to do about 1 to 2 movies per year, but the second one is usually a much smaller bit that I'm guessing she does for the "art" more than the paycheck. Her more recent movies haven't done quite as well as the ones leading up to that article, either, so it might be a bit lower. If we use $10 million as a basis: $6.67 million after taxes. $5.57 million after the agent gets paid (assuming 10% to agent - she might have a better deal). $5 million after business manager gets paid. State taxes need to get in there, too. And this all assumes an absence of other "staff," e.g. publicists and the like. Granted, a smart accountant would get some of those expenses for agents and the like deducted, but she's still bleeding out money from that paycheck before she ever spends a dime on "herself." Yep, $4.5 to $5 million gross per year sounds pretty sweet. I'd be all over that, no doubt, but consider: According to a quick google search, her most recent home purchase cost $7 or $8 million. You don't usually pay cash outright for a house like that, so she's probably rolling with what I quickly calculated at a $50,000 to $75,000 a month mortgage payment depending on the term; that's to say nothing of the property taxes on a property like that. Also figure that she can't just live like the rest of us do - part of being a movie star is projecting that famous image. She visits famously expensive hair salons, her clothes are way pricier, cars, etc. all add up. So yeah, if she has smart people working for her, she's not burning up her money, but she's also not living an ultra-frugal lifestyle. A good deal of that cash gets spent "maintaining an image" that helps further her employment. On top of all of that, there has to be the inevitable understanding that at some point the roles may start drying up and she'll need to live on what she's banked. Finally, don't ignore the appeal of exposure to people with the kind of mindset likely you often find among movie stars. There's a possibility that, separate from the money, she just wants to see her face out there EVEN more. That brings it all back around to a more clearly explained version of what others are saying: She's probably getting a hefty paycheck for not a lot of work. Yeah, in a world where you have unlimited funds it might not be worth it, but even a movie star doesn't live in that world.
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Sep 3, 2011 23:51
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AKA Pseudonym posted:I left my sunroof open with my Garmin Nuvi sitting out on one of the seats. A rain storm came along and get everything nice and wet. I gave the Garmin some time to dry out before trying to turn it on and got no joy. Any tips on trying to save it? A bowl full of uncooked rice can act a decent desiccant and pull moisture out of wet electronics. Just submerge the device in the rice and leave it there overnight.
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Sep 4, 2011 16:09
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Biowarfare posted:Why do some ads say and//or sell "FAMOUS MAKER" LCD MONITOR or something instead of the actual brand/they place black tape over any branding or strip it of any branding? Many manufacturers have deals with retailers that prevent them from listing a certain product below a given price. You see the same thing done on e-commerce sites where you have to add a product to your shopping cart to see the actual price. The manufacturers don't want a reputation as "cheap," so they put a floor in place. The retailer wants to let you know that it isn't a generic brand LCD screen that's selling for the cheap price. Hence: "Famous Maker."
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Sep 22, 2011 00:02
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ilikelettuce posted:Anyway, I demanded my money back and will never ever buy another Ray-Ban again. Just a heads-up: Ray-Ban is but one of the many manufacturing/retail subdivisions of Luxottica. If you're buying a premium pair of sunglasses, good luck avoiding them.
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Sep 27, 2011 00:06
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ZedEd posted:So my girlfriend is planning on getting her parents a bluray player for Christmas. Our issue is that they don't have wireless internet, so will it be an issue if they never hook it up to the internet? Will it not read newer blurays if it can't update? In addition to network updates, most models still allow you to burn firmware updates to a CD or load them on a USB flash drive (assuming the player has a USB port). Failing that, yes, they could possibly run into newer discs that would have issues playing. If that were the case, they'd want to plug it into a network connection somewhere, assuming the player had ethernet.
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Dec 12, 2011 05:20
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actionjackson posted:I have a fan in my living room that's controlled by remote (there's no switch or cord). Several times when I wake up in the morning it is on, despite being off the night before. This has only happened at night. I'm totally clueless to how this is happening. Any idea for a possible explanation? Are you in an apartment complex/townhome/duplex etc.? I had the same thing happen, and it turned out that the fan was set to the same frequency as someone who lived nearby. The builders must have been putting in the same stuff at every house and not bothering to change the frequencies for them. In much the same way, it could be that a neighbor likes having the fan on at night and is switching yours on at the same time. The receiver is, as others have mentioned, usually in the bell housing that connects the fan to the ceiling. Open it up and you'll usually find something with dip switches to change the "channel." Do the same thing for your remote and see if that isn't the problem.
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Dec 17, 2011 04:07
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Jeffrey Colon posted:You didn't happen to go to OU, did you? I lived in a complex with this exact problem. Except I would get drunk and turn other people's fans on and watch their confusion from afar. Nope, but many of Home Depot's house-brand fans use wireless remotes because it allows both fan and light function even if two separate switches and lines weren't originally pulled. I've gotta figure this is pretty common in higher density housing anywhere.
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Dec 17, 2011 20:09
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On the Ikea front: if you're buying flat-pack furniture (the kind that you put together yourself), invest in some wood glue and epoxy/gorilla glue/similar for metal stuff. The stability and durability of flat-pack wood products, especially, can be greatly improved with some strategic dabs of glue. I've found my success rate with Ikea much better once I started doing this. Assemble your stuff loosely, make sure everything fits right, and then drop some glue in as you're tightening down the bits.
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Jan 2, 2012 17:45
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Install Gentoo posted:If you look you should be able to get cheap real NES and SNES,and not need to worry about games acting weird or video and audio being off-kilter. Note that the zapper will only work if you have a CRT (tube) TV.
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Jan 10, 2012 13:21
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actionjackson posted:Is TurboTax worth the price now that I have a mortgage? The deluxe federal/state/e-file version for this year is $40 on Amazon. I don't expect anything else in terms of deductions. No, not really. If you literally have nothing else, you can follow the instructions on the 1040 and still fill it out electronically online (it's basically a fillable form, not an "interview"-style program like TT). If that makes you uncomfortable, I'd recommend H&R Block at Home, formerly known as TaxCut. I started using it a few years back when TurboTax started putting some extremely shady DRM in their program. They've since stopped, I believe, but I subsequently found that H&R Block at Home was cheaper and just as good, so here I am. It imports from TurboTax if you want to save some time there. It looks like the H&R Block State + efile version is only $7 cheaper, though. My state doesn't have income tax, so the difference is a bit more pronounced. Your call, though: $7 is $7. Again, though, for something as trivial as "here's my income, here's the withholding, here's the form I got from the bank with my mortgage data" you can just do it yourself on paper. Just be aware that once you factor in the $16(?) efile charge, you're really not paying that much for the convenience of a program filling forms and calculating numbers for you.
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Jan 22, 2012 00:47
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Gravity Pike posted:I don't know; I think it was last year, I was using Turbo Tax's free "You're Poor!" edition, filling out everything like it told me to, and then on like step 6 of 7, it asked something like, "Have you ever claimed such-and-such deduction before? (The answer is probably no.)" I clicked no, and it gave me something like $350 that I still don't understand why I qualified for. That was nice, and I never would have figured it out filing out a 1040-A. Yeah, that is a good point. If you're not at least halfway familiar with the typical deductions and credits, just drop the $30 and be done with it. I'll put it this way: I am familiar with them - I'm no CPA but I am an attorney and did take a number of tax classes in law school. I still happily throw the $30 or $40 for the software each year and then double check the results against what I think they should be.
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Jan 22, 2012 17:01
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, paying the $30 seems like a decent investment.
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Ularg posted:Is there a way to make use of a set of computer speakers with a Wii using component cables? Assuming the speakers use a normal 3.5mm line input (looks like headphone jacks)? Just run the stereo audio output from the Wii into a female RCA to 3.5m adapter and the component straight into the display.
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Mar 13, 2012 03:39
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Pope Mobile posted:Was considering asking in the Goon Doctor, but I didn't see any simple questions megathread- I have not donated plasma, but I routinely donate double red cells. It works much the same way - a pint comes out, the red cells (rather than plasma) get spun out, and everything gets given back along with saline. Then the process repeats a second time. Aside from it taking longer, the return feed is usually mixed with chilled saline. This can be a bit weird at first, as it (for me, at least) results in tingly lips and tongue, similar to a buzzed/drunk but not hammered feel. It last for a couple of minutes while the liquid is returned to you, then ends. Some people say they get really cold because the donation centers are usually kept cooler for infection-control reasons on top of them pumping cold liquid into your arm. I usually donate at work so I'm already wearing more clothes than I would casually, but you may want to wear pants instead of shorts, a heavier shirt, etc. What are the odds of something going wrong? Pretty slim. The plasmapheresis is just that - a machine that's designed not to screw up. Obviously there's an outside chance, but it's probably way more likely that you'll be in a fatal car wreck on the way to the donation center.
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May 7, 2012 23:32
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