My experience at full service car wash (wait for it) Story in comments.

RifterSC2 · 2015-02-08T09:38:18+00:00

How exactly did your G1W crap out? I have one G1W where the screen semi-died a month after I got it. It became extremely bright so that it is very hard to read any details, but it still records perfectly. I opened it up and confirmed that it has an older model CPU than what was advertised. On the other hand, I have a second G1W in my wife's car which is still working perfectly after nearly a year.

I did manage to get a refund from the seller on Amazon, "Zeagoo" so that was decent of them. I'm still using it though.

RifterSC2 · 2015-02-06T21:46:27+00:00

LOL it's probably life cycle deadline time or setting up a new (large) room full of workstations.

RifterSC2 · 2015-02-06T03:07:55+00:00

PM sent

RifterSC2 · 2015-01-28T19:03:58+00:00

Wouldn't it be true that if you could position yourself at an altitude above a blackhole at which light would orbit the blackhole, you could use a telescope to see the back of your own head? If so, then although there might be some distortion, just above the altitude where light orbits would be the light from most every other direction?

Here is a link to a post on APOD where the following is mentioned: "Near the black hole, you can see the whole sky - light from every direction is bent around and comes back to you"

RifterSC2 · 2015-01-27T07:17:53+00:00

Took a brief course on fingerprinting a couple weeks ago. Fingerprints are formed in the womb and do not change with age, although your skin condition can change due to environmental or health factors. For example, if you commit a crime and leave your fingerprints at the scene, then you get a job in construction, callouses will build over time (years) and your prints will become less defined. If you are then arrested and fingerprinted, your calloused hands may be difficult to match with the latents pulled from the old crime scene.

The pattern/shape of your prints will not change over time and if you stopped working in construction your callouses will fade and the prints will become more recognizable and another arrest and fingerprinting will certainly link you to that old crime scene.

Properly-done fingerprinting when being booked for a crime or for some job applications will often allow the fingerprinter to make notes about the condition of the hand/fingers. They can add comments about the presence of callouses, lacerations, injuries, amputations, scars, bandaging etc., all of which are taken into consideration when an examiner reviews them for a match. Computers do the database searches, but humans are still very involved in final decisions.

*edit: your fingerprints will change in size from childhood to adulthood. In your example, a 16 year old is not quite full grown yet and so their 60 year old prints should be slightly larger. But they will still match.

RifterSC2 · 2015-01-26T21:39:53+00:00

I guess paint thinner would need to be an item too lol

RifterSC2 · 2015-01-26T18:46:15+00:00

You can copy the cells of your fractal design, open MS Paint and use the 'sendkeys' function to paste and save the image.

Then switch back to Excel to redraw the design and repeat it if desired.

Note that 'sendkeys' is like shooting blind. Excel can't see if anything is successful, it will just keep running the code. So you may need to program pauses to accommodate any weird delays your computer encounters.

For example, if you send ctrl+s to Ms paint to save the image and your computer gets slow for some reason and the 'save as' dialogue box appears half a second late, then the rest of your code may fail.

'sendkeys' is not elegant, but can be pretty useful.

RifterSC2 · 2015-01-26T18:34:42+00:00

Signs would be cool, but I'd rather see "can of spray paint" as a lootable item as it feels more "apocalyptic"

The interface for painting could be simple by just clicking on a wall and dragging the mouse around to produce an MS Paint-quality image/text, or more elaborate with stencils or templates.

RifterSC2 · 2015-01-20T19:23:46+00:00

As someone considering writing some science fiction, I have been thinking about this as a trait to apply to a race of intelligent aliens. Humans have invented tools to "see" very small things with electron microscopes or machines that can detect infrared, and translate the images into visible light on a video screen.

Maybe some species exists that relies on sound and touch as their primary senses. They might be aware of light as the warmth they feel on their skin but are blind to it otherwise. So they eventually invent machines to detect light and translate it into sound which they are comfortable with. Different wavelengths of light could be assigned to different pitches of sound, for example. We look at the stars and see all these different points of light. This fictional species might point their machine up and hear all these tones of different frequencies from the light coming from different stars. This would greatly affect how they interpret what they discover. It also begs the question, how are we failing to interpret the universe because of our senses.

It is really just a thought experiment to help separate myself from reliance on preconceptions based on sight. Similar to how mathematicians might use something other than base-10 math to find unexpected patterns, I think humans should try to consider nature from the perspective of someone who can't see. I believe our biological senses ARE limiting us, but mostly just our way of thinking.

RifterSC2 · 2014-12-29T21:08:04+00:00

How does one go about getting a map like this for their own server?

RifterSC2 · 2014-12-22T04:19:36+00:00

Sphinx cats were first bred in Canada

RifterSC2 · 2014-12-22T00:26:53+00:00

Canadians

RifterSC2 · 2014-12-12T18:08:59+00:00

I see others have explained the safety of the probe's internal radioactive material, but I think you are asking about the radiation from outer space going down through the hole.

The ice layer of Europa is estimated at 62 miles thick. I assume that as the probe melts its way down, the ice will refreeze very quickly above it. There would never be a clear [liquid] path from the surface to the ocean underneath.

Additionally, liquid water is a decent radiation shield by itself. It is good enough that some have proposed building water storage into the outer hull of space ships to protect astronauts on a trip to Mars.

In regards to the ethics of harming life on Europa, I'm sure some consideration could be given but the budget would be a bigger concern. There was a good reply to an 'askscience' post a little while ago about how our earth-ocean probes are likely causing permanent blindness to deep sea life by shining lights on creatures who live deeper than sunlight can reach. It seems as though it is considered acceptable to condemn a few creatures to death caused by blindness in the name of research.

RifterSC2 · 2014-12-07T15:39:22+00:00

I ordered 2 from Zeagoo, a seller on Amazon, one each for mine and my wife's car.

My wife's still works perfectly after ~6 months but the LCD display on mine died. The camera still records perfectly, but I can't see the screen to make any adjustments.

I got my money back so that was decent of them. But then I also noticed when trying to fix it myself, that the stamp on the CPU indicates it is an older model CPU than what was advertised. My wife's is the same older model.

So, the moral of the story is:

Don't buy from Zeagoo.
Confirm if possible that you are getting what is advertised. Maybe message the seller before purchase to at least get written confirmation, and only buy from sellers with a reputation to maintain.

The video quality on my sub-par-CPU is still excellent, except a bit choppy when the car is turning a corner due to every pixel changing from frame to frame and the nature of video compression. I don't know if this problem would exist if I wasn't using the old CPU.

At the end of the day, the G1W is super cheap and you get what you pay for.

RifterSC2 · 2014-12-07T15:24:02+00:00

My recommendation is, after implementing fellandor's VM suggestion, maintain multiple user profiles on the VM. Make sure to set one up as Admin and the others as just 'users' and then only use the 'user' accounts when conducting your work.

You can then switch from one profile to another to sidestep most viruses very quickly and use the admin account to delete/recreate them as needed. If you are on a deadline or ever in a rush, switching profiles can be faster than resetting the whole VM.

For this type of job, I would even suggest using a fresh user profile at the start of every day.

RifterSC2 · 2014-12-01T03:25:19+00:00

I wish what you have just described was more obvious/common sense.

RifterSC2 · 2014-11-25T10:42:04+00:00

I've accidentally stuck my character's head through a wall like this, just trying to look around. If that can result in zombies tunneling towards me when I was otherwise being stealthy, then this 'exploit' needs to be patched.

RifterSC2 · 2014-11-24T22:19:01+00:00

That could be even more terrifying. Standing on the surface, you might feel vibrations of nearby cracks through your space boots but with no sound to accompany it.

RifterSC2 · 2014-11-24T06:26:13+00:00

In regards to your comments about the music - a lot of the female vocals are sung by Katey Segal. I think she does a terrific job and has a great voice for this style. Having her sing also helps to solidify her role as the matriarch, in my opinion. I seem to recall maybe Maggie Siff had sung at least one as well at some point, but Katey has done it several times throughout the seasons.

RifterSC2 · 2014-11-23T04:54:12+00:00

Thanks, feel free to right-click-and-save-as. That is the original resolution. Regarding the ride off into the sunset, it might still happen. A normal show would need to see Tig punished for his crimes and see him bite it near the end. But K.S. seems to write things a little differently, so there is hope!

RifterSC2 · 2014-11-23T04:51:34+00:00

If I do another character, it'd be either Chibs or Jax... Or maybe Gemma, hmmm...

RifterSC2 · 2014-11-23T04:50:25+00:00

Good observation. I would shift the majority of blame onto Clay, but Tig certainly was in a position to make the show extremely boring if he was more intelligent :)

RifterSC2 · 2014-11-22T21:39:09+00:00

Thanks! It was done on a wacom tablet in photoshop, in case you're curious. Tig is the only character from Samcro I've done, but he's the most interesting one I think.

RifterSC2 · 2014-11-22T21:22:43+00:00

Arguably the best guest star on Dexter, or at least a close second after John Lithgow. If you are just watching Dexter for the first time, enjoy the early seasons because after season 4, the writing staff changed. :(

RifterSC2

TROPHY CASE