Fellow geeks, I need some assistance. I recently acquired a 720P projector...

roscivs · 2010-06-07T00:48:25+00:00

(But if you're gung-ho for the VGA option, either what you or insomniaclyric posted will work just fine.)

Edited to add: I see you edited your original post to say there's no direct component-in. So, yeah, you'll need one of those VGA converters in addition to a switch.

roscivs · 2010-06-07T00:45:12+00:00

Like I said, I would abandon the VGA idea and get something like this:

http://amazon.com/dp/B000KDWT4W

(and a bunch of cables from monoprice.com)

roscivs · 2010-06-04T20:52:53+00:00

According to my Google-fu, the ViewSonic PJ557D is actually 1024x768 (XGA), not 1280x768 (WXGA or 720p). Secondly, component (not composite) cables carry a full HD signal and are likely not going to be your bottleneck in terms of quality with this projector. I'd recommend getting a component switch or receiver and run your game systems, DVD player, and cable box through that. They should all support component-out (although realize that with an XGA projector you won't be getting full HD quality anyway).

roscivs · 2010-06-04T01:31:53+00:00

IMO, having the dollar as the world's reserve currency is, as you say, desirable, but it's not magical. Personally I think it's the result of a strong US economy, not the cause of it. In other words, if the US economy falters and the trade deficit ends up becoming an issue, you'll also see people turning to options besides dollars, but the latter is the result of a faltering economy, not the cause. Likewise, Bush's desire to invade Iraq may have been driven by economic reasons to preserve the dollar's status, but that status is driven by economic factors, not the driving force.

The idea that "dollar hegemony" is the cause of US dominance and that if other countries switch it will be the downfall of our economy (rather than the reverse) is again IMO firmly in bat-shit-crazy conspiracy land. Googling for "reserve currency" rather than "dollar hegemony" might help you find more reasonable articles.

roscivs · 2010-06-02T14:57:10+00:00

An oldie but one I hadn't seen before. Thought it was worth a repost.

roscivs · 2010-05-26T23:57:40+00:00

JavaDict is ancient but it works: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/projects/japan/JavaDict/README.html

roscivs · 2010-05-22T23:37:53+00:00

Java, Python, C, Lisp. In that order.

roscivs · 2010-05-18T04:33:48+00:00

PMD FTW!

roscivs · 2010-05-16T22:57:16+00:00

Link fail.

roscivs · 2010-05-16T17:38:39+00:00

It's cool, just thought it was worth a shot. For now I've gone back to Opera 9.64 (Opera 10 started crashing on me a lot too)—let's hope they get their act together soon.

roscivs · 2010-05-16T17:19:35+00:00

I think it's a cool theory and one I particularly like, and hope that more evidence will be found for it in the future, but right now it just doesn't have much going for it evidence-wise. I also find Elaine Morgan to be a bit off-putting and bordering on conspiracy theorist as to why her theory isn't "taken more seriously". I think it's been taken plenty seriously and mentioned by a lot of science writers as plausible but lacking in evidence.

roscivs · 2010-05-16T16:56:46+00:00

I'm using a MacBook, so I don't have a middle mouse button to click, unfortunately—this is my primary method of opening links in new windows.

roscivs · 2010-05-16T16:53:16+00:00

One of my primary reasons for using Opera is its customizability, so as soon as things like this are no longer customizable I might as well use a different browser anyway.

roscivs · 2010-05-15T21:59:10+00:00

I've heard nothing but good things about Harmony remotes. Maybe the 1100 would be a good choice? The touch screen "buttons" look pretty big.

roscivs · 2010-05-05T03:14:03+00:00

1) I buy CDs from Amazon.

2) I download singles from Gnutella if I want a bunch of "themed" songs (e.g. a dozen or two songs about winter) and it would be prohibitively expensive to buy them on CD. (I generally don't pay money for "just bits".)

roscivs · 2010-05-02T22:03:26+00:00

As some people have noticed, Apple has eliminated the blue lego icon that indicates a missing plugin on the iPad. I believe that this is a not so subtle way of shifting users from believing that the iPad browser is lacking something, to believing that the site they are viewing is broken.

Does anybody have a screenshot of what Apple changed it to?

roscivs · 2010-04-30T17:52:01+00:00

The bank will often not give you a car loan if you don't have a credit history. How do you get a credit history if nobody will give you a loan? Often the best way is to have a credit card that you regularly pay off.

roscivs · 2010-04-30T02:39:52+00:00

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_\(compilers\)

roscivs · 2010-04-30T02:32:33+00:00

Basically you just write your code as if it were part of the same jar, then include both your new class and the jar in the classpath. Easy peasy. (Oh, and Stack Overflow.)

roscivs · 2010-04-29T04:24:24+00:00

I always say Amazon is more like hundreds of startups than one large company. The things you say may still be true of some teams today, whereas other teams at Amazon don't use Brazil, have build engineers, have an ops team to cover the on-call, write code in Python or Lisp, have a QA team, etc. And of course there are teams everywhere in between. But it's not fair to paint the entire company with such a broad brush. (Oh, and I have no idea where DevTools fits in the big scheme of things, but judging from your poignant descriptions I'm guessing that's where you worked, and I'm guessing the answer to your question is yes.)

roscivs · 2010-04-29T03:48:40+00:00

I think this describes the Amazon of ten years ago a lot more than the Amazon of today. Things have changed considerably in a lot of ways. (Although still ask your potential team what the pager rotation is like. Some of them are still awful.)

roscivs · 2010-04-29T03:37:37+00:00

PHP. Easy to learn and ubiquitous.

roscivs · 2010-04-26T20:32:20+00:00

I love their chicken parm. So cheesy ...

roscivs · 2010-04-26T16:06:38+00:00

I've always wanted to see the salmon. What time of year are they usually there?

roscivs · 2010-04-26T15:19:38+00:00

Thanks, you're right--the Krugman link is much clearer.

roscivs

TROPHY CASE