How (and why) to Ramble on your goat sideways
02-05-2011, 02:39 PM
#6281
Elite Member
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Birmingham Alabama
Posts: 7,930
Total Cats: 45
Looks like a nice piece of kit.
It's funny... I've got an 11 year old 55" (4:3) Toshiba. One of the very first of the big HD sets. Triple-tube CRT rear projection (if anybody remembers life back before DLP and LCD). Still looks pretty good, actually. No burn and no uncorrectable divergence. Wish it had a VGA input, but it looks great on the component ports.
Thing is, being a rear-projector it's kind of heavy as hell and very awkward to move around. Lots of glass and wood. I bought it when I lived in Mason OH, and since then I have moved:
1: From Mason, OH to Maineville, OH
2: From Maineville, OH to Carlsbad, CA.
3: From Carlsbad, CA to Gainesville, FL
4: From Gainesville, FL to Port Charlotte, FL
5: From Port Charlotte, FL to San Diego, CA
6: From San Diego, CA to Carlsbad, CA
Every single time I've had to move this TV since #2, I've sworn to myself that it was going to be the last time and that I'd simply abandon it in place rather than move it again.
Hasn't happened.
It's funny... I've got an 11 year old 55" (4:3) Toshiba. One of the very first of the big HD sets. Triple-tube CRT rear projection (if anybody remembers life back before DLP and LCD). Still looks pretty good, actually. No burn and no uncorrectable divergence. Wish it had a VGA input, but it looks great on the component ports.
Thing is, being a rear-projector it's kind of heavy as hell and very awkward to move around. Lots of glass and wood. I bought it when I lived in Mason OH, and since then I have moved:
1: From Mason, OH to Maineville, OH
2: From Maineville, OH to Carlsbad, CA.
3: From Carlsbad, CA to Gainesville, FL
4: From Gainesville, FL to Port Charlotte, FL
5: From Port Charlotte, FL to San Diego, CA
6: From San Diego, CA to Carlsbad, CA
Every single time I've had to move this TV since #2, I've sworn to myself that it was going to be the last time and that I'd simply abandon it in place rather than move it again.
Hasn't happened.
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Yall have no clue...
02-05-2011, 05:16 PM
#6285
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,026
Total Cats: 6,592
Sometimes Judaism confuses me.
For reasons not related to the purchase of a new oven, I happened recently to be researching the specs on new ovens. At GE's website in particular, something caught my eye.
One of the features which is available on some of the higher-end wall ovens, in addition to things like self-cleaning and a built-in meat probe, is a "Certified Sabbath Mode."
I'm not kidding. Here's a screenshot of the oven selector from their website:
Now, I'll admit to having only a very cursory understanding of Halakha, but even this seems weird to me.
Essentially, what's going on here is that during the Shabbat, two of the activities which are expressly forbidden are the igniting of a fire and the extinguishing of a fire. Somehow, it's been taken to understand that turning on an electric oven (or turning off an electric oven) is functionally equivalent to creating or extinguishing fire, and so if you do that, you must be put to death.
(Likewise, it's ok to open the refrigerator door, but only if the compressor is already running and you remembered to unscrew the light bulb inside the day before. Otherwise, death again.)
So the way a Sabbath-Compliant oven works is that once you press the Sabbath button (there is, literally, a button on the front marked Sabbath), a couple of things happen. First, the buttons no longer beep or illuminate when pressed, and the light inside the oven is disabled. Second, when you press any buttons to command the oven to turn on, turn off, change temp, etc, these changes do not take effect immediately. Instead, after you commit the changes, the oven waits a random amount of time (between 30 seconds and one minute) and then turns on / off / whatever.
I am not making this **** up. Here is an excerpt from the user's manual for the GE model PT960-30" double wall oven:
Do these folks not understand that pushing these buttons completes an electrical circuit which, from a EE perspective, is functionally indistinguishable from just flipping a switch and turning on the oven directly? The microprocessor inside that thing ain't sensing the warmth and righteousness of your touch, it's getting a closure to ground.
Now, I am not a religious detractor. I self-identify as a Christian, in fact (though I'll admit to occasionally being a bastard.) So don't take this as a blanket indictment of all religion, or even of the Jewish religion. But seriously- what the ****?
One of the features which is available on some of the higher-end wall ovens, in addition to things like self-cleaning and a built-in meat probe, is a "Certified Sabbath Mode."
I'm not kidding. Here's a screenshot of the oven selector from their website:
Now, I'll admit to having only a very cursory understanding of Halakha, but even this seems weird to me.
Essentially, what's going on here is that during the Shabbat, two of the activities which are expressly forbidden are the igniting of a fire and the extinguishing of a fire. Somehow, it's been taken to understand that turning on an electric oven (or turning off an electric oven) is functionally equivalent to creating or extinguishing fire, and so if you do that, you must be put to death.
(Likewise, it's ok to open the refrigerator door, but only if the compressor is already running and you remembered to unscrew the light bulb inside the day before. Otherwise, death again.)
So the way a Sabbath-Compliant oven works is that once you press the Sabbath button (there is, literally, a button on the front marked Sabbath), a couple of things happen. First, the buttons no longer beep or illuminate when pressed, and the light inside the oven is disabled. Second, when you press any buttons to command the oven to turn on, turn off, change temp, etc, these changes do not take effect immediately. Instead, after you commit the changes, the oven waits a random amount of time (between 30 seconds and one minute) and then turns on / off / whatever.
I am not making this **** up. Here is an excerpt from the user's manual for the GE model PT960-30" double wall oven:
Do these folks not understand that pushing these buttons completes an electrical circuit which, from a EE perspective, is functionally indistinguishable from just flipping a switch and turning on the oven directly? The microprocessor inside that thing ain't sensing the warmth and righteousness of your touch, it's getting a closure to ground.
Now, I am not a religious detractor. I self-identify as a Christian, in fact (though I'll admit to occasionally being a bastard.) So don't take this as a blanket indictment of all religion, or even of the Jewish religion. But seriously- what the ****?
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02-06-2011, 12:12 AM
#6291
I'll say this has about 98% to do with why the **** I need to get out of here. For 2010, it was #100 on the top 100 safest cities in the US.....for ****'s sake New York, D.C. , New Orleans, Newark NJ.....all places that are SIGNIFICANTLY safer than Atlanta.
Seriously, we want to move out of here and are looking at places near the top of this list...
http://freebackgroundchecksusa.com/1...rica-2010.html
Seriously, we want to move out of here and are looking at places near the top of this list...
http://freebackgroundchecksusa.com/1...rica-2010.html
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02-06-2011, 02:09 AM
#6294
Another reason I'm so glad I don't believe in any of that nonsense.
One good thing to come of it, though, are the certified Halal MREs. The entrees are much tastier (read: spicier, more exotic) than normal MREs. Healthier, too. Since I'm the only soldier here living amongst Muslims, I get those instead.
One good thing to come of it, though, are the certified Halal MREs. The entrees are much tastier (read: spicier, more exotic) than normal MREs. Healthier, too. Since I'm the only soldier here living amongst Muslims, I get those instead.
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02-06-2011, 02:13 AM
#6295
I'll say this has about 98% to do with why the **** I need to get out of here. For 2010, it was #100 on the top 100 safest cities in the US.....for ****'s sake New York, D.C. , New Orleans, Newark NJ.....all places that are SIGNIFICANTLY safer than Atlanta.
Seriously, we want to move out of here and are looking at places near the top of this list...
http://freebackgroundchecksusa.com/1...rica-2010.html
Seriously, we want to move out of here and are looking at places near the top of this list...
http://freebackgroundchecksusa.com/1...rica-2010.html
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/abo...ing_crime.html
It actually looks like they just randomly chose the cities by drawing names from a bag.
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02-06-2011, 11:59 AM
#6298
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,026
Total Cats: 6,592
Have you seen the newer high-end Mitsu sets that use three lasers instead of a lamp and a color wheel? I've yet to see one in person, but I expect they'd deliver stunning color saturation.
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