booger's New Writeups

Subaru SVX (thing)

2004-09-12T09:37:31Z

As a long-time SVX owner, I feel the need to make a couple more points and nitpick the above write-up.

Subaru started producing the SVX in 1991 with a very limited production run. There were two distinct models: the LS-I had a no-frills suspension that gave it the lighter 3600lb curb weight; the LS-L had an extra sway-bar in the rear, as well as two extra linkages to the hub per corner (adding 200-300 lbs). This gave the LS-L a much tighter suspension, and, I can say from personal experience, a very nice ride. However, the SVX is in no way comparable to a Porsche; Porches tend to have a shorter wheelbase, much lower curb weight and up until recently (ca. 2002), they all used air-cooled engines. If there is a car at all comparable to the SVX, it is the Ford Mustang of the late '80s (except for the AWD). Subaru was attempting to break into the burgeoning U.S. sport car market partly caused by Reaganomics. The SVX was a great first attempt by Subaru during…

High Ping Bastard (thing)

2002-10-23T08:13:18Z

bah!

kids!

There was no such thing as a High Ping Bastard. Nor is there now...

The correct term of High Ping Whiner came about during the good ole' days of multiplayer Doom. Multiplayer Doom started out as serial-only, there was no networking involved so your computers were right next to each other.

Then some depraved soul (I've forgotten who, otherwise I would ask for my college years back) went and added a networking stack playable via the IPX protocol. This was all well and good, it allowed for network play locally (and later through PPP wrapper programs like Kali). Before those wrapper programs (enabling IPX over a dial-up) came about however, doom got its TCP/IP support. Granted the network code was rather poor, someone connected through a non-congested ISDN or T1 line (plenty of colleges and businesses had them by now) could expect fairly decent latency. However, the players using modem dialup or stuck overseas (from the US) usually suffered high…

orbital railgun (thing)

2001-02-27T20:33:24Z

here is another rebuttal for an interesting node...

at or close to light speed, any impact with atomic mass will cause problems. hell, gamma rays have problems getting through a couple miles of nitrogen at less than STP (standard temperature and pressure). if you were going to build a railgun with the intent to use it in any kind of orbit, you also need to have a plan for clearing out any atmosphere between you and your target. this would require a high output laser.

look at the whole earth/moon system as a subatomic particle would. you are flying REAL fast. REALLY REALLY fast. you want to hit the earth (the solid part), but you have this atmosphere thing between it and you. you try to go through. PINBALL! eventually you die because you lost all your energy hitting nitrogen molecules. the point: the faster you go, the harder it is to get there. this is the main idea behind einstien's view of relativity.

to kind of parallel that, think of…

ILOVEYOU (thing)

2000-11-02T09:12:35Z

this "virus" is very simple to counteract, assuming you are running a pattern matching capable MTA (Mail Transmission Authority). in your mail delivery program like sendmail, postfix or whatever you need to point it to use procmail by default to filter all messages. once you have done that, add this line to /etc/procmailrc:

:0
* ^Subject: ILOVEYOU$
EXITCODE=67

this will bounce anything sent through that mail server, both incoming and outgoing messages.
hasta la vista, stupid macro virus!

tobacco (thing)

2000-11-02T08:50:23Z

natural tobacco:cigarette tobacco::hemp:cultivated marijuana

the natural tobacco plant is about as harmless as any normal non-woody plant if combusted and inhaled. there are many differences between the strains of natural tobacco and what you find in your cigarette, much like there are many differences between a natural hemp plant and one grown to maximize thc content.

the cigarette tobacco you smoke every day has about 1000 years of selective cultivation (breeding) behind it. this kind of tobacco is bred to contain much much more nicotine than natural tobacco or even tobacco used by the native tribes that inhabited the americas before the white man showed up. the same thing goes for hemp, except hemp might have close to 4000 years of selective cultivation.

tobacco isn't a bad thing, per se. you can smoke natural tobacco or tobacco bred to contain more nicotine with very minor health problems (compared to regular cigarette tobacco). the problem with…