wolfwings

...and proof Matrox isn't dead yet.

Want to move a user's keyboard/mouse/terminal/etc 800 feet away from their desktop over fiber optic cable?

Matrox has you covered.

Single card in the main machine, fiber-optic cable to a remote box, presents dual firewire to the front, 2 USB 2.0 ports to the rear, 4 USB 2.0 ports to the front, speaker port to the rear, mic-in, line-in, headphones-out on the front, and dual VGA/DVI ports to the rear. So yes, dual-monitor, bam, good to go.

I'd say that... well, covers everything. You now have a remote workstation. And the best part, to me? The remote box runs on 12VDC, 5A.

It's NOT cheap (expect about a grand or so from what I've been able to hunt up) but it is a comprehensive solution, and supports all the new stuff so the remote-terminal is a full-fledged workstation and not a 'dumb terminal' with no real capabilities.

So Scotter doesn't go to jail.

He's still a convicted felon, still gets the fine (moderate peanuts at his rank) and the probation (light to moderate due to rank) but... above and beyond all else, he's still a felon. Bush called this one carefully, and I believe waited until Libby was actually assigned a prisoner number on purpose for the symbolic gesture of Scooter's prisoner number going on public record.

Scooter is 57, that's fairly old by prisoner standards AFAIK, and at one time people would often get early parole due to their age at that level or shortly afterwards. And at that rank, as evidenced by the recent Paris Hilton nonsense if she hadn't kept being stupid and brainless, he was unlikely to serve time in anything but a quiet, down-tempo cell regardless, if not at home. Or in one of the 'rental cells' with better amenities that are made available these days in fact for a fee. (Google for it, I'm being lazy.)

So believe it or not, I agree with what Bush did this time. Scooter's still a felon. That's a HUGE penalty in the US, really. You lose a lot of rights (voting in many states, gun/ammo possession, most licensed professions and some others, ability to hold public office, and others) once you're a felon. But Bush did something he knew was functionally-null, dropping the actual prison time without dropping the conviction or other components of the sentence.

Also, as a lot of computer-techs know, it's getting harder and harder to get laptops with 'legacy ports' on them, in particular Serial ports.

USB-Serial adapters don't work because of the near-universal lack of Break signalling. So you can't use them to configure Cisco routers or many phone systems.

So how about one step newer... what about bluetooth?

Turns out... yup, that's the ticket.

BlueConsole specializes in making fully-compliant, cross-platform adapters that can (usually) self-power from the serial lines themselves. And here's the punchline: They have a pair of studs on the outside of the case to let you plug a standard 9V battery on if you need battery power.

And by cross-platform, I mean it. Palm-pilot/Treo, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Linux, Mac OS/X, standard Windows XP/Vista, whatever. Yay for bluetooth!

The LCD's backlight switch has fully died now. Tapping it brings the LCD screen to life for maybe a quarter-second before shutting off entirely again. AT least they won't be able to claim nothing is wrong when they get the machine, the screen just flat-out won't power up anymore.

I can still see if I'm in a stupidly-brightly-lit room and get the light at just the right angle, but for all intents and purposes my LCD screen is toast.

Upside... my battery life just shot through the ceiling. =^.^=

...but we've been worrying about gas, first and foremost. Food? That's easy. Between three trucks, we could carry so much loose food it's a non-issue. We lost Frank's Ford to rusted-through brake lines and a minivan near the state line, and lost some more time moving those wrecks out of the way so the Camino could get around.

It's so wasteful my auto-junkie blood boils at the thought, but both of our vehicles are loaded with high-octane fuel since I found a race-track way out of town and they had a bunch of fuel left. Best part? Less flammable if either car crashes.

Between space, and finding some plywood to make two levels, Old Blue's now more of a micro-RV than anything else, and Frank's Camino (bless his soul for being a fan of camper shells!) is something of a rolling armory now. About fifteen single-barrel single-shot shotguns that'll make great clubs in a pinch, and a handgun for each of us that can all share ammo is most of what we have, a couple spare boxes of slugs for the shotguns and several dozen clips Frank loaded on the road after he lost his truck.

I'm gonna take a turn in the truck bed and catch some z's, at this point I'm just aiming to try to keep moving as long as we can on the back-roads, and keep heading west until we hit mountains and pray we can survive up there for a'while on the supplies we're bringing. It's a long-shot even by lottery standards, but it's the best plan anyone's had so far. If we get closer we'll probably re-arm for hunting versus mobile defense, and right now that's what I'm looking forward to.

Mini-splurged (if you call $80 a splurge) and bought a mouse I've been drooling over ever since it was announced, and again once I had a chance to see one in person. In fact, one of the reasons I bought a laptop with Bluetooth was hoping these sorts of things would crop up.

MoGo Mouse: Bluetooth mouse that stores in a laptop's PCMCIA slot. That's all, but woo! Shiny! Recharge off my laptop itself, and when I want a 'real' mouse I push the eject-lever and I have one. =^.^=

I was enjoying Mario Party 8.

Until the owner of the system/game went in and unlocked/purchased the 'Heckling Voices' upgrade, and proceeded to make Wario (his usual character) more-or-less chant/scream "Ha-Ha, Losers!" and other similair things non-stop for the first five minutes of the next game.

I walked away, threw down my personal controller in disgust on a chair as I passed. Apparently I shut the Wii off when I did that, but I just don't care. Worst upgrade ever, and no way to disable it once you get it.

I was planning to buy a Wii and a copy of that game myself, but now I'd honestly be too worried about some dipship sneaking in and purchasing that 'upgrade' and making me have to reset the entire game data periodically just to shut it the hell back off to want to waste my funds.

And I won't be playing it again in any case, since Nintendo didn't even put in any sort of a limit to how often you can 'taunt/heckle' in MP8 either. Once in a'while, like if you're the victor at a minigame getting more aggressive taunt-phrases with that option enabled, sure. But constantly being able to spam the damn things? Hell no.

...think of it this way.

If they claim listing any illegal act in your interest field can be grounds for your journal being suspended without recourse, what if you list 'gay marriage' or 'smoking pot' or 'concealed firearms' as an interest?

Technically, your journal could be nuked without warning based on the boilerplate legalese LJAbuse is serving out, hot and fresh.