Search results

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    Can not prevent Windows 10 Pro from contaminating or damaging integrity of removable storage

    The evil of Windows 10 has removed a lot of control from users and one of the most troubling thing is that it thinks it can take a crap on anything writable. I followed the instructions here but I can not prevent it from infecting every USB drive or memory cards allowed to come in contact with...
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    Anyone make a true USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 converter?

    There was a true USB 2.0 to USB legacy converter that connects as USB 2.0 on uplink and provisions four USB 1.1 12Mbps transceivers on the downlink enabling four USB 1.1 devices to operate at 12Mbps each for a total of 48Mbps without causing the uplink to shift down to USB 1.1. In essence...
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    Tech note: Acer Aspire One display not dimming. What's inside of a $400 consumer grade laptop

    I needed to get into my Netbook for something else and in the process I managed to mess up screen dimming. Screen became stuck at full brightness. This premium netbook with Windows 7 Home Premium retailed for around $400 when it was new. It has a dual core CPU with hardware accelerated...
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    Utility to monitor and maintain Mushkin SSD

    What utility is available to monitor Mushkin SSD statistics such as bad blocks, remaining life as well as perform secure erase? I assumed Mushkin has a utility like most other brands but they don't.
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    Sham dual rail

    I tore into a 300W Seasonic power supply and found something interesting. It is labeled 12V1 17A, 12v2 17A, combined total 288W, or 24A but they're all soldered into the same bundle rather than having two separate bundles each having their own monitoring shunt. So why doesn't the rail just say...
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    Quad cores or dual cores with twice the performance core. Real world performance?

    Just for kicks, I compared The current G4400 vs x5470 from 7 years ago. They both run at about 3.3GHz and benchmarks show the combined performance of these CPUs are nearly identical meaning that each core in G4400 is about twice as powerful. Neither of them have hyperthreading. If we were to...
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    Windows 10 kills fan speed control after sleep and overheats the CPU

    I'm working on a legacy Dell Optiplex 380. The fan speed control is tied to CPU temperature. System was shipped with Windows 7 Professional 64 bit and Microsoft upgrade wizard assessed it can upgrade to Windows 10. It has a serious problem that prevents the use of sleep. It works ok if the...
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    Feature locking. Product differentiation? Scientific and industrial instruments

    As computer enthusiasts, we're all too familiar with feature locking used for the purpose of product differentiation. That is, they're manufactured the same, but performance or features are "soft locked" on lower end model to sustain premium value on higher end model. Many industrial and...
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    YATT: Where can I get U.S. data on actual average and median tip amount?

    Anecdotes and wishful tip inflation on disreputable and questionable websites perpetuated by servers and allies are plentiful. Where can I find actual data such as the data provided to IRS(w/o names of course)...?
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    Eddy current speedometers, how does drive cable cause so many issues?

    From my understanding, it is a torque converter that uses a magnetic field as the fluid. The needle is basically a spring wound indicator and the further you turn, the more reaction force it makes. The higher the input shaft's rotation, the more torque it induces on the needle to read the...
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    Why no standardized engines for cars like industrial motors?

    NEMA has standard sizes and mounting frame mounting so that standardized motors can be used in many applications. Big AC motors used in industrial, gas and refinery equipment often use standard motors. The existing Westinghouse motor can be replaced with same frame size Baldor and bolts...
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    Burning acetylene with oxygen in water

    I've seen a picture of it somewhere. If oxygen is provided along with fuel, it can burn in water. Fire just goes out as soon as its put in water though. How do I get it to burn in water?
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    Opening A/C system for repair while saving refrigerant?

    In any system containing condensible vapor, the condensation occurs at the point of lowest temperature and the vapor pressure is that of the cold point. So, theoretically, if I cool down receiver or the condenser with dry ice, the vapor pressure of refrigerant would what it has at the...
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    How do "vehicle specific" lockdown work on tuning kits?

    These days, the parameters relevant to adjusting vehicle performance are controlled by the power train control module. The PCM contains the VIN. Many off-the-shelf tuning kits contain a pre-programmed tuning maps for various vehicles. Once the handheld flashing device is hooked up to a...
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    How does "location aware" WiFi work?

    I'm surprised that it was able to pinpoint my laptop to 50' accuracy. I understand that it uses multiple access points to derive my location, however most of the other networks are secure access points. If the other access points are secure and I don't have the password, how can it make...
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    Phosphate ban on detergents, why the exception for commercial use?

    Phosphates are already banned in most detergents, except dishwasher detergent. Starting next year, State of WA is outlawing phosphates in RESIDENTIAL use dishwasher detergents, but exempts commercial and institutional users. When it comes to hazardous wastes and such, commercial users are...
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    If you have an electric furnace, do steam humidifers cost more to operate?

    Let's compare steam humidifier vs wick evaporative Steam humidifier must boil and supply the water with latent heat of vaporization. This energy is provided by humidifier itself. If you use an evaporative type, the humidifier just moves the air and absorbs the energy from room...
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    How much alcohol % is needed to halt biologiocal decomp. indefinitely?

    Beer is around 5% and it gets moldy on standing. I guess wine turns into vinegar on standing from microbial activity. Let's say you've got some fresh juice mixed with alcohol. What is the alcohol percentage needed to indefinitely halt microbial spoilage at room temperature in a tightly...
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    What makes Pine-Sol cleaners water soluble?

    Pine sole is a viscous, transparent amber liquid containing approximately 10% pine oil. It is soluble in water. Pine oil is like any oil and insoluble in water. What allows pine oil to be in solution in pine-sol rather than an emulsion and why does the final product dissolve in water?
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    Is DC as popular now as several years ago?

    I remember doing SETI thing a few years ago, but realized that it isn't me doing the battle, but it was the computer. Although Berkeley sings "recycle unused computing cycles" I came to a realization that even if the computer is on, there is a significant power use difference between idle and...
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    Which form of STIFFING/NON-TIPPING is more wrong?

    Fare evasion is a common fraud on public transit where fare payment is based on an honor system and only checked sporadically. Payment of fare is required by law and not paying is comparable to dine 'n dash. Tipping is optional, and not paying is considered a manner violation (as is smoking...
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    What video card for decent Flash videos/games? (FarmVille & YouTube)

    I have an older desktop which I'm too lazy to move/reintall everything to a new computer. It's got a basic ATI Rage 128 based card with 32MB and FarmVille doesn't play very well on it. The board has an AGP 4x connector. What video card should I get to get better FarmVille and YouTube...
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    Calculations over blending alcohol with water..

    In some reading materials for teachers online, I recall a demonstration of mixing equal parts water and rubbing alcohol into a graduated cylinder to demonstrate that the volume do not add up, because alcohol and water interacts on molecular level and shrinks in volume. 100ml of alcohol +...
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    Analyzing types of 2.4GHz signal in the air.

    I'm in the city and there are a lot of apartments units within the 50' radius, so there is bound to be a lot of WiFi users. I leave it at CH11 and it gets good signal strength within the range it is intended to serve, but every once in a while I lose signal completely and I can't even...
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    Tell me about merits or reasons to combine aspirin and Tylenol

    In the U.S. there are a handful of ingredients to select from in the OTC variety of analgesic/pain reliever formulation. The well known Tylenol classic, which is straight acetaminophen and the remaining products are NSAIDs, which refers to non-steroid drugs with anti-inflammatory, analgesic...
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    What keeps us from having petroleum derived liquors?

    Many liquors, particularly gin and vodka are distilled to near azeotrope of water/alcohol,then watered down. Fermentation introduces higher order alcohols, such as propanol, butanol and pentanol that produces nasty flavors and these form azeotrope with ethanol, so they can't be removed...
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    Best type of detergent for aqueous ultrasonic cleaner?

    Instructions call for household dish soap and currently, I use Clorox brand free and clear dish soap. What works the best? Dish detergent, laundry detergent, carpet cleaning solution or something else? The instruction is probably just naming something that is readily available, rather than...
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    Are balances better than scales?

    So today, real "balances" are far and few in between with one of the few exceptions being the beam balance used at doctors' office. They've been almost universally replaced by scales. Scales don't use any reference masses, so they have to be frequently calibrated with masses. They also...
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    How do I fix a broken electronic scale?

    I think my scale is broken. It's set-up on a level surface and the bubble level is centered. It is left on continuously as recommended. The calibration adjustment was performed with a draft attached at zero and 200.000g and it goes through without errors. The spec calls for repatability of...
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    Is plastic bottle bad for maintaining quality?

    I put some water in a soda bottle so the gross weight is 400.00g. Repeatedly measured and it was at 400g at the time, but I noticed it lost about 100mg in about a week. Recalibrated the scale and it's still reading 399.90g. I gave it another week and it lost about another 100mg. There is...
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    Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 500GB.. slow

    I recently started using Seagate 500GB FreeAgent Desktop external drive, which connects by USB2.0. I can only get about 7.5MB/s I've had better throughput from a generic 250GB external USB2.0 and I'm getting about 20MB/s from an external Firewire drive. Anyone else find the Seagate...
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    WMP blanks out after a few seconds of video playback

    WMP on my computer blanks out completely after about three seconds into the video. It continues playing and the sound keeps working. It only does this with some types of files and comes back to normal if I minimize the screen and pop it back up. What gives?
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    How can silver powder be made both conductive and non-conductive?

    Arctic silver plaste is an example of high silver content silver powder mixture that is an electrical insulator. CircuitWriter or conductive pen is also made with silver powder, but is conductive. How do they do that?
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    500-5 Vicodin Acetaminophen-hydrocodone

    I know that the narcotic analgesic Vicodin is a blend of usually, 100 to 1 ratio acetaminophen with narcotic hydrocodone to prevent recreational use. When you look at the clinical side of it, is there a synergetic effect that makes the combo of 500mg of acetaminophen + 5mg of HC more...
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    What ingredients are responsible for making vodkas good or bad?

    Vodka is basically distilled "grain neutral spirits" diluted to specified strength with water. A fifth of Grey Goose vodka is $34.95 A fifth of Potters Vodka is $6.30 They are both approx 40% ethanol and approx 60% with the balance deciding the fate between expensive rubbing alcohol...
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    Can you do everything a factory OBD too can do with this?

    It's often said that a factory scan tool(such as the type used by a dealership for specific brands) is unmatched by after market scan tools in the detailed information and amount of control you have over a vehicle being serviced. My guess is that the amount of information given by the...
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    Bathroom cleaner wtih Teflon

    There are cleaning products with a DuPont Teflon additive that supposedly adds non-stock properties. Clorox claims that; " Q: What is the advantage of having the Teflon® Surface Protector in the bathroom? A: The invisible layer that is applied to the surface by Commercial...
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    Liquid vs powder detergent (chemistry)

    I used to think if sugar is powdered detergent, then syrup is liquid detergent, but after checking out the MSDS for both, there's a vast difference in ingredients. Liquid Tide: http://www.pg.com/content/pdf/..._Tide_Detergent_1X.pdf It contains ethanol, sodium borate and ethanolamine as...
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    Statistical analysis on windows PC, what software, Excel?

    How do I go about doing a distribution curve of a large number of samples like: age of high school students, with category for every age, then number of samples for each one. Out of 2700 sample 14y/o = 720 15 y/o = 600 16 y/o = 500 17 y/o = 450 18 y/o = 400 >18 = 30 If the...
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    BIOS clock creeping significantly

    This happens all the time. I message someone on AIM, then the time stamp on the response predates the time stamp on the msg I sent. I check the BIOS clock against my watch and it's off a few minutes. I have Windows automatically synch with server on regular interval, but it'd be off a...