Search found 768 matches

by DryFire
Sun Sep 12, 2010 12:12 pm
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Where should I go when in Greece?
Replies: 4
Views: 2596

I can't really tell you where to go as the acropolis was probably the best touristy sight I saw when I was there.

Do NOT go to delphi. It is pretty much a huge waste of time, I have seen better ruins off the side of the road in Lebanon. Though there is a small museum there that is not too bad.
by DryFire
Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:38 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Abolish copyright? good or bad..
Replies: 44
Views: 21882

aristide1 : that is quite silly. I could make an ICE that uses hydrogen and oxygen... Is water pollution? It's been done My question would be where or how do you get the hydrogen? It's not terribly difficult to make a (sub)system seem pollution free with some creative boundary layers or ignoring som...
by DryFire
Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:39 pm
Forum: Quiet Prebuilt, SFF and Barebones Systems
Topic: new dell mini pc
Replies: 10
Views: 10347

Been looking at something like this for my dad, but noise is a bit of an issue and I think he may find the eee box's performance a bit lacking.

He's also stuck with dell if he wants to buy it through work.

Anyone know if that fan is always on?
by DryFire
Sun Jul 27, 2008 2:38 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Techie Project: Personal Solar Parabolic Collector
Replies: 7
Views: 5094

Another plus is a solar heat collector is much more efficient than a PV panel. And, you can store the heat much more easily than storing (large amounts of) electricity -- molten salt seems to be the thing for this. Comparing the efficiency of solar thermal collectors and PV cells directly really is...
by DryFire
Sun May 18, 2008 12:49 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: In search of Light and small Linux for a old computers
Replies: 29
Views: 12722

Arch linux is also something to look into. It's essentially as light as you want it to be I guess. It is kind of a pain to configure and if you're not used to linux prepare to read a lot of documentation.

I don't know if processors that old fall under i686 or not.
by DryFire
Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:41 pm
Forum: Green Computing
Topic: Silverstone aiming for 95% efficient PSU
Replies: 17
Views: 12982

What about a very large dc power converter for all the electronics in the home?

Then you could have dc to dc converters for very sensitive devices, or those that need voltage adjustments.
by DryFire
Thu May 31, 2007 1:58 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: quietest config for 3TB?
Replies: 17
Views: 11892

You could put at least 1 playlist per hd. 500GB is a lot of music, even if it's FLAC or APE.
by DryFire
Thu May 31, 2007 10:11 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: quietest config for 3TB?
Replies: 17
Views: 11892

You have noise + vibration + potential drive failure. I would not want to run 6 drives without some form of raid (most likely raid 5). the heating situation can be somewhat alleviated by moving 2 or more of the drives to 5.25" bays with passive hard drive coolers, and if you have a psu with a rear i...
by DryFire
Tue May 29, 2007 9:30 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: "Stellar Realms" - online gaming, with a twist.
Replies: 396
Views: 395993

Wow you already saw through my plan to rig the GHC...
by DryFire
Mon May 28, 2007 1:17 pm
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: incandescent light bulb ban in ontario...
Replies: 80
Views: 44657

Not necessarily, they just realized there is a massive demand and they can get away with charging more (that and a lot of US refineries are still out of order).

Scarcity doesn't have to be tied directly to price.
by DryFire
Mon May 28, 2007 1:13 pm
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: "Stellar Realms" - online gaming, with a twist.
Replies: 396
Views: 395993

o.0 Vork speaks.
by DryFire
Fri May 25, 2007 7:48 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Four cases with a 360mm fan - count 'em, four!
Replies: 15
Views: 19467

It looks like some predictions of whole side of the case becoming a fan were accurate...
by DryFire
Wed May 23, 2007 8:10 pm
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: incandescent light bulb ban in ontario...
Replies: 80
Views: 44657

Wikipedia says there are 2,602,469 barrels from oil shale in North America; I don't think we'll be running out any time soon. If it was indeed 2,602,469 barrels you would be in big trouble; that is (eight times) less than a single day of US consumption. You are very correct. I'm off by a factor of ...
by DryFire
Wed May 23, 2007 11:01 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: incandescent light bulb ban in ontario...
Replies: 80
Views: 44657

It costs about $45 to $55 dollars to extract a barrel of oil from oil shale and with oil trading at $60+ it may become viable in the near future. IIRC there is more oil shale in the united states then there is easily accessible oil in the middle east (by an order of magnitude or so). At least that's...
by DryFire
Fri May 18, 2007 5:57 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Any Sonata III or Solo White release date?
Replies: 10
Views: 6869

ewiz.com had them for $104, and shipping was $31 to the east cost. A bit steep but I decided to give it a try for this computer I'm building my uncle. I don't care much for the smart power series, but the earthwatts looks a bit interesting. If it's as good as I've heard it's about the same price as ...
by DryFire
Fri May 18, 2007 5:49 pm
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Airflow Straighteners avaliable, SPCR review coming soon
Replies: 21
Views: 12903

Why would you want the air to flow straight through your ninja? Fully laminar flow doesn't sound that helpful here. More interaction between the air and the heatsink is what you seek (sure you don't want recirculation), some more turbulence could be beneficial. I could be completely wrong, my fluid ...
by DryFire
Fri May 18, 2007 5:41 pm
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: A technical fan question with real consequences
Replies: 8
Views: 5845

I would be surprised there are many axial computer fans that could create conditions necessary for choked flow; certainly none that we're interested in. Instead of an arbitrary hole, why not mount the fan to a heatsink and measure the difference at the end of the tube. This would probably work best ...
by DryFire
Thu May 10, 2007 5:29 pm
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: incandescent light bulb ban in ontario...
Replies: 80
Views: 44657

Perhaps we are lucky that most utility companies don't bill residences if their power factor goes a bit askew. However, if mass use of something with a PF of ~.5 (without correction) was required they better have a law that requires at least a decent PFC. Also, how are CFL's effected by ROHS? I'd th...
by DryFire
Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:40 pm
Forum: Green Computing
Topic: Join EcoPCReview.com
Replies: 12
Views: 10874

All aluminum would not be as good as all steel. The former takes 4 times the energy to produce an equivalent weight of the latter (say 1kg). To produce, yes, but the energy and equipment investment required to form the cases (some of which are rather intricate) may level the playing field, somewhat...
by DryFire
Fri Apr 27, 2007 8:29 am
Forum: Green Computing
Topic: Join EcoPCReview.com
Replies: 12
Views: 10874

How exactly will you review "green" computing products? Off the top of my head I can only think of a few categories: - Removal Of Hazardous Substances (ROHS) compliance - Energy Star compliance - Power draw / Performance Per Watt (PPW) / efficiency / carbon footprint - Waste created during the produ...
by DryFire
Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:29 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Just how much HD space are you using?
Replies: 16
Views: 10852

Windows: 2 GB or so (slipstreamed install is 550MB but I have ~1 GB of fonts) Linux: 1GB or more, I'm not sure exactly Images: 5GB Games: 16GB Text/word documents: 2GB (a lot of redundancy here) ISO's/Temp. Lossless video/audio files: ~60 GB (changes a lot) Media Archives: ~400GB-500GB on various di...
by DryFire
Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:58 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: AMD Cool & Quiet with Linux. How?
Replies: 6
Views: 4721

the 64 bit version of ubuntu (efty) will take my A64 3000+ to 1 ghz under light loads, not sure if it makes any voltage adjustments in the process though.

I don't think this is cool n quiet in action though.
by DryFire
Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:58 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: SPCR Power Supply Test Rig, v.4
Replies: 21
Views: 40485

A rather odd advertising strategy for a restaurant.....
by DryFire
Sun Dec 10, 2006 5:23 pm
Forum: The Silent Front
Topic: Lowest power consumption for DivX encoding
Replies: 35
Views: 36912

Considering AVC (ie, x264) versus ASP (ie, DivX), note that Doom9's 2005 Codec Comparison reported AVC codecs being ~30% slower than DivX for a given file size. AVC-based codecs also require considerably more processing power to play back. Although AVC may produce a better picture at the same compr...
by DryFire
Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:58 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Mirra Mirra in the Closet
Replies: 11
Views: 13266

I'm confused as to why you'd choose this over a nas enclosure or setting up something similar to rsyncwith a remote server.

It would be interesting if it were ~$150-200, with a power brick instead.
by DryFire
Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:21 pm
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: SilentMaxx water cooled PSU
Replies: 8
Views: 5641

It looks like they literally bolted a water block to the side of their fanless psu.
by DryFire
Tue Dec 05, 2006 7:00 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: AOpen i945GTt-VFA & Silverstone Lascala LC-12
Replies: 37
Views: 42133

Is it possible to fit another heat sink on there? I'm thinking something along the lines of a socket 478 heat sink. You must remember this..... Microcool NorthPole XE Whisper heatsink/fan Does that mean the hope of a larger heat sink is out of the question (without some large modification)? If the ...
by DryFire
Tue Dec 05, 2006 3:09 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: AOpen i945GTt-VFA & Silverstone Lascala LC-12
Replies: 37
Views: 42133

Is it possible to fit another heat sink on there? I'm thinking something along the lines of a socket 478 heat sink.
by DryFire
Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:14 pm
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: What does MS Vista really offer?
Replies: 149
Views: 110339

I always wondered what was the point of the windows media center. Does it do anything I can't do with free software anyway (other then adding drm)?
by DryFire
Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:30 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: What does MS Vista really offer?
Replies: 149
Views: 110339

Re: What does MS Vista really offer?

On a small home network with a hardware firewall I don't think anti-virus is necessary with XP either. Anti-virus programs seem to be there to make up for the user's deficiencies (computer related or otherwise). Now, would I recommend no anti virus to someone who's PC I just removed 1k instances of ...