Pain_Man

Well, I certainly hope she's better looking than I am .

Odd they'd bring out a new version so quickly. Must've fucked something up in the last one.

Minty comes up with some pretty amazing shit. What pissed me off was when I bought the Battlestar Galactica mini-series DVD set. It was a goddamned flipper! Arrgh. In 2004 a friggin' flipper. Cheap bastards. That's Universal for you. When I bought the "British"* version of S1 of Battlestar Galactica the disc trays were held together by scotch tape! Needless to say, I'm not falling for that shit again. *Which was a silly thing to call it, because a real British version would have been PAL not NTSC. What iit really was, was a no-frills episodes only set. No extras. Which I don't mind. 99.99% of extras are worthless filler anyway.

Sadly, the only way you're going to get unanimity out of our Congress is when they vote to raise their own salaries. Which currently stand at just shy of $150,000/yr (80,000 pounds sterling). For trivia's sake: President: $400,000 (213,000 ps) Vice President: $200,000 (106,000 ps) Chief Justice of the Supreme Court $192,000 (102,000 ps) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court: $178,000 (94,000 ps) Cabinet Officer: $178,000

there's not much I can add to that except the dollars I send Lightning's way. That's the best tribute any of us can give him for all he does. But this is quite nice. Hey LUK and all the folks here, It's good to see the familiar "site" names. I've been busy doing life and recently found out the demise of our dear departed friend DVDD. I have the IMGBurn and love it, thank you LUK and everyone else for all your dilligence and support. I always get the solutions from you guys I'm looking for when I need them. For the "Newbies" like me,.... I can't stress it enough either,.....read the directions carefully,.....you'll find what I did. A beautiful software program that enables you to back up your cherished memories to DVD, period. No one here will straight tell you how to commit a crime. LUK has been through the ringer. Stop harrassing those who spent years giving you, yes, giving you free of charge you knuckleheads, a way to do things you had to and still have to pay for. LUK, we have a mutual business acquaintance I understand, so now you have my undying loyalty for sure. (and donations)

Day labor is what you're talking about. Growing up in San Diego, I'm all too familiar with the vicissitudes of the construction and real estate businesses. My parents missed becoming very, very rich by inches because a deal fell through. If it had worked out, I'd be a trust fund kiddie; and rich as well as cynical. That rocks your boss fired the assholes. I've nothing against protesting in principle. But there's a time and a place for it. And it shouldn't be on your boss's (or any other employer's) dime. They had the same silly-assed protest here in Vegas, but the casinos convinced the main union (the Culinary Union) to schedule it for after the first shift. So the casinos weren't hurt by it. How one can hope to help one's cause by hurting one's employer--not to mention losing a day's pay or one's job--and one's self is beyond me. But then again I've never understood this hippy protesting bullshit mentality anyway.

now i'm really confused.......... Try being four or five and attempting to understand the difference.

Never seen or heard of this CD. Sounds like it might be a UK only thing. Regardless, I'd hold on to that. It's probably quite a collector's item.

I hope you?re joking as you seem to have missed one or two. KISS spring immediately to mind with a gold or platinum record for every album released between 1974 & 1982 with the exception of The Elder (1981). I have trouble believing the four acts above were making 100 million dollars a year. KISS had reached that by 1980. <huge KISS fan mode off> It's all opinion. As I said I don't consider anything without Waters to be Pink Floyd. But that's my opinion. And their creative peak will always and forever be Darkside with Wish You Were Here and The Final Cut following respectively. I do know that "The Wall" tour was one of the most successful of the 70s. Total record sales to date: 73.5M units (Hah! They've outsold Streisand! Thank God. ) Personally, I never got the whole "glam rock" thing--from T. Rex and Bowie to Kiss and Motley Crue. I am using only American sales figures. And Rush, my favorite band, has sold more albums than Kiss. Kiss isn't even in the Top 20. Given their relatively modest record sales, I find it hard to believe Kiss was making anywhere near $100M/yr in the 70s. I'm no student of Kiss so I could be wrong. I could more easily believe they made $100M for the entire decade. Total sales to date for Kiss: 19M units And Led Zeppelin still holds some single-day attendance records. Total sales to date: 109.5 M units. Rush toured with Kiss the early days, before they surpassed Kiss commerically, and it sounds like Kiss was a complete disaster backstage. They make these observations on D2 of R30

that would make a difference. (I try to get gift receipts when I give one.) And, no need to steal what you've won fair and square. It's even sweeter when your opponent's voters are too damn stupid to know how to vote.

Thanks for explanation. Generally we reserve biscuit for something sweet. Cracker for something, uh, not sweet. The one exception is Animal Crackers which are really biscuits. =))I think you call them "links" but to us they are sausages. The only other difference that has really stuck is when i mention "biscuits", as well call them, you call them "cookies" courteous of RecipeTips.com..... A British term for the English sausage that became popular during World War II during a time when it was made with pork meat. The typical Banger made today may contain a mixture of beef or pork meat with cereal or rusk added as a filler. The term "Banger" arose during the war era as the sausages were roasted and exploded due to the excess water contained in the sausages. Since the Banger is a mildly seasoned sausage, various counties in the country add their own seasonings such as fresh sage, pimento, and thyme to name a few, to enhance the flavor of their sausages.

Seriously I'm not trying to bust your balls. I know Americans & our British cousins love to needle each other about football. I'm just trying to understand the attraction of soccer or British football. If I were the only American that didn't get it, it would obviously be an idiosyncrasy of mine. But I'm in the huge majority of Americans who don't get it. I have no idea if we have a team in the World Cup; or if we've had one in the last few years. And most Americans don't. There have been several attempts to start an American pro soccer league and they've all failed quickly and disastrously. On the other hand, American sports (football, baseball and especially basketball) become more and more popular, around the world, every year. Someday, in the not so distant future, the Woild Serious may actually be a world event. But a viable US soccer league? More likley to be bacon in the trees when I open the door in the morning.

Bitchin'.

If only it WOULD flash!! It would also be nice if I could know why it won't. I've tried everything I can think of...and nothing. The last thing left is plugging it into another PC and flashing it and then putting it back into my desktop. My grandfather would have called that "goin' 'round the mountain to piss next door" but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I have to find out if my second desktop (a PIII 1000) is compatible with DW1655.

Personally, I'd return it for a replacement. If you get the same goofiness, then you might contact who ever made the set. Seems that DVD goofiness it going around. That's just plain...

I'm only here to entertain. @polopony.... when i was last over there i was given some "Dip". I can't see the enjoyment of it as it burned the hell out of my mouth and tongue, although I now see why you spit....... :& @lfcrule... i know, i'm in so much "Pain Man" from so hard

That's truly sad, crule. An employer can't fire an employee for "no call/no show" (as we call it here)? One thing you guys do that we absolutely MUST emulate is requiring a losing plaintiff in a lawsuit to pay the court costs and legal fees of the defendant. That's the primary reason y'all have far fewer lawsuits than we do.

The Prez says he's going to deploy 6,000 National Guards (that'd be Reserve Troops) to patrol the border along with Border Patrol. A good start. But I say we use regulars. Did you know that Mexican soldiers regularly fire shots at our Border Patrol agents and police? Which, it seems insane to have to point this out, is an act of WAR. Yet the government ignores it. If 9/11 had to happen, I wish it been done by guys who'd wetbacked the Mexican border. Maybe THAT would have gotten the politicians off their asses. Both parties are running around trying to kiss the asses of the mythical "Hispanic" voter. In fact, polls have shown that Mexican-Americans (like my wife, 90% of so-called "Hispanics" are of Mexican origin), i.e. citizens, WANT stronger immigration laws. They want stronger enforcement. So the politicians are afraid of something that doesn't exist. This step by Bush is the first step in the right direction in a long time. Now if Congress will pass a tough immigration bill (with life imprisonment for alien smugglers) and we put troops permanently on the southern border... The northern border's a problem as well, but not nearly as bad as the southern. Not by a long shot. That's because the Canadians actually care about working with us. Mexico patrols its southern border (with Guatemala) rigourously. But they refuse to give us any help. Perhaps we should shut down all money transfers to Mexico for six months. That would get their attention.

Forgive me, polo, but I just want to be clear. Your boss fired these twerps??? If didn't fire them ( ) then he should inspect their documents with a microscope to make sure they're genuine. Not that it matters; the Feds don't enforce the law against hiring illegal aliens. PLS confirm this. I'm have a shitty day dealing with fucking insurance companies. Oh and the assholes were "protesting" a proposed change in Federal law that would make the first time you wetback the border a felony (right now only the third time you wetback the border is a felony).

The last sentence there, I'm not sure exactly whatcha mean by that. I've noticed that the faster the scan speed, the worse the results. I scanned a couple of CDs at DW1655's max speed of 48x and the scans were a mess. I dropped it down to 16x and the scan was much better. My guess would be that the faster the disc is being read, the more likely false readings are to occur. Just as you're more likely the miss words or misunderstand their meaning reading quickly than when reading carefully. BTW, I'm sorry about the Falcon. I was dead broke and just couldn't keep the maintenance up on it. When the hyperdrive failed, I had to junk her . One of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. There's actually more to this than silliness. I had a '78 Olds Cutlass Supreme Stationwagon, the model right below the very biggest one. It was a metallic grayish, silverish color. My friends took to calling it the Millennium Falcon. Seeing your moniker, brings back some very good memories. A lot of good times were had in that car.

Nearly all of my scans have been of discs that I have had for anywhere from several weeks to nearly three years. Oddly, the only 99% I've yet to get was from a disc that was 2 yrs old (!). I can't say where the line between playability/longevity and scan results lies but I think common sense tells me when to re-burn ! Which is a good idea, one I've already adopted. I had one copy of a disc--the kid had destroyed the original when she was a good deal younger ("Look, Daddy, it flies!!!"). So I had but one copy, the backup. When I scanned it with DIP, the quality rating was 48%, with a gigantic, fat block of red in the top graph. I managed to get a clean image and reburned it. The scan of the back ups back up was 95%+. With DVD5s, if I can get a quality rating above 95%, I can live with that. With DLs, it if the number is above 90%, then I can deal.

Thanks for the answer. It clears up a good deal. The problem appears, if I understand that part of your explanation, that there really isn't a standard that everyone is using. Both the drivemakers and the software writers (of the scanners) seem to use differing criteria for their metrics. If different drives are using different methodologies (right term?) then it goes a loooong way toward explaining the differences in scan results. Thanks, again.

@ LFC...a little hint...IT WON'T HAPPEN IF YOU DE-ENERGIZE THE CIRCUIT FIRST... @ PM...110-115-120 are all acceptable voltages since the NEC mandates a maximum 20% error factor for operating voltages. Thanks, wheel. This explains why my APC Monitoring software for the UPS has a tolerance of 88 to 132, something like that. I HATE electricity. Well, I hate messing with it. I got badly shocked when I was about nine or ten and ever since then... Besides, that's what electricians are for. Thank God my kid never showed any interest in the outlets when she was an infant/toddler.

This just keeps getting weirder. --NOTE: the following comments refer only to a personal DVD-- When I made an image and mounted that on Alcohol the defect, the single second of silence during the guitar solo in "Dreamline" was gone. When I burned that image to a DL, the goddamn silence was back!! How the hell is this possible? So now we have intermittant freakin' problems on disks??? If there is a mastering error, why would it be present in the image? And when it's not present in the image, why does it reappear on the (completely legal) backup copy??? To add to my stress one of my insurance companies is busting my balls. AAARGH!!!! Valium time! Pay these bastards seven grand a year and I can't get them to pay my doc $80 a month. I think my grandparents had it infinitely easier when they paid the doctor with a couple of chickens and pint of panther piss.

Reading Chewie's recent post made some thoughts about scans congeal. Here they are: Going tangenital... I'm beginning to wonder if there's any real efficacy to scans. Something Lightning posted really made me think about it. He cautioned never to compared scans from one burner to the next. I got to thinking about that. Why not? If the metrics used by the scans are based on the same criteria then why should it matter what machine you're using? If the standard(s) are objective, then the results should be either exactly the same or the differences should be statistically insignificant. Perhaps my lack of skills in this area is causing wild giggling as this is being read--and pls point out where I'm going wrong if I am. But it doesn't make sense to me. Two thermometers, scales, speedometers, odometers, hygrometers, barometers, pick your instrument (and I realize all of these are much simpler than scanning an optical storage reader) should return nearly the same readings in the same condition. Yet with disk scans, what gives? I've gotten wildly different scans on the same disks in the same burner using different tools. Granted, the quality of the tool plays a huge factor and perhaps some are worthless. To repeat, I really have to wonder: Are these scans really efficacious? If they are, why the wild variations between different tools and different drives? And why does there seem to be no correlation between image quality and scan numbers? If the scans are really to determine disc longevity, that question's answered. If they are supposed to determine image quality as well, then the question becomes an even bigger one: Are we wasting our time running scans? There's certain thngs I know a good deal about. Optical media isn't one of them (beyond the user level). I don't possess anywhere near the level of knowledge that Lightning or Shamus or Nic Wilson or Minty or any number of people who post here. So if someone could explain, in relatively non-technical terms, whether or not I have a point, I'd really appreciate it. If its just my technical ignorance, I don't mind being told so (as long as its done nicely). But I'm having trouble understanding the seeming discrepancies and whether they mean anything? Or whether its not the discrepancies but the scans themselves.