AlexH

Sharp LC-46D62U Notes

Enter service menu by first unplugging set, then while holding both input button and volume down button, plug TV back in. Within about 5 seconds, the set will power up (without pressing the “on” button); keep holding the input and volume down buttons until a small “K” appears in a box on the left side of the screen. Then press and hold the channel down and vol down buttons at the same time to enter the service menu.

I’m assuming that my Sharp will use the same procedure, even though it isn’t a 46″.

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Study traces origins of syphilis in Europe to New World

New evidence from the jungles of Guyana suggests Christopher Columbus and his crewmates carried syphilis-causing bacteria from America to Europe, triggering a massive epidemic that killed more than five million people there.

Smallpox went from Europe to North America, syphilis went the other way.

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Minerals Industry - Energy and Resources - Government of Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan has the largest potash industry in the world, accounting for about 33% of the world’s trade in potash. The potash reserves in Saskatchewan are massive. The exceptional size and quality of ore reserves combine with the lowest production costs in the world. By conservative estimates, Saskatchewan could supply world demand at current levels for several hundred years.

The earth has potash (the K in NPK) reserves for several hundred years. After that, where does it come from? Generally the organic source for potash is from wood ash, but I doubt that burning large areas of forest would be looked upon as a positive by the public.

There is a thread on the fool.com boards discussing a fair tax, ie a simple sales tax on everything, and income tax would then be abolished. People much smarter than I am are talking about why it wouldn’t work:

TMF: Re: fair tax / Atheist Fools

Wealthier people certainly use the roads to get goods delivered to them, don’t they? That big house, with the marble from Vermont and the lumber from Oregon? Didn’t that come in via roads? Those 5 big screen TV’s, didn’t those come on a truck? In this society, if you spend more, you are surely using the roads to procure those goods, aren’t you? Speaking of “wealthy”, it’s clear that most of the corporations in America are owned by the wealthy, or at least “not the poor”. Both private and public corporations, I would guess, since “the poor” don’t tend to own much of anything, stocks included. Wouldn’t you say that corporations make pretty good use of the roads? From General Motors to Amazon.com, without those “good roads” their business would be very different, wouldn’t it?

The Daily, Tuesday, January 8, 2008. Study: Scientists and engineers and urban growth

The mix in university-educated workers mattered. Scientists and engineers are often seen to play a catalytic role regarding employment growth in cities. Here, the study found that the share of workers in science and engineering occupations, the “left brain” of cities, is closely connected to employment growth when these workers are located in cities with large and diverse pools of university-educated workers.

Statscan shows an interesting trend on growth rates in cities, where the employment grew by 2.0% in areas of higher concentrations of university graduates, vs 1.6% for lower concentrations. Compound that annually over 20 years and you get 49% growth vs 37% growth.

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Copyright quagmire

Our customers shouldn’t have to worry about being sued for private, non-commercial activities. Canada is not a litigious “zero tolerance” regime. If the law is amended to facilitate such litigation here, experience suggests that it will surely happen. We agree with Steven Page of the Barenaked Ladies who says, “We think lawsuits … would be terrible for the music business in Canada. It’s short-sighted to say ‘See you in court’ one day and ‘See you at Massey Hall’ the next.”

Seeing the editorial in the Sun from Ron Wilson of Best Buy has floored me. I never expected to see a retailer weigh in on the customers’ side here, but I guess it makes sense. They want to sell electronics and media, and having a restrictive Copyright Act will reduce people’s willingness to buy new equipment if there is a risk of incompatibilities between DRM systems.

No sign of slowing down: Ont. man, 85, sets street-racing record

An 85-year-old man has sped into the record books as the oldest person charged under Ontario’s street-racing legislation. An officer on patrol north of Toronto spotted an Oldsmobile Intrigue zipping through the eastbound lanes of Highway 407 on Wednesday morning, Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Cam Woolley told CBCNews.ca on Thursday.

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NOVA | Absolute Zero | Absolute Hot | PBS

Seems like an innocent enough question, right? Absolute zero is 0 on the Kelvin scale, or about minus 460 F. You can’t get colder than that; it would be like trying to go south from the South Pole. Is there a corresponding maximum possible temperature?

Wow, that just blew my mind. I’ve never thought about that before!

I loaded up Future Shop’s web page this morning to check out TV deals. They have a great idea on their front page, a slider that you move depending on a person’s tech savvy, and it will suggest gifts on the right scale. Great idea! I cranked it up to 100% to see what it suggested. The first thing was the Monster AVS 2000:

Monster’s AVS 2000 is a serious product for serious home theater enthusiasts. It has been hailed as a truly innovative and invaluable product by reviewers and the buying public. The AVS 2000 is designed to stabilize power line fluctuations and maintain constant voltage to your home theatre for maximum performance.

As usual, Monster is scamming people with overpriced equipment that they don’t need.

At first glance, it might seem like it is a good idea, since your house voltage does fluctuate depending on the load, but rarely between 80-140V. Generally it will be between 115-120V. BC Hydro is automatically monitoring and adjusting the power on the grid to keep it within spec.

Even if the power does change, it won’t make any difference to your electronic equipment, because they all convert the 120V AC power into whatever DC power they need. For example your computer’s power supply has -12, -5, 5, and 12V. I’m not sure about TVs but I can guarantee that they aren’t running off 120V directly. All of your equipment is carefully engineered to be able to run off relatively dirty 120V because the designers already know that this power will fluctuate. There is huge amount of study done on power supplies, the first thing that we did at UBC in the lab was to build our own!

Let’s look at some of the results people have had with their equipment. Positive Feedback Issue 6 says this:

As numerous folks have reported, audio and video benefits from the use of a power conditioner in a number of ways. There is less low-level hash and noise, the absence of which makes the audio signal appear to arrive from a darker, inkier background, and video images from a cleaner, crisper screen. Details are heard and seen that were masked before. Tonal density (audio and video) is more saturated, and seems richer and more natural.

Video is crisper? Really? Interesting. Now how did they test this… well they hooked it all up after spending $1500 US, and wow, the sound and video improved. What kind of equipment did they use to make the voltage fluctuate? Oh, they didn’t. How did they test the audio? Hmm, with their ears. No test equipment in sight. No double-blind tests, nothing.

Save your money and buy a line conditioner from a real power company. You can get a 2400W conditioner from TrippLite for $400. It’s the same rating, 20A, and the same number of outlets. I have no relation to TrippLite, they were just the first one to come up on a Google search.

Or, if you are cheap like me, just ignore the click in the audio when your fridge turns on.

CBC.ca Arts - Libraries urge Ottawa to consider consumers in drafting copyright law

The CLA fears the Canadian government, now redrafting copyright legislation, will create a new act closely mirroring U.S. legislation that curtails consumer rights, such as the right to copy material for their own use, Don Butcher, executive director of the Canadian Libraries Association said in a news conference in Ottawa Friday. “This is a battle between Hollywood lobbyists versus the average Canadian,” Butcher said. He called for a “made-in-Canada” solution that balances the rights of consumers with the rights of creators. Any changes made to law should protect artists such as musicians and authors, but also allow copying for individual use, he said.

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