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David Hingtgen

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Everything posted by David Hingtgen

  1. David Hingtgen
    Bumping up the PSI definitely helps. 5psi over stock really actually feels right for my car--everyone on the forum agrees, "the manual has to be wrong"---*everything* is better at 5 over stock for my car. Going to 10 over helps MPG even more, but you start trading ride comfort etc. I did 8 over once for a trip, seemed ok. Great mileage. Now, some of the biggest parts of hypermiling is to avoid braking/stopping---in short, keep your inertia constant. Well, that's absolutely required when driving in snow and ice---anyone who doesn't get that concept, ends up sliding around and crashing. And we winter drivers abhor people who don't get that idea. One person in a line of 15 can screw up everything. Fishtailing wildly up a hill means you are actually doing "worse than average". So frankly, many midwesterners etc drive like that all the time, as it's both practice for the winter when it takes all your skill just to be able to do it half as well, and it's better MPG anyways. Nothing teaches you more about "road feel", "steering feedback" or most of all--INERTIA, than sliding on ice... I've always thought "hypermiling" is more like "Californians pretending what it's like to drive in snow, without realizing it" Seriously, many of the techniques/concepts are the same----because on snow and ice, you want to avoid changes whenever possible--steady everything. Don't race to a light and sit--go JUST the right speed that it'll be green when you get there. Try to maintain your momentum up a hill by any means possible whether it's adjusting your speed or timing the lights at the beginning of it---accelerating from a dead stop up the hill takes the most gas of anything---and requires the most traction! PS---high PSI is good for winter driving, too. Skinny, high-psi tires often do the best in deep snow. This is why winter wheel/tires combos are often -1 or -2 compared to stock.
  2. David Hingtgen
    Still need new monitor, but 24in is too big. I'm really looking at the 20in range currently. Anyways--running new HDD, went with WD 6400AAKS. Quiet, slightly faster than previous one. (IMHO there is no "good" HDD company at the moment, they've all gone downhill it seems) (it's not too hard to guess what to buy for PC components--I live and breathe by silentpcreview.com) Have a question/issue: When I download a large file, it takes FOREVER for the file to transfer from the "XNSHTK" etc temp folder MSIE always holds downloads in, to the location I actually asked it to save to. 2 times ago, it took MINUTES. Anyone know why? It never did this before. And/or is there a way to force a file to *actually download to where I ask it to*, and not "download to a temp location then transfer itself over"? I kind of thought it might be some aspect of scanning for a virus, but it sure doesn't take MINUTES to go over a 1.3 gig file. (I mean, it always did the transferring thing, it just did it as fast as any other copy/move operation)
  3. David Hingtgen
    IIRC Graham's kind of been sick lately, and is just now getting back up to speed to be ready to source another batch in the future. It may take some more time, but "we have not been abandoned".
  4. David Hingtgen
    Yup--when I STOPPED transforming my Roy, the hinges started cracking. (as in, went from once a week to once a month to "not transforming at all for several months just in case")----they got worse just sitting there, not being transformed. In short---if the hinges are going to crack, THEY WILL CRACK. And there's nothing you can do about it--even if you leave it MISB and never expose it to light---it may take a little longer, but if it's going to happen--it'll happen.
  5. David Hingtgen
    Yes, but not for the USAF...
  6. David Hingtgen
    PS--the left-most drawing has GOT to be Keith's new avatar. ::senses potential abuse of mod power approaching::
  7. David Hingtgen
    It really does come down to avionics. Nothing seems to hurt military programs more the past 20 years. Everything else takes so long to come to fruition that their designed-as-cutting-edge-military-spec electronics-----are so obsolete by the time they come out that they both can't be upgraded and are incompatible with everything else, and are surpassed by cell phones... Same issue with the ATC system---they're paying thousands of dollars each and bidding against collectors on ebay for individual mint, rare vacuum tubes to keep them running. They're so old it costs a tremendous amount to keep going---but just can't be upgraded to more modern stuff without spending billions/trillions to competely overhaul. (I just read recently that when the F-111E/F came out, there was a proposal to increase the memory from 16K to 32K, on the grounds that it was a now-or-never opportunity---USAF said no, they wouldn't ever need any more and it'd be a waste of money. Well, that's why we had to get rid of all our F-111s after Desert Storm, as we couldn't upgrade them to take JDAM etc---would have cost untold millions to retrofit the avionics now) If I ever get my own country, the air force and navy equipment is SO going to be written in C++ and have USB ports... (of course, that has the problem of being 1000x more virus-prone, too--I was thinking of literally having locked covers over the USB ports--they wouldn't be used for daily mission upload/downloads etc, only upgrades) PS---upgrading the F-14 to use JDAMs was a one-chance thing for each plane. If power was interrupted or the cable wiggled loose during the re-write, the plane would probably never fly again--the avionics were NOT designed to be upgraded in that manner. It's considered lucky/amazing that every attempt worked.
  8. David Hingtgen
    IMHO that's an older (and curvier) Mylene, too. OK, so when do we get a Proto-Mylene valk girl?
  9. David Hingtgen
    Not mine, it's olive drab. (and I've never seen a gloss olive drab---that's almost an oxymoron)
  10. David Hingtgen
    We need Raptors for all those intl air force beauty contests---the F-35 sure won't win.
  11. David Hingtgen
    I know *I've* been asking for a Vajra-girl for a while.
  12. David Hingtgen
    I don't see what's so great about the new G2 Laser Prime. Reminds me almost of those "pickups that look like semis" than a real semi. Scourge---B-2/UAV, blah IMHO. Tracks--chest too big. Note I said too big, not too boxy. Boxy is good. But his chest comes down over his waist and upper thighs---he's got a giant beer-gut. Windcharger--simple, nice. PCC Devastator--best hands yet by far for a PCC. New PCC torsos---nice, look to be the best yet, but have to see torso mode first. Hasbro sure does like the Merkava tank lately...
  13. David Hingtgen
    I'm still amazed Xenogears was translated was well as it was. But anyways---buttons rock. http://www.yaybuttons.com/
  14. David Hingtgen
    The DX VF-27 is super-shiny and glossy, while the Sv-51 is matte. Asides from the Blue Angels/Thunderbirds (which get polished daily) I have yet to see a shiny glossy fighter plane.
  15. David Hingtgen
    Less popular+higher price=fewer sales. Thundercracker is even less popular, and would probably be yet another 10 bucks...
  16. David Hingtgen
    Even if he hated Gundam at the time he designed for 0083, I bet he'd still have worked on it for the money---only the truly uber-rich can say "no" to a paying job. And he wouldn't have done a bad job or slacked off regardless---his reputation is at stake with every series he works on. Working on something is no indication you like it.
  17. David Hingtgen

    VF-171

    David Hingtgen replied to Skypoet's topic in Model kits

    I'm tempted to delete the poll for pointlessness...
  18. David Hingtgen
    Hey Nied, I just recently read that the F-22 (and I think F-35) use Firewire---true?
  19. David Hingtgen
    Possibly stupid question, but is there a "higher level" of enabling SMART, other than getting the readings that various programs report? 1 "pending sector" on the HDD. Also (and I may just be paranoid here) but I do think some of my largest folders have been acting slower lately.
  20. David Hingtgen
    Ok, running Western Digital's own diagnostics---not good. Get "06-Quick Test on drive 1 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 65 (Error Log Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 1!" Every result I get from googling that is "imminent drive failure".
  21. David Hingtgen
    Every test I've run so far (HD tune, Sandra) says the HDD is fine--and actually performing above average. It's a WD5000AAKS, which seems to be a popular model. I really need to buy an external backup drive or something first, before I format this one---way too much stuff to burn to DVD's. (cough, Frontier, cough) What's the best method to do say, monthly/quarterly backups from an HDD? (as in, copy nearly everything that's on there) Should I do a full XP repair install? It's been less than a year since the last, can't imagine it'd be too messed up. I'll check all my cables later, but literally the computer hadn't been opened for 2 months or so prior to tonight. ::edit:: Reading more about "checking for consistency"----using fsutil query, I get "C: is dirty". Ok, and......?
  22. David Hingtgen
    Forget the monitor, I think my HDD is going! Help/opinions needed: Ok, I got 3 BSOD's in the last 2 months---compared to 0 in the last 3 years or so. Seemed kinda random---once it was an Nvidia driver issue. But 2 have been in the last 2 weeks, 1 just 48 hours ago or so. A week ago, XP wanted to "check for consistency" when it started. Found no errors. This morning--no boot. Gets to the first 2 secs of the XP logo, then BSOD. "Unmountable boot volume". Several times in a row. Use backup PC to research online, it can't be any of the normal causes besides a corrupt boot partition etc. Run chkdsk from XP install disc--comes back fine. Do more thorough chkdsk, found 1 error and fixed it. Used "fixboot" to make new boot--says things are fine, writes new boot anyways. Reboot PC---same BSOD. Try fixboot again---says it's corrupted (the one presumably made only minutes ago). Run fixboot about 4 more times until it says "ok" 3 times in a row. Reboot into safe mode---ok. Backup recent files. Reboot again---wants to "check for consistency" again! That takes like an hour so I skip it. That's the boot that I'm writing this from. So---is my HDD dying or what? It keeps finding no errors (except that one time) so I think it can't really detect them very well. I read that an "unmountable boot volume" can be from when Windows updates/upgrades itself, but I don't think this is it. Strangely, the PC seems to be fine when it does boot--haven't noticed any odd behavior lately. (other than BSOD!) Sigh, spent most of the day updating the old computer just to feel safe enough to go online. PPS---HDD suggestions welcome. 500 gig or a bit more, quiet is definitely an issue. I will sacrifice a bit of speed for a lot of quiet. Current one is a Western Digital--have never used them before. If my HDD is dying, I plan to go back to Seagate.
  23. David Hingtgen
    I agree with Mike---but even more so. As in, the car looks completely wrong to me. I note that Takara has yet to show a side-view of the car. When we see that, it should be obvious to everyone how off it is. As for the trailer--it's missing the one thing I was hoping an MP version could provide--that it'd look like a single, whole vehicle--like a Winnebago! Not a truck hauling a camper--which is exactly what the G1 toy looked like, and how this one looks like. The two halves just don't integrate that well/seamlessly. HasTak has been combining vehicles for decades now, I know they know how to do it.
  24. David Hingtgen
    F-15's look so much better when they're not plain ghost grey...
  25. David Hingtgen
    It's a Flanker thing--their engines are very hot, and thus you can't paint that area. The F-15 has a similar effect (more noticeable on the bottom), as does the F-8.
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