Very entertaining show today, guys! I'm still laughing!

Excellent show, once again. You two should get paid more.

Last week's show there was hinting of a bet to see if Pat would have his apple laptop working with the custom painted lid. He said it would be on todays show. I was surprised when it was not and no one called Pat out. Where is the modded laptop?

I'm really surprised Robert supports the metric system. He always seems like the stubborn old archie bunker type. Which makes me pretty much positive that Roger Chang is all about the imperial system.
When are we going to see that macbook?

Dude! wheres the mac book? I recently was employed by a universoty here in Texas and part of my job was to save money. with 6-10 thousand computers floating around some were mac books.
One mac book particular had been dropped and was being fussy with the hard drive controller on the main board. Of course it was not under warranty and (was the universitys fault for dropping it) So I decided to salvage the screen and a few other internals for spares. Patrick is correct in stating this laptop is not a cakewalk when disecting it.
I am sure he is just to busy poseing for google streets. :)

i would like to know if there are any web video converters like www.vixy.net that can convert to the .wmv format. thank you and i love the show!

The Metric system is good, and standards in general are good. People who oppose the metric system actually have no good reason -- they simply don't want to be bothered to make even the smallest effort to change anything they're doing. I hate them.

Anyway good show guys :-)

good show

NOT the 'Rabbit Fence' it's the DINGO FENCE.

You certainly were no fans of Steve Irvin.

Larry
CA USA

PS Do not pet the Dingos

I'd like to see if Robert's domicile was built with 5.08cm x 10.16cm lumber... or if the builders decided to be archaic and use plain ol' 2"x4" lumber.

Just pointing out that standard English measurement is superior when it comes to woodworking and construction.

Patrick is correct that there are reference standards for the metric units but the big news about the crystalline sphere is that (hopefully someday) we can base the kilogram on an exact aspect of the natural world as opposed to the arbitrary standard of The Kilogram in France. All the other units (seconds, meters, etc) are based on things like the the speed of light and other quantities we assume to be constant across the universe so that we could (for example) describe time and distance without exchanging anything other than information. Sadly for the kilogram we have no such exact definitions yet.

Steve, 2"x4" is used only because the lumber industry is reluctant to abandon archaic measurements. In the rest of the world you'd find fine 5cm x 10cm lumber (better known as 1 31/32" x 3 15/16"...) :)

Construction, tools,... however is the place where archaic system will be broken. You can't export machinery requiring archaic tools for maintainance to places (rest of the world) where those tools are no longre in use. Similarly, airplanes, ships,... built using old measurements for which it would be hard to find parts and tools everywhere will slowly give way to standardized ones that can be maintained in Germany as much as in USA for example... Particularly as the government enforcement in many foreign places is stringent (ex. where I come law forbids not only the use of archaic measurements but also any publication, even it textbooks or news [saying in the newspaper: "USA uses 2"x4" lumber..." would result in draconian fines, putting even the RIAA to shame]).

I live in Canada, everything is posted in metric and everyone I know talks in miles, feet and inches. The only thing that has been adopted is celcius.

Coming from the U.S. I thought the Canadians were all metric, only the government is converted, people who want to do business are fluent in Imperial weights and measure and US Dollar conversion :)

Metric is based on water. 1 litre of water has a mass of 1 kilogram and a linear volume of 1000 cubic centimetres, which freezes at 0 and boils at 100. The SI reference units are for people who need to weigh things within the mass of a molecule. water works for the rest of us.

I was expecting some comments on the Blockbuster decision to carry only Blu-Ray. What is your reaction to the news?

>Keith said: "i would like to know if there are any web video converters like www.vixy.net that can convert to the .wmv format?"

vixy is painfully slow for me. Here is a site that ROCKS for file conversions of all types:

http://www.media-convert.com

It will pretty much convert anything, although I advise against converting/transcoding files with personal or confidential information enclosed.

Dusan,

Spoken like a person who is truly unfamiliar with quality woodworking and the tools used therein.

If you live somewhere that uses draconian laws to censor measurements... then I wish you the best with your metric-nazi enforcers and wish your chains to rest lightly upon you.

Eh, the proposed FTTN network to be installed down under (99% of Australia will have access to broadband etc) is only an election promise. Here it is an election year. Both major parties have two different broadband plans. You guys have it lucky over there, you don't have harsh usage limits. Never, never think that American broadband is a ripoff, because Australian broadband is. I want my unlimited broadband!

The ol' 2x4 (lumber) argument falls apart immediately because they don't even measure out that way and haven't for a long time. We still use the abbreviations lbs. and ozs. Do you know what "$" means? A few archaic naming conventions shouldn't get in the way of an overall standard - and the fact is they don't. Cripes!

You may not want to recommend Automatix on your show as it is known for causing issues when people try to upgrade to a newer version of Ubuntu. The latest release of Ubuntu includes most of the important things people used to use Automatix for anyway.

It was cool to see Robert's Cannon A640 up there. Cannon Cams are top notch and they still make high end AA powered models which we like. There is nothing more annoying than being on a trip and not being able to buy more batteries for your camera. I was going to buy the A640 but I wanted the 1024X768 res video capture capabilities of the SD900. As a side note, the waterproof cases for cannon Cams are awesome for watersports such as jetskiing!

Hey, Patrick, 1 Kilometer = 2.2 Miles? Dude. I REALLY hope you were joking. Great show, nevertheless.

The Metric system is the only system legalized by the US government (in 1866). The inch/pound system is defined by the metric system. Besides all measuring system are arbitrary.

Great show guys!

Metric? I live in Ontario, Canada, and pretty well everything is measured in liters, kilometers, celcius and so on. The only place you still find the US influence is in the lumber stores.

My kids don't even know what a gallon is or how hot it is when it's 90 degrees F outside. I was about 12 years old when the conversion occurred here, so I have the advantage of knowing both. I love to baffle my boys when I tell them that there are 5280 ft in a mile an so forth. They look at me as if I'm from Mars.

Keep up the good work guys.

Jake

On the topic of CD ripping... Windows Media Player, of all things, allows you to rip multiple drives at the same time. My big giant desktop has 4 cd/dvd drives and I can rip from all 4 at the same time. With a powerful system and fast drives it goes pretty quick, I did 1000 CDs in about 8ish hours, but that was paying attention and swapping as soon as one completed. In the burn tab, and ya put the settings to rip on insert and eject on complete.

Got a simple question.

Does anyone know if the Flip camera has a triport mount at the bottom??

Rip multiple CD's at once? Sure WMP will do it, but J. River Media Center will too, and it's a much better over-all application. Lot's of great features. Check it out! http://www.jrmediacenter.com/