Ian's random facts page

This page may contain random bits of useful (or not useful) information, funny thoughts or facts,
useful things that took me weeks to find,
or just stuff I wanted the world to know about.
(use this information at your own risk)

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Rubbing Alcohol is great for priming dry sharpies.
Since sharpie's are alhocol based, they can also be erased with alcohol.
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When you work in fuse boxes, only use one hand
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You CAN send text messages to analog bag and brick phones (Motorola Ultra Classic) from the 80's
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Welding gloves make you invincible
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Hilly, closetogetherbuiltghetto - Dothan
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To wire 1-channel clear-com lines to 2-channel clearcom headset boxes, make the following cable:
3-pin XLR: 1-gnd, 2-hot, 3-cold -> 6-pin XLR: 1-gnd, 2-hot, 4-cold
this puts the one channel system on the "A" channel of the two-channel headset
I recommend wiring in a second 3-pin XLR for loopthrough.
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Digital audiotapes (DATs), which are about the size of miniature cassette tapes but can record up to 120 minutes, reproduce the same high-quality sound CDs do. Sony originally announced the development of DAT technology in 1987, but digital audiotape players were delayed from entering the US market until 1990 because recording companies feared that people would use the tape players to reproduce and illegally distribute CD-quality recordings. To settle the dispute and avert a possible ban on the product by Congress, Japanese makers agreed to equip DAT decks with copy-limiting circuitry [editor's note: SCMS, Serial Copy Management System. Pronounced "scums"]. The circuitry allows owners to make unlimited numbers of copies of CDs, but they cannot make copies of the copies. In 1991, Sony introduced a DAT walkman [ed. note: TCD-D7 ?] that would both play and record. It is expected that DATs will replace the standard audio cassettes, although consumer acceptance has been slow. (from Wilson, James R., Mass Media/ Mass Culture, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2001)
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If your computer is having problems playing audio files (mp3 or wav) from windows media player, winamp, or any other program, go to your device manager, then "Audio Codecs" and make sure the "Windows PCM converter" "Windows Media Audio Codec" and "MPEG III" are high up on the list. if they aren't, click on them and change their priority to a lower number. This aparrently causes the computer to give that codec more attention and reduces jitter and "rebuffering" sounds.