Posts by Michelle Bennett5

wearymason4 said:...the monitor doesn't actually kick in right at startup. You're just staring at a black screen until those GPU drivers finally load up, and since they aren't prioritized over the core system files, there's a bit of a lag.
That’s basically why we have the power and hard drive LEDs—so you can at least tell the machine is actually doing something while you wait.

So, to put it another way... why can't the system just initialize the graphics card with a basic preliminary driver right at the start, instead of waiting for the whole OS to fully boot before loading the actual video driver? And then just reverse the process when shutting down?
I honestly think it would make the user experience a lot less frustrating.

ruggedpanther2 said:When you boot up a standard PC, you see the motherboard logo and everything else first, right?
You must have tweaked something in your Windows settings or the BIOS. Honestly, the simplest fix is to just reset your BIOS to factory defaults or go ahead and reinstall Windows.

nope
The computer is factory fresh, a clean install of Windows 10

And yeah, obviously, you see the motherboard logo first
But then Windows starts loading, the screen goes black, and you're stuck waiting forever before the Windows login screen finally pops up
While the screen is dark, you can tell the hard drive is absolutely slamming away—it can take several minutes like this
Even when you go to shut down the PC, the screen turns off, but you can still see the drive light flickering away for a while longer

It doesn't happen on every machine, but it definitely happens
I've seen people who don't realize the computer is actually busy doing something, so they just force it off or restart it, and that's usually when they actually break things
Honestly, life would be so much easier if Windows was designed to always keep an image on the monitor until the disk activity actually stops

Windows 10... man, it happens all the time. You go to turn it on and it starts prepping updates, or you try to shut it down and it’s busy applying them. But since the screen is just black, you have no clue what's actually happening. So, naturally, you think it's stuck, hit that power button a few times to force a restart, and—surprise, surprise—you end up bricking the whole thing.

Is there some setting buried somewhere that guarantees Windows 10 will, I don't know, light up the monitor first? Like, show something logical on the screen before it decides to go dark during a shutdown?

Just so the user knows Windows 10 Mobile isn't totally frozen and is actually doing its job.

Jacob Cooper5 said:I just want one task to act as a trigger for another at a specific time.

Basically, I want Task1 to kick off 00:00 Task2, which then shuts down the PC after being on Idle for a bit.

I don't really get why you wouldn't just use Task2 by itself? Just set it up as a recurring task to run every single day at 00:00, and it’ll handle the shutdown if needed. It basically triggers itself daily anyway.

Most of the time, if you're running Windows 10 32-bit, it'll just handle everything for you. You plug in a USB printer, and boom—it installs the drivers automatically without you having to lift a finger. Simple enough, right?

Windows 10 64-bit probably isn't going to cut it on its own. You’ll likely end up having to go the old-school route and just run the printer installation manually using the disc. Is it 2024? Who knows. But yeah, be ready for that.

Is it actually possible that 64-bit systems are still running into driver issues? Seriously?

Noah Price said:below $667. Seriously, if anyone knows where I can find the absolute cheapest shop...

Based on the price list I'm looking at, the final price for home-premium-7-retail is $600 [converted from everything, base price in USD], but keep in mind this is just the official Microsoft pricing for the US

Sam Hall15 said:I think you’ve got it wrong if you think this is being done "under duress."

Whatever. We’re still scouring every corner to find it, even if it means paying up or offering some other kind of kickback to the provider.
The therapy was cut back almost entirely, right up until one of the doctor's buddies personally vouched that they'd make sure the supply would be more than enough.

fadedheron892 said:Can you actually switch hospitals?

We figured it made more sense to reach out to donors directly by offering some kind of compensation.

Otherwise, I was stuck in that Mayo Clinic hospital about ten years ago after a car wreck, and I remember my buddies showing up just to donate blood. I honestly thought that was just how things worked? Pretty standard stuff, right?

Sam Hall15 said:Are you actually sure they're asking for type O? You didn't mention if it's positive or negative, but honestly, this whole thing feels sketchy since there are plenty of blood types out there... at least in the hospitals.

Yeah, they want O, but it could be either plus or minus. Basically, the patient doesn't need direct transfusions right now; they're prepping some blood products to administer. It's for recovery after surgery—some complications with pneumonia following a bypass. Of course, the hospital has blood on hand, but they aren't just handing it over. A certain amount had to be donated beforehand, and now, because of these complications, they need even more. It’s not really smart to play mind games with them and test whether they'll pull the plug on treatment if their demand for extra units isn't met.

Honestly, this feels more like an ad than an actual discussion

Looking for O-negative donors specifically from the Southwest region
We’ve already burned through some personal contacts, so we’re trying our luck here instead.
And yeah, obviously, there would be compensation involved.

Shoot me a DM if you have info.

looks like she went all out and finished it...

steelskipper5 said:Talking about prophecy doesn't really get us anywhere: there's zero evidence, for starters, that an octopus has even the slightest clue what it's doing.

but isn't that exactly the point of prophecy? when you have absolutely no idea what's going on, yet that "something" tells you this is true and that is false. once you actually understand something, it just becomes basic logic.

whoever claims that prophecy in humans [regardless of consciousness] is tied to consciousness is dead wrong. if anything, people always say you have to "clear your mind" to let the message come through from somewhere else—definitely not from your own conscious thoughts. falling into a "trance" would be one way to basically switch off the conscious mind entirely, wouldn't it?

So there's this octopus, apparently named 'Paul', who supposedly predicts game results during the 2010 Census
At first, I figured it was just some joke, but then I happened to stumble upon this video right before the Germany vs. Spain match where she predicted a Spanish win... and well, we all know how that turned out.

The way they do it is kind of wild—they set up two little pools, each with a flag of one of the competing countries drawn at the bottom, and she just swims into one. That’s her "prediction."

I don't even know what to make of it. People are saying she hasn't missed yet, and I bet everyone's going to be watching closely to see if she nails the final too.

Anyone actually heard anything more about this?

hiddensailor14 said:It looks like this: take Star Trek, say four seasons with about twenty episodes each, and then every single episode is broken down into 24 separate little pieces.

Dealing with massive file repetitions using the same naming pattern is honestly easiest if you just use a command line batch script to process everything at once. But wait, are you absolutely sure there isn't some weird .cmd, .bat, or .vbs extension hiding in that archive that might have automatically merged everything back into the original structure?

Keith Robinson78 said:I honestly don't even get what they're actually for.

Well, they're for visualization. Is that really such a weird concept? Not everyone can just wrap their head around a 3D model or figure out how different parts fit together in space.
Plus, you use them to make positive and negative molds for casting. And those laser systems that sinter powder to create metal models? They can print final, one-off pieces—like a custom dental retainer or some kind of medical implant that gets put right into the body.

fadedfox40 said:But I’m not trying to print some tiny trinket here—this thing is a massive 320MB .3ds file with roughly 3.5 million faces.

Honestly, none of that matters.
Most 3D printers have a build volume around 4x4x4 inches, maybe hitting 8x8x8 if you're lucky. With surface precision usually sitting around 0.004 inches, you can easily strip those 3.5 million faces down to 3,500—or even less—and frankly, nobody is going to notice the difference.
Besides, there's a whole spectrum of tech out there. You've got industrial laser sintering that fuses powder into metal, then you've got those cheap ones that stack layers of paper together—I actually used one of those for a college project once. Those budget ones end up looking kind of like wood.
Then there’s the micro-milling stuff, where they basically carve the model right out of a solid block of plastic using a five-axis micro-mill.

Anthony Lewis79 said:See, an accident report isn't actually meant to determine fault... that's just not within the scope of what highway patrol officers do at the scene. They just document the raw facts of what happened during the crash... the actual decision on who is legally liable belongs solely to the courts, assuming the responsible party is actually working to settle their liability... it's all very procedural...

Yeah, obviously. But if the description of what happened in that report is crystal clear? Well, then the insurance company might just jump the gun and start their own investigation without waiting for some judge to weigh in first.

rapidtrucker90 said:thanks. so, I guess we just wait until all the treatment is wrapped up before we start gathering the paperwork. she finally got moved out of the ICU and into a regular ward today! :-)

That's just for the injury settlement. You can actually jump on the property damage claim—like, fixing the car and dealing with the pain and suffering—right away. You just need those police reports to prove who's actually at fault. Without those, you've got nothing. They're the whole foundation for any claim you try to file.
Yeah, it's true that the actual bodily injury payout usually waits until treatment wraps up—you know, when it's clear if there's permanent disability involved. If there's no disability, you aren't getting a payout on those grounds, just maybe some reimbursement for lost wages while you were stuck in the hospital or nursing costs and whatnot. But honestly? Nothing stops you from reaching out to the other person's insurance company immediately.

Here’s a quick little hack for you: don't just toss loose files onto a USB drive. Instead, throw them into a password-protected ZIP file.
Make that password long—like, ridiculously long—so it’s basically impossible to crack.

The downside? Well, if you need to change even one tiny thing, it’s going to be slow. The drive has to rewrite the entire massive ZIP archive just to save one edit. Total pain, right?

But, if you’re mostly using the stick as a read-only tool, this trick actually makes things way faster. Since you’re moving compressed data instead of raw files through that narrow USB bottleneck, you might see speeds jump by 150%, 200%, or maybe even a full 1000% when opening stuff up. Just a heads-up though, this doesn't apply to JPGs, MP3s, or MP4s... those are already maxed out on compression anyway.

Of course there is. Just type "USA" into Google and you'll be hit with a mountain of results. Here's one for you:
http://www.softlookup.com/display.asp?id=4823

The thing is, they vary a ton—some are 2D, some are 3D... kind of a mess if you don't know what you're looking for.

I'm actually in the middle of grinding out one for a college term paper right now, converting a direct 3D model from Autodesk.