3-D printer with nano-precision sets world record


Source: 3-D printer with nano-precision sets world record

Don't forget, all you British chaps, BST begins tonight. Put your clocks forward by one hour, or in my case, leave them be, as I can't be AR*@D to change them to BWT to begin with.

I got an E-mail this morning from Duskrider, with this link in it
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/849/

I've been working on personal PCs now for nearly 30 years, and today I've run across a situation that is completely new to me.

My Sister sent her laptop over to me a couple of weeks ago, with a BSOD on startup. She's not a "guru", but she's pretty tech savvy, so she had tried all the usual things first, such as trying safe mode, last known good configuration, etc. The model is a Compaq Presario F500, with XP installed, rather then the original Vista OS. She had a VERY nasty virus months ago that wiped out the OS, and since she got the laptop used, she had no recovery disks, so she bought XP, and I installed it. It worked great, no hassles till a few weeks ago, when she got the BSOD. So far, this is probably an all-to-familiar story. But this is where it gets interesting.

I first tried all of the available options for startup, just to verify the problem, and sure enough, BSOD with each attempt. Ok, fine. I pulled out the drive (it's a SATA drive, so easy to attach to my box), checked it for viruses, ran several disk scans, looking for a potentially crashed/crashing drive, and got a completely clean bill of health. At this point, I backed up her documents, just to be on the safe side. Replaced the drive, put in the XP CD in her drive and fired it up to attempt a system repair. GOT A BSOD!

At this point, I decided to backtrack a little. I checked for stuck fans and other signs of overheating, and found that one of the RAM chips was almost too hot. I could touch it, but not for more than a couple of seconds. So I pulled out the RAM, slipped it into a compatible, known good laptop and ran a RAM test. One of the chips (I had forgot to mark the "hot" one, so I'm not sure it's the same one, though I'm reasonably sure it is), so I ordered 2GB of RAM for her computer. Got a great deal, too. Doubled her memory for less than a replacement OEM chip would cost.

Ok, the RAM arrived today, so I installed it, reset the CMOS as a precaution, and started it up, adjusting the BIOS for "safest" performance, and noticed an HDD test in there, so I ran that while I was at it. Test passed, so all seems good. Fired up the computer without the install CD, just on the off chance that this was the problem. Nope! Still getting BSODs.

Ok, back to the install CD. Tried to run the Repair option, got to the screen where you select the OS to run. Picked the only entry... Yup! You guessed it! BSOD!

Reboot, tried to do a format and re-install (usually, my "last resort". Got to "searching for installed Operating Systems..." - BSOD.

Took ten deep, calming breaths. Took another ten... Went out for a smoke...

I'll spare you the rest of the pathetic details.

This is the very first time I've ever seen a BSOD when in the install disk. I find it rather odd, and more than a little unsettling. Has anyone ever run into this before?

BTW, the only useful information from the BSOD is BAD_POOL_CALLER - And that's not really all that helpful.

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This thing is AGILE!

In the 1999 Le Mans race, British race driver Peter Dumbreck suffered every drivers worst 200mph nightmare.

Follow the second car (silver) in the attached clip:

http://wn.com/peter_dumbreck?upload_time=all_time&orderby=viewCount

Amazingly this was the THIRD Mercedes to do this that weekend (one of which was being driven by Mark Webber at the time), although neither of the other incidents were at this speed!!!