Perhaps a little off base, but I thought you guys might like this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Steam-Turret-Tank/[^] Dual engines for independent track control. A working turret. Simulated cannon fire action. 100% live steam power for propulsion. Cheers! -- Ian

A UPS surge protector isn't necessarily any better than a cheapy "protected" power strip. Some are not protected at all. Most have a relay to supply the load nominally, and only switch to battery when they sense the input voltage dropping. The regenerated output is often far from a good sine-wave, but adequate for most loads. Only expensive models isolate & continuously supply regenerated output voltage, because providing true sine-wave output costs $$$ in parts. As with all things, check the specs... -- Ian

I dunno. They've clearly stated the business model -they- want. This is damage control. I love my xbox360, but they've lost my trust here. I suspect as soon as they figure things have blown over, they'll just revert the terms. Throw out a "required" update to play new games, and oh darn sorry, because of "security" requirements your xbox1 must always be online now... tada. Right back to square one. I'd suggest extreme patience. Hold off buying a while. Months... Years... whatever. See how it plays out first. -- Ian

105-year-old woman says eating bacon every day is her key to long life! http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/07/105-year-old-woman-says-eating-bacon-every-day-is-her-key-to-long-life/[^] Awesome. :) -- Ian

A great day indeed! :-D http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2013/04/29/the-bacon-bacon-truck-is-returning/[^] -- Ian

I'd suggest plasma over LCD anytime. The black levels are much better. If your room is dimly lit, you'll see the back-lights (tube or LED's) bleeding through on a LCD. Not so with Plasma. Panasonic makes very nice plasma TV's these days. LCD TV's are cheap as dirt to make, but you gets what you pays for. Some higher end LED backlit LCD TV's try to intelligently drive the LED's to reduce the problem of bleed through, but they still look pretty bad in my opinion. They are just polishing a t*rd. -- Ian

Choice D: Buy cheap chairmat + 4'x4' piece of 1/4" plywood. Cut plywood to shape. Drill holes in the four corners through both mat & plywood. Hammer nails into floor to keep both lined up and from moving. I've done this before. Lasts forever. -- Ian

There are several other meds. Not sure a normal tanning booth (mostly UVA) will do anything. UVB is best for Psoriasis. At least it's only on your skin. My (very mild) psoriasis started attacking my joints. Gotta inject myself every two weeks with Humira now. Joy. -- Ian

Overall I like the new layout. Much cleaner. However... do we really need -so- much vertical spacing? In the lounge for example: text, 1/8" gap, faint line, 1/8" gap, text, etc... Measured it with a ruler! Font's are also... fuzzy? v's & w's are oddly faint. The old font was definitely easier to read. Old eyes are already plenty fuzzy. Now my computer is enhancing the effect? Using Firefox btw. -- Ian

For signals... How about a "warp" drone? If you can make a big 'ol spaceship for people w/life support, etc... making a tiny one to transport messages should be possible too. As for Vulcans, I'll welcome 'em if they can help stamp-out hunger & disease. The real problem is idiots declaring them evil incarnate (because, well... 'cause they say so) & and another tiresome excuse for violence... -- Ian

So obvious a use! Is there nothing Bacon cannot do? http://www.foodbeat.com/food-news/josh-sankey-will-travel-across-america-using-only-bacon-as-money/[^] -- Ian

Here in California, I'm not sure I could tell the difference between a 3.4 & a truck going by. Need a good 5.0 for some real excitement. Last time one of those suckers hit I had just arrived home & was standing in my driveway. My whole house appeared to wiggle back & forth. Small bit of damage too... -- Ian

Meh... Probably get better accuracy from reading horoscopes. -- Ian

You can miss with a 45ACP. You'll certainly make a statement doing so however (or at least the weapon will). -- Ian

One uses 4 DIMM slots, with cheap modules. One uses 2 DIMM slots, with expensive modules. The 2 DIMM option gives you room to add more memory later. The 4 DIMM option doesn't. You'd have to remove & replace the old DIMM's. Assuming the memory is user accessible, personally I'd get the least amount of memory from the vendor. I'd buy my own separately & install myself. Almost guaranteed to be much cheaper. -- Ian

Out of the blue, my brother calls & asked if I knew how many Godzilla movies there were. This occurred to me as being a rather odd question. However, upon reflection, I decided it must be the closest approximation of infinity yet devised by man. Whilst this answer amused my brother, who I must say was giggling in a peculiar & somewhat unsettling manner, it turns out there are alas only 29. 28 from Japan, and one really bad flick from Hollywood. It seems my brother, an aficionado of bad movies, became frustrated by never being able to accurately decide, just -how- truly awful any given movie might be. I mean, you know its bad... But should one reserve just a sliver of contempt for another flick which might be even worse? Thus he decided to calibrate his "bad" movie quality gauge once & for all. He devised the ultimate -bad- movie calibration technique. Watching all 29 Godzilla movies (in order of production) back to back. Pity & fear him, for he now -knows- the truth. How bad can bad be... -- Ian

I've been using powweb.com for years. You can even point multiple different domains at the same account. Got 1 site? That's $6.95/mo. Got 20 sites? That'd be, um... $6.95/mo. There's a page for assigning each domain to a different subdirectory. -- Ian

Sorry, bad phrasing on my part. Didn't mean to say ammonia is revolting. Couldn't care less about that. Only the slime. I'm also aware ranches aren't the most hygienic places. Manure everywhere is a given. However the meat I eat, from the animals raised there, is unlikely to be contaminated until butchering. I take issue with scraps which are mostly likely to be exposed to manure ending up in my meal. Guess I'm just funny that way. -- Ian

Got a similar situation here, although we call our discoveries: Michaelism's. It was a large hardware design, written in Verilog, and a huge mess. The guy was obviously aware of define's (ala C/C++), but still hardcoded vast amounts of crap everywhere. No attempt at abstraction. Took forever to clean up. Ug. -- Ian

I love hamburgers, but after reading about this garbage a couple weeks ago, I bought my own meat grinder. I'll never trust supermarket ground "beef" again. Just to be clear. Pink slime has a -high- risk of contamination. They wouldn't douse it in ammonia otherwise. Such a "product" is totally revolting (the slime, not the ammonia). What is the possible contamination? Cow manure. Beef, not. Protein, not. Yum, elephanting not. -- Ian