Viewing profile — grouchyOldGuy

Thanks! I'd forgotten about the fit-PC. I now have need for something small and miserly on power for home automation (and maybe another for an mp3 player in my car).

I wish that I had the space available to build this machine. I would love to play with it.

I thought it was a joke that these pitchmen would get their own "reality" TV show, but apparently it's true. I can't stand any of their commercials and can't hit the mute button fa…

This wasn't imcompetence--it was thuggery. They use the same "shock and awe" tactics as the police and military--crush your opponent with overwhelming force so that everyone else w…

If it blew out the walls of the garage, then the roof would collapse. That doesn't bode well for anyone under the roof at that time.

A friend of mine once described getting a college degree as "getting your union card". A college degree doesn't indicate knowledge or experience per se, but what it does imply is t…

I remember a guy I worked for showing me his new digital watch. It was a matrix of tiny red LEDs that consumed so much current from the batteries, that the display would only light…

I was there, youngster. The bong and pong were a natural pairing--get toasted and play pong for hours. Another plus: Saturday Night Live was actually fuuny back then.

But if I read the paper, won't I change its outcome?

Just because you CAN screw around with someone else's property doesn't mean you SHOULD. Although it can be exciting (especially at that age) to do something forbidden, he can suffe…

I completed my BS degree several years ago. I carried a full-time school load and worked full-time. I got 90% of my school work done on the weekends. During the week I was too tire…

Why not just buy a netbook if you're going to carry something around that large? I'm not trolling here--it's a sincere question. I do like the idea of "e-ink" though, and I haven't…

I flat-out refuse to use PayPal for anything. I am reluctant to use my credit card except for shopping sites that have a decent track record of security. A small site with a Comodo…

I sent this info to my sister. She teaches science in a high school and the school's Internet filter blocks all access to YouTube, so she was thrilled to learn about this.

I store all my account URLs, user IDs, and passwords in a text file that is inside of an encrypted TrueCrypt volume. The TrueCrypt volume appears as an ordinary file on my computer…

I also got prescription computer glasses a few months ago after using non-prescription reading glasses. They seem to work well, and I paid extra to get the anti-reflective coating …

Although the lower-case "G" is not easily discernible, the bright colors make it stand out more on my bookmarks toolbar, so I prefer it for that reason alone.

I personally prefer building my own systems so that I can upgrade or repair it easily. All of the big box manufacturers use non-standard cases, motherboards, and power supplies. Th…

Have you thought about modifying it so that it's not just eye candy, but can also be used for navigation (like proceeding to the page uncovered behind the curl)?

I feel the opposite way: eliminate CC: and keep BCC:. People use CC: way too often when a BCC: is more appropriate. Unfortunately, the worst abusers are the most clueless and least…

Your sarcasm detector seems to be broken. Check its batteries.

I don't know how useful that opencourseware will be to you. There are other free resources on the Internet. http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/ This is a free e-book writt…

A clever and witty epitaph. It may not please Eliza, but it pleases me.

I concur. NewEgg gets 99.9% of all my tech-related purchases. It's too bad that Circuit City couldn't survive, but I've only been in my local store once in the past year (and IIRC,…

If that really bothers you, just alias those commands. alias listopenfiles=ls alias netfind=ngrep ...and so forth. I've done that to add the DOS "cls" command to clear my terminal …