Pretty cool, but you can do this without the custom circuitry pretty easily: Just use a plotter and replace one of the pens with a magnet. The advantage here is that used plotters are cheap (I sold my old one for $50 many years ago) and the drawing software is already out there. Still, this is a nice hack of an old technology.

As an aside, those things took forever to print text, it would be nice to see one printing in cursive writing so it wouldn't keep having to reposition the pen. It would be awesome if he could pull that off.

I think I should point out that fructose is just the kind of sugar that comes from fruit. It can be extracted from corn syrup as well, but this does not mean that it has been.

I was hoping they would talk about trinary computers, which are base three instead of base two. Unlike these theoretical computers, there was actually a trinary computer built and used in the 50's. Instead of bits, they used trits. The equivalent of a byte was called a trite.

They even had one to describe the nibble (half a byte), called a tribble.

I got to take this thing for a drive after the court case (thanks guys). It is remarkably well built: All four people can pedal at different speeds, you can shift gears, and it uses the original drum brakes so you can actually skid the tires. If only one brake were engaged then the car's direction remains the same as the two front wheels provide more traction a single rear wheel.

Their lawyer, Terry Fox, said he made his argument about the safety as the section of the HTA the driver was charged under was for all vehicles not motor vehicles.

It's surprisingly light and easy to maneuver. I'm sure it would hurt if it ran over you, but not nearly as badly as a real car as it weighs very little, it's very safe.

The only issue with it is that it blocks traffic, but that's fine for a few reasons: One of the reasons it was made was to demonstrate that bicycles are in fact entitled to a whole lane if they feel they need it. Anyone stuck behind it was more amused then anything, it's not much of an annoyance due to its novelty. When it was driven, it was rush hour, so it was keeping up with traffic just fine, and on side streets you can just pull over to let people pass. It's not like this gets driven around much either.

Oh god, imagine the carnage if he had not clipped the capacitor. Being an electronics nerd I've had my fair share of run-ins with caps I thought were discharged, it's more then just a temporary situation: You are unable to move your fingers for a few minutes and your whole arm goes numb for a half hour or so. It feels tingly for about a day after as well. I've heard of people breaking bones due to involuntary movement caused by the shock.

Household current has nothing on caps: To test if a household wire is live, I usually just touch it if I don't have a tester on me.

I think a big problem is that people don't realize that you can easily bargain down eyeglass prices. I found these really cool sunglasses at Hakim for only $90, but they wanted $380 for a single pair including the lenses. I got the guy there down to $200 total, including tax. Naturally, I broke them a week later.

You can get the frames cheap online, but with something like glasses it's better to be able to try them on. This goes doubly for tight fitting sunglasses.

This is what I thought of initially:
http://www.binocularsmart.com/cameras/photosniper.shtml

I've seen other versions of this at photography shows.

For me, social networking sites have always been for people I actually know and actively socialize with. I keep the list short and actively prune it, removing those I am no longer in contact with. If need be, I can always use the traditional routes of contacting someone whom I rarely communicate with.

For the networking aspect of it, I can either go through friend's lists, or use the groups. Groups work great for work associates, old school mates and clubs I belong to. There is no need to fill your list with everyone you know: I don't need the people from my moped enthusiast's group seeing the pictures form my friends birthday, nor would they care. If I want to show them a moped wiring diagram I dug up, then I can send it to the group and not bore my regular friends with it.

The only reason to have a 1000+ friends list is if you are an artist using it to promote your work. Those I know with these multitudinous lists, however, usually have a separate, personal list.

Teresa Nielsen Hayded: I'm well aware, and thankful that that is the case. I just feel that this story may have been the result of "the loud minority" doing their best to win favor. Also, I had no idea you were a mod until going to paste your name in, if that isn't intentional then maybe something like an additional icon or color change for your name might make it a bit more obvious.

(warning, lots of swearing/venting in this reply)
Nomascerdo: I didn't mean that kind of troll. I was going more for a defination along the lines of the unsociable, assholes who pollute my favorite websites with crap that no one cares about with lack of regard to the sites they wreak havoc on or the users they infuriate. People who I imagine to be self important assholes who don't care about others in real life as well. Maybe "griefers" would have been a better term. I didn't mention it, but no, I didn't read the comments, I'd rather this story just not be here, I've seen more RP discussions then any man should ever have to deal with anyway.

Empact: Indeed, I have been noticeing less, and less RP stories. I'm honestly not sure if it was from the backlash of users like me or from people wising up to the fact that too much information will make the public turn off. Either way, I'm glad. Really, I feel a big connection to moderate Liberaltarians, and am glad to see the Republican party changing to reflect this way of thinking. Even better though, would be a system with a few parties like we have here.

This is pretty much my view on Liberaliterianism, lifted from the Slashdot story" Why Are So Many Nerds Libertarians?":

There are two reasons that geeks tend to be social liberals. First, they've generally experienced the short end of the stick with respect to the sort of social conformity that conservatives and populists like. Telling other people who to live their personal lives and what kinds of entertainment they should enjoy doesn't go over well with geeks. They also tend not to buy into the "pep rally" form of patriotism that social conservatives favor.

Second, there's a greater trend in the geek population away from the sort of religious belief. Few geeks have the religious motivation to be against abortion and gay marriage, the two social rallying flags of social conservatives today in America.

So, that pretty much only leaves the economic axis to worry about to differentiate the remaining geek populace into either liberals or libertarians. This is why this Slashdot poll did not surprise me in the least. While there was no populist/authoritarian option, conservative was the least picked choice of the mainstream political beliefs, and liberal and libertarian were the top two.

So, then the question fundamentally comes down to, "What do you fear the most?"

1. An inefficient government running roughshod over you (taxation, interference in property rights, tyranny of the majority, etc).
2. Powerful, unaccountable private entities running roughshod over you (monopolies, externalities, inequity of power, etc).

Of course, this is a bit of an oversimplification (as is the notion that most people fit into these little political boxes), but it mostly suffices. I find that most libertarian and most liberal points of view come down to concerns that their favorite bogeyman will ruin everything if left unchecked and powerless. More nuanced views come from realizing that they both are pretty bad and that you have to make a choice how to balance them (even if you tend to throw the balance almost entirely one way or the other). The crazy ideologues you see here on Slashdot and elsewhere are the people who seem to never acknowledge that the other side's feared enemy is a problem too.

http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=286207&cid=20441809

The replies to it do a good job of clarifying the position as well.

This was really the last place I expected to be stuck staring at a RP story. I guess enough of his supporters were sending in stories to get this non-story featured. I wish that the editors of BB would realize the same thing that radio stations did in the 70's: The people calling in to request songs are not representative of the general audience.

I don't have much of a problem with RP, in fact I'm glad that the new right is going in this direction. His internet supporters, however, are detestable trolls.

They might be blocking gnutella as it is being used for command and control of the storm worm et al. That is, naturally, an over reaction, but it is not as if they like P2P networks anyway.