I specifically asked Jeff Vogel about this, and he said, no, it was only Apple. Apple did not respond to my query, so I must presume their guilt in the matter.

Not quite, specifically this was the game Avernum in South Africa. Not DRM or nudity or anything like that, just bloody-mindedness on apple's part. I could have pirated it, but I prefer to pay Jeff for his work.

I once bought an iPad. I did a lot of research on it - it had had the best graphics processor and best processor at the time. Solid construction, very nice hardware. I may have even been willing to live with the OS restrictions. The geographical limitations of me buying an app from the iStore killed it for me. I even went as far as to contact the app author, who said his hands were tied. Willing buyer, willing seller, some fcuked up bastards in the middle. I will never go back.

Gave it to my dad. Works well for him though.

A warm fuzzy feeling inside. Not only because of killer robots and dying mosquitos, but because some idiot at PETA will be annoyed. My day is now complete. :P

I think that is a rather limited view. It may not be a religious system of thought, but it is based on various philosophies and systems of thought. Empiricism, naturalism, and so forth are subjects of belief, like it or not. If you dig deep enough, belief is at the bottom of everything.

A Project Euler kernel module would be an interesting way to solve some of those...

Take a look at GuitarBots (guitarbots.com). They seem to have no label deals though so the selection of music might not be so good..

That is the big issue with this sort of thing. If you want to play music made in the last 100 years or so, the guys need a deal with the labels which is probably stupidly expensive.

I bought Rocksmith without proper research. The Uplay crap sort of works, but my word is it annoying. And they make you use their "special cable" (glorified USB sound card with a 1/4" jack for a guitar, and a non standard connector). So basically I now have two shitty antipiracy measures to contend with. The game itself isn't too bad, but if you don't have some experience, it might push you into some bad habits.

I am not buying another ubisoft game. Ever.

A harmonic gearbox will reduce the backlash on a servo to zero, but then it all depends how much money you have to spend.

To be honest, I am quite surprised they weren't already using encoders and feedback control. That and a small PID loop and you can even minimize overshoot. Or just have acceleration/deceleration profiles...

I was actually responding to the comment, 'Anything "gas" is inherently unsafe.' If you read my comment in that light, you will see what I'm getting a - by comparison, safety is more closely negatively related to energy density and the ability to quickly extract that energy. It isn't so critical exactly what form you store the energy in, though lithium batteries are fairly scary. As is petrol. Diesel is pretty good though.

As far as I can tell, drafting trucks is pretty idiotic all by itself. You can't see where you're going, and in order for it to help (if you're too far back the turbulence may make things worse) you're so close that if he slams on breaks or hits something, you die.

The real problem is energy density. Almost anything with a reasonably high energy density is inherently unsafe, as most substances like that can (often by design) release that energy rapidly enough to be dangerous. Life is inherently unsafe. That new battery technology? That's going to be dangerous too.

There are no spitfires in that list, because the spitfire (and hurricane, and FW-190, Zero, etc) were all highly successful aircraft. However, they were not adaptable for general purpose aviation, hence they no longer fly outside of airshows/rich enthusiasts.

I just think it is a pity that eventually we may run out of merlins to power these things. I would love to see that restored mosquito fly. That was an amazing aircraft.

That is actually quite interesting thanks. I'll look into some of those, though I am often limited by what the client specifies.

Out of curiosity, what PLC system allows this? I haven't run into any that do so far, though I tend to avoid certain manufacturers when I can....