Comment Re:They all came here (Score 1) 474
I am in Mobile as well. Our driveway is nearly solid orange due to crushed acorns. My parents in Montgomery have the same problem. So it is definitely a regional phenomenon.
Comment Re:I'd support that... (Score 1) 601
Or how about a doctor who needs to be accessible immediately
Or the person on the transplant list that has to wait for years. It isn't just people on call.
Comment Re:INEXPENSIVE (Score 1) 372
For a small one look for a violet wand, an old quack medical device that is a mini handheld tesla coil. They are still being made for "sensation enthusiasts" so most sites that sell them are very NSFW. Prices are all over the place, but can be cheap at rummage sales and flea markets. The older/cheaper ones had a wax core and would overheat with extended use the newer designs can run for very long times.
For building: look up plans and scrounge. Or go the route we went through and get your company to sponsor you for the fall festival haunted house.
Comment Re:Anyone ever have to carry 3 or more pagers? (Score 1) 584
For a short while we had a rotating on call pager as well as our personal work pager. We changed companies on the personal ones while I had the on call. So I had 3 for a week of the overlap. Since I kept my pager on a silver chain leash (they leash me I leash it) I would just clip the other(s) to the chain.
I pulled the whole lot out to check the time at a SCA meeting and got a lot of questions about my collection. I told them I was taking donations, and ended up with 9 on the chain for the rest of the meeting. Wish I got a photo. None got a page while I had them.
Comment Re:Erector set! (Score 1) 785
Spin welder! http://www.inthe70s.com/toys/spinwelder0.shtml
Little Hitler
5
I know he's one of the worst dictators in history but just look how cute those cheeks are.
Home Wind-Power Turbines Make Headway 163
Pickens writes "Wind turbines, once used primarily for farms and rural houses far from electrical service, are becoming more common in heavily populated residential areas as homeowners are attracted to ease of use, financial incentives and low environmental effects. Experts on renewable energy say a convergence of factors, political, technical and ecological, is causing a surge in the use of residential wind turbines, especially in the Northeast and California. "Back in the early days, off-grid electrical generation was pursued mostly by hippies and rednecks, usually in isolated, rural areas," said Joe Schwartz, editor of Home Power magazine. "Now, it's a lot more mainstream." Some of the new "plug and play" systems can be plugged directly into a circuit in the home electrical panel and homeowners can use energy from the wind turbine or the power company without taking action. Schwartz says that even with the economic benefits, it can take 20 years to pay back the installation cost. "This isn't about people putting turbines in to lower their electric bills as much as it is about people voting with their dollars to help the environment in some small way," he said."
Submission + - Polaroid done with instant film by end of 2008 (nytimes.com) 3
joe_n_bloe writes: "Polaroid will cease production of instant film by the end of 2008.
This makes me sad, not because people won't be able to use Polaroid to take "instant" photos any longer, but because all of the other artistically important things you can do with Polaroid film will become more expensive (as stocks gradually run out) and, perhaps, eventually come to an end. To me, it's like discontinuing oil paint because you have painting tools in Photoshop."The company, which stopped making instant cameras for consumers a year ago and for commercial use a year before that, said today that as soon as it had enough instant film manufactured to last it through 2009, it would stop making that, too. Three plants that make large-format instant film will close by the end of the quarter, and two that make consumer film packets will be shut by the end of the year, Bloomberg News reports.
Submission + - TiVO Patent Upheld, Dish May Have to Disable DVR (arstechnica.com) 1
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a ruling by a lower court that Dish Network DVRs infringe upon TiVO's patent on a 'multimedia time warping system'. According to some analysts, this could not only make Dish liable for damages, it could force them to shut down their DVR service, harming their customers. The patent in question has already been reexamined once and the ruling on appeal (PDF) was unanimous."
Submission + - New botnet beats Storm, accounts for 32% of spam 4
Stony Stevenson writes: A new botnet that distributes male sexual enhancement pills spam has overtaken the notorious Storm worm botnet as the largest single source of the world's spam according to security vendor Marshal. Dubbed Mega-D, the botnet currently accounts for 32 percent of all spam, 11 percent more than the Storm botnet which peaked at 21 percent in September 2007. The botnet started about 4 months ago but has been steadily increasing since then. It is also using news headlines to trick victims into opening the spam, a technique synonymous with the Storm worm.
Doctor Who Series Four Is A Go 259
netglen writes to mention that the fourth series of Doctor Who is a go. The BBC confirms that another season of the popular sci-fi series will be made, although the article is sketchy about the current doctor and his attachment to the next season. The third series starts at the end of this month in Britain with new companion Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, replacing Billie Piper's Rose. "Tennant, who plays the time-travelling hero, would not talk to reporters about his role in future series. 'Do you know how many times I have been asked that question? Do you know how many times I have answered it?' said the actor. "
Submission + - Bot infestations "surge" to nearly 1.2M
mengel writes: "Accrording to the folks at SecurityFocus the number of bot-infested systems has surged to nearly 1.2 Million. This after a
big drop in December when lots of people replaced/upgraded
systems.
Time to upgrade your spam filtering software, the onslaught is coming..."
Time to upgrade your spam filtering software, the onslaught is coming..."
Feed Federal Judge Blocks Online Pornography Law (nytimes.com)
The 1998 law made it a crime for commercial Web sites to allow children to gain access to “harmful” material.
Submission + - Arizona gov admits to seeing Phoenix lights
stratjakt writes: The governor of Arizona now admits to having seen the Phoenix lights.
I for one welcome our crazy republican overlords.Symington says he saw a large triangular "craft of unknown origin" with lights, moving slowly. "It was dramatic. And it couldn't have been flares because it was too symmetrical", he says. "It had a geometric outline, a constant shape."
Submission + - Intuit Charges More if Cookies are Off
Lauren Weinstein writes: "Intuit's Amazing Web Pricing Roulette" — Lauren —"
