I read it as:

EU Votes For Universal Phone Charger
The draft law was approved by an overwhelming majority: 550 volts to 12.

Hi,

>> I've noticed the IPs trace back to Microsoft or Amazon domains

This is probably stuff running on VMs in Amazon or Azure cloud services. Users can create VMs with insecure passwords and they are often the target of attacks.

If they really want to simulate life on Mars they should set up an internet connection with realistic latency built in. I think after a few days of waiting 60 minutes for Twitter and Facebook refreshes they will be tearing the walls down to get back to civilization...

Yes, you need square meals to make a well rounded diet.

I pretty much only read 2nd hand paperbacks. You can pay a couple of $ per copy from a 2nd hand bookshop or charity shop, read them, then give them back. You support charity / the local economy, and its pretty much carbon neutral.

>>while consuming a whole bag of chips or having that bagel covered in cream cheese

I love American food...

I visited the US for a week a while ago, and gained 3 kg (5 lb), I was aiming for 5 kg. If you go to Prague you go an a beer binge, in Amsterdam its a drugs bunge, but if you go to the US you go on a food binge.

I worked out that if I lived there for a year I would weigh about 230 kb (460 lb).

I was at an open day at a wind turbine. They had a small cage lift that could take two people at a time to the top, it took a long time, and there were a few people in the queue. As a joke I asked the operator "Can I climb up the ladder? it will be quicker!". Instead of saying "No, don't be stupid!" he handed me a harness and said "Of course! Go ahead...". Not being one to turn down a challenge I put the harness on, cliped in, and headed up the ladder. It was hard work, and I was not carrying any tools. It was also a bit scary.

I'd take that job. The climb to work is good excercise, and the view from the top is amazing.

Teaching or IT training is a good option.

I love the feeling on a Friday afternoon when a training course has gone well, the students are happy, the course is over, and you have the weekend to relax.

If you can travel a bit then delivering a couple of 3 or 5 day IT training courses in different cities can set you up financially for the month.

>>No, electrons from coal or oil are "dirty electrons".../

As long is it's not "Heavy Electricity" i'm happy with it.

Its not that expensive.

I have a demo that I run in Windows Azure where I spin up 16 servers to render a 1500 frame animation in HD quality. I demo it an conferances and user group meetings, it fits nicely into a one-hour session. It takes about 10 minutes to provision the environment and around 20 minutes to render the animation.

The total cost for compute time, storage and data transfer is less than $2.

In the UK there are a lot of charity shops selling used books. I buy a big stack or paperbacks for £1 to £3 each, then read through most of them, then take them back. It's a great way to get a cheap read, it's a great way to recycle, and most of the monay goes to charity.

Is the Maker Movement Making [I]it Cool [F]for Kids [T]to [B]be Nerds?

I had a 4 monitor setup once, when I was working on an instore advertising desplay system. It was great, but I kept loosing the mouse pointer...

I agree here. I had my boss splash out for a 27" monitor and a workstation class PC to have at home a couple of years ago. Today the workstation classs PC feels a bit slow, but the monitor is still one of the best you can buy, and will be on my desktop for many years to come....

After all that effort imagine his dissapointment when he rides it past a couple of hot chicks and they don't even notice (0:30).