Right. It has no integrated circuits. There's no way it doesn't have a computer. It couldn't receive signals and fire its thrusters otherwise.

A collection of discreet electronic components hardly qualifies as a computer.

Um...what was this, then? It wasn't even the first transistorized computer, let alone the first electronic computer (which would've used vacuum tubes to implement logic). It's a rather large "collection of discrete electronic components," with not so much as a 7400 to be found within its cabinets.

Even the smaller collection of components within ISEE-3 is able to act on radio input to control thrusters, instruments, and such, and to route instrument outputs to the transmitter to send them back to Earth. It might not have a general-purpose CPU controlling it, but neither did (for instance) many of the video games that were on the market around the same time it was under development.

SMTP in/out will be blocked so no email servers without ugly hacks and middleware.

Have your SMTP server respond on a non-standard port (such as 588) as well as the standard ports, and you can connect to it from within Cox's network. Auto-configuration in some mail clients makes this a little bit of a pain, but you only have to set it up once.

If you're talking about running a server on their network, they want you to fork over the extra $$$ for business-grade service. I did that for a while, but residential service and a VPS are faster and cheaper.

Even that would not be so bad IF THEY ORGANIZED THEIR FORUMS AND FIXED THE SEARCH FUNCTION.

Most forum software search functionality sucks burro balls. This isn't just an issue for support forums for a product, but web forums in general. In most cases, though, you can use Google (or whoever) to search the forum and get the results you need.

They're taking things from the open source RepRap community and attempting to patent them. Do not support MakerBot.

First this, and now this. MakerBot needs to DIAF.

Or the brute force solution. Break it apart and reform it in the correct color order.

This. I noticed that the Google doodle is missing this functionality. :-)

Heck, wasn't the iSight the only webcam for Firewire?

No. (I have one of these kicking around somewhere...worked much better than most of the USB webcams that were on the market back in the day.)

No one owns a car for 10 or 20 years anymore

With an '04 Alero and a '77 Cutlass Supreme in the garage, I must be "no one." :-|

Repeated press of start/stop (e.g. in a panic) should display emergency information, and possibly also shut off ignition, but not any other systems.

Given that the power-steering pump and brake booster both need the engine running in order to function, how would you propose to do that?

(In fairness, the brake booster frequently has its own vacuum reserve that will allow it to function once or twice with the engine off. The power-steering pump, OTOH, definitely isn't working without the engine running.)

It's actually a fairly modern idea to have the same key fit both the ignition switch and the car doors.

If by "modern" you mean they were doing it in the 90's, I guess.

It wasn't until 2002 that I had something that only took one key. Two keys was standard practice before then. Hell, the previous owner rekeyed the trunk on my '77 Cutlass so it needs three keys, but that's definitely atypical.

Now get off my lawn!

Optical discs aren't a proper backup either unless you store them offsite...

...which is exactly what I do. I have close to 200 BD-Rs in a binder in my desk at work. They hold 20 GB each, with the remaining space used for dvdisaster error recovery. I knocked together a script to pack as many files onto each disc as will fit. The scripts themselves (and the database they use) also get backed up offsite, to a VPS.

Hauppauge PVR-150 works in 32-bit Win7.

It (and the PVR-250/350/500) also works well under Linux, either 32- or 64-bit. I used these for a few years with MythTV. I think I still have a PVR-250 in this computer, but haven't used it in ages. I'm ripping a bunch of DVDs and SVCDs to my server before I unload them; if I have any tapes that haven't been superseded by some newer source, maybe I'll rip those next. I think the last time I used this card was for a PAL-VHS to NTSC-DVD conversion...that was interesting.

This would be great for NAS if they make motherboards with a large number of SATA ports.

This. In my home server, I have an A4 on one of these, which has six SATA ports. It's probably about as fast as the Core 2 Duo that was in it previously, it uses not much power at all (though probably still more than these new chips), and I think I didn't spend much more than $70 or so for the CPU and motherboard. I'm currently using one port for the boot drive and three for the data drives (JBOD with Greyhole). That gives me 7.5 TB, with selectable redundancy so a drive failure doesn't kill my docs or photos (video and music can be restored from BD-R), and I still have two ports available before I need to add a card.

I'm just not so sure that processed soybeans fried in rapeseed oil and salt water is any healthier than meat.

Meat doesn't lead to gynecomastia, either, unlike soy protein.

Just remember to deduct that $100 next year (for those that don't know, tax prep fees are deductible).

Not always. Tax-prep fees go in a part of Schedule A for which there's a minimum you have to meet (2% of adjusted gross income) before you can deduct anything. The $500+ my wife and I forked over to H&R Block last year? Not deductible. :-P

OTOH, I was able to do my own filing this year by looking at what forms had been generated last year and making changes where appropriate. I grabbed the fillable forms from the IRS website, filled them in with Okular, printed them out, stapled our W-2s to them, and stuffed them into an envelope. Since we still owed money (less than $100 this year, vs. $3000+ last year...w00t!), I don't care how long it takes for the mail to get through and for the IRS to do its processing.

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