'Decent speaker cable', according to the reply to your original post, is simply cable of sufficient diameter to lower resistance. This is correct -- any two conductors of sufficient size will work fine in this application. Induced noise isn't an issue at the voltage levels required to drive a loudspeaker, so no shielding is required (or desired -- shielded cable would introduce capacitance issues that would potentially cause your amplifier some distress). I do sound reinforcement for extra cash sometimes; I have personally used two sets of booster cables and 500 feet of barbed wire fence as a speaker 'cable' for an outdoor event. I mostly use bulk lamp cord in normal situations. Monster Cable is largely unnecessary and overpriced (and, frighteningly, is generally regarded as low-end among the cork-sniffing segment of the pro-audio world).

A tube amp may emphasize either even or odd order harmonics, depending on the circuit design in the output stage. A single-ended output stage (one in which one or more tubes are used to simply amplifies the current of the input waveform) will indeed tend to emphasize even-order harmonics. Many tube hi-fi amps use a Class A single-ended output stage for this reason. An amp with a push-pull output stage (one in which the input waveform is split into two, with one phase-inverted 180 degrees from the other, and each new waveform sent to one half of one or more output tube pairs, which are biased so that each member of each pair essentially amplifies the current of one half of the original input waveform) will tend to emphasize odd-order harmonics, as even-order harmonics present in the signal will be canceled out when the signals are recombined by the output transformer. Most guitar amplifiers (probably the most common use of vacuum tubes anymore) are Class AB, push-pull amplifiers, which, aside from being much more efficient than single-ended amps, add mid-frequency punch to what would be a somewhat thin tone otherwise.

/Finally, a chance to use my archaic, outdated electronics knowledge for something. =P

Transistor amplifiers typically have a much faster slew rate than tubes. The slowness of tube amplifiers is mostly related to the rectification stage, though -- in older amps, a diode tube such as a 5AR4 or 5U4 is used, which can have a slew rate of 100 ms or more under some circumstances. Newer tube amplifiers typically, though not always, have solid-state rectification (usually 1N4007 diodes in a bridge configuration), which slew much faster.

Another characteristic of tube amplifiers that is of interest to musicians is harmonic content. Where a transistor amplifier simply takes an input sine wave and outputs an amplified version of the same wave, a tube amplifier will output dozens of harmonic waves as well. A "clean" sounding tube amp likely outputs a signal with 10 to 15% THD. A single-ended amplifier (one in which one or more output tubes simply increase the power of a signal) will tend to emphasize even-order harmonics (even-numbered multiples of the input frequency). An amplifier in a push-pull configuration (one in which two or more output tubes are paired, with each member of a pair amplifying one half of the input waveform) will tend to cancel even-order harmonics and emphasize odd-order harmonics (odd-numbered multiples of the input frequency).

A couple of weeks ago, I worked on a modern tube amp which was designed to allow flexibility in all of these areas. It had multiple stages which could each be overdriven separately or together for different overload characteristics, rectification switchable between tube and solid-state, and an output stage switchable between push-pull and single-ended. It even had multiple bias/plate voltage presets to allow use of multiple tube types in the output stage. Complicated, but kind of cool, too.

And the grandparent is correct regarding the gullibility of audiophiles. Anyone who would spend $60/foot on "premium speaker cable", when dollar-store lamp cord will conduct the same voltages and frequencies in an identical fashion should probably have their picture posted next to 'gullible' in the dictionary. =P

/me raises hand sheepishly. I'm still using the IBM Model M keyboard that I got with a cast-off 286 (the first computer I ever had that was mine, and not shared with someone else) in the mid-1990s. It's the only keyboard I've ever owned; I found it to be a little surreal when they became collectors' items in the past decade or so. I'm also still using a no-name $8 PS/2 mouse (one of the early optical mice) that I got about ten years ago. Maybe I should turn in my geek card for not bothering to upgrade my old junk, but it works fine for my purposes, and the last time I bought a motherboard (a couple of years ago, IIRC) it wasn't difficult to find one with PS/2 ports. When the ports are finally gone, I'll buy a cheap PS/2 to USB adapter.

I looked up the figures on the New York State government website, I would be surprised if New York City was not included. This doesn't 'skew' any figures; the figures are either accurate or they aren't. It is possible that the two states aren't easily comparable, but I think they are, as long as differences between them are taken into account in the comparison (as I did, using per-capita government spending rather than overall spending, for example). Both states had major businesses within them fail badly in 2008 (auto in Michigan, Banking in New York). Jobs were lost in both sectors of the economy; IIRC, finance was actually hit harder. Both sectors of the economy were subsequently bailed out by the Federal government. New York is doing relatively better now. If the great-grandparent were correct, that higher taxes, government spending, and unions were the cause of Michigan's economic woes, this would not be the case, as all of those things are more prevalent in New York.

Or, to word things differently, why is New York City, in your words, a "major business & finance centre" even though taxes and government spending are extremely high, and union membership is common? Is it possible, as I stated in my initial post, that taxes, government spending, and unions have much less of an effect on economies than the great-grandparent is asserting?

Michigan's corporate tax rate is the ninth lowest in the nation, at 4.95%. I can't speak to any relevant regulations, as I'm not familiar with them, but I would be interested to know what they are.

Michigan's budget for FY 2010-2011 is $47.5 billion. This is in line with other states of its size and population. See above about tax rates. What about the business climate there is problematic?

Michigan is sixth-highest in the nation with regard to the rate of union membership, with 710,000 union members, or 18.8% of the state's workforce.

By comparison, the state I live in, New York, has a higher corporate tax rate (7.1%), a much higher budget of $131.8 billion (but a much higher population -- I think a better measure is per-capita spending, where New York still wins (or loses, depending on how you look at it) with a per-capita spending of a little less than $7,000, compared to Michigan's per-capita spending of $4,750. New York also has a much higher rate of union membership (highest in the nation, actually), with over 2 million union members, or 25% of the workforce.

Currently, New York's unemployment rate is 8.3%, less than the national average, while Michigan's unemployment rate is second-highest in the nation, at 12.4% (only Nevada is higher, at 14.3%). Clearly, while the things you mention may be contributing factors to Michigan's economic troubles, they are not the primary factor. Actually, the primary factor is that Michigan has far too homogeneous an economy, relying far too much on the automobile industry. So, when the auto industry has problems, Michigan has problems. In a recession, a new car is a luxury; if your existing one is working and repairs cost less than a new car payment, you're not going to buy one. Not to mention that foreign auto manufacturers have been steadily eating into sales of domestic automobiles for decades, now.

You're not wrong, which is why I mentioned it in my second post. While I was making my first one, I quite honestly forgot that my situation was unusual. I live a bit of a sheltered life. =P

And, while it is relevant, I don't think it ultimately matters too much -- scaling of solar installations is rather straightforward.

I should have been more specific, here, because we're splitting hairs. In full moonlight, my charge controller will register enough current coming from the panel to activate its charge mode. It will not, however, charge my battery bank to any significant degree. I mentioned this to support my point that direct sunlight is not necessarily required for a solar panel to generate power.

I think my panel is 65W, actually. You're not wrong about its capabilities, but it meets my needs and then some. Four lamps with 6W CF bulbs, a small 12V water pump, a modest computer, and a 15W guitar amplifier are the entirety of the appliances in my house, though. Were I to ever need more appliances, I would simply add panels and batteries, or even upgrade my inverter (currently an older 10A Trace) as necessary. I won't pretend that my needs are average, though.

It sounds like your solar panels work well in the aggregate on cloudy days based on your own statistics. While clouds can cut power generation by 80% of their optimal output, in practice, you have averaged 52% of optimal output over a period of 7 days, or 74% of your estimated normal average. I have noticed roughly similar performance with my system, and I think it is very reasonable. Not that there is a scientific definition for the phrase "quite well", either. :)

P.S. Thanks for posting the stats about your system, btw -- you have added real, valuable data to the discussion. Cheers!

I live in the Northeast, and I have powered my house with a solar panel for almost ten years (there is no municipal electrical service where I live). A sunny day isn't required for the panels to work; they work better in full sunlight, but work quite well with cloud cover. Mine will even charge my batteries slowly on a clear night when the moon is full. They actually work better in the winter -- even though the days are shorter, reflected light from snow cover results in greater ambient light and by extension, better charging. Does it snow much in DC?

My solar panel is 18" x 48", IIRC, and I just have the one. It's an older model, and not as efficient as the new ones, but it meets all of my admittedly modest electrical needs and then some. This will work fine, assuming it's properly engineered.

Classic Doom 3. It's not exactly what you want (they only ported the shareware episode), but they did a reasonably good job with that, and it's free anyway.

I believe that in a Toyota, the brakes are still largely a mechanical system. The ABS/brake assist system can interact with that system, and normally works by reading wheel-speed sensors and closing one or more (some systems have a valve for each wheel, so that different braking patterns can be applied to different wheels simultaneously) mechanical valve between the master cylinder and the brakes.

For your theory to be correct, the engine control unit would have to fail in such a way that the throttle is held open and stops responding to input while fuel injection, airflow, and everything else work normally (all of these functions are controlled by the same system), and, simultaneously, the anti-lock braking system (these are independent systems) would have to fail in such a way as to hold all of the brake valves closed.

To the best of my knowledge, this sort of interference should be quite unlikely to occur. The car's computers are contained in grounded metal enclosures, so any induced interference should be grounded away from the computers. Additionally, digital devices, unless they operate at a very low voltage (probably less than 500 mV) are not extraordinarily susceptible to electronic interference. That said, very unlikely doesn't equal impossible.

In a typical car (disclaimer: I don't know whether Toyota builds theirs this way) the engine control unit will control many engine parameters beside the throttle; fuel injection, fuel-air ratio, RPMs, etc. If the ECU were to crash, the engine would just stall (not that this couldn't happen, of course; however, "My car stalled, but it started again a minute later. I took it to my mechanic, and he couldn't find anything wrong." doesn't make for high-visibility recalls.)

For the unintended acceleration problem to have an electronic or software-related cause, several largely independent systems in the car would have to fail in fairly specific ways at once, which is a one-in-a-million occurrence. Of course, there are how many millions of Toyotas on the road?

I tend to think that Toyota's mistake in all of this initially was to work backward from the assumption that every instance of unintended acceleration has an identical cause. It's also pretty obvious that they initially had no idea of a possible cause. Compounding this is that the condition is quite rare (there are, what, a few dozen confirmed reports?) We know that there are at least two causes already: Floor mat interference with the accelerator, and a mechanical flaw in the accelerator assembly. I suspect operator error could be a possibility in some cases, as well.

I think this is a bit paranoid. I don't think Toyota has had significantly more complaints of unintended acceleration than any other manufacturer, once you adjust for market share, but the raw number is much higher, so they are subjected to increased scrutiny. If it is some sort of conspiracy, I don't think it will work out all that well, though; I read that the overwhelming majority of Toyota owners would still purchase another one in the future. Toyota does have a lot of brand loyalty and good will, though they are undoubtedly spending some of that now.

Yes, you get a downloaded installer. It doesn't phone home or need anything from the site to do the install, so you can reinstall the game as many times as you want, even if GOG goes out of business. Their license even allows multiple installs.

I don't have net access at home, as I live too far out of the way for municipal services. I used to purchase my games in the store, then after getting burned a few times by single-player games that required a net connection to validate the CD key on install, and not being able to return them, I stopped buying. Later, I discovered GOG, and now my gaming dollar goes there (and it goes a long way, too). I go to the library, buy a game or three, download them to my flash drive, and they just work. The latest patch is already installed, no stepping through the executable with a debugger and fixing it with a hex editor so it doesn't have to check the CD when it starts up, just install and play. Their new offering, Arcanum, is downloading as I type this.

I live in an area that isn't serviced by an electric company, so I have a small solar array. My power is always a perfectly clean 117 volts at the wall (at least until my inverter fails, I guess). I still have all of the CF bulbs I bought 15 years ago at $30 each. A friend who has normal electrical service bought some of the same ones at the same time, and none of them lasted more than three years. So, yeah, electrical quality is important.