I was concerned I would annoy my wife to death but the banjo sounds good even in the hands of a beginner.

Ha. Ha. Haha. Hahaha! Hahahahahahahahahaahahahahaahhhahahahaahaha!!!!!!!! [Gasp for breath]! Sounds good! Good one! I would make another joke here, but I sense I would not be alone. As such, I'll simply let others chime in.

Here's my thoughts. The problem with the Guitar Hero-like games is that they have nowhere to go.

They have a somewhat clunky controller that can't be made much more complicated or much more responsive without having something that, in twitch complexity, might as well be playing the real thing. Plus today you could build a training tool that looks a lot like a game by combining a MIDI-guitar with a simplified display showing the next fingering position and which strings to pick for close to the same cost as a more complex controller. So moving up in complexity starts making it look too much like training and who wants that?

It's time to practice your guitar lessons, Maurice... Yawn after three weeks.

Thank you. I should have known. I know conning tower, although I thought it came a shortened form of control, with the "n" doubled to make it still sound like "kawn"when -ing was appended. I assume it's an abbreviation of the -ing form. Or is there another derivation?

Anyhow, knowing this, I sort of like the pun it implies with my original post - it might even get the TOS fanbois vs. the reboot fanbois (are there any yet?) riled up.

... you have the con.

RIP, Leonard. Godspeed.

It will never do anything impressive and no one will ever use it, but it will exist and has already taught me why I hate the x86 processor line in about 18,000 different ways :)

it worries me somewhat that you hadn't figured out that last bit before you started the project, but I wish you luck anyway.

If they can create the parts that fast, why don't they just power it up, see which parts fail, and improve those, rather than trying to improve it before testing? After all, they can reprint broken/worn parts (and probably reassemble) within a 2-3 week period.

Granted, I know the grad students and postdocs need to write their papers, and I know sintered metal isn't always as strong as parts made via other methods, but two years seems a bit long for the fire-up process.

"fifth most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of domestic box office receipts with totals at just over $2 billion"

Ding ding ding... We have our writer!

Uh, if you're transplanting the entire head, the optic nerves should already be intact. Just sayin'...

Man has this place ever gone down hill.

Regardless of whether by "this place" you mean "Slashdot", "this country", or "the world", I have a sneaking suspicion you're right.

If that option is excluded, what else can I do?

Recycle it? It's not worth the power it's wasting.

Besides, if you haven't needed the data on it and transferred it/used it since then, other than the geek dick measuring aspects of it, why in God's name are you doing this? More importantly, why are you bothering us about it? The mid-90's, as far as laptops go, might as well be the dark ages.

Is it's event horizon gaining on us?

I'm so sorry for your situation and for the sorrow I'm sure it will bring to your family.

All I can say is that we all have different paths through this life and, as such, we all have different things that would be important to us. I would simply say to ask yourself if this is the most important thing you want your daughter to know of you. If it is, I'm sure you'll find some good advice here. If it is not, you owe it to yourself to both yourself and her to say those other things first. I hope you've actually gotten to the point where this really is the most important thing you want to talk about with her. If so, you are a lucky man, regardless of the final outcome, for she knows your heart already.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Yes, but it often makes JUSTICE.

Yeah, they've gotten more visibility since the Kia comercials.

Because [random person] went to a few teabagger meeting, extended his sensory tendrils, and discerned racism, then the Tea Party is forever thoughtcrime.

No, not thoughtcrime. Just not embraced by people who see that together with anything remotely sensible from the TEA Party, there's huge swathes of nonsense that needs to be "honored" to "respect" its crackpot hangers on. It's not the (very few) good ideas, it's the huge number of bad ideas that seem to be pushed along with them. In the future, thank you for not trying to get us to support people who have mostly bad ideas by attempting to whitewash the bad ideas with the good.