Great, thanks! I am definitely getting some good info. 10 or 15 years ago when I was doing a lot of oddball stuff I'd have probably had one of these things ASAP. These days its hard to find the space and time to do projects, so I really am behind the curve. I have some interesting ideas, but nothing so solid that it yet warrants running out to spend $1000 (ouch) right now. At least I'm getting a better idea of what might be useful. Hopefully I can find a maker space that isn't too far away one of these days and try a few things out.

So when do you ride down Electric Avenue on that Harley?

I was going to respond only to your first paragraph, but your last paragraph proves what I'm about to say.

Abstinence education can work, when you encourage critical thinking along with it and do not try to use ignorance to protect innocence. I took what I learned after I was married in Catholic NFP classes, and am using it to teach my special needs son about sex. Being well aware that his body will outpace his mind and critical thinking skills on this issue, I started early with my form of abstinence education- about age 5. Now at 11, he is both protective of his own eyes (hiding during certain scenes in Big Bang Theory, a show he otherwise enjoys) and protective of other people's modesty (necessary, since mommy runs a daycare) . He's already run into homosexuality at school, and handled it by coming to adults with the issue rather than attempting to dissuade a rather aggressive same-age predator on his own.

I have no doubt whatsoever that by high school, he'll be a leader, not a follower, when it comes to sex, and will be armed with the ability to make the correct decision when it comes to abstinence before marriage.

But only because we've talked about it, and because I've been honest.

How much math does it take to use a slingshot?

I get what you're saying. Most of the stuff Dremel sells is generally pretty decent stuff, or always used to be back in the day. If its a good machine and does what you need to do, then sure, that's cool. I can just imagine a LOT of interesting projects I might want to do that where I might want to use other materials or etc. So that's my curiosity really is if I spent $1000 on a machine like this one will I be hankering for the $3000 machine in a week?

Is it me or does it sound a bit underwhelming for $1000? I don't mean the price is non-competitive, it just seems like I'd want something more capable if I was going to take the plunge. Burn $1000 and in a week won't you be hankering for a much more capable machine?

Yeah, can't figure out how a gender studies major ever gets anything other than the type of job gender studies are supposed to eliminate.

Law enforcement began as [any given region's] largest street gang, long before recorded history.

You mean that that was in the brief period where it was a relatively popular idea to make law enforcement something better than that

As a Californian, it sure would be nice for the drought to end, but the last time El Niño struck, a mountain fell on my house. It's still there, the house holding back the mountain. I'd like to not repeat that experience.

Here in California we have four seasons just like everywhere else:

Sunny
Hot
Flooding
On Fire ...what, you don't have On Fire where you come from?

dry wave power=wind

feed the energy into water to produce hydrogen, I think he means.

Or just in an emergency, raise the gate on the wave device and let the water wash UNDER it.

Most moralities, that's true. For one, however, it is implied by the physical universe we live in, and is as objective as physics.