If the ISP is throttling certain services to speeds lower than what the customer is paying for, that is fraud and should already be covered by existing consumer protection laws.

It should be, but it's a damned hard thing to prove without comprehensive traffic analysis and the ISPs know this. Your ISP is going to point the finger at Netflix for the slow speeds (because their own VoD services work just fine, thank you), and to their service commitment that says "best effort", and the combination of those two claims is going to get you effectively shot down in court if you don't have anything else concrete. Most people aren't going to spend the time and money pursuing such a claim for a $50/month account.

And you bet your ass the city won't lift a finger to fix anything unless they are generating revenue from it

Cities have something that private companies don't - a degree of accountability to the voters. Around here, if city-maintained infrastructure (water, sewer, etc.) went down and wasn't fixed within a very short time, the mayor, city manager, and city council would start hearing about it, and they're well aware that a substantial portion of the folks here do vote in local elections. If that's not the case where you live, you have larger problems than the city taking too long to fix stuff.

What GP has not mentioned is that someone has to own and maintain this "public" line and if it's the city, you bet your ass they are going to charge you for it one way or another.

I'm not sure I see a problem with that, so long as all ISPs are charged pole rent on an equal basis.

I think the copyright laws in the US need reform, but frankly if I were to write a book, I'd like my descendants to benefit for some while.

Your descendants' benefit has nothing to do with why we have copyright. The ONLY reason copyright exists is because it was thought to be good to encourage people to create more that would become part of society's culture and knowledge by giving them a *limited* period of time to exclusively profit from that creation. It was not intended to become a never-ending gravy train for the creator and his heirs.

Why is it considered fair to limit patents to 20 years, but not copyrights?

Mine is one of the black ones, but you're probably right - I haven't taken mine apart.

I have a Unicomp as well, but I still prefer the Model M because the Unicomp doesn't have the steel plate in the bottom, and to me doesn't feel quite as solid. The keys are great, though.

Cognex cameras are the bomb. Where I worked, we had one system that did QA on time-release tablets, and could analyze around 30-40 tablets/second. Only problem is Cognex is well aware of their reputation, and charges accordingly.

Large / medium business, sure. But a household of 4-6 people?

I don't really think the service is aimed at residential customers, not at $400/month. That's dirt cheap for businesses though.

Wouldn't an impact wrench have been a more appropriate tool in that case?

Yes it would, but I didn't have one available at the time.

Or a regular wrench + a good number of firm taps with a hammer?

Tried that before breaking out the jack.

An 18" lever and floor jack sounds like a good recipe to break off a frozen bolt.

Yeah, it is a lot of times. After the first attempt, I let it sit for a couple of days with penetrating oil on it, and I had the drill ready to go if things went south. I was frankly surprised that the bolt *didn't* break, and even more surprised that the threads were perfectly clean, with just a little bit of blue Loctite on them.

Those parts are bigger than the output. The highest force is applied to the output, not the ratcheting mechanism, because the output is of lesser diameter.

That's assuming that the fastener is the smallest element in the system, and things get worse very quickly when the fastener is substantially bigger than the drive. In my particular case, it was a 1/2" drive on an 18mm socket, and it was the drive that broke. The size of the ratchet head was about an inch, so I'm guessing the ratchet itself was also around 18mm. Ratchet survived, but was kinda useless without the drive, and it wasn't worth it to open the wrench up and replace it. :-)

Having said that, I hadn't thought about grossly oversized ratchets/drives in conjunction with small fasteners. If you're turning a 1/2" bolt using a Hulk-like plastic ratchet with a 1" drive, you will have a lot more mechanical advantage to work with.

If a finer part of the tool survived but a thicker broke, doesn't it seem very plausible that the tool was either badly designed or that the manufacturer have problems in their molding process.

I guarantee that was the case (although steel hand tools are generally forged, not molded) - it's not like I was using a high-end Snap-On wrench. Just the same, the crappiest steel tool is going to be stronger than any ABS tool of comparable dimensions.

You are talking about managing to break a hand powered tool. With a good design that have been correctly manufactured that shouldn't be possible. Plastic or steel, it is perfectly possible to create ratchets strong enough that your arm will break before the tool.

I also mentioned that the bolt was tight enough to require a floor jack to get enough torque on it, so it was under far more torque than any person could apply. That *still* should not have been adequate to break the drive, but it did. It's possible to make very strong ratchets with a variety of plastics in a size readily usable as a hand tool, but neither ABS nor PLA is one of them

3d printers are working in metals now. Carbon fiber as well.

The one in question doesn't, so this statement is irrelevant to the discussion.

I don't know how to deal with someone with so little vision that they can't understand the value of fabricating tools on site when the alternative costs thousands of dollars a pound and has turn-around measured in months.

Spend as much time as I have in tool manufacturing facilities and working with engineers to optimize production processes (including 3D sintering, which already was old news 10 years ago), and then once you've done that, go back and read the original post and explain where "little vision" comes from. I said nothing regarding 3D prototyping/manufacturing in general, but you'd know that if you actually read what I wrote.

" So I'd ask you to just stay away from the Internet."

Says the AC. Whatever, dude.

Absolutely, assuming you have the room to turn it and can otherwise get the wrench onto the fastener.

Yes, on space stations.

It certainly doesn't sound like it when you jump to the conclusion that the largest and sturdiest part of a tool would fail before the fine tool end that contacts the nut.

I'm not an M.E., but I've seen enough drives/ratchets break with intact sockets (and no, they weren't impact sockets) to know that one can't make that statement categorically.

so the force increases as you get closer to the nut/screw.

You're absolutely right, which means the *ratchet and drive* are under the highest stress.