The old technology I am giving up are the wringers on top of washing machines.

They're dangerous (you can get your fingers caught) and they mess up more delicate fabrics. Also, the newer washing machines with the agitators that churn the wash around do just as good a job.

Also, zippers. Velcro is much easier to work with and it never gets stuck and it doesn't hurt as much to snag your dick on velcro.

Similar technology was used to look for undiscovered chambers in Egyptian pyramids in the 80's, if memory serves

Of course. Where do you think The Mummy came from?

I love science.

Dr Manhattan is unlikely to come into being from energetic mouons interacting with fissile reactor fuel rods.

I'm sure they said a spider-man was unlikely to come into being from being bitten by a radioactive spider, too. But guess what happened.

Either way, as someone who doesn't know from nothing, I'm completely in favor of bombarding nuclear rods with muons. Because I like saying "muons". "Muons...muons..." If you watch yourself in the mirror when you say "muon" your mouth makes a little kissyface. Fun!

Now please excuse me. This bottle of single-malt isn't going to drink itself.

Also, Olympus E-1 pro digital camera (just 5 megapixels, but weather sealed and with 160,000 shutter actuations and counting).

Oh, and printing stuff.

I get the feeling there's a superhero origin story somewhere in all this "Let's bombard active nuclear fuel rods with muons and see what happens".

But if I'm trying to game on an old i5-750, wouldn't this be a good time to upgrade to one of the cheaper 4-core Haswells that are running 3.8mhz instead of 2.7? Maybe a Haswell i5 (I guess, I'd need a new mobo then, right?) And the latest PCI-E for a new graphics card.

I don't like to buy the newest and best, but when the second newest becomes cheap. I've got a really nice case, but I'm not sure if I could put a new processor into my old motherboard or if it would even be worth it.

I'd like to do something before the fall games come out. Would I be better off just upgrading my old Radeon HD6850 to a nvidia 760 or a Radeon R9 285 or something?

And did I fall through a wormhole and end up at Tom's Hardware?

Yesterday in my repair shop

Wait, there are still computer repair people?

Say, if I buy a new video card, you think you could come over to my house and install it before Assassin's Creed Unity comes out? There's $50 in it for you. I live in Chicago.

3 secs should be just enough to click the "more information" link.

I'm pretty sure that unless he's suffering from the DTs, it won't take him 3 seconds to click a link.

Most won't even care about that, they just install without reviewing.

I doubt it's much different in other platforms. Mac OS or Android or Linux. When there is an update, most people don't have the time to carefully go over what it's doing. Nor should they.

When the plumber comes to my house, as he did yesterday, all I care about is that the hot water is coming and the toilets flush. I don't crawl under the sink to see if he properly greased the pipes or whatever the hell it is plumbers do.

I have met people who work for Microsoft and Apple and they are neat and earnest and are by all appearances proper and trustworthy citizens. I've also met people who contribute to open source OSs. They look like the guy who stands on the on-ramp with a sign asking for change. A little bit dangerous with greasy hair and a a psychotic glimmer in the eyes.

I'm kidding of course, and just tweaking people who use Linux (like myself), but as Eclipse (played by Frank McRae) said to Sylvester Stallone upon his imprisonment in the classic American film Lock Up, "You gotta trust somebody. Let me hip you to the joint."

some might find it more convenient than dealing with dodgy/illegal web sites, poor quality cracks, possible malware, and other annoyances.

The top torrent sites are a lot less "dodgy" than uplay (and have better uptime), and the best of the scene outfits put out cracked products that are often more stable than the companies that produce the games.

How many times have we heard about games that had huge problems because of their DRM that were fixed in the torrent?

There may be arguments for using Valve/Origin/Uplay etc over torrents but the ones you mention aren't really among them.

Just over a month ago, Steam has a sale on some very big games, like Wolfenstein: New Order and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. (maybe it's all the colons that take up the space.

It doesn't take too many games at over 20gig each, along with Netflix for the wife and streaming music before you're knocking on 150gig.

Why in the world the Wolfenstein game came out to over 40 gig I'll never know, but sure enough, for the first time I got the email from AT&T that I was at 90% of my limit. Fortunately, it was two days before the billing cycle rolled over, so I didn't have to pay.

I quite likely have, but I am not so crass as to go around asking random strangers in the gym what their orientation is.

This is why I love Slashdot. I discussion of internet overcharging and ATM encapsulation quickly pivots to the etiquette of showering with gay men at the gym.

Honestly, I love each and every one of you. In a purely platonic way, of course, though given enough vodka and grapefruit juice, who knows?.

That's it. I'm definitely not going into space.

NASA, please take my name off the list. I've changed my mind.

The problem with solar is that it requires an upfront investment that pays back over a long term but does not significantly increase the value of your home.

It may surprise you, but some people buy homes to live in them. Not to flip in 3 years for a profit.

And I don't believe there's enough data in various markets to know whether or not solar panels would increase the value of a house more than their installation price (which is coming down, by the way).

Sure they do. Corporatist Democrats play for the same team of rich elitists than Corporatist Republicans. Why do you think that no matter what else happens to the economy, the bankers always get their dough? No matter what happens to the economy, Wall Street gets taken care of first.

And no banker ever goes to jail.