THAT PROBLEM IS CREATED BY THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

They don't have as much overhead and staff without it.

Go old-school - Radium!

I bought my Casio in 2005, it's solar rechargeable. I've worn it daily with the original batter every since I bought it, never a problem and the time is always right. I'm too utilitarian to want something that needs constant attention. Maybe it comes from being a tech, I get tired of fixing problems and see no reason to generate them.

Great watch.

I like those cargo pants that you linked to. What I can't tell on yours for certain, but one picture seems to say yes, is if it has a data pocket or not. The pockets on mine actually have another pocket under them that's vertical "behind the flap" and in the middle. I put my phone in one and often my Bluetooth mouse in the other where the big pockets are still available for other use. I gave up on belt holsters for my phone years ago and just bought pants that have their own, when I got laid off from NASA I switched to these from carpenters (carpenters appear to be the defacto standard at both Johnson and Kennedy).

I lost most of my really old stuff when hurricane Ike hit, I'm looking to get a new buckling springs keyboard soon with the requirement that it be multi-media, controlling volume at the system level seems to have won out over controlling at the speakers as time moved on and finding a good multi-media keyboard is a bit of a challenge. Daskeyboard appears to be my answer, even though I would prefer one of the model M clones from pckeyboard.com otherwise.

I'm from the American Southwest (even though I live in the Gulf region now). I'm the black-sheep geek from a family that has rural roots, both settler and Indian on my dads side, and poor European immigrant on my moms. Cast iron isn't even a question where I'm from, using something else makes as much sense as using a crescent wrench instead of the proper sized wrenches or not painting a steel fence. Cast iron is just what you cook with, be it the ever useful and popular skillet, the dutch oven, or my moms favorite the small griddle. Works equally well on a camp fire or stove. You find that lot in rural country people, these fancy ceramics and (now proven dangerous) Teflon stuff is just yuppy toys to us. I guess you can take me out of the sticks, but some of the sticks are still here.

I haven't had plants in quite a long time, not since I last had a house.

I stopped collecting old hardware! I still have a few things here and there, but considering it's my profession I've done well in the getting rid of stuff department. (I've probably got a few too many bike parts however)

I've integrated most of my stuff and I'm integrating further. I'm actually going to commit the heresy of ditching my game consoles for emulators soon (once I get the system rock-solid reliable) and combine it all into one entertainment PC in the living room (that can network to other rooms if needed).

I wear pants with leg pockets! (seriously, these Wranglers are a god-send for geek use - even passes for business casual)

I've been letting my beard go a bit wild, I only use a little soap in it and I clip off anything that becomes annoying.

I love cast-iron! The non-stick ceramic, easy break, can't use metal utensils in stuff vs. my cast-iron and stainless has been a little mini-war. I do need to pass my cast iron over a proper open wood fire and have a real grease fire in it to season it a little better, but I'm almost to the point where I can fry an egg on it without it sticking.

Looks at decorative towels and wash clothes in bathroom we're not allowed to use taking up prime realestate that would be great for useful things.

Looks at fake flowers sitting on top of storage furniture I access frequently that must be moved before accessing said stored objects and returned.

Looks at useless decorative items that must remain on kitchen counter despite being useless, in the way, and knocked around regularly.

Thinks of how many times I've been asked to hold a purse because it's impractical for the owner to do things, or carry something in my pockets because the objects owner didn't bring their own pockets.

Thinks of how the toilet paper is stored in the closet at the entry of the dwelling because the storage areas in the bathroom are taken care of rarely used beauty products and appliances.

My head is shaved - literally a bar of soap, a stick of deodorant, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor and some shaving gel is all I have for bathroom use in comparison.

I call this quote for the summary into question

Firefox is quite nice and quite usable, and the problems with their old versions of sync, which is why I delved into Chrome for a little while, are gone. I like Firefox so much now days I even use it on my Android phone.

ChromeOS on the other hand is friggin great overall. So much so I think Mozilla should answer it on PCish devices (I actually had this idea years ago before ChromeOS when I was a Mozilla holdout refusing to go Firefox).

I've got an old Cisco small business router on the Ethernet side and an Ubiquiti for wireless. Can't complain. Wouldn't mind something a little newer than that Cisco up front just for a Gigabit switch built in instead of the 10/100, but it doesn't really matter on the broadband side and the Blue Ray player and Wii are all that's really plugged into that, so whatever.

any type of device, they won't get my money for even a power strip.

They earned my boycott honestly years ago. I still haven't let them off the hook. Comments on that article exposed other reasons not to even give them the satisfaction of wiping your ass their products.

I have World of Goo on nearly everything I own!

(Wii, Phone, Linux machine, and every my work Mac and work Windows machine)

I love that first link! They even drew the harpoons!

Microscopic invisible critters living on magnets shoot out invisible rubber band tethered harpoons at anything metal they see nearby. These beings are known as Magtonians. They feed on metal, but since they're microscopic you'll never actually see the damage. You can prove this by holding a magnet in your fingers and getting it close the metal, you can feel the rubber bands stretch and snap as you move the magnet close to metal and pulling it away. Some of the Magtonians can shoot their harpoons further than the others, that's why the pull increases as you get the two objects nearer to one another. More Magtonians successfully launch and attach the closer the magnet gets to metal.

There's another interesting fact about Magtonians. The males live on one side of the magnet, and the females on the other. However when the two are separated the females stay on one side and the males on the other. They're horny little bastards. This is why the pull of the harpoons are stronger when you use two magnets instead of just metal as both genders are launching their harpoons towards the others land.

Magtonians are not gay however and don't like the introduction of other Magtonians of their own sex into their group. When you try to introduce two male sided Magnets to one another or two female sided magnets to one another instead of harpoons they will try to keep themselves apart by extending poles pushing the two magnets apart. This is where the term "polarity" comes from. These crafty Magtonians are even fairly good at flipping the opposing magnet over with their harpoons and poles. Try it, try setting one disk magnet on top of the other with same sex sides facing, they will usually flip in mid air pole induced flip then quickly harpoon together.

Rubbing a magnet on a piece of metal will cause some of the Magtonians to fall off off and take up new residence on their food source, thus creating a new home for them and turning what was once a simple piece of metal into a new magnet.

can we address data caps too? Who cares if we have 100 MB access if we're capped a 1 GB?

I think a Mac Classic with its power cord epoxied in could do the job.

Do we really want to bring back the prolific flying-rat in recorded history?

I saw we make the urban pigeon join them instead.....