Well... The GFI outlet should be that one *and* one closer to the breaker box.

The outlet can trip and stop itself.. If the liquid (or whatever crud) reaches the cabling, there's nothing but the breaker to stop the short. In the case of your normal bathroom or kitchen, there's usually an outlet elsewhere that is in line before it. For most people who I've had to reset the GFI for, it's been an outlet in the garage up fairly high on the wall.. In one house, it was in a bedroom closet.

I don't know why people call me to fix their electrical problems, I'm not an electrician. I can search a house and find the GFI outlet. Well, after I've asked them "What did you do to cause it?" Where I live, the answer can simply be "thunderstorm". The power surges will sometimes trip them.

building codes certainly wouldn't like it

That's the big one... Your local building code is almost certainly not identical to mine. Well, unless you live within just a few miles. There are federal, state, county, and sometimes city codes.

If you look at the instructions for anything electrical at home improvement stores, there's always a blurb that says have a local contractor who knows the local codes do the install.

There was a particular type of insulation I was using for a project. It was a roll of foil faced fiberglass. I moved about 20 miles, and couldn't find it at the stores in the new area. As it turns out, it's against code there, but was fine in the other one..

I also noticed that the blue EPS board wasn't stocked in that store. They told me local codes changed, and it was no longer permitted. That stuff was great for some projects.

Counter top outlets in general are a bad idea.. If they're on the surface, they're bound to get something down in them.

Every kitchen I've seen has plenty of outlets along the walls, and some on the vertical side of cabinets...

As for sitting furniture, it's an amazingly bad idea. I'm just picturing a couch.. Kids spilling drinks. The dog pissing on it. Toddlers finding amazing new places to stick metal objects. Hell, drunk friends spilling drinks on them while watching football or in the case of this audience, playing a heated game of D&D.

If there isn't a wall outlet close enough to where you (he) wants them, have one installed. Contractors are more than happy to install anything you want within the guidelines of local building codes.

For the furniture manufacturers, they become stupid additions to their line. If they sell internationally, they'd need to offer all the different outlets. If the consumer chooses not to use them, now the customers have the annoyance of dead outlets.

For movers, they no longer are just skilled at moving heavy objects from Point A to Point B, they have to be electricians. That's assuming they're to be hard wired, and not just plugged in somewhere.

And never leave it to the consumer to consider the total power load on a circuit, they'll always get it wrong.. I can just imagine an entire livingroom with a couch, loveseat, and other assorted chairs, all plugged into one outlet strip on one socket, with god knows what plugged into every outlet. They already fuck it up bad enough with chained outlet strips on poorly designed home wiring..

When we have some extra cash to bring a contractor in, we're going to have a good bit of our home rewired. Despite a couple dozen circuit breakers in the box, half the house is on one circuit. At least we're aware of it, and are careful not to overload it. As I've found over the years, this is normal. It's like the construction crew waits for the inspector to sign off on the electrical, and then throws everything else on one long circuit.

... the Moon if it happens to be there at the time ...

Every time I've checked, the moon has been in orbit around the Earth. Do you know something the rest of us don't?

We aren't really just actors on the Truman Show, are we?

    Maybe I exaggerated a little bit. :)

    They were cargo vans without side windows. The rear window was obscured by gear in the back. The mirrors were (hopefully) adjusted for the tech who drove them, but not for me moving it to where I was installing gear.

There are plenty of service jobs which require local talent. Add HVAC, and CDL licensed truck drivers to your list.

    Ummm.. I worked with a plumbing company for a while.. There was a whole lot of shit, literally. I was lucky, I just did their IT work. I could talk to the techs who had done messier jobs from a distance. If their blue uniform is now brown, don't get too close. :)

    It was entertaining, and absolutely disgusting, watching them clean out of of the tank trucks. It registered something like 10k pounds overweight, because of the sewage sludge that had built up in the bottom of the tank. At least the guy who went in to clean it got to wear a biohazard suit and respirator.

    I only had to deal with the trucks while I was wiring up their GPS tracking. It was the first chance I had to drive a 10 speed truck. (private property, CDL be damned). The drivers were gone for the day, and the other staff present were afraid to try to drive it up to the shop. The work/cargo vans were harder to drive. Their blind spot is anything but in front of them.

I would so totally pay $20 to watch it live online.

Apparently charging people to watch suicide or homocide or otherwise physically severely injured or death is illegal in most countries. Well, unless it has to do with large crowds, multi-million dollar player contracts, and something called "sport"

    It's dataminers. I worked with a few. Lists of information are bought and sold frequently. Some of the lists are bits and pieces. Different companies aggregate the information differently.

Consider these totally fictional people. In this case, they are different.

John Smith, SSN 123-45-6789 DOB 01/01/1980
John Smith, DOB 01/01/##
John Smith SSN ###-##-6789

They would all be associated to be the same person. Some list providers only provide partial SSN. Some partial DOB. Sometimes neither, but a physical address.

Some providers consider people who lived at the same address in the same timeframe (+- 5 years) to be related. So if you live in an apartment for a year, in their eyes you're actually related to 8 set so of other tenants. For bill collectors, that's good enough to say you're a source of information..

Phone numbers are a life-long identifier. It doesn't matter that most people have changed phone numbers dozens of times. Again, having the same phone number can tie you in as family..

And sometimes their lists are just plain dirty. I've seen lists by places who take random bits and pieces and stick them together.

It's all fun and games, unless a search warrant is issued for your home, because some list provider tied your address to someone else.

I like the beginning of your idea..

If they make $5/yr on the delivered junk mail that you receive, $6.00 should make sure you *don't* receive it.

The USPS can already quantify bulk mailings to your zipcode. It's a simple matter to pay for your address to be excluded.

How about a pressure sprayer loaded up with thinned paint? :)

Ya, that's what I figured.. I'll watch the videos tomorrow. Someone else posted the video of how the guitar got there. :)

Putting it on a resupply launch would have been expensive, and taken up rather valuable space, so I assume he brought it with him...

Awww, I just had to go watch the video. NASA wanted it here for morale, and he played it. It says it's made over 50,000 orbits around the planet. That's going to be one heck of a piece of music memorabilia someday.

Thanks drcgan for posting this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoMCrkdee8s

    The only thing is, he may have already had the 6 string there. Sending up a 12 string to make it "correct" is a really expensive venture.

Ultralights still fall under a rather strict set of restrictions. (FAR Part 103)

    One seat. Less than 5 gallons of fuel. Empty weight of less than 254 pounds. Top speed of 55 knots. Max stall speed of 24 knots. They can only be operated during daylight hours, and over unpopulated areas. All operations have to be in uncontrolled airspace.

    That pretty much ensures you won't be doing any sort of cross country flying. You won't be flying into any airport other than your home airport, which can't be in controlled airspace.

    I'd be curious to know how the electric glider you mention fell within the rules. It most likely classified as experimental instead of ultralight. Those have their own set of rules.

    If you compare modern aviation to the early days of aviation, the "average joe" is already restricted from building and/or owning aircraft.

    It wasn't that long ago that anyone with a few bucks, a bit of technical ability, and a grasp of the basic concepts could have happily built an airplane. They could have barnstormed, performed impromptu aerial acrobatic shows, and revolutionized air travel.

    To the best of my knowledge, barnstorming is long since dead. Pilots and aircraft have to be licensed, certified, and recertified. There are some experimental aircraft out there, but there's still enough to make it impractical at best.

    Still, some folks will be such deathtraps, and some will fly them. I'm not sure I'd get within miles of that thing. Really, an exposed prop, and a parasail just begging to get tangled in it?