On the plus side, you can hide your own Easter eggs.

He may be correct, so long as he was using the correct place to measure time. "Now" is dependent on your frame of reference, if the frame of reference is earth then "now" there is a metric fuck-ton of water around that super massive black hole, if the frame of reference is there then there may be "now," a lot less. Who know's what "now" via an earth based frame of reference +12 billion years will hold.

This reminds me of an old simulation like this that was done in 3d. At the time it had to be run on a uni mainframe, but this was years ago... would love to find that and see what could be done with my desktop rig.

I mostly agree with you, however I was very impressed with the Chicago Electric cutting torch I got for $50. I used it almost everyday for 2 years in a shipyard, made better cuts than a $300 victor. It even worked after someone ran it over with a fork.

No, as a metal worker I can say that the mild steel, stainless, mag and aluminum that our shop gets from China is FULL of impurity. I can tell if the steel is from America vs. China / Mexico by the amount of crap that sticks to my tungsten. If after a rod of GOOD filler rod and no dips you need to re-grind your tungsten, it isn't a pure aloy. The issue gets worse and worse the more the more specialized the alloy. Having worked in airspace, if you don't dip your tung in the Al alloy you should NEVER have spit, and should have a weld stronger than the base metal.

That is unless someone has some fun with you.... Try a simple exchange of magnisum filler rod for Al. Welds the same, however the bead just falls off when done. If you try this just know when to run.

As far as I know that is the general rule in the US, not sure about 401k... I'm under the impression that 'our dear mayor' Bloomburg had to sell his stake in Bloomburg TV upon taking the thron^h^h^h mayorship.

I have the t-mobile version (vibrant) and haven't had an issue with it other than when I'm in midtown Manhattan, and then the wifi/celltower feature pegs me with in half a block.

The difference is that when an automatic does go, the parts are more expensive and the job is more complex because there is no convenient place to put a point of failure. In a manual, the designed point of failure is the clutch pads. it is relatively simple to pull it apart and replace the pads. At most, in a well designed car like a Subaru, it is a 2 or 3 hour job. I've seen automatics take 2 days. At $90/hour for shop time the repair of an automatic means you eat ramen for a month, while the servicing of a clutch means you can have some steak.

Four years out of a 1k gaming rig? I'm a cheap bastard, and I still spend $400 a year to keep just above minimum specs for the new engines.

When I worked in the ship yards as a welder, I would find a job to do that involved using a cutting torch when I was hung over. For the first few hours of the day I would take regular "hits" of pure O2 from the tank, worked like a charm.