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Comment Re:Kid won't know what to do when an adult (Score 1) 607

I guess it depends on your school and instructor. I also assume you are using Karate as a generic name for all similar martial arts. I study TKD and we do lots of self defense in our class. Just a week ago we did a drill where you stand up against a wall and one person squeezed your windpipe (standing from the side) while another came at you with a blocking pad. You had to fight through the discomfort of being choked and fight off the attacker with the pad. Prior to that we did a drill where your partner two hand choked you and you had to get out of it. Of course prior to doing the drill we went through 5 or 6 ways to get out of the choke. Just the other night we did a self defense drill where your partner got a piece of kids sidewalk chalk and used it as a knife. It was really easy to see who did a good job defending themselves and who didn't via their white uniforms at the end of the night!

In addition to these type of drills we have basic self defense moves such as getting out of wrist grabs or headlocks which must be mastered for belt testing.

If that's not enough there is an additional class called Masters which deals with street fighting scenarios such as knife or gun attacks. The class is entirely devoted to how to deal with these situations and trains a lot with rubber weapons. Finally there is also a MMA (mixed martial arts) course where you can really get into the grappling type fighting you see on UFC. So all schools are not created equal and I'd hate to run into most of my instructors in an alley.

Comment Re:Oh, get real. (Score 1) 484

What about residential driveways? I know that it would not apply to everyone but if that tech existed, my driveway is long enough that it might just power my entire house. They don't get the traffic or the weight that a major highway receives which would aid in their longevity.

Comment Re:Is It Mission Critical? (Score 1) 298

The parent is absolutely correct! I configured a very similar system a year ago for a non-profit.

I purchased two quad Xeon processor HP boxes with 20 GB of RAM each and run Xen just as suggested above. Two virtual web servers on each machine. In this case there is also a third virtual server on each that runs mySQL. The two mySQL instances are set up with replication. For the load balancing I picked up an old Alteon AD3. This setup has worked flawlessly since installation. Not one second of downtime.

I also threw together a script so that when you update the 'master' web server it automatically rsync's the html across the other three web servers.

The best part, the whole project cost under $1000. Since I was so under budget I picked up a third server for development and a second AD3 as a hot swap backup and still had lots of money to spare.

Comment Re:HAHAHAHAHA (Score 1) 598

This assumes you have cell service at your home. Unfortunately even in this day and age there is still no service at my place from any of the cell companies. It ceases to amaze me but with the 'not in my backyard' mentality of the residents regarding towers it's just never going to happen. Not to mention that you also have to have a phone that can be tethered to your computer in addition to actually having service.

Comment Re:$400 a month? (Score 1) 591

Your joking right? I live in New England and my winter bills are usually between $600 and $800/mo. Granted the house is electric and just over 3k s.q ft. But it is 2x6 construction, I have replaced all the exterior windows & doors, put cfl's in most rooms, put set back thermostats in all the rooms and we only heat the rooms we are in and using. This has cut our consumption by about 40%. The real issue is our wonderful state decided to deregulate power generation to save us money. Yea right! All that has happened is we have had rate increases upon increases. Our monthly expenditure year over year is almost exactly the same because the rate increases have eaten up all the savings from our improvements.

The real kicker here is that I averaged my annual expenditure against our next door neighbor who has a similar sized house with oil heat. If I total his annual electric and oil vs. my electric we come out about $100 apart. Had oil not come down like it did I would probably have done much better than him.

Comment Re:tips (Score 1) 695

Not really hard to come by. Go to a motorcycle shop and ask for flexible exhaust tubing. My generator is in my garage and vented to the outside by about 15 ft of this kind of exhaust tubing. I also have a CO2 sensor hanging right off the generator just in case there is any leakage. In 10 years it has worked flawlessly.

The table is a bad idea though...

Comment Re:tips (Score 1) 695

Great post. I have a similar setup but I have my living room instead of a bed room. This is because I have gas logs in the fireplace which will heat that room. I also hook my well pump up as I have no furnace (electric heat).

One thing to note is no matter what make sure you maintain your gas generator at least twice a year. I made the mistake of not doing it last year and a month ago I was in the dark with a small flashlight trying to take of the carb bowl and clean it out. Not a pretty sight! Don't make the same mistake.

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