Amen. Why would anybody muck about with hand washing something so rugged? Anything in my house which can take it gets a trip through the DW. It works a treat on things like AC/heating registers too.

Odd. On a machine with sufficient memory, a fast processor, and SSD both FireFox and Chrome operate at a seemingly-identical speed for me. Could it be that those complaining about speed are either nit picking with benchmarks or have a bad install or underpowered machine?

If by 'large' you mean files that would take days to upload over a regular ADSL link, there is nothing that beats a micro-SD card. You can put one in a recess in a piece of cardboard, put that in an envelope, and then mail it to almost anywhere in the country in short order. Multiples are easy. I won't try to figure…

Prioritizing is not even that difficult since one can do two things at once when one of them is mere walking. I'm 66 and have been walking a minimum of on hour every day six days a week on average for over ten years now. While walking I listen to audio books. This keeps me up on my 'reading' to some extent and makes…

Poke a hole in the ball and thread a string through it. Hang the tennis ball from a thumbtack in the garage ceiling so that the ball just touches the center of your windshield when the car is perfectly positioned; the base of the rear-view mirror base is a good reference point. Now you can gauge your left/right and…

What I used to do can't be considered "cooking", more like heating, but simply placing a still-sealed can of food substitute (Chef Boyardee, anyone?) in the carafe and then running it through a brew cycle and then sitting on the heat for a while will give you something filling. Not great, but at 3AM in a motel in a…

No, but I'm an old (66 years) man and fit comfortably into the old normal pattern, leaving home before I turned 18. On the flip side I'm in the process of modifying my home to make it more accessible and comfortable in preparation for bringing my elderly mother to live with me. What didn't go around still comes…

I would avoid the deodorant because of the chemicals — the last thing you want is to add more irritation to an already sensitive spot. Instead, I'd suggest that you try something made for the purpose; I use Body Glide skin lubricant for unfortunate shoe/foot interactions and it is always there in by backpack when I go…

I don't know how accurate this can be. The calculator says that I'm either 4 years younger or 5 years older than my actual age and it all depends on how much I claim to sweat when I exercise every day. That and only over/under 30 minutes seems a rather coarse vernier. Oh well, you're only as old as you feel so on some…

Well, I can certainly agree with your point 4). It is, or at least can be, miserable if not approached properly and handled well — a little slip can set you back badly. The worst is the stress; I went through a marriage and several less formal relationships and to some extent they all suffered from my choices and…

Weird results or at least not in keeping with my experiences. Why are they in debt in the first place? Nobody forced them to borrow for their educations — there is still such a thing as working your way through college. Sure, it can take a damned long time but when you get done you have experience and a clean start.…

That's why I always order my "double tall mocha extra-hot". That seems to be about perfect — just a little too hot at the first sip but just fine after a minute or two.

I would suggest that the proper time is when they can earn the money to pay for it. This is the same standard I had when I wanted a car — "earn the money to pay for it and all associated expenses" was the answer I got.

The mains receptacles in Mexico are the same as in the rest of North and Central America. If it will plug in in the US then it should plug in in Mexico. The only exception might be if you are going to a place where they don't use grounded 3-pin receptacles and there you would want to have a 2-3 adapter (or be prepared…

Am I the only one to whom this appears insane? What next? Well, if there isn't an outlet available where I want to sit maybe I'll want to have a 50M extension cord. Or maybe I need to drag my Honda generator along just to be sure. Folks, believe it or not you can continue living, your heart will beat and your lungs…

Why do I get the idea that TSA (and their mindless thuggish clones in other countries) will not look kindly upon this sort of innovation and will demand full disassembly before permitting it?

Yes sir, yes sir three bags, err drives, full. Two of the drives are in my neighborhood bank's vault at any given time. That doesn't stop me from keeping backups on my networked Drobo or WHS machine or a USB key which I carry in the car most of the time. Add to this that current projects and media are invariably on…

I miss being able to program the "bare metal" without distractions. I was eventually able to write 8080 machine code, sans assembler. Later, after I had a real assembler I wrote a very accurate dis-assembler for 8080 code in Basic, the output of which when fed to the assembler, produced identical runnable code.

I have everything that is wire-able wired. Sadly it is only Cat5E since it was done 12 years ago so, despite gigabit-capable equipment, I can never seem to get above 550-560mb/s speeds at best. Because I use a Windows Home Server and a 5-drive Drobo for backup and media storage the bandwidth is important. You really…

No need to skim. It isn't as if the entire article was long or complicated. I'm all for hacks but not of hacks-for-hacks-sake. Unless a hack does something better and/or cheaper then I don't find it an attractive proposition. Similarly, I don't find the idea of doing something just because it can be done — sure, I can…