I was under the impression from some reading that the Crew Dragon was designed to make a land touchdown using its thrusters (the parachutes were supposed to back up the thrusters), but that NASA required water landings. Does anyone know what the true story is here?  Given that SpaceX has focused on dry landings and…

I think the first machine I upgraded to SSD was an Acer netbook, c. 2012.  I haven’t owned a machine with a physical drive since.  FWIW, the machine that replaced that was on my back in a bike crash that broke my hip.  It didn’t even blink and booted right up in the hospital.

Way, way back, there was Simtel-20.

Mine’s in use at least 12 hours/day...

Used to do that all the time before I started using notebooks.  And I hack those, so..,

I used to write installation software for a couple of companies, and it is true that not everyone else followed best practices...

I suppose. I go back to the freeware DOS (and CP/M) days, though. Tucows.  No problems

Most of this strikes me as reasonable advice, but—really?

I like Civics. A lot. But this particular generation somehow looked generic and never really appealed to me. Even in that shape, which is not bad, that kind of money for its age? Nope. It’s CP.

My dad bought one of the Euro/Merc versions when he got tired of the electrical problems in his ‘67 MGB.  I learned to drive stick in that Capri, and it was loads of fun to drive!

When I owned a New Beetle, I found the vase was a nice place to keep a ballpoint.  But I agree on fake vents (I’m looking at you, Honda) and plastic engine covers.

I miss spacious engine bays. I had a ‘77 Audi Fox, and working on that thing was so incredibly easy.  The flat metal bracket that held the alternator wore through after >>100K miles.  Replacing it/retensioning the belt was cheap and easy with the hood up.   Now with all the plastic and shoehorning in of components, it…

Ziebart. When I bought my first new car (a ‘91 Honda Civic Wagon) I took my late father’s advice and had Ziebart undercoat it. This involved, of course, drilling holes in lots of places, including the door sills, spraying in some kind of sealant, and then plugging the holes.

My parents had a ‘73 Plymouth Fury III. When I think back on that car...the first car I learned to drive...I’m amazed. It was HUGE. The hood was terribly long. So long that the speed of light was too slow for you to see the signals mounted over the front wheels. Slide-y bench seats with vinyl. You could (and we did)…

Not a fan of either of these (SOTB or the “You’re gonna burn in hell” variety).

Franz Kafka’s friend and executor, Max Brod, was instructed to burn the former’s unpublished work without reading it after Kafka’s death—but fortunately didn’t, and we’re better for that.

That top picture.  The white one?  Yeah.  That’s what I want.

Over three decades ago, I saw a demonstration of a CP/M-based machine (it ran ZCPR3 as an OS) with an amazing 5 MB (IIRC) battery-backed RAM disk. This was in the day when you had to connect a terminal to the actual box. But the idea of nothing moving was so cool! I later added a RAMdisk to my own CP/M box, and the…

Over three decades ago, I saw a demonstration of a CP/M-based machine (it ran ZCPR3 as an OS) with an amazing 5 MB…

I have a 1TB SSD set up as an external for my laptop (my machine has 2x240GB SSDs internal) and use it for local backups.

I have a 1TB SSD set up as an external for my laptop (my machine has 2x240GB SSDs internal) and use it for local…

I suppose.  It depends on what those watts are doing.  Waste heat or useful work?