@hhumbert: Sounds like she values the wine more than the projection screen. :)

@pfurrie: I've heard of walk-in closets, hall closets and bedroom closets, but what is this thing called an "extra" closet?

@josephers: No, it's the thickness of the glass, plus the air gap between the laser and the top of the glass (and the gap between the sensor and the top), which is much larger than the air gap between the glass and the desk surface. The laser and sensor are usually recessed inside the bottom of the mouse by about 1/8"…

@arcticJKL: $3 billion a year is only $10 per person, and about $30 per household. But that's still money I'd have available to spend on other things.

@holyspidoo: Uhhh, no, unless you're still using stuff from the 1960's that has vacuum tube amplifiers in it. They tested turning computers (including the monitor, which is basically a TV) on and off at businesses vs. leaving them on overnight and found no difference in product life (in fact some components lasted…

And if you're a bit more technically inclined, there's always SFTP...Try the Filezilla server and open the virtual server ports on your firewall so your friend can access it. Make sure you setup your friend with an account and a password and only allow read access. Speed only limited by the ISP connection speed at…

Not food-related, but Window cleaner:

One big reason I use Spybot as an adjunct to commercial products is because I'm more confident that the Spybot developers won't be co-opted by some interest group like the BSA, RIAA or even the FBI to put their "special" spyware on an ignore list.

@Bryan Bunton: Yeah, it blocks the tracking software that they use to report students to the RIAA for downloading music.

@Darkmatter91: I think he means 10G per day. Even TWC was offering 75GB/month + another 75 GB in overage, so 10 GB doesn't make sense in that context.

For any uses that don't involve actually consuming the vodka, rubbing alcohol or denatured ethanol is much cheaper. You don't have to pay the liquor tax if you aren't going to drink it.

@phoenixdye: Tell 'em you're not charging any more than their auto mechanic. Or if they're an auto-mechanic, ask them how much they charge...

@Cordfucious wants a Houston Meet-Up: Office: [OpenOffice.org] is free. Monitor is a bit tougher.

@anosen: @Cordfucious wants a Houston Meet-Up: Point her to some refurb models with no Operating system... For example, HP home store has refurb models with Vista 3GB/320 GB and dual-core for about $350, so she isn't so far off.

@DMSaruman: Now _sour_ milk has lactic acid in it. But I didn't see anyone advocating sour, or sour chocolate, milk as a sports drink here.

@UnderLoK: How about in a USB flash drive?

@benjgvps: Counterexample: mugging. Though a mugger might go for your keyring as well.

@bwcbwc: Oops, didn't finish my thought on the equivalence of greenhouse emissions and power use. If the power is being used at a given location, all of the power can be considered statistically equivalent in terms of how much CO2 is used to generate it. Unless you have a way of telling which Watts come from renewable…

@courtarro: Actually, since both Google's servers and the average microwave are powered by electricity, you can consider energy use and greenhouse gas generation equivalent, assuming the teawater is being boiled at Google's data center. I don't buy the equivalence anyway: The most efficient way to boil tea (or coffee)…

@Fzzt: His girlfriend may end up being a distant memory by the end of the evening if the resulting argument takes a turn for the worse. And then your buddy shoots himself.