I enjoyed the hobby back when I was in my teens. Forty years later, I am picking it up again.
A few pointers: design, design, design. Read, read, read. Learn, learn, learn. Make a who host of layouts using SCARM. Be prepared to build an initial layout. A second (better) layout and a third (dream) layout. Going through this process will get your skills up to speed.
Get to know some other hobbyists and ask to attend a session. This will give you great insights into whether you want to RUN a railroad or just enjoy BUILDING one.
Buy less, use the best. There is a lot of second-rate stuff out there. It will only plague you with problems - shorts, derailments etc. etc. Buy quality vs quantity.
Couplers: go with Kadee. There are others, but Kadee are the de-facto standard.
Ideal rolling stock trucks: all my research seems to point to using Kadee trucks but with Intermountain wheel-sets (Wheels and axle).
Track: want to build a really sweet layout? Use Fast Tracks hand-built switches for your layout: http://www.handlaidtrack.com/
Switch machines: I like to go manual for most. A lot of guys use Tortoise Switch Machines. Everyone raves about them but I think that they are huge and would love to know of better, smaller, cheaper ones - with all the same features.
Models: All sorts of kits exist out there but EVERYONE (OK a lot of guys) use Tichy for parts like windows. (I love their rolling stock and have built over 50 iron ore and other cars from them.) Exquisite detail and great customer service.
Essentials: get an NMRA standards gauge. Buy a temperature controlled soldering station. Buy a Dremel with a cut-off wheel (for cutting rail). Wayyyy better than snips. Also, buy a serving tray with high sides. When working on the hobby, ALWAYS keep all your tools in the serving tray. Makes finding them much, much easier. Buy a good air brush like Iwata.
DCC vs DC. I am migrating to DCC. Phone Tony's Trains in Vermont for DCC advice. They are fairly unbiased experts and can help you choose the best system for you.
Weight: get your rolling stock to the proper weight: 1 oz + 1/2 oz for every inch of car length. This will help your trains track better.
Open source: The whole DCC open source thing is a bit klugey at present (in my opinion). This could be an area where you may be able to contribute significantly. Meantime, you may want to buy off-the-shelf to get started and then poke around with Arduino and the like for controls (unless you are a total geek).
Lastly, go look at real trains. See them in yards. See them at crossings. Watch them beside you on the highway. Look at tracks and switchwork... Figure out what era and purpose your railroad will have: Switching? Mainline? Steam? Diesel? Commuter? Short Line? Industrial? Mining? Learn all the background about it that you can and use it to dive in and enjoy!!
LinkIn is sleazy: Jeff Weiner (CEO) et al at LinkedIn collect incredible amounts of personal information... but, when you want some of it back --- forget it. Privacy issues and potential for hacking leave me with great concern.
The whole site is dedicated to outrageous pricing for marginal return. (Even Jeff Weiner's own LinkedIn page only has seven (7) recommendations.)
The angle they use is this: What's it worth to you to get a job? Ok, then pay us exorbitant monthly amounts on the slim chance that you might get it through us.
People use LinkedIn to validate searches. Really senior execs are RARELY on there -unless it's for marketing eg Bill Gates. It's just for us dweebs who are desperate for a job or a mediocre pay raise.
To actually use LinkedIn for profit (other than head-hunting) is very complicated and time consuming. I know - I've done it and it's barely worth it.
Let's put this in perspective: This is a graphic. With all respect to the good people at Spike Aerospace, their company has not built anything whatsoever prior to this.
Did Henry Ford start by building a GT 350?
This whole venture sounds like something on the front page of Popular Mechanics. I'll be a monkey's uncle if they build the thing.
First of all, make a list of all phonemes - from easiest to hardest.
Create an alphabet that mimics each phoneme that is also simple to reproduce using seven segment displays (as a guideline).
Create a structure for nomenclature based on two things:
1. Analysis of commonality of common usage (example: words for mother/father vs duodenum)
2. Analysis of nomenclature structure: If it's a noun, how does it relate to other nouns and what it describes? Is there logic to the method of description?
Build a model of the language and test it using voice recognition. The higher the level of understanding/comprehensibility the better.
Put it out there and watch as the public completely ignores it.
Fuck Yahoo! This is just a sleazy way to collect phone numbers and associate them with email addresses.
What if your phone is dead/stolen and you desperately need to get a message out? You're fucked.
NOTE: They just killed Yahoo! Profiles. In short, they are collecting data for themselves while making it harder and harder for Yahoo! users to search each other out.
Where is the class action lawsuit against Microsoft for the shoddy design that has allowed innumerable hacks, data breaches and identity theft - not to mention billions of dollars and man-hours in lost productivity?
If automakers built cars that were as easily hijacked as Windows, everyone would be driving with body guards.
As the Tin Man sang: "If I only had a brain...!" - I can't wait 'till they print me a new hippocampus so that I can confidently store long-term memories again!
A friend, who is a lawyer, had confidential, lawyer-client privileged information on her laptop relating to a multi-million dollar business deal.
Border guards demanded that she give them her password... They told her it was either not enter the country (and forfeit the deal) or give up her password. Her issue was that she was exposing privileged information to third parties who could, potentially, have illegally profited from the knowledge contained in that laptop.
At present, borders are dangerous legal limbo. This area needs deep oversight and clear paths for travellers to have recourse to constitutional rights.
In many of my posts, I have been highly critical of the seeming non-efforts by government agencies to deal with SPAM, malware, phishing etc. etc.
It is wonderful to hear this great news about good works being done for the greater good. Thank you to all the investigators for your many hours and hard work to shut this down.
In all my travels across six continents and 49 states, I have never been anywhere quieter than Death Valley.
Death Valley has: no flaura*, no fauna*, one road*.
*Yes, obviously, there are brine shrimp and microscopic organisms and the odd car. That being said, no trees, grasses are there to rustle in the rare winds 282 ft below sea level.
I deliberately and consciously decided to view the video.
Obviously, first thoughts are for the victim and his family and the horror that had been brought on them by these ISIS animals. The family will be tortured for the rest of their lives by this.
As I tried to examine my emotions, my second thoughts went to the forensics:
Using astronomical data, sun angle etc., it may be quite possible to determine the longitude and latitude of the location of the crime.
The front-end loader used in the video also has extreme value: what make and model was it? Could we determine year? Where was it purchased? By whom? Can we use satellite data to pin-point it?
The clothing worn by the perpetrators may also have some value forensically.
Yes, Jordan has pounded the town where this event is believed to have occurred, but what if we croud-sourced the evidence so that, in future War Crimes trials, we can be sure to convict these barbarians.
Lastly, a comment: If I were the Prime Minister of Japan, I would form up an elite group of counter-terrorists, insert them into Syria, and have them capture and extract senior ISIS leaders to bring them to justice saying: "The Samurai are coming for you." [Yes, I know that, legally, the Samurai have been abolished in Japan but the thought of knowing that a group of 'Samurai' are coming for you would be extremely scary.]
Slashdot Mirror
HP is now H ... and ... P ??
When will we see the establishment of mandatory MINIMUM speed guarantees (based on 5 9's uptime - 99.999%)?
Speed monitoring is trivial. Let's all advocate for this basic change.
Here's how: stop writing over-analytical articles like this and just give kids a computer. They will quickly teach each other how to use it.
Will it be able to detect the human behaviour caused by being an asshole BWM owner?
Get to know some other hobbyists and ask to attend a session. This will give you great insights into whether you want to RUN a railroad or just enjoy BUILDING one.
Buy less, use the best. There is a lot of second-rate stuff out there. It will only plague you with problems - shorts, derailments etc. etc. Buy quality vs quantity.
Couplers: go with Kadee. There are others, but Kadee are the de-facto standard.
Ideal rolling stock trucks: all my research seems to point to using Kadee trucks but with Intermountain wheel-sets (Wheels and axle).
Track: want to build a really sweet layout? Use Fast Tracks hand-built switches for your layout: http://www.handlaidtrack.com/
Switch machines: I like to go manual for most. A lot of guys use Tortoise Switch Machines. Everyone raves about them but I think that they are huge and would love to know of better, smaller, cheaper ones - with all the same features.
Models: All sorts of kits exist out there but EVERYONE (OK a lot of guys) use Tichy for parts like windows. (I love their rolling stock and have built over 50 iron ore and other cars from them.) Exquisite detail and great customer service.
Essentials: get an NMRA standards gauge. Buy a temperature controlled soldering station. Buy a Dremel with a cut-off wheel (for cutting rail). Wayyyy better than snips. Also, buy a serving tray with high sides. When working on the hobby, ALWAYS keep all your tools in the serving tray. Makes finding them much, much easier. Buy a good air brush like Iwata.
DCC vs DC. I am migrating to DCC. Phone Tony's Trains in Vermont for DCC advice. They are fairly unbiased experts and can help you choose the best system for you.
Weight: get your rolling stock to the proper weight: 1 oz + 1/2 oz for every inch of car length. This will help your trains track better.
Open source: The whole DCC open source thing is a bit klugey at present (in my opinion). This could be an area where you may be able to contribute significantly. Meantime, you may want to buy off-the-shelf to get started and then poke around with Arduino and the like for controls (unless you are a total geek).
Lastly, go look at real trains. See them in yards. See them at crossings. Watch them beside you on the highway. Look at tracks and switchwork... Figure out what era and purpose your railroad will have: Switching? Mainline? Steam? Diesel? Commuter? Short Line? Industrial? Mining? Learn all the background about it that you can and use it to dive in and enjoy!!
I love the virtual desktop feature - Didn't Linux have that like 20 yrs ago? Hmmmmm
Hope there aren't any open source patent violations!
My BlackBerry Passport has NEVER died. End of story.
The whole site is dedicated to outrageous pricing for marginal return. (Even Jeff Weiner's own LinkedIn page only has seven (7) recommendations.)
The angle they use is this: What's it worth to you to get a job? Ok, then pay us exorbitant monthly amounts on the slim chance that you might get it through us.
People use LinkedIn to validate searches. Really senior execs are RARELY on there -unless it's for marketing eg Bill Gates. It's just for us dweebs who are desperate for a job or a mediocre pay raise.
To actually use LinkedIn for profit (other than head-hunting) is very complicated and time consuming. I know - I've done it and it's barely worth it.
I may be completely wrong but no features have been added in ages, no code updates etc. etc.
Does anyone know what's going on?
Also, would Base benefit from this GPU enhancement?
Did Henry Ford start by building a GT 350?
This whole venture sounds like something on the front page of Popular Mechanics. I'll be a monkey's uncle if they build the thing.
Reddit: "Okay, we're selling for $6 Billion."
Me: "Look, I'll offer you .... $100,000 because your EBITDA seems vastly over-inflated.
Reddit: "Seems like a good deal. We'll take it."
Create an alphabet that mimics each phoneme that is also simple to reproduce using seven segment displays (as a guideline).
Create a structure for nomenclature based on two things:
1. Analysis of commonality of common usage (example: words for mother/father vs duodenum)
2. Analysis of nomenclature structure: If it's a noun, how does it relate to other nouns and what it describes? Is there logic to the method of description?
Build a model of the language and test it using voice recognition. The higher the level of understanding/comprehensibility the better.
Put it out there and watch as the public completely ignores it.
She was clad in: a very tight-fitting (and extremely stretched) t-shirt, disco shorts, socks and roller-skates.
Competitors complained and show management advised the exhibitor that:
A) She had to stop roller-skating around the show and
B) She had to add an item of clothing.
Next day, she showed up in the identical outfit more clearly outlined by a set of suspenders!
We have used webnames.ca for over a decade. They are principled, courteous and honourable. We have never had an issue or been victims of lock in.
The Canadian dollar is tanking so it's great value for Americans (26% off)!
What if your phone is dead/stolen and you desperately need to get a message out? You're fucked.
NOTE: They just killed Yahoo! Profiles. In short, they are collecting data for themselves while making it harder and harder for Yahoo! users to search each other out.
If automakers built cars that were as easily hijacked as Windows, everyone would be driving with body guards.
Police dog
Therapy dog
K9 corps
Guide dog
Search and Rescue dog
Hunting dog
Companion dog
Assistance dogs, and, now....
Piss Sniffer
Fossils shouldn't fly fossils.
As the Tin Man sang: "If I only had a brain...!" - I can't wait 'till they print me a new hippocampus so that I can confidently store long-term memories again!
Border guards demanded that she give them her password... They told her it was either not enter the country (and forfeit the deal) or give up her password. Her issue was that she was exposing privileged information to third parties who could, potentially, have illegally profited from the knowledge contained in that laptop.
At present, borders are dangerous legal limbo. This area needs deep oversight and clear paths for travellers to have recourse to constitutional rights.
We are almost as evil as Kim Jong Un.
Why not just give them weapons and intel?
The actual colour of the dress is "No, That Dress Does NOT Make You Look Fat."
It is wonderful to hear this great news about good works being done for the greater good. Thank you to all the investigators for your many hours and hard work to shut this down.
Death Valley has: no flaura*, no fauna*, one road*.
*Yes, obviously, there are brine shrimp and microscopic organisms and the odd car. That being said, no trees, grasses are there to rustle in the rare winds 282 ft below sea level.
Obviously, first thoughts are for the victim and his family and the horror that had been brought on them by these ISIS animals. The family will be tortured for the rest of their lives by this.
As I tried to examine my emotions, my second thoughts went to the forensics:
Using astronomical data, sun angle etc., it may be quite possible to determine the longitude and latitude of the location of the crime.
The front-end loader used in the video also has extreme value: what make and model was it? Could we determine year? Where was it purchased? By whom? Can we use satellite data to pin-point it?
The clothing worn by the perpetrators may also have some value forensically.
Yes, Jordan has pounded the town where this event is believed to have occurred, but what if we croud-sourced the evidence so that, in future War Crimes trials, we can be sure to convict these barbarians.
Lastly, a comment: If I were the Prime Minister of Japan, I would form up an elite group of counter-terrorists, insert them into Syria, and have them capture and extract senior ISIS leaders to bring them to justice saying: "The Samurai are coming for you." [Yes, I know that, legally, the Samurai have been abolished in Japan but the thought of knowing that a group of 'Samurai' are coming for you would be extremely scary.]