Author: Dave Farquhar

The greatest European tinplate train collection in the United States is on display

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , ,

Two years ago, Jerry Greene made a splash when he attempted to put his huge, one-of-a-kind train collection up for auction. He had quietly amassed 35,000 train items, and only a handful of people knew about it.

Transporting the collection to Sotheby’s let that cat out of the bag. It became the subject of a short feature in the October 2012 issue of Classic Toy Trains, and relentless speculation on all of the major online toy train forums.

The collection, now known as the “Jerni collection,” didn’t sell–it was a one-buyer-take-all affair–so now portions of it are on display at the New York Historical Society. Read more

8-character passwords are obsolete

Dave Farquhar security , ,

In case you missed it, a researcher has built a system that can crack every possible 8-character password in less than six hours. 8-character passwords are obsolete.

If he’s got it, so do the bad guys. Read more

An easy DIY Lionel-compatible high-side gondola

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , ,

My preschool-aged boys and I made train cars this weekend. Yes, I introduced my boys to the idea of making train cars from scratch–scratchbuilding.

They aren’t finescale models by any stretch. But the project was cheap–no more than $30 for the pair of cars, total–and it was fun.

Here’s how we made these simple train cars, so you can too. Read more

My reaction to the Royals’ trade for James Shields

Dave Farquhar Baseball , , , , , , , , , ,

I don’t write about baseball all that often anymore, because to do a good job of it day to day you have to immerse yourself in it more than I’m willing or able to do, but I enjoy baseball. And I’m a long-suffering Kansas City Royals fan. One of my earliest memories is going to a Royals game with my dad and cheering for George Brett. I had a framed–framed!–George Brett poster hanging in my bedroom for 25 years, and though that poster is exiled to the basement now, it’s still hanging on a wall.

I gave up on the Royals in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series, then watched in disbelief as Dane Iorg delivered a clutch pinch-hit RBI single as part of an improbable comeback. I happened to be in Kansas City that weekend, and the city was positively electric the next day. I watched Bret Saberhagen toss an 11-0 masterpiece in Game 7. And then?

Well, Bo Jackson came and went. That was fun, but way too short. I watched George Brett win another batting title, get his 3,000th hit, retire in a Royals uniform, and go into the Hall of Fame. And I watched the Royals trade away a lot of talent and get little, if any, value in return.

Most Royals bloggers on the Internet today followed the same trajectory that I did, though some missed the 1970s. That explains some of the reaction to this trade. Read more

How to attach trucks to Lionel train cars with screws

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , , , ,

Frequently the trucks (the wheel/coupler assembly that sits under train cars) come unattached. Lionel trains from the 1970s and first half of the 1980s are especially prone to this, though other makes of trains aren’t immune either. And sometimes you just want to change the trucks–some Lionel and Marx O27 cars are just the right size for American Flyer S scale, for example, only the trucks are the wrong gauge.

It’s tempting to try to just re-attach them with a nut and bolt, but as the train runs in circles around the track, the nut loosens and eventually works its way out.

The key is all in the type of nut you use.

Read more

A Christmas tree train on a budget

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you want a train for under your Christmas tree but don’t have a lot of money to spend, here’s how to find one and what to ask for.

Find a store that deals in used Lionel trains, or find a local hobbyist. Search Craigslist or your newspaper classifieds for an ad stating, “I buy electric trains.” I’ll let you in on a secret: most people who buy trains also resell them, because people who buy trains eventually end up with far more than they’ll ever use.

Once you locate a reseller, here’s what to ask for.

Read more

Crucial has a new SSD out, but I don’t think I want it

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

Anandtech reviewed Crucial’s new value drive.

Spoiler: Unless you get the drive on sale, pay the few dollars more that it costs to get a Crucial M4, or Samsung 830, or whatever Intel drive is available (I’ve given up on trying to keep track of Intel’s drives; they release drives more often than Oracle releases security patches.)

Linus Torvalds is right about “reasonable resolution”

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

Linus Torvalds is sick of the gimmicks, and he’s really sick of laptops sporting cheap 720p displays. He wants high-resolution (2560×1600, or even 2048×1536) displays to become standard.

Having seen an Ipad with a 2048×1536 display in person recently, I agree. Read more

The trouble with Dell

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , ,

Note: I wrote this in mid-2010 and, for whatever reason, never posted it. I found it this week. Although the information in it is no longer fresh and new, it’s still useful, so for that reason, I’m posting it now.

Dell is standing on some shaky ground right now. Bill Snyder has a good summary of the problem.

In recent years, Dell computers have, shall I say, made me nervous. Some of it’s been concrete. Some of it’s just been touchy-feely. Now one of those touchy-feely problems is more concrete. Read more

Fixing correctly “misspelled” words in a Word 2010 document

Dave Farquhar Office, Software

While I’m on the subject of Word 2010 weirdness, this week I had to deal with a document that had a number of misspelled words–except they weren’t misspelled. Word was insisting that, for example, the word “Change” was actually “hange,” and flagging it as misspelled and miscapitalized.

The one thing all of these non-errors had in common was that they weren’t the original beginning of the sentence, but now they were.

Word seemed to take issue with the way a previous editor had capitalized the word. When I deleted the entire word and retyped it, correctly spelled and capitalized, Word’s spelling and grammar check accepted it. Accepting those specific changes also made the problem go away.