Author: Dave Farquhar

How to fix old Marx locomotives

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , ,
How to fix old Marx locomotives

I’ve been noticing that a post I made several years ago about my experiments fixing a Marx 490 train locomotive has been getting a disconcerting number of hits. Disconcerting, because I repeated some advice on how to fix old Marx locomotives from another web site that I later found, by experience, wasn’t all that good.

Here’s how I go about doing simple repairs on Marx trains today, now that I’ve done a few.

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McAlester, OK hates Fred Phelps

Dave Farquhar Christianity ,

I’m very sorry to report that when Fred Phelps and a few of his minions were waving their Thank-God-for-dead-soldiers signs at Sgt Jason James McCluskey’s funeral, somebody slashed his tires.

I’m also sorry to report that no shop in town was willing to service Mr. Phelps’ Honda minivan that day.

I’m sorrier still that the Tulsa World printed a photograph of said Honda minivan limping on two tires, with Kansas license plate 550 CUV plainly visible.

Sgt McCluskey died for you too, Mr. Phelps.

How to fix modern plastic toys

Dave Farquhar Saving money
How to fix modern plastic toys

Yesterday my son handed me a piece of broken toy train track. Last night I fixed it. At first I figured it would be easy–wood’s just a matter of gluing and clamping. But this one had a funky plastic connector. I got a lesson in how to fix modern plastic toys, and the best glue for plastic.

The plastics used in today’s toys are less brittle and arguably stronger than the polystyrene they used when I was a kid. The downside is that when they do break, it’s a lot harder to glue them. Normal super glues won’t work well, and the plastic cements for gluing model kits together–my old secret weapon–won’t work at all.
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Are Black Friday computers a good deal?

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Saving money , , , , ,

Black Friday is going to be here before we know it. And historically, that’s been a good day to snag a deal on consumer electronics. But does that hold for computers?

I’ve studied many Black Friday computers–I have two Black Friday specials from years’ past sitting in the basement as I write–and I have to say that when it comes to those, you’re getting what you pay for. Yes, they cost less than computers from September and October. But there’s a good reason for it. Read more

Fix or restore Lionel track

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Fix or restore Lionel track

It’s that time of year again. Time to get that old Lionel (or Marx or American Flyer) electric train running before the holidays sneak up. More often than not, the track isn’t in the best of shape. Fortunately, it’s not all that hard to fix or restore Lionel track.

Believe it or not, you can effectively remove rust from old Lionel track with a ball of aluminum foil. A small ball of aluminum foil plundered from your kitchen and five minutes of your time is likely to be enough to restore a loop of Lionel track from rusty, unusable junk to reliable operation.

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Increasing memory cache to improve Firefox performance

Dave Farquhar Software , , ,

I read today in Lifehacker about disabling Firefox’s disk cache and increasing the memory cache, as an alternative to putting the disk cache on a ramdisk. The trick can work, depending on the types of sites you visit. But the two aren’t quite interchangeable. The disk cache stores compressed images and (I believe) html. The memory cache stores uncompressed pictures for fast rendering, and no html. Content stored in one isn’t necessarily stored in the other. Read more

Predict your SSD life expectancy with SSDLife

Dave Farquhar Hardware

Here’s a great tool: SSDLife. It helps you predict SSD life expectancy.

Back in the bad old days of hard drives with magnetic platters, you could only speculate about their life expectancy. With SSDs, life expectancy is a lot more predictable, and that’s what this tool does. Read more

Do Christians hate soldiers? No!

Dave Farquhar Christianity , , ,

I’ve seen the question come up on Digg more than once: Why do Christians hate soldiers?

The perception undoubtedly comes from the protests at military funerals. Unfortunately, there’s a small fringe group from Kansas that’s giving the perception that Christians hate soldiers.

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How to invest without a financial adviser

Dave Farquhar Investing , , , ,

I’m not a big fan of financial advisers. Their job is to sell you financial products, not to look out for your own best interests. I learned that the hard way, after sending most of what I made in my early 20s to one. He doubled my money in a year or two, but erased the gain and then some just as quickly. So I had motivation to learn how to invest without a financial adviser.

There’s a pretty easy formula you can use to outperform 90-95% of financial advisers.
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Um, no, software shouldn’t have kill switches or time bombs in it

Dave Farquhar Software, Windows , , , , , , , , , ,

So,  ZDNet is advocating that Microsoft use a kill switch to render existing Windows XP computers non-functional. Then he relented and said maybe an expiration date would be sufficient.

John C Dvorak is attacking the idea, with good reason. Dvorak is right.
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