There are times when you need to trace an outlet to a circuit breaker. Maybe you need to replace the outlet. Maybe you need troubleshoot. Or maybe you are adding additional outlets and want to make sure you don’t overload the circuit. In this blog post, I will describe two ways to determine what circuit an outlet is on. I’ll also tell you how to know if two outlets share the same breaker.
Lionel 6014 box car
The post war Lionel 6014 box car and other post-war box cars made from the same tooling present some good examples of cheap classics. They also present a few challenges for collector types, and they also have uses for Marx and American Flyer fans. In this blog post, I will explore this frequently overlooked little brother of the 6464 series.
Pallet wood basement ceiling
Pallet wood is trendy right now, if only because you can’t beat the price and working with it can present a challenge that people enjoy. And if you are finishing a basement and want a rustic appearance, the appeal of pallet wood is undeniable.
What happened to NCIX
NCIX was a Canadian computer retailer, similar in concept to Fry’s or Micro Center. It went out of business in 2017 and its data was breached in 2018. Here’s what happened to NCIX.
Why physical destruction of RAM is sometimes necessary
I found this photograph along with the question about its intent. The photo was a RAM module with holes drilled in it. The person who posted the photograph asked a very valid question as to why physical destruction of RAM is necessary.
Marx 526 train set
Marx train set 526 was a windup train set introduced in 1962, typically sold in discount stores. It featured Marx’s best plastic windup locomotive pulling 6-inch metal cars, making an inexpensive starter set for a young child.
Does finished software really exist?
A blog post titled “The beauty of finished software” went viral a week or two ago, and it puzzled me a bit. The blog post wasn’t terribly long. It was just a few paragraphs extolling the virtue of something it called finished software. And then it lumped two very different things into the category of finished software. In this blog post, I will explore the concept and explain why being finished software isn’t always a good thing.
How to disassemble a pallet
Making projects with reclaimed lumber is all the rage these days. The hardest part of reclaiming lumber from wooden pallets is breaking down the pallets into usable boards. In this blog post, I will go over several options for disassembling wooden pallets, including what tools you need.
Disassemble and reassemble a Lionel 600-series NW2 locomotive
Lionel 600-series NW2 switcher locomotives are pretty easy to work on once you get them disassembled. But if you’ve never taken one apart, it may not be clear where to start. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the steps to take one of these apart and put it back together.
DEC Rainbow 100
The DEC Rainbow 100 was an early MS-DOS computer that wasn’t 100% IBM compatible. In retrospect, this seems like an obvious mistake. But they took a different strategy, betting that they could win by providing a degree of compatibility, but that the market would choose their solution if they provided some amount of technical superiority. In this blog post, I’ll explore what DEC tried, and why it ultimately failed.