DCS Archives - The Silicon Underground

Get more transformer outputs by using a grounding bus bar

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 12:00:35 +0000

Train transformers have one pair of screws for each output, which is generally enough for a simple layout, but once you have more than one accessory or building with lights in it, you’ll find it’s difficult to attach all of

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Snickering at the Emachine

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 11:00:44 +0000

For several years, I administered a command and control system for the U.S. Air Force. I sat in a datacenter, surrounded by racks jam-packed full of servers, and they kept the building at 64 degrees year round. I quickly learned

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Why every sysadmin needs to know how to hack into Windows systems

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:16:22 +0000

Yesterday, Lifehacker posted an article called How to Break Into a Windows PC (And Prevent it from Happening to You). Some people weren’t happy that they posted a tutorial on how to hack into Windows systems. Let me tell you why

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Weekly roundup: 6 Oct 2010

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:20:40 +0000

I used to do a weekly roundup every so often, just doing short takes on stuff that interested me as I found it. I haven’t done that in years; I thought I’d give it a whirl again. I don’t know

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Intel\’s Atom mini-ITX board has some interesting possibilities

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:21:30 +0000

A story on The Register tipped me off to a small motherboard using Intel's new Atom CPU. A UK data center is using the chip to power servers, and The Reg asks if it's madness or genius.

If you think you can do it so much better, then do it yourself

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:10:39 +0000

I've noticed a disturbing trend lately on the Classic Toy Trains forums. It seems like every time a new issue hits the street, someone has to find an article that has something wrong with it and point it out.

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Lionel bankruptcy

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:22:01 +0000

It was all over the various news sites, but Lionel, the train maker, filed Chapter 11 yesterday.

A lot of the news stories got a lot of details wrong.

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