Wolf Harper

What is this movie? 1960s? Thriller.

A senator (?) is flying on a new 4-engine jetliner, e.g. 707 or DC-8.

As he's boarding, someone gives him a gift of a rare wine, except it's a bomb. They timed it so it's too late for checked baggabe, and they know his seat is near critical flight controls. Except his aide finds a way to get it in checked baggage anyway.

Over the Atlantic, the bomb damages the plane and one engine. The pilots manage to land on an iceberg. That section of the iceberg breaks off, putting them on a much smaller iceberg.

To keep the plane from sliding off, they disembark the plane and set the tires on fire so the gear melts into the ice and refreezes, then reembark the plane. They have enough compressed air to restart an engine for heat and light.

They realize they are close to land. They start all working engines and attempt to thrust the iceberg to shore.

A Soviet researcher using sat photos notes an iceberg is going the wrong way. He escalates this and somehow it gets to the people worried that the Americans have blamed the Soviets for the aircraft loss. They tell the Americans, rescue, bad guys' comeuppance, happily ever after.

Wire thieves nailed us and I am restoring the wires. I have a 120/240V service panel fed from a transformer with the usual X1, X2, X3 and X4 connections. (If you don't know what I'm talking about you probably can't answer my question.)

I've connected X1 and X4 to the "hot"s in the panel. No problem.

But I need to connect X2 and X3 to each other - and also to "neutral" in the panel.

Problem is, the X2 and X3 connections on the transformer are only made for one wire. There's no way to bridge them. The service panel's lug only takes 1 wire, so they didn't run 2 wires down from the transformer.

What's the RIGHT way?

a) run 2 wires down from the transformer to the panel and get a 2-wire lug?

b) run 1 wire, and splice it to two short pigtails to X2 and X3 inside the transformer box? Here is the splice I would use.

http://www.bulbamerica.com/black-insulated-multi-c...

c) something else?

Yes it is legal for me to do this work in our state. Yes all power in the building is off and LOTO. Yes a licensed electrician will thoroughly inspect the work before we energize, but we can't afford to have him do much more than that. So I want everything code-perfect before he comes.

United States/California. We have some fluorescent fixtures and the ballasts are failing. These fixtures are wired in via conduit, they don't have a plug. The fixtures are UL listed.

Inside the fixture (in all metal) is a ballast. We want to upgrade them to electronic ballasts. Our all-volunteer staff is very experienced with electrical, but not licensed electricians. We can definitely handle swapping a ballast. It's very straightforward. I've done dozens on fixtures with plugs (here we'll lockout-tagout the breakers.)

Does the NEC allow us to have our handymen swap those ballasts? I know it's allowed on anything with a plug, but I'm not sure whether that applies to the internals of an appliance which is hard wired rather than plugged. I can't imagine you need a licensed electrician to repair a garbage disposal?

Does NEC require the new ballasts be UL listed?

(Please do not give restrictive answers "out of fear for our wellbeing" because seriously, we are competent, and don't go spending our limited funds please LOL!) Please only give answers if you actually /know/ the answer. Major bonus points for citing the relevant parts of the NEC.

I don't know much about electric instruments, but I understand for some effects, you play the guitar standing in front of its own speaker to deliberately cause feedback.

I'm wondering about the sound used in shoegazing "wall of sound" sort of thing. Slowdive, MBV, Lush, Cocteaus etc. Does that require feedback? Or could you accomplish it with pedals and effects alone, say, if you are playing the guitar through pedals/effects boxes and into headphones?

Large aircraft have a feature that shakes the control stick/wheel before the onset of a stall. How does this gadget know that a stall is imminent? Is it monitoring actual wing loading or airflow or something... or is it just indicating a theoretical imminent stall based on airspeed, angle of attack and other flight parameters?

For instance if the wings had taken damage which increased their stall speed... would the shaker know this?

I'm traveling halfway across the country to volunteer for awhile at a nonprofit. My skill is fairly specialized, so this makes sense.

I itemize my taxes. What expenses can I take as a tax deduction? I'll be eating out, occasionally using motels, but mostly staying with my parents. At least 80% of the trip is real volunteer work. I am keeping costs low, my car gets 40 mpg, I eat at McDonalds and stay at Super 8.

So I traveled this year on a trip for charity. I flew, rented a car and stayed with friends. About 90% of my trip was actual work for the 501(c)(3) charity. About 10% was visiting my friends. I bought inexpensive fast food meals.

The trip was expensive. I itemize my taxes. Can I deduct any part of the cost?

Last I looked they're almost always outside the main rails. They're only in the middle on one system in London, and that experiment in France.

So how come people go around saying they're in the middle?

Let's take it, as a given, that high-speed rail is a good investment (not a malinvestment) for the

nation, as it produces total economic benefits well in excess of its cost.

Private money is not interested in the investment, the massive capital costs make payback too slow. Only the hand of government can build them. However, government can recoup its actual costs by way of higher taxes from the benefits of the system - increased commerce and higher property taxes when a town gets a station and real estate prices go up.

Would Hayek have a problem with the fact that government has to be involved?

Last year, I was in a situation where too much state income tax was withheld. For demo numbers: $3000 was withheld, $2000 was my actual tax, the refund is $1000.

YES, I DID adjust my W-4. It was maxed out; 0 taxes were being withheld. It wasn't enough. Too much of my income was non-salary, but reported like salary (NQSO), and the payer absolutely insisted on withholding at a high fixed rate. I tried. DEAR GOD I TRIED.

I gave over half my income to charity. Go me. That is why my withholding is too high. They say no good deed goes unpunished!

I itemized my deductions and took the state income tax on line 5. When I put in $2000, everything worked correctly. When I put in $3000, the extra $1000 triggered AMT; and so I did not get the benefit of that deduction.

Now the state sent me a 1099-G for the $1000 refund. I've gone through every IRS form and publiciation I can lay my hands on, many of them have informal worksheets. Maybe I'm doing them wrong, but all of them seem to say I have to declare the $1000 as income (1040 line 10) and pay tax on it A SECOND TIME.

That's double taxation. I'll literally be paying the 28%-ish tax on it twice.

How do I get out of that?

Last year, my state withheld $3000 for income tax.

Last year I itemized my Federal tax on Schedule A. I was allowed to deduct $3000 of state income tax. However, I only deducted $2000. There was an extra $1000 I was entitled to deduct, that I did not.

I got a $1000 tax refund check from the state. THey also sent me a 1099-G for $1000.

I don't believe I need to report that as income, since I did not benefit from the tax deduction last year -- I deliberately did not take that extra $1000.

How do I put that in the paperwork? In case the IRS audits?

A small industrial building in northern Ohio. The building is not heated, but the bathroom needs to be heated so the pipes don't freeze. The bathroom is maybe 10x15 feet. The walls are cinder block. Two walls face the outside. No insulation on the walls. The ceiling has about 6" of fibreglass batt and 1.5" of styrofoam below that. The coldest it gets is 10-20 below zero. We'd like to heat it to 40-45 degrees, only to keep the pipes from freezing.

How many watts or BTUs of heater should I be looking at buying? There's no vent so it would need to be a ventless gas heater if it's gas.

Does it make any difference if there's a hot water heater in there?

California Criminal trial (minor traffic violation). I'm actually innocent and will easily prove it if I can present maps and drawings.

According to court rules (PC 1054.1) the prosecution must give me their documents and lists of witnesses. (except they don't).

(you can search the web for "PC 1054.1" it'll come right up.)

However - this is outrageous - apparently I the defense must also give them my documents (PC 1054.3). The defense is no longer allowed to pop surprises in the courtroom, in California. This is because of "proposition 115".

Except, all the "fix your ticket" books, websites and forums I read, all say nothing about this. They all say "Make your drawings, prepare your presentation and just show up in court." Well hold on -- won't the prosecution say "Objection, you didn't disclose it"?

The books etc. seem to mention as a footnote that if you do "informal discovery" to get their stuff, you must disclose your stuff. (they point to PC 1054.5)

But what if you DON'T do informal discovery? Do you still need to disclose under PC 1054.3? If you don't discover, and don't disclose, will the prosecutor just say "Objection" to all your photos and charts? I'll lose if that happens because it'll be officer's word against mine.

Suppose I own some stock in a company. The value has gone up.

If I sell it, then donate to charity, I deduct the full value off my taxes. But I have to pay capital gains tax on the profits.

Suppose I donate the stock directly to the charity. The charity sells it. Can I deduct the full value of the stock? What about the capital gains tax - do I pay it? Does the charity? Or neither?

Firefox insisted I install the latest Adobe Flash on my Mac. When I did, suddenly all the "ads" on pages started appearing as empty boxes with the "F" Flash logo in the middle of them. They won't run unless I click on them. This is in several browsers.

Is that a freak accident? Or a security fix? Or something Apple did?

I got tagged for a "carpool lane violation" - which is untrue. The cop was exploiting some really bad lane marking at the freeway entrance, and I can prove it no problem.

But. The cop claimed I also committed a moving violation (points - higher insurance). "To be a nice guy", he wrote me instead for the carpool violation. Which is a nasty fine, but no points.

I can go to court with my photos and traffic design manuals -- and I'll win. If I do, can they be nasty and RE-charge me with the moving violation? Or is that off the table since he didn't write me for it during the traffic stop?

If they did re-charge me, who would do that? The cop himself? Could the A.D.A do it? Can they use my defense of the carpool lane charge as evidence to tag me on the moving violation?

Hypothetically. I have a company right here in the USA. Our blood runs red white and blue. We do not have or want any offices in Europe - though we do have customers in Europe and we ship to Europe.

We collect a great deal of data on our customers - what they bought, what they browse, every address they've ever had, every credit card they ever used, yada-yada. We basically throw nothing away.

European privacy law would say "I can't do that" - I must purge data I no longer need or that's obsolete. It also says I can't sell that database to other people, particularly not other Americans, since they are outside the EU.

That's a complicated legal question, but I want to ask a simple one:

As an AMERICAN company, can I just completely blow off European laws if my actions occur right here in America?

Or do I have to comply with European law only insofar as it affects European residents?

Or do I have to apply "lowest common denominator" and apply stringent European standards to all my customers (or refuse business from Europe)?

Is it even possible for a European to sue me?

When I startup my Macbook, my Macbook SPEAKS "Login, secure window" or something. Like speaks with a little mechanical voice. When I type my username it says "edit text. " and then starts calling out each letter. When I get to the password window it speaks "Secure edit text".

What's up with that and how do I make it shut the frak up?

I always thoguht that if bail was $5000, you had the option of paying $5000 cash to the court itself, and then you would get the whole $5000 back at the end of the trial.

Or you could pay $500 to a bail bondsman, and he'd front the $5000 to the court and your $500 would be lost no matter what.

Is that really it or am I confuzzled? Why would bail ever be $5500? Does the bail bondsman ask for additional cash or security? Are there ways to get all your money back? (assuming you have it to give). If you only have non-liquid assets like your house or IRAs, do you need to work with a bail bondsman or can you deal with the court directly?

So when I was learning about airbrakes, there was "AB" valves. Then they came out with ABD valves. Then I heard about ABDW and ABDX valves which might have been competing.

What valves today are commonly found on freight cars?