-> I've read NASA was stockpiling 486MBs to send up with the shuttle. To think how
-> shortly ago, engineers were trying to break the 66MHz barrier with PC board
-> design...

Did you follow Burt Rutan's venture with SpaceShip One?
20 milllion from idea to two flights a week with the same
spacecraft!!!

->  ->  WC> There's a partial partion magic in the old Peanut
Linux zip file I've
->  ->  WC> here but you can create new partitions with a n command in Linux
->  ->  WC> just be sure to give any existing partition a bit of space. 
->  
->  -> I'll be... You can just shrink the existing partition, 
->  -> and not delete it? As

->  WC> of neighborhoods I try not to advertize my disability and so become a
->  WC> mark for a mugging.

-> I hear that! 
-> When starting my car in the winter, I have to hang my butt out the
-> door, (No need to crawl in, just to crawl out again to scrape the windows.)
-> depress the clutch with a hammer (There's a switch on the clutch that prevents
-> solenoid engagement.) and then I get to turn the key. Having that hammer, and a
-> can of WD40 handy is a little bit of security of mind for me. When I was
-> withdrawaling, I even had a lighter around my neck, JIC. 

I've a few martial arts moves I've picked up over the years from various
sources but they're all rather deadly so I'd hate to have to employ
them.
Nothing wrong with my upper body strength as long as the spine doesn't
give out dropping me to the ground at an inopportune moment.
  
->  ->  -> My car gets 50 miles per gallon! Four wheel drive 
->  ->  -> too, not just one. <-; 

->  WC> They're packing 146 H.P. into 1100 cc machines these days!!!

-> MPFI! Now, if we could just EPROM those 'puters, we wouldn't have to spend $500
-> a pop when the logic chip goes South. (I know we can do that now with an
-> on-board laptop.)             

I used to just hit Cycle Salvage for good used parts as required.
Actually of all my assorted motorcycles over the years only the last
had a _black box_.
I preferred something one could repair on the road and I never once in
20 years was stranded.

I LIKE points with centrifical advance weights and no some
really nifty tricks to extend point life a few hundred percent.
I did have to remove the point plate in the Suzuki to file it down a bit
with a round file so I could get the timing exactly right.

->  WC> Interesting URL for crazy attractive biker lady and
->  WC> Chernobyl:
->  WC> www.kiddofspeed.com                             
( not a typo, that's two dd's in kid)
  
-> Biker Ladies in Chernobyl? Oh, baby! I'll have to check that out one day. ;-)

I highly recommend it.
Her father's a nuclear physicist so she gets into the "dead zone"
around the Chernobyl disaster.
She carries a geiger counter and camera with her and has documented
the extent of that disaster as no news account ever has.

She gets to open up her bike all the way because there's no other
traffic on the roadways for 40 kilometers around the site
and rides alone as another vehicle would kick up radioactive dust.

->  ->  WC> I was going to detune it but the wreck eliminated that
project :-(
->  
->  -> Now, that would be done by leaning the fuel-air mixture? 
->  -> Wouldn't that build up
->  -> carbon in the cylinder heads?

->  WC> Exactly the opposite.

-> Burn the heads? Forgive me, but dad instilled the voodoo factor regarding
-> combustion engines into me when I was growing up.              

I'm careful.
The trick is to closely observe the insulators on the spark plugs.
White is too lean and hot and can put a hole in a piston, black is too
rich and cool and a light tan color is just right.

All my bikes were tuned and maintained to the MAX with very brief
but comprehensive maintance distributed throughout the year.

->  WC> As was I had to do "Italian tuneups" on it on a
regular basis or it'd
->  WC> be a dog to start and run smooth. 
->  WC> With that high lift cam and oversized jets fuel just poured into the
->  WC> combustion chambers.

->  WC> Just doing around town driving I carried a brass wire brush to
->  WC> clean the carbon off the plugs regularly.

-> If they run rich, they burn cooler, and don't burn carbon as readily?

Yup and that carbon on the plug insulator bleeds off the spark's
charge so the motor misses, runs rough and is a bear to start
and warm up.
Light tan is the color you want to see on a plug's insulator.

->  WC> I was going to replace the high lift camshaft with a more stock item,
->  WC> rejet the carbs down a size and replace the tuned 4 into oone exhast
->  WC> with the stock pair of 2 into ones on either side.
->  WC> Added benefit of latter far better cornering clearance
->  WC> on right turns.

->  WC> I'd lose 10 H.P. or a tad more, gain gas mileage and cornering
->  WC> clearance.

->  WC> Just hitting the throttle on that beast had you holding onto te bars
->  WC> for dear life or you'd be off the bike.
->  WC> First two weeks with it I had to learn how to keep from lofting the
->  WC> front wheel which was odd as 72 percent of the bike's weight was
->  WC> shifted forward to it.

-> That's impressive, I'm sure. I think my car comes in somewhere around a ton.
-> Doublings the HP, and what, one-third the weight... Sheesh!

More like 1/4 the weight.
The XS-1100 Yamaha Special came in at 534 pounds dry weight.
Today's bikes come in lighter with more horsepower.

Friend tried to race me one time on his 750 and without even shifting
I just blipped the throttle and left him in the dust and slowed having
made my point.
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