While I agree with you in principle, sometimes you actually don't know what you want until you see it on the shelf. HSC had that magic... I would see stuff and

While I agree with you in principle, sometimes you actually don't know what you want until you see it on the shelf. HSC had that magic... I would see stuff and suddenly whole projects would form around it in my head. And the prices were such that you could afford to make it happen. This will sound mundane, but I remember back in college, I was working on a solar water heater competition project with a budget of something like $200. We'd decided on copper pipes and a metal solar collector spray painted black, but the trouble was making a good thermal connection between the two. Up until that point, I didn't even realize that solder bars (think solder ingots) existed until I saw them on the shelf for $3 each.