A notion...

[g33k]

Right, but the parts he hexes are always the computers and the microcomputers of the cars. It's why he can drive older cars safely, they don't have the electronics to fry.

Microchips -- all electronics -- are the most susceptible, but he doesn't use plain ol' electrical stuff either.  Candles for light, not light-bulbs, because he kept blowing light-bulbs.  No hot-water heater, old icebox instead of refrigerator.

With only the slightest of efforts, he blew a transformer box; also, an electric fence.

[Mira]

Microchips -- all electronics -- are the most susceptible, but he doesn't use plain ol' electrical stuff either.  Candles for light, not light-bulbs, because he kept blowing light-bulbs.  No hot-water heater, old icebox instead of refrigerator.

With only the slightest of efforts, he blew a transformer box; also, an electric fence.

That has seemed to have changed though in the castle.  He has a walk in freezer where he stores pizza for Za'Gard.

[g33k]

That has seemed to have changed though in the castle.  He has a walk in freezer where he stores pizza for Za'Gard.

Having experienced Molly's digs, he knows it's possible!  Maybe he just worked a warding circle into the floor, set the freezer into it.

He may have shopped at the Best Buy in Svartalfheim.

Etc.

I mean... he has a castle as his personal residence, and enough diamonds that he no longer needs to worry about scrimping on meals, or making rent, or paying his bills (paying his debts is a different matter!), so the Old Dresden stories featuring the Struggling PI are kind of a thing of the past.

[Mira]

Having experienced Molly's digs, he knows it's possible!  Maybe he just worked a warding circle into the floor, set the freezer into it.

He may have shopped at the Best Buy in Svartalfheim.

Etc.

I mean... he has a castle as his personal residence, and enough diamonds that he no longer needs to worry about scrimping on meals, or making rent, or paying his bills (paying his debts is a different matter!), so the Old Dresden stories featuring the Struggling PI are kind of a thing of the past.

I think the elves had a lot to do with the wiring in Molly's apartment, and if they are helping with the remodeling and repair of the castle, they could install the same set up.. Harry needs it, it just isn't him anymore.

[morriswalters]

Maybe the mantle would let him get a cell phone like Molly.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Money creates new problems, Harry is going to be sued and not just by Larry Fowler. His neighbours will probably ask Harry to buy them out, as he is a planning blight and that might not be so bad, if the boom had gone off it would have damaged the neighbouring house.

Then there is the IRS “so Mr Dresden, you say you were dead for a large portion of that tax year? Do you know how often we get that excuse? Please explain why you suddenly live in a Castle and appear to have an unexplained large amount of wealth”

[vincentric]

Money creates new problems, Harry is going to be sued and not just by Larry Fowler. His neighbours will probably ask Harry to buy them out, as he is a planning blight and that might not be so bad, if the boom had gone off it would have damaged the neighbouring house.

Then there is the IRS “so Mr Dresden, you say you were dead for a large portion of that tax year? Do you know how often we get that excuse? Please explain why you suddenly live in a Castle and appear to have an unexplained large amount of wealth”

I think Rashiid took care of all that when he handled his affairs with the White Council. He will have to worry about next year though. I'm sure Marcone reported the castle to the IRS as a payment for freelance services.

[Ed0517]

I don't believe a Faraday cage will block magic, only E-M radiation.  It therefore *WOULD* block tv's, radio, wifi, cellphone, etc.

You could get a landline or fiberoptic through a Faraday cage, but crossing a magic circle with such a line would break the circle.  The E-M spectrum crosses magic easily, though... wifi, cellphone, etc.

I wondered if he could somehow make a suit that blocked magic,so he COULD use some electrical equipment now and then

and if a circle did not let EM thru... well, you wouldn't be able to SEE in and out...

[Ed0517]

Microchips -- all electronics -- are the most susceptible, but he doesn't use plain ol' electrical stuff either.  Candles for light, not light-bulbs, because he kept blowing light-bulbs.  No hot-water heater, old icebox instead of refrigerator.

With only the slightest of efforts, he blew a transformer box; also, an electric fence.

I think for electrical it seems to require extended contact. He goes into office buildings without blowing everything out. He HAS an office - it never said he used candles there. Other people in the boardinghouse presumably had electricity. With a lot of maintenance, Mac's place has electricity. A water heater in a small apartment, maybe hard to shield. He might not spend a great deal of time in the kitchen, he can get away with a quick dash in for frozen pizza. Or for actual food

Microcircuits are easier to blow due to the proximity of parts of the circuitry to each other. Electrical filaments are likely what he blows. Edison didn't make the first electrical light, he made the first PRACTICAL one - one they didn't burn the filament out in a few minutes.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

The Swartalves fitted out the Castle for Marcone, that is stated in Peace Talks. Marcone owns any number of construction companies, so I thought that a little odd at the time, but makes perfect sense if he had Namshiels coin, the electrical failures might have given the game away to someone like Murphy or Lara.

It suggests he was actively using the the coin from Changes onwards when he acquired the site.

[morriswalters]

You can probably trace the genesis of Butcher's idea to have Marcone pick up the coin to the Goodman Grey short story where the story concludes with Goodman Grey basically saying that if he comes for Marcone, Marcone will never see him coming. It is at this point that Marcone probably realizes that all the precautions he has taken to that point haven't made him safer. I don't have that in quotable text.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Marcone is a brilliant forward planner,when the castle was built he was certainly considering the option of taking up the coin, we don’t know exactly when or what provoked it.

Whilst Goodman Grey’s threat may have been the trigger, as big a trigger is likely to have been the re-emergence of Harry or the personal threat from the Fomor (Dead Mans Hand).

It should be noted in Dead Mans Hand Marcone is still using temporary headquarters, and I think that event was the trigger to start planning as he had gone as far as he could as a vanilla mortal, and he survived by the skin of his teeth.

Remember Marcone is developing his own list of supernatural enemies

1. Harry Dresden
2. Goodman Grey
3. The Fomor
4. Nicodemus Archelone

I think it really was the re-emergence of Harry, that forced him to pick up the coin as despite run-ins with the other 3 it’s Harry who he reveals himself to, because he has to eventually so from Cold Days onwards is the earliest he could have picked up the coin and put the Castle contingency in play which he started planning from Dead Mans Hand.

[Ed0517]

The kitchen.... if you run the wiring UNDER the flooring, and put the circle ON the flooring, is it protected? Computer rooms had raised flooring to force ventilation and cabling underneath.... does a circle project underground? how high up? Likewise a PC can have cabling run from below

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Bob can project on the walls, floors, ceilings of the Castle and can pick up electro magnetic frequencies. You just need a wireless router in one of the neighbouring houses too far away for Harry to disrupt to him to patch into the internet, and a nearby cell tower to patch in for cell phones.

Harry doesn’t need a computer, the Castle is now a computer. Harry has entered the silicon age. Literally.

Bob is capable of multi-tasking (at least at watching porn) so he should be interact with multiple users as his own local network for the castle users.

Initially his projections will be blue BUT we have seen him use other colours and Blue, green and red should be possible so he can go full colour. Harry will be so excited when the Mandalorian streams in the Dresdenverse (it’s currently late 2014) so several years to go.

Sound reproduction may be a problem, Bob isn’t a mimic and has only ever reproduced his own voice. In doing so it is either telepathic, of he is manipulating the air molecules to create sound. However as he can interface with a loudspeaker that ceases to be an issue.

Loudspeaker technology is old, Harry uses an old style radio but decent valve driven speakers date from 1912, over a hundred years old, so it would be relatively easy to custom build speakers using that tech (older by thirty years than the Munster mobile and amplifiers use valves today) with Bob acting as a carrier wave for them (he communicated via Harry’s office radio early in the series), Harry should be able to get full sound reproduction, even if Bob cannot provide it directly.Using a magic circle would cut off Bob’s carrier wave, but the tech would be old enough to likely hardly ever burn out because of Harry.

Whilst Harry can speak to Bob to dictate things it might be possible to rig up a keyboard. Get a slab of Castle Stone and have Bob project a keyboard touchpad on it. Bob should be able to discern the keys being touched and make the corresponding alpha numeric notation.

[g33k]

... he communicated via Harry’s office radio early in the series  ... 

I only recall that vaguely.  But I think Bob was actually *there,* speaking from the radio as he "speaks from" his skull