Hot-shot software guy reduced to blubbering nonsense at the mention of
hardwa

I just bought a cool gizmo for my computer; in addition to being an
oh-so-trendy LCD panel, it's also got fan controls on it. It's got a
few pin headers on it you can plug your fans into, and it will supply
them with 5VDC. You can send codes to the gizmo to vary the voltage
to the fan between 0 and 5VDC, thus speeding up and slowing down the
fan.

The fans in my computer work just fine without my meddling, and I
would much rather use this varying current to ... dim my 75W, 110VAC
desk lamp [it's a long story]. So I figure there's got to be
something like a dimmer switch that, instead of being controlled by a
knob, is controlled by varying voltage. Can anybody help?

- Dave