When you assign something to a variable, you can enclose the expression in braces. This will also output the data. Have a look:
$a = Get-Service ($a = Get-Service)
See the difference? The second line will not only assign the results from Get-Service to the variable, but also output them to the console.
Actually, you can use the second set of results yourself, too. Have a look at this line:
$b = ($a = Get-Service).Name $a $b
This will assign all services to $a, and all service names to $b.
Again, you can enclose this in braces to further reuse the results:
$c = ($b = ($a = Get-Service).Name).ToUpper() $a $b $c
Now $c will also contain the service names in all uppercase letters. Pretty freaky stuff.
