12 year old software? No way. We need to fix that. There's no way we're going to Mars without rounded corners, infinite scrolling,and a tiled UI. If we don't launch in beta, all the other countries will think we're not hip. We won't get seated on the Trilby committee at the UN. Get some interns and fresh grads on this project, pronto.

the local power company wants to charge out the ass to solar customers that are grid-tied, basically to make it as expensive as if you're buying power from them, and they want to pay jack and shit (and jack left town) for power that you sell back to them.

Of course this will vary by situation, but why not use the grid for things that need it, and use solar for things that don't?

For example, you might power an air conditioner totally with solar. That could be one of the biggest energy consumers in your house. The air conditioner could just be connected directly to the solar. The power company doesn't even have to know. From their PoV, it's just this guy that doesn't use much. Let the power company have the crumbs, like night-time lighting and the fridge, which don't work well with just solar.

IANAL, but how does this not come under anti-trust? 1. They have a monopoly. 2. It harmed the consumer.

Microsoft got raked over the coals by government and the Slashdot court of public opinion for doing far less.

UR2 ADD.

No, no, bite the wax tadpole. Don't cook it with baking soda and smoke it.

If it comes from an authoritative source, Slashdot is less likely to question it. If it comes from me, I'm an idiot trying to run a slow box in the 21st century.

Lots of people are commenting here about how they want to inject ads. No threads are blasting them for suggesting that HTTPS can slow your browsing experience.

Billions and billions served. I remember when McDonald's changed that. It was sad. It was also like they were saying that they were too lazy to keep track of their hamburgers any more. It made me wonder what else they were too lazy to keep track of. Billions and billions of rodent hairs?

Not so obvious. Sun tracking introduces moving parts into a system that would otherwise not have them. It increases both the initial cost and the ongoing maintenance. I'm not sure what the actual numbers are though. It might be hard to find answers since tracking isn't common in small set-ups. It's probably more common in large setups where you've already got staff working on things. There might be economies of scale at work too--tracking with a bunch of large panels in the desert makes sense; but it might not be worthwhile on suburban roof-tops.

Seinfeld had this figured out. Wow, was the laugh track always that obnoxious, or is it this just a problem with that video...

Jesus died for your sins. The least you can do is die for a TV. /sarc.

Excellent! Up until 3rd grade, I couldn't read my mother's notes. Now I'll be the old dude who knows how to make this ancient writing that only the other old people can read. They'll take it to somebody down at the bingo hall for a decode. It'll be my buddy and he'll say, "Why do you want me to read this? What are you up to?". Then he'll kick the kid's ass. I can't wait.

Didn't anyone ever do the simple math to figure how many rides it would require to break even ?

They did. It was based on financing the medallion. I bet very few holders have 100% equity in them. An $800k loan financed at 4% is available for mortgages. If medallions were being regarded as comparable collateral by lenders, the cost of this loan is about $3800/mo.

I figure few holders have 100% equity, but I also figure few holders are close to zero. Thuys, the $3800 figure is an upper limit on the monthly finance cost of a medallion for current holders. Actual cost is most likely quite lower due to them having some equity and having purchased years ago..

I'm thinking of the opposite problem--Google's too smart for your own good parsing.

It's been a while since I googled my own userid. The last time I did that Google seemed very intent on parsing it out. It was returning all the "i started" links and it was a PiTA to get rid of them. Of course since I've said that, I just tried and it wasn't as bad as I recalled.

Google desperately needs a "yes, just like I typed it" button. It also needs a way to exclude the almost entirely pointless "this page links to another page with your keywords in it" results. It also needs a way to detect that the search terms no longer appear in the linked page because it's a dynamically generated page and... do the PhDs at Google know what "dynamic" means?

In short, Google has lots of weaknesses in something that's supposed to be its core competency. We just need the right start-up to disrupt them.

No, you don't need to point that out because I'm not part of the anti-MS block on Slashdot. Of course I don't expect random ACs to dig into my past and pull up posts from 10 years ago. I'm just pointing it out. Not everything on this site is about setting M$ equal to $atan and condemning it.