I get how it works. I disagree completely that any access to a third party WiFi network should be up to any permissions model put out by Microsoft, or that I should have to basically implement the kludge so that the network is excluded.

It's a shitty idea, pure and simple.

I am not sure that counts as twice as bad but, and this is the important part, I would have included the /s tag if I thought it was not obvious. It seems it was not. I would not, ever, invest in a restaurant - not even for a friend or a loved one.

That is patently asinine. Also, I think you mean 8' and 20' as the ' is for feet and " is for inches. I retired and, for a while, I had an apartment while my house was being built and I kept that apartment even after that as it was a nice place to stay in town and I was a heavy drinker then. It was not a run-down apartment, just a single bedroom, and it was above average condition for the area. I paid 1/10 of that... This is, of course, Maine. I paid ~750/mo for a small house in Torrance actually but that was more like 25 years ago. Still, that is an insane amount for rent. I need to pay more attention. The rent is too damned high, indeed.

You see a blurb of text on a screen without any additional factors and attempt to draw a meaningful conclusion, a diagnostic conclusion no less, based on that? That is akin to seeing my foot and telling me that you have concluded that I am an elephant.

I think the thread is full of people who have never owned a successful business of any size. That is okay and there are still some gems in here. However, it is important to look at the source. Some have obviously owned small businesses or single proprietorship businesses. They too have valuable insights based on their experiences but those experiences do not scale to even a medium size business very well. The source is important but there are some good views. Also, there is the adage of one never working harder than they will for themselves. Personally, I sold my business and retired which is a good thing because the boss was an asshole who seldom gave me a raise, made me work long hours, made me accountable for things I had no control over, and bonuses were nice but they were rare and inconsistent.

Most people who "attempt suicide" are not attempting anything of the sort. If they wanted to suicide they would not have attempted it, they would have done it. There are many ways to kill yourself that leave little chance of failure. This is a good thing - it is unfortunate when someone commits suicide like they do. (I am a fan of PAS - physician assisted suicide.)

It has to really such to fail a legitimate suicide attempt. They are often physically screwed for life and still depressed. This is not a good state of mind or a good state of being. Hurl yourself off of a tall bridge if you must but do it at night when nobody can see you and save you. That whole cutting one's wrist or taking a fistful of drugs? That is not attempting suicide. That is trying to get help but being unable or unwilling to just ask for it - and maybe not being taken seriously (which is another issue). You are unlikely to kill yourself by cutting your wrists. If you do then you go up the street and not across the street. If you tell me that you attempted suicide then I expect your liver to not function, the side of your head to be a metal plate, or you to be paralyzed from a jump from a high place (or similar). I do not accept a few faded scars on your wrist. That's bullshit and detracts from those who actually do try to kill themselves.

You want to kill yourself? Get a giant rig and cram a bundle of heroin in there and bang it in a single shot. Do it far away from where anyone will find you. Screw the pathetic attempts with a bottle of over-the-counter sleeping medications and a six pack of beer. You certainly have problems, legitimate problems even, but you can not really say you tried to kill yourself. You tried to make it look like you killed yourself so that you got the attention you felt you needed. You want to kill yourself? Choke on a 12ga slug. If that fails to work you are either really shitty at killing yourself, a coward, or just damned lucky.

Again, this does not mean you do not need or deserve help. It just means you did not attempt suicide. You attempted to get attention. If you want to kill yourself then you will do it. Fear and commonsense stop you. If you overcome those then you will suicide just fine. Until then? Stop attention whoring after the fact and just admit you cried out for help in a manner that suited your needs at the time. Next time just use a phone.

I remember when people said that about GW Bush. Kind of funny. Guess that goes to show there's no real difference between the two teams and the fans that support them.

Restaurants have a failure of 160% at 9 months? I never knew. I knew they were bad prospects and I would never invest in them but they are doomed to a 100+% failure rate it seems.

Wait, an apartment is over $4,150/mo in Silicon Valley now if you want a 2 bedroom? As an average?

I do not want to point out the obvious but, well, that is pretty friggen absurd. No, it is completely retarded. I realize it's THE MARKET® and all that but, seriously? Screw that. Get a camper van and shower at the YMCA. Save that amount of money and buy a better car, an alarm clock, and a house out in the suburbs.

Heh... So you teach lies. ;)

Anyhow, it is entirely possible that there is nobody at the mean. It is quite unlikely. With the outliers you are still going to end up with the mean being an inflated number of people with the outliers on either end of the spectrum. Theoretically this could not happen. I have yet to see this happen in reality.

I am not a statistician (I think that is the right word). I have taken a number of statistics courses but they were a long time ago in a galaxy far away. My degrees are in Applied Mathematics and Electrical Engineering. My career was modeling traffic, pedestrian and vehicular. My business was consulting on designs as well as providing pre-informatics. I am not fluent in statistics at any great depth though I can play with them well enough. I was intentionally trying to be simplistic and include only realistic scenarios but yes, yes we *could* have a situation where there were no people of mean intellect and where the result is not a bell curve. When/if that happens I would strongly suggest that the data has been skillfully molested by a statistician who has a penchant for evil.

I am not a huge fan of increased regulatory hurdles that can limit otherwise free people but I really do have to check my political leanings when I think about driving. I justify my potentially hypocritical thinking by acknowledging that driving is, ostensibly, a privilege and not a right. On the other hand, of course, it is a near-necessity if you are outside of an urban area or in an area that lacks adequate public transportation. In my country, the USA, public transportation is an almost taboo topic, what little there is has been designed by mouth-breathing morons, and is usually inefficient, poorly maintained, and is in dire need of updating. My country was designed to be used by automobiles.

Anyhow, I have realized that we need to make a few changes for the betterment of society - or, at least, that is my opinion. We really need to increase the required education and have more stringent tests as well as a longer probationary period before one is fully licensed. We need different classes of licenses as well. Just because you have a trailer hitch and a boat does not mean you are safe on the highways. Just because you managed to acquire a truck and affixed a snowplow to it does not mean you are safe to drive that truck around. I have had more worrisome interactions with drivers of those two types of vehicles than I have had with any other vehicle type out there and that includes amphetamine using truck drivers. I would almost rather share the road with drunk people.

So, yes... There is a lot to be said for good teaching AND for a lot of practice. Can one talk on the phone and drive safely? I have never had an incident which involved my using a phone and driving. Not one. I have, at the same time, had people pull into my lane without signaling while they were on the phone. I have had them cut me off while they were on the phone. I have been behind them and unwilling to pass because they were weaving while talking on the phone. I have seen drivers texting while on the phone and they were not even really in control of their vehicle nor the least bit attentive to their driving. Do we need to legislate to the lowest common denominator? It would appear so. I, after all, am *perfect* while driving and talking on the phone, just like everybody else. Of course I am...

And I haven't been able to fly on any planet with a gravity.

If you put a caveat like "without taking my fingers off the keyboard", of course you can claim "victory". But, with a Keyboard Clit, you still have to take at least one hand out of the "typing position" to use the Clit; so it is just as "disruptive" to touch-typing as a Trackpad.

I did not say it was good or useful. In fact, that is why they are not generally available - they are neither good nor useful.

I will try to go in order.

I would anticipate a large increase - especially at certain times of the year like traditional holidays and traditionally travel holidays, where the number would be quite large. I also expect the overall number to be much larger than it currently is simply because people are going much further than the ~250 mile limitation.

As for using it as an external generator? I think that would make an excellent scenario and would be an added bonus. Even greater would be the use of that to help keep humans alive when disasters take out the power grid for an extended period of time. Load up a bunch on a truck and then use smaller vehicles to transport them out to the various sites. If they were built at different sizes, perhaps for a size for an EV freight-hauling vehicle, then those would likely be larger generators and maybe could handle powering a small store, a nursing home, etc... That might be a good bonus.

Ah - I was thinking of the adaptive steering that I can get (and did order this time but have not used it as it was not an option on the test-drive vehicle) on my BMWs. Those allow, at speeds less than 30 mph, the rear tires to turn in conjunction with the front's turning. I did not think of putting them on the trailer and that does seem like it could mostly resolve most every "in reverse" situation that I can think of assuming a computer controls it. I expect it to be expensive (even if artificially and no I do not suspect the market to correct it with any great speed) and something that is not included on lower-end models.

As a trivial aside, I did consider the hybrid i8 (a beautiful car - you should check it out, hell, I dug out a link for you: http://www.bmwusa.com/bmw/bmwi... -- that may be fun to spend a minute or two looking at) but I just could not justify it as it did not suit the needs I had set for myself. It is a hybrid currently but there are plans to turn it into an all-EV as I understand.

Again, yes, I think it will be a vast increase. Many cars on the highway are from out of the state. These people are traveling for a variety of reasons and I do not think that they will want to stop that practice. I do not think they are going to want to wait every few hours to recharge.

Also, these are people traveling. They are not just people moving. Comparing them to a rental such as U-Haul is intellectually deceiving if not intellectually dishonest. With a 200 mile range I could, barely, make it to the nearest real town (one with actual hotels that are not just tourist traps, stores beyond a small grocery store or the *singular* general store, and other amenities like a movie theater. This is actually a common drive for many in my situation. I am using the various reports I have read and reviews as it is more like a 160 mile trip (both directions and yes, if I could find some spot and stayed in that one spot while in town I could charge the vehicle).

My trip requires things like heat and sometimes actually should include AC. There are many very large mountains that I must trek over as I work my way down into the foothills of Western Maine. To go any further than that, again a fairly common thing, would need extra capacity that is not yet available. The up-thread stated 200 mile range is not adequate. Make it 400 to 500 (800 would be wonderful) and I will be in line to buy three. One utility, one sedan, and one sport.

You are correct, I was picturing a low-slung and wide trailer. I figured the lower center of gravity and the lower profile would be good. The first for the stability and the second for decreased wind-resistance. I was not picturing someone traipsing around with a covered stand-up Honda generator but that could work. Again, a wider and larger trailer would be ideal for control but the adaptive steering you mention could be the solution. It should not even require a lot of work (or space) beyond the computer and steering mechanisms. One might wonder if we want the extra complexity as it creates yet another point of failure. That can be maintained and can be worked around - it has potential. It should be interesting in the snow, especially when the car goes sideways. Even more interesting will be when the driver is unfamiliar with driving in snowy conditions or has not done so in a while.

Finally, I think I got them all up to here, I did think about the weight but I did not give it much thought. We have adaptive, custom, and pre-configured adjustable suspensions. It may (most likely will) require that the strut and coil assembly be rated for a higher weight but that can be dampened programmatically. This will, no matter what we do, impact the handling profile. Some suspension changes can mitigate this but I doubt it can be negated easily or efficiently. My thinking is that the typical "universal" receiver hitch assembly could be configured to tie into the vehicle deeper, have more attachment points, and use a bit more bracing if needed. I am thinking something akin to the Reese hitches.

The class 1 hitches should have a 200 pound rating for tongue weight. 600 pounds would put one at a class 4. I would also hazard a guess that, in the end, these would have varied capacities and varied weights. There are some pretty decent and efficient generators out there (a vast improvement since I was young in price, capacity, and quality) that do not weigh a whole lot. Fuel is along the order of 8 pounds per gallon so we'd need to factor that in. 600 pounds may be a bit high but would likely cover most eventualities and it seems that it could be done directly from a receiver hitch. An alternative is to simply set a standard and mandate it be built into vehicles.

This does not discount the idea of a trailer, it is simply another line of thinking that I have been mulling over since first pondering the trailer idea.