This sounds like what Ted Kaczynski thought things might come to. I don't agree with his methods, but it looks like some of the things he ranted about might be the way things are going.

In Georgia both the PSC and the legislature is being lobbied hard to effectively outlaw private solar installations at the same time that the utilities are running a PR Blitz about how much they are working on solar energy. Having the most corrupt governor in the country doesn't help things here either

I watched both of my parents succumb due to Alzheimer's and if you have seen that disease up close and personal like I have you really don't want to go there. I really didn't expect to live as long as I have. That may be something common among those of us that grew up in the "duck and cover" generation and then took that year in South East Asia back during that unpleasantness. There is a song by Jimmy Buffett that sort of says it all to me -- the title is Pacing The Cage.

Oh, yea... And we are also one of the most corrupt states too! The Attorney General was fined this week for withholding evidence in an ethics case that might have implicated the Governor.

I have been doing electronics since I was about 10 years old ( I am now 67 ) I don't think my eyes have changed as much as the colors used on some of the imported components. I have some old new stock AB resistors that are just as sharp and clear as to which color is which since the day they were made. For some recent purchases of bulk resistors I have had to use a good lens and a halogen light to even read some of the colors and often would resort to a ohm meter to be sure. Only exception to this was when I was about 15 and read the third band of a two watt composition resistor as brown. Well, it had been a bit toasted and was really violet. The replacement didn't last but a few milliseconds when I applied power.

That's not the worry. One day someone will cross Kudzu with Poison Ivy and THAT would make a Zombie Apocalypse look like a cake walk.

Not too surprising. I worked in a building in Atlanta where the UPS's in the computer room kept tripping for no apparent reason and kept reporting wiring faults. We had half a dozen electrical inspectors and electricians in to try to find out why and none could. I brought in a volt meter from home and checked the outlets. The "ground" from the sub-panel in the room was at +50 volts relative to the return neutral side of the line. The sub-panel had been connected to a transformer in the main electrical room on the floor that was not wired correctly. We had to shut down the computer room for two or three days while they replaced the transformer -- and then they wanted to charge us for it!

INTJ and 15 minutes of just thinking are no problem. Even less so since I began doing some meditation a bit over a year ago.

But are not roads and highways also subsidized with taxes. In fact there is talk now of increasing the tax on gasoline since it is not enough to keep the highway trust fund solvent. I don't know about current subsidies, but when the first railroads were built they were subsidized with large land grants to the companies building them. The notion that "the market" is always right and should decide whether anything is done and what the price for it should be is only true for those areas in which it is applicable. There are many things that can not support a market, that are still desirable for society as a whole. In order for things like roads and highways to exist there must be some form of subsidies. Whether they are direct or in the form of "membership cooperatives" (e.g. Electric Membership Corporations) they would never exist if left to private enterprise alone.

Well said and so very true. They even used a version of the "Death Star" as their logo!

Ah, yes. The Ionisphere. Been using some of the layers for decades. Also, you might want to check out what Maximum Useable Frequency or MUF means.

I would only go for this if they spun me off to Google Fiber. Then I would jump at the chance.

Yea, and I could have been a practice patient for dental students doing root canals too!

I actually had a problem like this on a final exam in Fluid Mechanics back in the late 1960's. The required answer was the flow rate through the siphon for which there is an equation that uses parameters such as the pipe diameter and the difference in elevation between the inlet and outlet and some other things. However, the problem was given in such a way that it was not at all obvious that the siphon (which was a water siphon on Earth) at one point exceeded more than 33 feet above the inlet point. If you READ the entire problem carefully and CHECKED for this NECESSARY condition you had the answer (zero flow rate) with NO calculations needed -- a real time saver on the slide rule!

I was fortunate to be given a speed reading class that took several weeks as a high school graduation present back in the dark ages (1965). I took the course and practiced as I was told, but I never did believe it was doing any good and it was definitely not a fun way to read anything for pleasure. Fast forward to the next year and I am a freshman in engineering, but having to take an "elective" political science course in which I had no interest at all. Since the purpose of the freshman year in engineering is to cull the masses I concentrated on what, to me, were the far more important classes I had. A few days before the final exam I realized that I was not going to pass that polysci class unless I could pull off a near perfect score on the final. The professor was kind enough to confirm my calculations on that point. For two days before the final I read the entire text book through cover to cover TWICE. I scored in the high 90's on the final and passed the course with a C+. When I was taking the exam, I really was just sort of zoned out. Much of the test was essay questions and I would just write whatever came into my head on the subject, not really knowing what I was saying or where it came from.

Now, I would have put this down as a fluke except that I was able to do very similar things for the rest of my career in engineering. Although trained in systems engineering I started out working with computer systems when computers were big iron and I worked on both IBM, Univac, and DEC systems. Then I successfully made the transition to PC's and networks and retired as a Network Engineer and Security Officer. Often I would have to learn enough to get started in a new area about which I knew almost nothing with little time to do so. I would get 5 or 6 books on the subject and absorb them over a weekend and could then get up to speed pretty quickly after that.

I still don't understand how it works, and I am still not sure I really believe it works, but for over 40 years the speed reading class I took in 1965 saved my bacon many times.