I turned to writing slashdot reponses and to doing Sudoku puzzles.

Some of us developers are 70+ in years. We are retired and can invest time in code writing. We do this so that we stay out of the wife's bubble.

Further to the above, we often are able to rent a new vehicle for the weekend from any of the big 3 car rental agencies at under $50.00 per weekend. We take this rental vehicle to enjoy the new car ride, and to drive some long distances. We have had one week deals for as low as $16.00 per day on a 10day rental.
So why lease? I am waiting for the all electric car to be fully debugged and that means 2 years after market introduction. Still, I will weekend lease a car for the reasons described previously

Cars are manufactured today with some very good reliability. Instead of a 3 year lease, where you are also putting money up-front, one buys the car with a car loan. The cost of ownership is much lower than the lease cost. Most car loans are around 7% or less. Instead of 3 years, the car can be kept for 10. My car, for example, is a 2000 model. It is fuel economic, has A/C and has not cost me more than $1000 per year in maintenance (batteries, oil changes, tires, and repairs). Furthermore, my insurance is way way lower than what it would be if I had to add that fee to protect the lease vehicle.

I do quite a bit of posting, sometimes I am exhibiting stupidity, other times I have appropriate comments. By the way, I worked in senior positions in IT for 55 years, was active until a year ago, and now enjoy responding to slashdot comments. I do so because I have the time to think out a response, because many of my friends have died, I am not yet ready to spend my morning in the coffee shops talking to the other retirees about solving the worlds problems. I am 74, and I have opinions that are valid, based on my experience.

Many responders within slashdot are in their 20s and are still mentally immature in their responses. Others show and enjoyable to read response to some articles. I just follow the example of life "small vocabularies equals small minds"

System would have to be world wide. In some countries tourists show passports, and car rental requires a scannable driver's license.

Is there too much smartness that is extremely marginal in benefits? I have a need for smart technology for my home heating system. And it does not need smart phone interface.

Situation and Challenge.
Home with circulating hot water heating system. It is heated with a boiler that has an outdoor sensor. Circulating water temperature is inversely proportional to difference in outdoor temperature and 20C (68F). At -5C or 15F, water temp is at 160F. Max upper limit on water temperature is 170F.

In the house today there is a bang-bang(on/off) "7 individual day" programmable thermostat for user defined 4 programs per day. The thermostat can be set to 1.5 hrs anticipation for heating or cooling, and also turn on immediately (electric heat/cool) not more than 5 on/off cycles per hour (gas heat). Time constants are long -- two hours to heat the home by 2C degrees.

We use a 3C setback for nights and when we are at work. But the control system is crude. For example, I would like a higher circulating water temperature based on the difference between room temperature and the thermostat temperature setting, taking into account the outdoor temperature. And as the house temp rises close to the thermostat setting, the circulating water temperature could become less hot. A crude proportional (self learning) controller is desired. The system has one and only one zone. Some home systems have two zones (north and south side of interior of the building).

Potential savings
The heating bill is approximately $3600/yr. With the setback thermostat, I was able to drop that cost to $3000/yr. I would really like to lower it to $2500/yr, thus my thoughts about potentially using the raspberry system for control along with a smarter thermostat (or just thermistor to replace the thermostat, and manage the heating from the raspberry system. The raspberry must have a clock that continues to operate during power failures.
If this controller, can be implemented at low cost, it would be a fun project and could even become a product for the world market.

I think you are wrong... Given a woman, or a black woman, with qualifications, and given the ratio of people of colour in the population, discrimination would be the refusal to hire said qualified skilled women. And while some women go into engineering, not all that do go to IT. In our community, some of the best construction engineers are "woman". Our local condo housing project was designed by a "she" and she got it right.

pkzip the result after using rotr 13 or more advanced character rotation rule.

Prisons are "For profit institutions". What another way to extend a prisoner's stay and another few dollars of revenue.

I just love COBOL's Alter clause. I use it everywhere to confuse the support people

And what's your commuting costs for you and your partner?

The biggest vendor of the Snake Oil (Monster Cables) in my city are Best Buy and Future Shop. (Both owned by Best Buy). Best Buy, in promoting these $3.00 cables for $40 to $100, are just after your wallet.

I would say that if the cables and accessories are overpriced, that all the rest, the laptops and computers, and now fridges, stoves, washing machines and whatever, are priced according to the example.

Our dollar store had 6 foot (2 meter) HDMI cables for $3.00. I also bought a 5megapixal webcam, high resolution wired mouse, and more PC stuff for $3.00 each. A wired keyboard for $10.00 I post this so you could appreciate the markups that the big-box stores add.

And this one too
http://mirror.yandex.ru/fedora...

Free electricity means that the poor can purchase food with the equivalent. And probably, given the situation in Greece, most of the electric bills have not been paid due to poverty. (Buy food or medicine before buying electricity).

A previous posting assumed that all electricity comes from burning coal or fuel. Ours comes from damed water and turbines. It is transported to use with (I am told) 120kv three phase lines)