Halogen. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Halogen lights run VERY hot and bright, but do not offer any energy savings, as they are still incandescent (glowing resistor) lamps.

Do you perhaps mean fluorescent or compact-fluorescent lamps (CFL)? They are filled with low pressure mercury vapor and argon, xenon, neon, or krypton. They are about the same efficiency as LED, but are slow to come to full brightness as you describe.

Otherwise, great post. Completely agree on the advantages of LED. I've actually skipped the bulb-style and have started installing LED strips with a standalone 12vDC converter.

Exactly. My town pulls drinking water from a river, then sends the sewage out a mile downstream.
The next town 10 miles to the south gets all of our sewage (somewhat treated), and does some treatment itself, then repeats the process.

My guess is that the "closed loop" system from TFA is actually cleaner than what I'm drinking, simply because they know they are dealing with something completely polluted to begin with and have to win the public on it.

The customer pays. You can have it free in two days, tomorrow for $5, or in 2 hours for $30.

That's $300 per drone per day, plus the reduction in paying FexEx to do it.

I think there are enough people that would pay $30 for something NOW.

Not all of us like the sun still being up past 9pm. Some of us hate hearing lawnmowers and having the sun shine in when we're trying to put our kids to bed. Some of us want to look at the stars with our children, but can no longer do it.

If we're basing the clock off the sun, then adjust to local time and leave it alone.
If we're not basing the clock off the sun, we all should use UTC.

I average 400-500GB per month, no torrents.

I have a family of 4 with Amazon Prime and Netflix.

Since we don't use cable TV, many of us just have streaming shows on for background noise while working. We treat it like broadcast but stream it.

We agree completely on this point.

There WILL be another 9/11. This stuff happens, and it CAN NOT be 100% avoided.

You can do some things that could help (hint: the issue with 9/11 wasn't a lack of info, but a lack of communication. We still have this problem regardless what the NSA does), but you can't stop it from ever happening.

So, no matter what things you do to prevent 9/11, something like it will happen again. The Boston Marathon bombings, while much less severe, show that even with the super surveillance, people dedicated to cause death can do it, and always will be able to.

What makes for more interesting discussion is if there are ways of preventing the root causes for wanting to cause death. Perhaps that can be more effective than ignoring what the cause is & trying to stop the effect?

Yet, you call this man a good friend, even though he supported an agency that you compare to the STASI?

We do agree. So the two of us are good, maybe 200,000 others in the USA, give or take 100,000.

The rest want bars on the school doors and windows to prevent shoot shootings that are a fraction of the deaths caused by the cars they drive their kids to school in. They keep the kids inside so they don't get kidnapped while their kid gets a higher risk of death from poor fitness. They support the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror".

I honestly don't know what to do about them. If I try to talk about it, their eyes roll back into their head.
If I talk about sports or the hit show, they're enthralled.

Again, Huxley was right.

Yes. (Quote from Men in Black)

I want the truth. I don't want to be protected by ignorance.

However, I'm not sure if the majority of people actually feel this way. My wife and I are truthful to the other, in the extreme. It has meant our first year of marriage was AWFUL, and here 15 years later it is AMAZING, and continuing to get better. It is hard to speak and accept the truth, but it is worth it IF you are willing to handle it.

Again, I'm not sure everyone, or even a majority, is willing to handle it correctly. It is an honest question.

Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

Since we figured out that electronically changing the message on a sign was MUCH more cost effective than printing a new one each time the message changed.

"Road closed from June 1st to June 14th" Oh, shit, now we need one that says "No left turn from 8a-5p until August 1st", I guess will order a new sign...

Also, don't discount the usefulness of re-routing traffic when there is a large planned or unplanned event, like a sports event or an Interstate closing because of a massive wreck.

This is a lot of great info, but what I want to know is will Sprint move to GSM or T-Mobile to CDMA?

I have a Verizon CDMA phone, and *HATE* it. Call management (3-way or more, call waiting, etc) is a nightmare on CDMA. Plus, CDMA is not common outside North America.

I really hope to see Sprint drop CDMA, but will they, or will they remove features from their T-Mobile imports?

Internet access isn't needed, though. You can do some searching and find ATM hacks using the mag card reader.
I would assume that with enough playing around, there may be a key combination that could cause an exploit on the slots, but the cameras all over the casino do a good job mitigating that threat.

While these are good points, you did forget to point out the 2.7 metric fucktons of snow that Lake Michigan deposits on you.