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Comment Re:Why do these exist (Score 2) 211

But if you don't have a bank, how can you establish a banking record? Once you get to a certain age, it becomes a Catch-22. Can't bank because don't have credit record. Don't have credit record because can't use bank.

You show up in the bank with some money and tell them that you want to make a deposit. Couple of hundred bucks would do it. Banks love money. If on the other hand you show up with no money and ask for a credit, well than this is a different story. Did I say that banks love money?

Comment I wouldn't say he was wrong (Score 2) 385

To me it seems he was too optimistic. He got the technology part pretty well. What he underestimated was the dickishness of the average human:

  • 1. Global governance: why not, we badly needed. The only problem is that people on any given spot of the world think the guys across the border are out to get them.
  • 2. Base on the moon. No problem from technical standpoint, but then again who is going to spend money on that when a war makes for a better photo-op and comes handy during elections.
  • 3. Distributing fairly the productivity gains from automation. Yeah right! You are fired, go flip burgers. Oh and by the way you have to know that flipping burgers is not a carrier, so we are going to pay you less than it would cost us to put a robot there. You see we are doing you good here by providing a stimulus for you to achieve your dreams.

Comment Re:How many don't use the chrome part? (Score 2) 321

Like the OpenSuse laptop this and the previous posts were made? I have done my fair share of reading on the NSA and a linux machine will not help you, unless you become your own ISP and maintain your own mail server, DNS, tor node, etc. This however will cover only part of their entry points. You still have a phone and you also communicate with other people who are less skilled or just don't give that much thought about securing their communications. Even if you spend the time and effort to secure both ends of your communications, you still stand no chance if you are targeted. Read more on the technique they call 'Quantum Insert'. The most practical solution involves making sufficient number of US citizens to actually act as citizens and exert pressure on changing the current law and instituting proper supervision. Here I also have done my part by calling my senator. Hopefully US corporations loosing business opportunities will work better than the US citizens suddenly starting to make educated decisions about how their country is ran. Short of being a citizen you can make the NSA's job a little more challenging by using encryption whenever possible and generating large volumes of garbage data for them to dig trough.

Comment Re:How many don't use the chrome part? (Score 4, Interesting) 321

I bought a samsung chromebook for the kids and it is still with the original ChromeOS. Perfect for what they need - web browsing, simple document creation. Even I occasionally pick it up. I will likely buy one later this year for my parents to replace an old Windows XP Netbook. Again it is going to do all they need to do and at the same time require a lot less maintenance than Windows. I think google has found a nearly perfect balance here. The only drawback is the somewhat finicky printing. Let's face it the operating system has become a cheap commodity, as far as the the average consumer is concerned. For consumers the hardware and the OS are inseparable parts of the same package, and the nature of the OS is a little concern for most of them. In this mindset the price takes a lead in the purchase decision and windows hardware with its price premium for the OS is bound to loose. And before you jump up and start telling me how much more windows and MS office can do, let me make clear that we are not talking about business PCs. The chromebook primary market is the home users.

Comment Re:$11K? Another sites says $14K (Score 1) 804

I specked an "equivalent" at newegg and crucial (newegg didn't have the 16GB RAM DDR3 1866 ECC chips that apple uses). It comes between $9800 and $12000 depending on what SSD you are going to stick in. $14K is a bit excessive. Apple's price is in the ballpark, considering that they save quite a bit on whole sale prices and large scale manufacturing, but have invested considerable amount of money in a design for a niche market. What is more interesting is their effort to "encapsulate" the workstation the same way they did with the laptop and the desktop. I am really curios how the so called "professional" users will react to not being allowed to upgrade the internals. Making upgrades possible only using external attachments is pretty transparent effort to create a market for expensive accessories. I am curios how this will turn out.

Comment Re:Help: using a bulb with a dimmer over a shower. (Score 2) 944

Go to lowes or home depot and look for dimmable LED bulbs. I have had better lick with those than with dimmable CFLs, which indeed require you to upgrade the dimmer switch. Having said this unless you insist of having dimmable light in your bath, I would suggest just to get a 70 cent light switch and replace the dimmer.

Comment So what? (Score 4, Insightful) 944

"Even though production of 75W and 100W incandescent lamps were phased out earlier this year, many U.S. consumers remain blissfully unaware of The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007

They will happily swap the burned out bulbs with whatever is available in the store and most of them wouldn't notice much difference. Couple will find that some of the stuff they bought does not work with dimmer switches or some bulbs tend to be a bit bulky and don't fit in certain very tight enclosures. All of those will be swapped for free back in the store with suitable replacements. So what's the point of preparing in advance for the switch or knowing about it?

Now, the people hoarding incandescent bulbs are a bit more puzzling. Some of them probably have a get-rich-quick plan kicking into action and all I can say is good for them. The ones that are actively trying to avoid switching away from incandescent bulbs are completely different story. WTF people? What's the point of massively inconveniencing yourself with the storage of fragile items only to pay higher electric bills.

Comment Original study site/proposal? (Score 2) 562

Can somebody point to a website with information regarding the study? If it is federally funded it must be publicly posted somewhere. Such studies typically require "informed consent" from the subjects. I would really like to see how do they obtain consent from the people being pulled over and how they justify instructing the police to pull over random drivers without probable cause. It would have been a different story if they sit in a parking lot and ask for samples drivers already stopped at the parking. The whole thing with the police pulling people over seems a bit too coercive for my taste.

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