Each of my DSL connections has a static IP address. I left one turned off for weeks (it is generally unused unless someone visits for an extended period) and when it was turned back on again it was still the same IP address even. I did not ask for them, I do not pay extra for them, and as near as I can tell this is not the norm with Fairpoint. I do not pay for business class DSL or anything though I did pay to have the CO and lines run so that I can have DSL. Additionally, I have three connections total (one in the old house that was here when I had my house built - I call it the guest house, one in the garage/shop, and one in the house) so maybe they shunted me off to business class without asking me? My online portal is very clearly residential and the bill said residential back when I paid it with dead trees.

I was actually thinking a government run program for the distribution and thinking that the scale of producing these things would be such that they would be cheaper (eventually) than the average home/small business capable generator would be. So, in this line of thought, FEMA has a bunch of them and loads them up and lets people borrow them during times of crisis. Obviously they would need to keep track of them and charge people who damage them or steal them with the appropriate fees and legal repercussions. That was my line of thinking at any rate.

$3,000 is a lot to add to a trailer price. I own three and the most expensive was one that is custom made and a 5th wheel car hauler. It was just about $3k total. The smallest was one that fits the tractor and your standard 2" ball. That one was a mere $500 or so. That one would be adequate to handle the weight of a generator but would have to be changed to adapt, obviously.

My experience is that few people use a rented trailer but that is likely influenced by the people I know. In my experience we either own one (or several) and then loan them out to friends if they need them. In fact my medium sized trailer is another car trailer and is being used by my neighbor. He has had it for a week or so now. He has a couple of cars he is taking down to the metal recycling facility. This is normal for me and has been wherever I have lived pretty much. Then again, I have always lived outside of urban areas even when I worked in the city. I will take the commute, I enjoy driving.

I am certainly an edge case but there are more of us out here than one might think. It was only recently that the percentage changed in the United States. Until just a couple of years ago more people lived in rural settings than in an urban environment. Most do not have to travel as far as we do here, at least not on a regular basis, but they still have long drives. I think the goal should be to get it to the point where a second car is not needed for longer trips and two car families are well served with EVs.

I would like a decent hybrid but hybrid tech seems to be taking a back seat. It would be nice to have something that was all-electric drive with a small diesel generating the electricity when it is needed. I do like the looks of the i8 but it is not practical nor does it have much in the way of EV range. I can buy one but I can not justify owning one at this time. It would be great fun for maybe 4 to 6 months out of the year. I bought a 640Li instead which, considering what it is, is actually rather efficient.

My thinking was that generators could be attached to the receiver in much the same way you attach a tow-behind boat. When you remove it from the hitch you put the legs down first. When you attach it to the hitch you just back up to it. Maybe putting some sort of wheels on the retractable legs would make that process easier. Assuming that most are rented they would also be likely to be able to assist in connecting them to the vehicles in the first place. It could also, fairly easily, be disconnected for parking at a hotel overnight so the vehicle can be driven around more easily/efficiently. Someone will figure out a way to secure it. I can think of a few ways to do this already though nothing will stop a determined thief but such is true even if it is towed behind instead of attached.

One drawback I did consider is that it would make accessing the trunk a little awkward but not impossible. We would not want the center of mass to be too far from the body of the vehicle. An attached generator would also be lighter than one that is towed which would help with efficiency though a trailer does not decrease efficiency _much_ when it is in motion though it is horrific in stop-and-go traffic.

Other than establishing a standard connection that allows connections from anything properly configured to attach then this may be something for the market to determine. I am sure that other people will have better ideas than mine or ways to improve on your ideas. My degrees are in Advanced Mathematics and Electrical Engineering. I am not a materials or design guy. Hell, I have issues with a decent user interface or a web site that does not baffle most. I should probably not be allowed near the design phase.

It is a little bad if you are an actual Libertarian and have to fend off the Republicans who are ashamed of their party so they have co-opted the party and made it seem as if we are lunatics. Most of us Libertarians are (were?) quite far left of the representatives of the Democrat party. I, for example, support single-payer health care - not because I am a lovey-dubey caring individual (I really am, sort of) but because it costs less for the society as a whole and makes a better business environment.

I shall rant but I will keep it short.

I support taxing the wealthy, I could pay more in taxes (I am not going to - I avoid them where possible) easily so I donate to causes I believe in instead. I support business regulations. I support roads, libraries, education, and social welfare programs. I could even be convinced to support a universal standard of living payment out of tax dollars. I want a small government that spends its money wisely.

We have plenty of money, even to service our debts, so long as we stop spending it on stupid things like being the World's Police.® If we strip out the pork and start working to taking the money out of politics then, perhaps, we will be on the right road. Note the perhaps part - the world is not black and white and no one political system can be incorporated in a pure form as it simply will not work.

I also support State and Individual rights, note that I did not use the word freedoms because unless you are physically restricted then you are free to do something though there are potential consequences for it. One of my favorite statements is that, "I am free to kill you, I am not at liberty to do so." I think I may be the author of that quote, or I picked it up subconsciously, so it is open for claiming, using, or debating. Consider it an open source adage and do with it what you will.

I support legalization of all drugs - all of them - even if they kill you. I support identification of products and product purity and think it is the government's job to work to ensure such. I do not support either heterosexual or gay marriage - I support civil unions with contracts being decided amongst the parties involved and do not limit it to a couple. I think marriage, as a word, is quite happily the property of the religious zealots who can happily have their ceremonies all they want but that those ceremonies should not be anything backed by or recognized by the state. We have contracts and contract law for a reason and it is high time we make use of them. Everyone should be equal under the law and the most correct way to do this, to my mind, is to allow it have contracts between people. The government should not be in the business of deciding who has access to what hole by which gender. If you want to self-identify as a transsexual bisexual turtle then go right the fuck ahead. It should not matter that you do not fit into a check-box on the government's form - that check-mark box should not be there in the first place.

I am mixed race. I am Caucasian, African-American, and Amerindian. I do not support affirmative action. I support merit based society. I think that, to me, affirmative action is "the man" telling me that I can not do it on my own and that because I am inferior that I must be given special treatment. Screw that. I got to where I am because I have had a lot of help and good fortune. None of that help was based on my gender, my color, or any other physical trait. I got that help because I worked hard, was in the right place at the right time, and had good information that I was able to use to further myself. If I had been told that I was inferior and needed help because of some innate physical trait then I probably would have accepted mediocrity.

Most importantly I believe in rights. In pretty much all cases the laws (which should be simple and few but carry penalties that are enforced though probably not as draconian as they are) should "err" on the side of personal rights. Freedom is a right and an important right but it needs to be respected. Rights are to be given to the individual, freely. They should have responsibilities and be accountable. The government should not be deciding what you do to you so long as what you are doing does not impact the safety of other people.

I am nothing special or anything. Most Libertarians think/thought like I do. We all have a variety of things that are important to us and we all have slightly different views as to how we should solve these problems. Unfortunately, there is a vocal minority who has insisted they speak for the whole when, really, they represent nobody or anything close to the party platform. They are just neo-conservatives who have co-opted the Libertarian name because they are too ashamed to be associated with the Republican party name. Their beliefs have not changed, nor have our's, but the message that goes out appears to have changed. We are not organized well enough or centralized well enough to kick these people out of the party and there is no way we can restrict them from using the moniker.

Finally, in my observations, the total number of folks here that are vocal tend to be skewed left. The demographics would suggest that this is normal but we all have confirmation biases that will have us see what we want to see and this is compounded by the tendency to rant, troll, be vocal, be aggressive, and attention seeking. The vocal minority, even here, is what gets noticed and we are not nearly as objective as we think we are. Given the nature of /. it also stands to reason that we attract the eclectic and this means we get the extremes on either end of the spectrum and they all want to be heard.

So, I end my rant. It is not that short but I have tried to keep it to a dull roar. We are not all insane but quite a few of us are. ;)

When I see comments like this I always wonder who the source is... No mention of how you used it, when you used it, what the failings were, and you are an AC. You may be right but your comment does not carry a lot of weight.

That would probably improve sales over the number that I expect this to sell. I will check the kickstarter when it pops but, frankly, I expect to be underwhelmed and not invest in it.

I miss A Train and Sim Ant. For the Sega I miss Mutant League Hockey and Mutant League Football. They were wonderful games, all four of them. I have not gamed much since the days of Fallout 2.

I have been playing grep for like 10 years now. I think I am winning. I did not realize there were other games.

I do not have the compute power to run this game. I am waiting for the VIC-20 BASIC V2 port. Also, you are an insensitive clod.

Except it is not the default behavior as has been shown, mentioned, linked, and linked again and again in this very thread. Why be dishonest?

Nope. They are getting free wifi from their neighbor thanks to this sharing option.

EITC - Evil In The Cloud. We used to call it "the network" or "the mainframe." We accessed it with dumb terminals. Today we are doing the same thing only claiming it is new. So instead of a BOFH we have EITC. It is new and you will like it. Also, get off my lawn. (Not really, you can chill on my lawn. It would be cooler if you came inside though. My lawn has not been as much fun since I gave someone my set of lawn jarts.)

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.