I guess it depends on who you believe, but there have been climate scientists that have said we are beyond the tipping point, that even if we reduce emissions warming will happen. Ok well if that's true, and if it is true that the warming will be a net harmful thing, then some kind of geo engineering would be necessary. You can't very well say "Reducing CO2 won't fix the problem, but let's do as much of that as we can and only do that and then cry about the problem!"

https://www.we-energies.com/re...

Up to 17 cents cheaper per KWH (22c day, 5c night).

Assuming you blow 10kWh per day, primarily between 6am and 11pm, that's upwards of $2.20/day.

If you move your entire 10kWh load to the battery system and charge it over night, it drops you down to $0.50/day.

$1.70 savings per day. That's 2058 days to recoup the $3500 expenditure, or just a bit over 5 1/2 years. Over the ten year warranty period you'll save ~$3000, assuming electricity prices remain constant.

-Rick

Meanwhile I'm lucky to get 1.2mbps off my DSL and my new place doesn't have cable or dsl access. I might be able to get 802.11n wifi, but with all likelihood I'm going to be stuck with the gawdaweful lag of a satellite. :(

-Rick

If the problem is that the Argentine currency is unstable... well then Bitcoin is the WRONG answer. It is exceedingly unstable, it would be unstable even for a stock, never mind a currency, it moves like a thinly traded penny stock. So trying to use it for some kind of stability is just about the dumbest thing you can do.

To me, this seems like more Bitvertisement by which ever of Slashdot's editors is heavily invested in them and trying to drum up interest.

While you are facepalming you should wipe the egg off your face. And try googling for "USA oil production"

The US produced 3.1 billion barrels of oil last year.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pe...

The US imported 3.3 billion barrels of oil last year.

So I guess my statement wasn't perfectly accurate as we don't produce more than 50% of our own oil, and a significant portion of what we do produce is distributed internationally.

Although, if you look at the trend, over the last 5 years we've reduced our oil imports by 900 million barrels a year while increasing our oil production by 1.2 billion barrels a year. At current rate by 2016 we will be producing more than we are importing.

So while I would admit to embellishing the statement a little, I think your dramatization is a bit much. ;)

-Rick

"1) Fossil fuels are a limited supply. Maybe enough for another 50 years. Maybe 100. But still limited."

Matters on the type of fuel you're talking about. The US has coal reserves for hundreds of years. Even NG and Crude reserves to last a loooooong time, but they will continue to cost more and more to extract and refine.

"2) We purchase large amounts of oil from countries that, in general, do not like us."

We buy most of our oil, from ourselves. The vast majority of the rest is bought from Mexico and Canada. The largest of the insignificant provider nations is Venezuela. The amount of oil we buy from countries that, "Do not like us", is insignificant.

"3) If it were not for oil, our interest in the middle east would decline greatly, which would be a good thing."

Our interest in Middle Eastern oil is due to the lack of oil reserves in western Europe. Even without any US demand on Middle Eastern oil, the US will have a continued interest in the region until Western Europe transitions off of crude.

"More fuel efficiency and alternative fuels just simply make long term sense, even without considering climate change. So, what is the problem?"

This is really the crux of it. So let's say that the Pope/Scientists are wrong. There is no global warming and any investment in improving vehicle efficiency, air quality, and use of renewable is a waste of economic output. Well, we still get more efficient vehicles, better air quality, and a bunch of jobs. So, no big loss.

On the other hand, say the Pope/Scientists are right, but we do nothing. We are at risk of creating a catastrophic level event that would dramatically alter life on the planet, and could result in the death of billions of people.

So option A, we possibly lose a percent or two off of economic growth. Option B, we die, and the economy no longer matters.

As you said, "So, what is the problem?"

-Rick

They do need to be carefull if they try throtteling upstream bandwidth for customers with lower level packages. It is simply too easy to prove. Comcast is an example of where this was not hidden very well. Customers with 20Meg Comcast connecitons could not stream Netflix nearly as well as 6Meg DSL customers in the same neighborhood. Customers needing redundancy against outages were the very first to note and document the problem.

Verizon needs to be carefull what is placed in their sales training materials as this could come back to bite them.

Since multiple sales agents have called using the same sales script, this could indicate a problem in the sales management team.

Bad students are certainly a thing but any time I've seen a professor talk about how bad a whole class is (and I've seen it, I do IT support at a university) is the PROFESSOR who is the bad one.

We had a guy who only lasted one semester before being told to leave. He disrespected his students, did a shit job teaching anything, and expected everyone to have advanced processor design knowledge that was PhD level or beyond. He gave them an impossible project and then raged at them when they couldn't do it.

While there may well have been a few lazy and/or disrespectful students in his class, the overwhelming problem was him. He expected everyone to kiss his ass all the time, not expect anything from him, and have education far beyond their years. With unrealistic expectations like that, of course he was disappointed in his class.

Everyone "failed" his class by raw numbers but he just curved it so in the end grades were a representation of intelligence, not mastery of the subject.

I do agree that someone is trying to sell something.

Unless entire large acrage farms convert into solar, the distribution of retail, commercial refrigeration, high density housing (apartments), etc will notmeet daytime demand. Many businesses have installed some solar to offset their daytime energy use.

Most home solar installations are supplimental with only brief periods where the het pump cycles off durring the day that net metering even feeds into the grid.

In my area I have looked into the possibility of off grid, and it would require removal of the laundry pair for hand wash instead and an outside clothsline in all weather.

If I covered my entire roof, I would have to change my primary heating to something not dependant on electric. Yes I could possibly sell some daytime power to the utility for a couple of hours each day, but that small amount an more would be consumed by the supermarket down the street. The utility would never have a net surplus from consumers that is not used locally.

I mean if you are going to take a 75% cut, well then you can afford to spend the fucking time curating your shit. If they are going to charge that kind of cut, they can afford to have people review the content. Given that they are taking a much larger cut than the dev, it should stand to reason that goes to paying for some work on their part.

Have it where you submit a form to Valve with what your mod is, what it does, etc. They screen it to make sure it sounds like a reasonable idea, and then send you stuff to sign where you declare that this is your work, you aren't violating copyright, you've paid commercial licenses for software used on it, etc. Once they have that, mod gets submitted and then it goes off to Bethesda for QA. They test it to make sure that it does what it says, doesn't crash the game, and so on. Maybe even help fix bugs possibly. If that's all good Valve does a final check to make sure they don't see any copyright violation (maybe an automated system that flags and then a human checks i there are flags to see if it is legit) and it then gets posted.

If they were doing something like that, then ok maybe there's some justification of the price. Ya there's a big cut getting taken, which means higher prices, but you are getting something more along the lines of paid DLC. QA like that might be worth it.

However they were just letting anything and everything get posted. They were treating it with the same indifference as the rest of Steam, which is just not ok.

Soda has around 100 calories per 8 fluid ounces (varies slightly with type of soda). So you get a 32 ounce drink, that's 400 calories. That's a fair bit, even by fast food standards. Most fast food burgers are in the 800-1200 calorie range (a double quarter pounder with cheese is 740 calories for reference). So you are adding 33-50% more calories to a meal with a 32oz soda.

Well the thing is, the calories in that soda won't do much if anything to fill you up. Drink as much as you like, you still feel hungry. Not so with a hamburger. While it isn't high quality nutrition, it is still plenty of protein, fat, and carbs and your body is going to be satisfied by the consumption of it.

Thus cutting out the soda really can help. You reduce a non-trivial amount of calories and it isn't likely to make you feel less full. Ya, you are still eating fast food and it is not high quality nutrition, and it is high calorie for what you get, but it is better than just drinking sugar water which is more or less what soda is.

Weight loss and eating healthy isn't an all or nothing proposition. There is better and worse, and cutting out soda is doing better than leaving it in.

I see what you did there.

-Rick

I'm going to turn this on in a heart beat for my wife's Mom and Grandma's PCs.

And I'm sure the sys admins here at work will deploy with it enabled and completely locked down. It sounds way easier than dealing with this Power Broker crap.

-Rick

Student loans are the most secure loans made.

You cannot default on a student loan. You can be in bankruptcy, broke, homeless, unemployed, with kidney failure, and you still cannot default on your student loan. There are only two ways out: pay it off, or die. And seeing as how most folks incur student loans when they are 18-26, odds are strongly in favor of the lender.

You can refinance student loans, people didn't in the past because your student loan was at ~3%. When the House GOP refused to pass a continuation of the low rate program, they jumped to 6-7%. So at this point, if you have equity in your house, life insurance, or retirement fund, it may well be worth it to refi with a secured loan and get back to 3-5% APR.

Also, my credit union was just advertising new vehicle loans for 2.85% APR. And as far as secured loans go, vehicles suck on the secondary market, there's just too much depreciation as soon as you drive it off the lot. But if you're paying 7%, or the 18% number you mention, it's because your credit rating is likely crap. Heck, even my credit card is at 9%, and I'm sure there are better rates out there.

-Rick