In Scott Adam's, Dilbert's Principle, he has a chapter on "abnormal" engineers. Normal engineers what to modify and perfect everything technical, to the detriment of usability and form. One "abnormal" engineer was a guy who had an unmodified TV remote and is quoted that he happy that the damn thing works.

Windows 8, from the desktop, works. I don't care about Windows as long as I get my damn Steam games.

Those that want to tax other people often aren't interested in doing much more themselves. For a bad example, a while back the head of Greenpeace used a private jet for a short summit on global warming. Another, Warren Buffet wasted hot air calling for higher taxes, but did not give any money from his giant trust to the government.

If you want to force other people to do something, show that you're doing it yourself, not just SAYING you will at some future date. This isn't about scale. I think that 7/gal is just stupid. It is about actually sacrificing and doing something instead of whining others should pay more.

Every time you fill your gas, please write a check for twice as much and make it payable to the U.S. Treasury. Until you are willing to put your money where your mouth is, shut up.

Now it's, "give the people who vote for me free stuff so I can stay in office so I can be wine and dined by lobbyists."

For the CDC to get it's shit in order.

The title says it's not because of increasing labor costs, but then points out that places like Walmart and banks are already using automation. Perhaps they found it cheaper than what ever they paid an employee at the time they automated?

It's just the cost of McD's to automate is higher than grocery stores and banks.

I'm going to auction off my stinky pantry on eBay.

No.

and, if you've seen any YouTube video of Common Core math, know it absolutely sucks. Recently, there was a study that showed that rote memorization of simple math starts the process of higher though processes. I think Slashdot had a post on it.

Common Core is such a big carp at such a basic level that anyone who was a part of promoting or creating it should never doing anything with education again.

True, but this is at least partially developed and Facebook isn't creating something completely new, although integrating the technology into FB might be the "developing". This might be more like the 10 store strip mall being turned into the Mall of America. FB is paying the full price for Mall of America just to get the revenue of a family run property.

I don't see how they can increase the revenue 100x or more (using the real estate metaphor) as I'm guessing the data mining from that would overlap their current business. My current ability is only getting 10-20x on CD, DVD, and toys; and that's why they're the media empire billionaires.

In residential rental real estate, the rule of thumb is monthly revenue of 1% of the property or annually, 1 eighth of the property's value. The biggest companies like Exxon, Walmart, and Apple have a revenue to value ratio close to 1:1. Their last year's revenue is one thousandths of the purchase price.

Hey, Facebook, give me a million bucks and I'll give you 1,000 each year. Heck, I'll double it, $2,000 next year.

Why not just buy the batteries and charger and skip the cost of the car?

Depending on source, Japan's electricity cost is 50-100% higher than the U.S. At $20k per car and the above $800/yr per car saved (In U.S.$400-530), what is the return on investment per year (this question doesn't include upkeep like maintenance cost of the car)?

How fast do you wear out the batteries due to the increase of charge/discharge cycle?

Comparing the savings of time shifting usage with approx $120,000 cost of the cars, what could the same company do to reduce consumption using $120,000 to reduce energy consumption (therefore reduce amount of the evil CO2 created)?

How many mile will you loose if if the cars are used for commuting?

Would have posted on the original site, but my login cookie gets blocked.

Regular DVD to 1080 is amazing different. When I first bought the Xbox HD-DVD add-on (Yeah, that was stupid), I played The Matrix DVD and HD-DVD side by side.

Holy shit, Laurence Fishborne's pock marks are scary in 1080.

No points. Participation awards for all!

Cell phones were cheaper with many millions of land lines not laid. The fiber or copper for the cell towers would have been used anyways as part of the land lines so were fixed cost anyways. Oh and other countries/charities also gave them money. Now we tell them to place millions more solar panels and windmills and hundreds of natural gas plants as low supply backups.

Yeah, you can jump to 100% clean energy too! Just pay triple on your electric bill. You even can jump to an electric car for only another 6k above the gas model. So, money on green power or money on a Obamacare plan cause Ocare law let the your insurer drop the plan you wanted to keep? They get the choice of clean energy or food.