Does nobody remember this headline from a few months ago? Tesla could start on Gigafactory in 2 states, then cut 1:

"We are going to proceed with at least two locations in parallel, just in case one of them encounters some issues after breaking ground," Musk said. He said Panasonic was likely to be Tesla's partner in battery production.

The fact that construction started and then stopped makes it sound more like this is that - who else would do such a thing?

I was going to write something snarky about the silliness of getting excited about this one factory, of all things. But it really does hit all the right points, doesn't it: (1) the manufacturing industry in the US, (2) the geopolitics of our oil addiction and resulting involvement in the middle east, and (3) environmental harm from fossil fuels.

Morgan Stanley is excited about the potential use of gigafactory batteries for home energy storage and grid independence, and thinks they might make more on that than on cars. (I would have thought good old lead acid car batteries were cheaper for this?)

You could just leave your vacuum cleaner running I guess... (even Shop Vacs have HEPA filters available, and they move a lot of air!)

But it makes more sense to filter the air at the inlet if you can, or at least as it recirculates through the HVAC system already built into your home. Check your air filter once in a while, people!

So Franklin was against the American way of life too?

Won't somebody please think of the Founding Fathers?

They would. But we're not willing to pay 10% more on the cheap crap they produce for us.

That's ... that's ... .that's COMMUNISM!

In China? Not really. If you're being conditioned that following the rules is good while thinking for yourself is bad and can even get you in trouble, you eventually end up with a mindset like that.

But don't worry, they're already exporting that success model. We're getting there. And, frankly, when I look around me, how people pay for "services" that hardly qualify as a service because they're too closed minded to even fathom how they could do it themselves for free and at little if any expense and effort, I dare say we're already there.

How very un-American! He could have sold it for 800 bucks, and instead he hands it out for free!

He's been living in Commieland for too long!

Oh wait... they haven't passed the bar yet.

I am an ACM member, but I'm not happy with it. My biggest complaint about the ACM is their failure to understand why copyright is bad and needs massive reform or abolishment. Instead, they jump in bed, ideologically, with copyright extremists! $100 membership isn't good enough for access to the digital library, have to pay another $100 for that? What a total money grab, locking up knowledge and for what? To coerce membership fees from researchers? Aren't they supposed to be a non-profit organization? The digital library should be public! Freely available to all, including non-members. Some years, CACM has had a "special" issue in the summer devoted to intellectual property issues. Some of those CACM articles are downright shameful in their unquestioned support of the current system, preferring to dive into how to use copyright when they haven't discussed why. It's like the whole fake "teach the controversy" debate between Evolution and Creationism. Any science magazine that dared treat Creationism as if it was valid science would quickly lose all respect and become a laughingstock. But the ACM still soberly talks as if copyright can somehow still work. It's like listening to some cranks say that they can fix the problems with the Theory of Intelligent Design, just have to do more exploration and research.

It's embarrassing. On technological matters, the ACM ought to be one of the most progressive organizations in existence. Instead, they were slow to get on the Internet. Their early websites were garbage nearly devoid of content, seemingly made live only because it was even more embarrassing not to have a website at all! They were late to the party for online renewal of membership. Yes, ACM has done online renewal for years, but they weren't the first to do that, far from it. Now they're going to be late to the death of copyright.

I don't pay interest on my credit cards and they pay me cash back. I use the reward points and cash back for free vacations. I financed my last car at below the rate of inflation. Adjusted for inflation, the bank paid *me* for the privilege of buying me a car.

It isn't a scam; it's a game. And rule number 1 is understand basic mathematics.

Your credit score is the calculated chances that you'll stick to the terms if credit is offered. It's based on past performance and present (credit-based) circumstances. If you have no history, they can't score you. That's how the fuck that works.

None of this hits your credit report, so it can't be used to score you. Money in the bank isn't reported and isn't scored. Paychecks and income aren't reported and aren't scored.

Someone who is paying with credit cards and is keeping those accounts paid as agreed has a demonstrated history of responsibly managing their credit. You don't have that. That's why they score higher. You seem to want a credit score that's based on some personal knowledge of you, or your handshake, or a magic 8 ball or something. But that isn't how it works because we no longer live in villages of 20 families. Various items related to how you've handled credit/debt are reported to credit reporting agencies. Other companies (okay, pretty much just FICO) have developed various scoring models that take the information reported to the CRAs and turn that information into a single, simple number which represents the chances that you'll stick to the terms of credit is offered. Since they don't have any information about you, you don't get scored.

I pay for everything with credit cards, pay them off every month so there's no interest, and then I take free vacations with the reward points and cash back money. I have a long credit history showing that whenever someone provides me credit, I manage it responsibly and pay them on time as agreed. If someone is thinking about offering me credit, they can look at that long history (or just the number) and see that I'm a pretty safe bet. They can look at someone else who has a long history of failing to pay back everyone who lends them a dime and see that person is a huge risk. They look at you and they see a mystery box. What exactly would you expect to happen?

Except for credit cards, car loans, mortgages; just about anything that requires credit. But yeah, except for those things, nobody actually uses FICO.

Just wrong time and time again. First of all, there aren't 5 different places. There are 3: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. Secondly, there are multiple types of FICO scores and the lender chooses which type to use. Auto-enhanced FICO scores weigh vehicle loans differently, but are otherwise very similar to the consumer FICO score you can pull. Most differences between scores from different CRAs are due to differences in the credit reports themselves. Often times, accounts (in good standing or otherwise) aren't reported to all three CRAs, which means you'll have different histories and different scores with them. And yes, there are other proprietary models available, but they're hardly ever used (as in 10% of the time).

When it comes to applying for credit, FICO is still the kind of the castle precisely because it does adapt and broadly predict consumer behavior, allowing lenders to appropriately price risk.

Depends on the scoring model and your personal 'bucket', but the optimal is typically 9% total utilization for revolving accounts. Keep in mind that certain scoring models (TU98 comes to mind) want that all on one revolving account. Any more and you'll lose the small bit of bonus you get for having the balance at all. That said, the typical bump to credit score is often less than 10 points. It can be used for a temporary bump prior to seeking big credit or for bragging rights, but honestly, you're just about as well off paying everything to zero each month prior to CRA reporting.

Are you certain those two collections are on your TransUnion credit report (the one Discover pulls for that monthly score update)? I'd be truly shocked if you broke 800 on a real FICO score with two collections present. I've never seen anything close to that - not with two collections.