Says the guy that won't even put a pseudonym behind what he has to say.

I've got some news for you, AC: just because someone expresses a viewpoint you happen to disagree with doesn't make them a shill. I've been a UNIX user since the 80s, a Linux user since 94 or so, a postfix and sendmail admin for over fifteen years, and helped run a dozen MMOs back when they had text interface and were called MUDs. GPL beats BSD, vi beats Emacs, and my windows desktop runs Xming so I can do real work from time to time.

What I said was not marketing, and is not even an endorsement. I was not claiming that win 10 is the best thing since sliced bread, but rather simply stating that the economics are impossible to ignore. Win 10 adoption is GOING to happen fast, and it's going to be driven by the "free upgrade, but only if you do it right now" bandwagon. That was my only point, and wishing it were otherwise isn't going to change what's going to happen.

Do you point your desktop Linux users (okay, so I'm kidding) toward the bleeding edge/preview yum repos? No? Then why harp on MS for aiming their previews at IT people rather than end users?

Who the hell was screaming to keep VB6 around? Even the VB programmers I know almost universally hate it.

I believe that's going to change, drastically. Microsoft's path with Windows 10 (free updates from Windows => 7, as long as you do it within a year of release) is going to drive the fastest corporate OS migrations ever--for better, or for worse.

I know we're planning for it. It scares the hell out of us, but the incentive to move forward is so powerful there really isn't any other viable path.

If that's correct, who cares if it takes a few centuries for the thing to warm up? It would completely solve the problem of how you get the crew from point A to point B alive... no suspended animation, no generation ships, etc, just board at the right time and be there after a relatively short period. YOU won't ever get to see Alpha Centauri, but frankly, from the perspective of the species, that's really not a problem.

It's blatant discrimination against those who are exactly 49.

Problem: Space Radiation May Alter Astronauts' Neurons.

Solution: Tin foil hats.

Why?

Why is not the optimal consumer incentive which the electric company could offer the price difference between peak and non-peak rates? By "optimal" I mean socially efficient, not the biggest or whatever you happen to want the most.

That number is way off. You have performed the calculation incorrectly because you omitted the opportunity cost. If you do the calculation correctly, then I estimate (using amateurish cost-accounting methods below) that you end up at around break-even if you buy the battery. Which is extremely interesting, because, assuming rational consumers, as manufacturing costs fall, that would be the consumer price threshold at which these batteries could be marketed and they just started being marketed at that price.

So about the opportunity cost: I have no idea what value is conventional to use as the opportunity cost. But the stock market seems like a reasonable choice. So if you invest the initial $3,500.00 in the stock market instead of buying a battery, and we assume 6.5% returns compounded annually, that works out to to an increase of $3069.98 over ten years. That is the about the same gain., ~$3,000, which estimated in savings on your electric bill after the recouping the battery investment. So you are about $3,000 better off after ten years either if you invest a sum of $3,500.00 in the stock market or if you invest the same sum in a home battery.

Of course there would be more things to consider in making an accurate calculation: differing tax treatments, risk and uncertainty between the choices, what residual worth your battery has after 10 years and its rate of depreciation, the inflation-reduced value of the initial $3,500.00 had you invested it. Also, to do the comparison correctly, assume that the accumulating savings on your electric bill are invested after the battery is paid off. Maybe someone who actually knows how to do cost accounting will chime in here with better estimates. Nonetheless, the claim that you neglected to account for significant opportunity cost stands, even if I failed to calculate that cost conventionally or sufficiently accurately.

That was just so Scotty could observe, "There be whales here!"

IANAL, and I don't know what the specifics of the FCRA are, but the summary says "providing" and not "selling." It's not a stretch to see how someone like Google could fall afoul of this (as a test case, Google "spacepimp" or your real name and see if you recognize anything "personally identifiable." My guess is the answer is an emphatic "yes").

This was my thought, as well. The plaintiff is either a privacy advocate (something that I support in general), or someone just looking for a payday (something that I oppose in general). In either case, his reasoning is highly suspect.

I got better.

And for those who get their medical advice from Playboy's Playmate of the Year there is Jenny McCarthy, of whom Wikipedia reports:

So in honor of Ms. McCarthy, can we henceforth refer to populist medical quackery practiced by uncredentialed public attention seekers as "Jenny McCarthyism?"