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

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

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

The positions are out there.

My last hiring blitz I had to bring in 28 contractors. Mainframe coders, Java devs, analysts, project managers, ETL/BI, reporting...

Trying to find 4 qualified Java developers took multiple postings. Sure, I'd get 40-100 resumes for each posting, but the majority were complete trash.

Most recently I've been looking for C#/Python/GIS devs.

And just yesterday I saw that Camelot Unchained was looking for a C# developer with threading knowledge and it's almost enough to make me quit my management life, move to DC, and get back into software development.

Getting a job as a good coder in Madison, WI isn't hard. Finding good labor available on the market in Madison WI... good luck.

-Rick

My kid loves this one: http://codecombat.com/

I got him started on it when he was 10, and he completed all of the free levels in two weeks with minimal help after I worked with him through the first few.

Lots of other great recommendations here: http://venturebeat.com/2014/06...

The board game one I've heard is good for younger kids, but once they have it down it's rather boring.

-Rick

Tack onto that the GI Bill, which helped the US become the world leader in post secondary education.

Taking a crap ton of able bodied unemployed men and paying for their education helped elongate that post-war economic boom.

-Rick

There's a moving picture going on and this conversation is focusing on 1 frame.

The EPA is currently wrapped up in litigation over their legal authority to regulate CO2 emissions. One of the current arguments being put forward by the coal industry lobby is that even if AGW is real, it isn't having any immediate and measurable impact on the health of Americans. If there's no health concerns, then there's no reason fro the EPA to regulate.

So the President goes out and makes a statement, backed up by multiple research papers (someone posted links above if you're interested in digging into them and debating their merit), that say that no, in fact, AGW/AGCC is having a direct impact on the health of Americans.

Out of context, it seems like an odd thing to go on the stump about, but in the context of the EPA/coal industry court battles, it makes sense as the feds are trying to ensure the EPA retains it's legal authority to regulate CO2.

-Rick

Uhh, did you even bother READING the article you linked?

"The Working Group classified glyphosate as âoeprobably carcinogenic to humansâ (Group 2A)."

The "Working Group" is:

"In March, 2015, 17 experts from 11 countries met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC; Lyon, France) to assess the carcinogenicity of the organophosphate pesticides tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion, diazinon, and glyphosate"

NBC had nothing to do with the word "probably". The group of EXPERTS that met on the topic did.

Further more, if you actually read the article, and more importantly, the scientific studies they cite, you would probably realize a couple of things:
1) The concern is not for end consumers or even joe-schmoe gardener, it's for factory and field workers that are exposed to higher concentrations in greater volume than anything joe-schmoe would ever see.
2) Some of the studies are a bit tenuous. Sure, if you put a rat on an LD50-1 diet of glyphosate for their whole life, freaky things are going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, Monsanto is the fsking devil, just not for their work on glyphosate. Their business processes, the way they exploit farmers, their enforcement of IP, etc... is more than enough to warrant the hate that they deserve. But glyphosate, even with the risks we know about it, is so much better than the alternatives.

-Rick

The part that intrigues me is that they claim to return a name with the face.

This would imply that their facial recognition isn't just a image match, but that it looks at the context of the photos it finds to attempt to identify meta data about the people within it. Assuming that their facial recognition is no better than anyone else's recognition, by adding meta data to the calculation, especially given Google's propensity to collect and search meta data, it would seem likely that they use the meta data to make stronger identifications and find more reference photos of potential matches.

For example, if they do the first facial only search and come up with 10,000 possible matches, then they do meta searches on those 10,000 to find more pictures of them, then those pictures are compared for stronger 'training', you wind up with a much higher level of accuracy.

-Rick

I don't believe there was anything barring people from reading it. I sat down over quite a few evenings at the time reviewing the proposed bill.

The rush where Pelosi and others were pushing for a vote was after the amendments had been completed. The bill was readily available for reading for months before then, and the amendments were available to read, but some individuals attempting to slow the passage down (until after Kennedy was out of the picture) were arguing that we should have delayed the passage until a complete new reading could be completed.

Don't get me wrong, I strongly detest the idea of legislation more than a couple of pages long written at a 6th grade reading level. But to claim that people "were not allowed to see or read" is factually untrue.

-Rick

I believe you may be suffering from ODS.

http://www.slate.com/articles/...

The GOP introduced over 700 amendments to the ACA before it was put to the floor for a vote. Of those, 161 passed. Compared to the 36 Dem submitted amendments that passed.

To claim that the "GOP had nothing to do with the ACA" is verifiably untrue. To further claim that "They had no power to speak of at the time" highlights a complete lack of knowledge and understanding of how the legislative branch of our government works.

-Rick