The article seems to state that the problem is the constant changing of the time forward and backward due to DST. The proposed solution involves one final change at a regular DST interval, then no longer using DST. However, that change also involves redefining our four US timezones into two as well. I understand that it may be easier to make major timezone changes all at once, but I'm not sure the second is really related to the first.

I've seen other suggestions about simply not using DST anymore. It sure seems to me that today's modern technology and 24x7 scheduling make the idea of shifting daylight hours to different parts of the clock seem a bit outdated. Do we really save that much electricity on lighting to counteract the issues of dealing with changing the time around every six months?

Something I read previously suggested switching to Summer time and no longer using Winter time. Here in Michigan, it starts getting colder and darker earlier, then the DST change hits and it's suddenly dark pretty much as soon as you leave work. I'm not a fan of the author's suggestion to switch to Winter time (even if it is the "Standard" time) permanently. I'd much rather deal with dark mornings and have a little bit of light after work during the winter. I'm at the later edge of Eastern Time, so this effect should be even worse for those on the East Coast who would be seeing sunrise and sunset before me.

The author seems to make some reasonable points about people matching their activities to other timezones. I don't have enough experience to say whether that's really true for the majority of people, so as to justify converting the whole timezone. If we were to do this timezone rearrangement, the DST change might be a good time to do it, since people are already accustomed to moving their clocks an hour. However, I don't think it really has anything to do with the DST change, and personally I don't like the idea of my timezone moving to Winter time permanently.

Why would a lockscreen bug have anything to do with this fingerprint scanner bounty?

Extensions and plugins? In Cyberfox (a 64-bit build of Firefox), I currently have 10 tabs open, 53 enabled extensions (26 more disabled), and pretty much all the standard content plugins other than Silverlight, even Flash and Java. On my 16GB system, Cyberfox is using 609MB. Try about:memory to see what's sucking up so much RAM.

I understand what you're saying, and I agree with the general idea. However, I don't think the numbers you chose match up well to the ICE vs. EV comparison. What about these numbers instead?

• * a new car for $20K and $3K in fuel costs every year for 10 years
• * a new car for $30K and $0.5K in fuel costs every year for 10 years

Even "cheap" cars have gotten more expensive, so there's much less difference in the initial cost - more like an extra 50%, not 200%. Based on my own research comparing my Cobalt to a Volt, I think there's probably going to be more savings in recurring fuel costs too. Whereas your example shows that people will choose a low initial cost plus a recurring cost to get 20 years of service over paying that same amount upfront for 30 years of service, my example shows that the break-even point would come after just four years. Assuming you get 10 years of service out of the vehicle (I'm from the Rust Belt, not Cali), you're looking at a TCO of $50K vs. $35K. That's an extra 43% that you're paying for the comfort of the ICE you're used to. If you extend that out to 20 years, you get $80K vs. $40K. A break-even point of 20 years is completely different from 4 years when you're talking about something that's usually bought with a 5-year loan.

At this point, the long term reliability and maintenance costs of EVs aren't well known. If you have to spend $10K to replace your battery pack in 10 years, that puts it a lot closer to the TCO of the ICE. On the other hand, if the 20-year TCO of the ICE is $80K (remember that only 25% of that is the actual purchase cost), you can still save money by buying two of the EVs with a 10-year TCO of $35K. As others have stated, electric motors are quite reliable, so you may have some savings in maintenance costs there, and there are Priuses over a decade old that are still doing fine on the original batteries. The overall maintenance costs of ICE and EV could end up being a wash, or even in favor of the EV. At this point, we don't know what a 10-year-old Tesla will be like, but there's no guarantee that an ICE will be cheaper to maintain, and hopefully the existing hybrids and EVs can help us estimate.

I think if you sit down and look at the hard numbers, which will contain some variances for each individual as well as some not-very-proven data for EVs, I think you'll find that a $30K practical Tesla (not a $60-90K S) is a lot closer to the standard brand-new family car than you realize. With some incremental improvements to range and recharging (so that it could be refilled for another "tankful" of miles in the time it takes to do an average stop at a gas station/convenience store) to make it comparable to ICEs for extended trips, I think it could be a practical replacement for a lot of families. For example, a combination of improvements could bump the full-charge range up to 600 miles and make it so a 15 minute quick-charge could add another 300 miles (i.e. not necessarily just making it so that you can completely recharge your 300-mile battery in 5 minutes at a fueling station).

The Malibu starts at $26,725 and the Taurus at $26,700, so a $30K sedan that's saving you a couple grand in fuel costs each year isn't all that crazy. Would you tie up an extra $3,300 initially to save $2,500 a year in fuel costs? Also, it's been said that the BlueStar will be designed to compete with the $32,500 A4 and $32,550 3-series, for some reference. $30K still seems to me like a lot of money for a car (my $15K Cobalt is the most expensive vehicle I've owned), but it actually seems like a pretty good price point relative to the other cars that are available.

Going back to the steel mill worker, trucks (since he's a manly man) aren't cheap either. A regular cab, short box, RWD Chevy 1500 starts at $24,585. If he's got kids, add $4K for extended cab and another $4K for crew cab. 4X4 is another $3-4K, and we haven't even touched trim levels yet. A crew cab 4X4 LTZ is $43,380 before you add any special options. And since we're discussing fuel costs here, it gets 15-21mpg with the standard 5.3L or 12-18mpg with the 6.2L, so you're not likely to be saving money there either.

Have you looked at new car pricing lately? $15K is basically where new cars start. The Chevy Sonic and Ford Fiesta both start at $14,xxx. The Dodge Dart starts at $15,995. There are some subcompacts for a little less, but even the Smart Coupe starts at $12,490. Kia has the Forte starting at $15,900 and the Rio at $13,600. If you want to get into higher-quality imports, the Toyota Corolla starts at $16,230 and the Honda Civic is $17,965. My very base model Cobalt LS (superseded by the Cruze, which starts at $17,130) for $15K a few years ago went so far as to consider the spare tire an option (the standard is a can of Fix-A-Flat) and its power accessories are limited to steering and brakes (not locks and windows). Short of stripped-down econoboxes, you should plan to spend close to $20K for any new car these days.

I have a commute of approximately 19 miles round trip between two little towns. My 25/37mpg Cobalt uses about $2,000 worth of gas yearly. I looked into the Volt (as I could still have long range trips come up with short notice, so the hard limit of a pure electric won't fly for me) and figured out that it should cut my fuel bill to about $500 a year. Let's just assume that a pure EV would result in the same 3/4 reduction in fuel cost for simplicity's sake.

Let's say you could make a decent EV (with acceptable range, whatever that works out to be), comparable to the base version of the second-lowest ICE model, that also managed to eliminate 75% of your fuel costs. If you sold it for the equivalent of one year's worth of fuel savings over the price of the ICE model, it should be a no-brainer. For two years' worth of savings, it should still be a pretty easy sell. Well, compared to current ICE compact cars, that's right around your $20K mark (depending on each individual's varying fuel costs). $25-30K is obviously a harder sell, but could still result in overall savings depending on the person's driving details and the cost of gas. Depending on how the long term maintenance costs work out (simpler driveline parts vs. battery pack costs), that could add more savings when looking at the TCO. If you could somehow pull it off for $15K, you would beat the ICE compact market in every respect. You wouldn't "have a market", you'd crush the existing market.

Then again, my $3600 motorcycle does 0-60 in under 4 seconds and I've spent less than $300 on gas for it in the last 11 months (50mpg average). However, it's not so great in inclement weather or with large loads.

It's better than a browser that doesn't give you a way to undo all the "improvements".

I don't expect any browser to ever match exactly what I want, short of rolling my own. However, it's rare to find something with Firefox that can't be changed via a simple plugin or even just a setting in about:config. While Firefox may not be exactly what I want right out of the box, its configuration options allow me to turn it into exactly what I want (or pretty darn close).

This is what enthusiasts refer to as using positive pressure. Fans force air into the case, creating slightly higher than atmospheric pressure inside. The excess air then escapes out whatever holes and cracks it can find in the case. With negative pressure, the fan sucks warm air out of the case and creates lower pressure inside. Air comes in through the tiny holes and cracks in the case.

There's not a whole lot of performance difference between the two overall, but with positive pressure you have a small number of obvious entry points for air, which are easy to filter. With negative pressure, the air enters from a bunch of random spots that are nearly impossible to filter. While there's not much performance difference, one way makes it a whole lot easier to keep dust out of your system.

A number of comments here have mentioned it, but nobody has flat out said it. The big problem from dust is that it acts as an insulator, trapping heat in the components. It also inhibits airflow, which makes the insulation that much worse. I've not heard of any dusty PC components suffering from electrostatic problems, but there are tons of PCs and components that run hotter than they need to due to tons of dust clogging up fans and heatsink fins.

There's no reason the phone hardware has to be tied to the service contract. As long as I keep paying AT&T my $X/mo, why should they care if I also want to pay T-Mobile $Y/mo to use my phone with their service instead? The Early Termination Fee is designed to cover the cost of subsidized hardware in the event that you cancel your contract. Why should AT&T care if I buy the $200 contract phone, then pay a $400 ETF to break the contract vs. just buying the $600 phone to begin with?

Secondly, this law makes no distinction between having your contract phone one day or if you've already completed your full contract term. Circumventing the carrier lock is now illegal once again, period.

The only justification I can see for the carrier lock on the hardware itself is that it helps to make the phone less useful if you try to break the contract without paying the ETF. Think of it as a lien on the hardware, but in that case it should automatically be removed once the contract obligations have been met.

Yes, you've completely misunderstood unlocking. This refers only to the lock tying the phone to a specific carrier. This doesn't having anything to do with jailbreaking or rooting (unlocking the phone's software to run unauthorized programs).

Maybe it's just that even after demotion, the pirate sites are still the best possible result, ranking above the sites that the RIAA would like to see at the top...

If you don't like that your elected officials are delegating powers to non-elected people, let them know and/or vote them out. There are a whole bunch of government employees who aren't elected, but still have power over citizens. The first example that comes to mind are the cops who enforce (or not) the laws. The point is that this is a specific duty outlined in a law that was passed by elected representatives, and there are similar duties and powers delegated to other non-elected positions. Should we have a popular vote for every single thing the entire government does?

And in case you missed it, these exemptions are open for public opinion before the decision is made. How come nobody threw a fit and made sure unlocking remained exempt last year, rather than waiting until the extension ran out (1/26) after the initial expiration (10/28)?

Agreed. There's really no need for a technical lock on the phone when you're already bound by the contract. As long as you're still following your contract and paying the monthly charge or ETF, why should the carrier care if you also want to pay someone else for service too?