The properly handle the problem Tesla Motors needs to start producing home batteries and not just batteries for cars. This will help them and help us. It would be logical for Tesla Motors to come up with a complete kit ready to be installed, panels,batteries, inverters and obviously a direct socket to plug in a electric vehicle for power in either direction.

Rule of games, the better the graphics the worse the game play, the better the graphics the buggier the product upon release, cut scenes are often claimed to be part of the game. So the game engine produces the cut scenes at maximum capability on a very high powered machine over with minutes of processing to create seconds of imaging ie really, really shitty frame rates. The empty hype of modern corporate marketing. I'll wait until a year after release and let everyone else deal with B$.

The two problems with the method, which is incidentally why it was not brought up, it is a very accessible means of suicide and that state is now promoting it and of course an effective murder method, again which the state is now advertising. Quite the blunder, just so it can keep killing people.

OK, thanks. All I was sure of was that I couldn't recall hearing of a meaningful hurricane hitting the Pacific coast.

Dan Aris

They're also not knee deep in Libertarian mumbo jumbo.

Is this industry BS, or is there something to this claim?

The power companies do actually have somewhat of a point but, in many ways, the issues are very similar to what's going on with internet technologies.

Part of your electric bill goes to maintaining the electric grid and the LV (Low Voltage) network that serves your neighborhood. Suppose there are 10 homes on an LV network and 2 of them install 7,000 watt solar arrays. Now the cost of maintaining the LV network has to be split among 8 homes instead of 10. At first that wasn't any big deal but, as more people add solar power, the power companies still have to maintain the grid and enough excess capacity to make up the shortfall on a cloudy day. As the use of solar power starts going up geometrically, it is really pounding the snot out of your local power company (not that they don't deserve a little of it).

So let's suppose we charge everyone a connect fee for grid maintenance. That covers the cost of maintaining transmission systems, LV networks and excess unused capacity. It will also raise the cost of utilities for the poorest fraction of society. I was shocked to learn that there is a large segment of utility customers who use very little electricity. A connect fee would, for many of them, be a significant price increase.

Some of these problems can be mitigated by smart grid technologies. Now we get into a pissing contest between utility companies and regulators about who is going to pay for the upgrade. Utility companies want the government to pick up the tab, even though that wasn't the deal when they were granted a monopoly. Just like telecos want the government to upgrade the internet so they can step back in and reap the profits. Free market corporate welfare. Utilities are hesitant to invest money in a rapidly diminishing market.

This points out one of the big reasons why privatizing utilities is such a monstrously bad idea. Once profit becomes the prime driver of utilities, the greater good is completely out the window.

I dunno, a large fraction of America is under threat from the first three of those natural disasters.

Hurricanes can strike essentially the entire southeast quarter of the country with devastating force, and can even hit further north along the Atlantic coast. They're possible on the Pacific coast, too, but much less likely, I believe.

Tornadoes are common in more or less the middle third.

Earthquakes are only highly common in California (that I know of offhand), but can be something of a threat in other areas as well (the more so with all the fracking that's been going on).

But there are other natural disasters to watch out for, too. The one that comes most readily to mind is wildfires, which affect the entire west, particularly now that it's been in a severe drought for years.

So that leaves the inland Northeast, and some of the northern Midwest and Rockies. I don't think "most of us" live in those areas.

(I do, though, and I'm very happy that the closest thing to a natural disaster I have to deal with is the occasional—read, about once every decade or so—2-4 foot snowstorm.)

Dan Aris

Yes, words can lead to death, and Goebbels propaganda is a rather good examples. And once again, he wasn't just a guy writing posters, speeches and press releases he was a senior Nazi who knew about the Final Solution, and when the Final Solution was finally wetr in motion, pushed for Berlin's Jews to be among the first to be moved.

You find it hard to condemn a guy who was given the job of justifying murdering six million Jews?

You do understand, I trust, that Goebbels was more than just a propaganda writer, but a senior minister and, for a brief time, one of Hitler's chief heirs. But even the propaganda itself was horrifying in its vileness and evil, and even Goebbels had never done anything else, that would still make him one of the evilest men in hisotry.

Cough, cough, not all of it, some of it still is. That would be the Republic of Ireland vs Ireland (something to do with weird dubious 'orange' people and not necessarily those who share that New Jersey hue).

First up and most importantly of all, the measure of success of the ignorant and the measure of success of the intelligent are worlds apart. So yeah, I have a bunch of Bananas or I have more Bananas than everyone else, might work for monkeys but it does not work for intelligent people, nor does striving to achieve marketed definitions of success when you can see through the marketing (ignorance is bliss right up until they shut the gas chamber door and start pumping in you final breath). Now having a very broad sense of humour about all of that crap and that tied into the certainty of the 'LACK' of immortality of the vehicle of you temporary entrapment, it's demands must be met, else you do suffer in many ways, will provide many opportunities for humour and happiness not that you will often bother to share that with others, they will often take offence at the reason for your humour.

There is deeper meaning to. Have as much fun as possible, whilst causing the least amount of harm possible. Added to Annoy those that break the first rule, apparently it's necessary but don't forget to have fun whilst doing it. And of course Care and share in the wonders and joy of life. Winning at life, is most definitely not winning at greed not matter what the psychopaths say (they can never be happy as they lack that emotional ability regardless of the lies they express about it).

Happiness in more intelligent people, a measure of their sense of humour as balanced against the level of destructive deceit the can see and understand in the society of which they are a part. If you believe the sewer you are wallowing in is paradise, you'll likely be happy, however if you see the sewer for what it is, unless to have a sufficiently wry sense of humour, you likely will be unhappy. There are of course a range of intoxicating agents to re-introduce you to the world of bliss in ignorance of your youth, even if only temporarily so and fuck all those ignorant annoying ass hats who would deny that escape from them and their offensive nasty attitudes and behaviours. Greed the only measure of success, well, fuck that, I mean how persistent do you really need to be, to be able to light up a joint ;D.

You missed the bit where you can also feed the exhaust from the gas driven pump into the rocket engine exhaust and recover some of that energy and mass as thrust. The energy from an electric motor being completely lost. I though rocket patents are really tricky as most countries incorporate legislation to override patent laws and treaties when subject to national interests (patents with regard to military applications are purely voluntary and can be readily over ridden).

And who exactly did any of the senior Nazis kill? Hitler, Himmler, Goering, and the whole senior gang were the directors of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Are you seriosulyt asserting that they did nothing wrong? After WWIz I don't think Hitler actually killed anyone personally.

Seek government funding as an independent service to the community to ensure equal access to all business by all the people. Attempt to create a level playing field, obviously the corporate greed driven solution is not working quite that well. Many companies, in fact likely the majority would be better off setting up an organisation to fund independent equal search with a fixed set of rules to set ranking results, likely in partnership with government.

Designing a search engine. The two obvious things are optional categories (too many categories can be problematic and difficult to use) and regional search with various levels of region, country, state, city, suburb. Next up registered users with, the user being able to block sites they have no interest in, from showing up in their results (and hopefully this information collated to push those places to page one hundred thousand and one of search results).

The flip side of having fully tracked and monitored search is better individual control of search but that needs to be a choice of the user. In that regard also a thumbs up for a good search result, to promote those sites, taking into account the search query and category and region (as well as of course negative responses). Taking on board properly registered volunteer users willing to contribute some time to the community at large by helping to evaluate search results and being one of the quality control methods to ensure fair and good search results. Some level of randomness in search output where, the other factors are equal to ensure more players get a shot at the first three pages and their location on those pages.

The search rules publicly defined and seek community support in establishing and protecting those rules from interference, at a civil suit an criminal prosecution level ie is corrupt SEO interfering with a persons computer network access by purposefully misdirecting their search results?

It's called psychological harm and it most definitely is actionable in civil court.

The new form of political activism, class action crowd funded law suits. Corporations love to fuck up individuals in civil court, it is time for individuals to work together via crowd funding class action law suits to fuck up poorly behaved corporations. So what if the lawyers get all the money as long as poorly behaved corporations (and the individuals in the executive offices and board room) are haemorrhaging money all over the place. A global political action campaign to bury the worst corporations in courtrooms all over the planet.

What should be the redlines (a very popular term now) that drive crowd funding to attack specific corporations in court for specific actions, hmph, all to easy, let crowd funding decide for itself (where the money goes, more honest companies can also join to defend against major corporate threats). Targeted advertising, you have been warned, not threats, just the straight up legal ramifications of specifically targeted at specific individuals advertisement, it is a minefield and extremely dangerous, due to already fully legally defined acts of 'psychological harm'. Just pointing out the obvious to those blinded by greed.