That's a shame, both your assumptions about those who do have the time or desire to take control. And for your own loss.

I've never really had any idea what I'm doing and I haven't failed yet. I don't even recall reading about bricked devices while involved, just the warnings. Warnings that apparently make many very fearful. I don't know how these concerns are any different than the myriad of ways you could destroy a self built PC, modding an x box, recompiling a linux kernel, etc. Suddenly, straight forward steps on xda and everyone is afraid of bricking a device. An easy way (and smart for other reasons) to mitigate that risk is to simply use older hardware. Due to the absurd frequency of turnover in the mobile space, old hardware is effectively free and disturbingly capable.

My first two phones were t mobile windows mobile 5.1 thing and a motorola cliq2. They were not hugely successful models, but they both had smallish dev communities doing the job. My recent phone, sprint my touch 4g, is essentially a galaxy s2, but with some differences that require its own treatment, thus the community is also small. Nonetheless, there have been many, many options for all these devices. (Not to mention the nexus and galaxy devices I've worked on)

In summary, I think you're overstating the challenges. Just do it.

I don't think you should assume about what not is. There are already lots of incremental autonomous driving controls. And they work fine. And they do not change the relationship between a driver and his liabilities.

facebook probably can't generate sufficient profits off an activity like this. since their IPO they have essentially been squandering equity in all directions, including this one, to chase potential revenue. their growth targets are probably impossible (by a factor of 10 or more) without a massive change in revenue model. And so they chase whats app, flying drones, and spy tech. Its an impossible, hilarious, and economically inefficient circus, that is now playing out for the second time in 20 years, with mostly the same people involved. And these are the prized achievements of a system for which most here even express ideological preference.

yep, i'm sure they never thought of that. good thing clever guys like yourself are around to ask the really hard questions.

I would also think "slashdot people" are capable of not allowing perfect to be the enemy of good. But no, apparently incremental improvement in autonomous driving controls are unacceptable. Nothing less than Kit picking you up at the bar and driving to NY from Boston during Snowmageddon will suffice.

Alas, I guess we're both wrong. We'll you're wrong. I'm actually just sarcastic.

Why aren't all you nerds rooting devices and using whatever OS/kernel/apps/bloatware/radio/store you want? So many people here complain endlessly about carriers and poor support. Yet you can basically get whatever hardware you want with whatever OS you want. Pair VOIP and ubiquitous wifi with sleazy or hyper discount data service and the effective cost of mobile computing is 1/10th that, or less, compared to the major carriers. Yeah. I get it. It sucks that it has to be this way, but that is only the case for people who can't work around it.

Cheap, reliable, and sustainable telecommunications networks & services exist under virtually all regulatory environments imaginable from one end of the spectrum to the other. We can make any of them work as long as we aren't beholden to the few entities that stand in the way, which is essentially the current arrangement the pervades the US industry.

Apparently the opportunity to turn any and all workable solutions into an ideological shit show is more important than functioning government and quality services.

Smaller units cost less. Units with properly utilized burners are more reliable, burn cleaner, and save energy. 1 added year of life and 0.6% net thermal efficiency don't matter per unit, but add up over installations.

I don't know why you have that limitation. However, small hot water draws have disproportionately high % of energy loss. Resistance heating a 1L load may not be that costly compared to losing 80% of your gas-heated water to warm up room temperature pipes.

Yes. Compressors, Fans, Pumps. Maybe lights, maybe temperature dead bands.

I would be surprised if we have already recognized the main benefits of cheap connected things. Although I agree that it is unlikely to be the type of hokey consumer garbage that dominates headlines.

Tough life you have. It's a shame you can't let your horse shit all over the street either. Incandescents have no redeeming qualities outside of heating, for which they remain available. A large electric kettle will last for 50 years, and high power vacuum cleaners aren't more effective than lower power properly engineered models.

First order of business, vote to allot time to vote on everything. Claims of no time are just transparent excuses for laziness anyway.

You put them on fast DR mode because you actually don't care when they run, the utility neatly staggers run times within your acceptable parameter windows for 10,000 customers with the net result a better managed and less expensive grid. Your wife complains about noise so they run when she leaves the house. We eventually saturate the grid with renewable energy and with your agreement, the utility will let you run them for free to soak up peak solar/wind output. Your hot water heater is connected to your end use devices, your hot water loads communicate so lower priority (dish/clothes) services will not interfere with your main hot water needs. Now you can downsize equipment. You will save money. Your rightly sized equipment will operate in narrower (design) boundary. It will be efficient. You will save money. Now lets do this with all our compressors, motors, and fans. We can now work together. Save energy. Save money without really doing anything but coordinating with each other on a level that is basically invisible to the end user. And if you don't want to participate? Sophisticated pricing mechanisms will allow for that. You can pay more to fund your all your personal priorities. It works for everyone.

I really find it strange that some eschew and then actively campaign against advanced voluntary technology simply because they can't imagine how they will use it. Think of the things we would have abandoned in the past had we listened to people that thought this way about technology, would there be any progress ever? I also think these arguments of big data are very over played. The space is very big, trendy, and it will be very crowded. There are low enough barriers to entry that even paranoid privacy fanatics will get their doodads too. This amounts to a crowd of old people complaining about trampling the grass.

Expensive? you can get any radio technology and an ARM chip for $5. Nest is sub $20 hardware. You wouldn't ever notice the incremental cost of they put it into any appliance or device costing $50 or more.

sledges typically come in 8 or 16 lbs.

That pretty much sums up third of the skepticism on slashdot. Another third comes fantasizing imaginary scenarios. And the last third is because each slashdotters experience and education render them the smartest person in the world, able to speak authoritatively on any topic of their choosing,