>They didn't say whose value it strengthened.

LG's, Westinghouse, GE, and so forth!

Actually, if they had the testicular fortitude, your Samsung would display an add reading, "if you had bought LG, you wouldn't be seeing this!" :)

hawk

>Has about the same importance as smart tech in a fridge for me.

I live in the desert, you insensitive clod! :_)

but seriously we doohave many days of 115-117F most summers. Self-replenishing ice is *important*.

it's not why we bought it, but our LG actually has two ice makers; one in the refrigerator door, which you can actually clean out, and another for larger square tubes in the upper freezer drawer (which we turn off for the cooler half of the year)

>A fridge will last for a decade or more,

you would *think* that, but my prior fridge was a Samsung.

The ice maker died of its own buildup just out of warranty, the drip tray for the water dispenser caused rust lines through the paint below it, and the whole thing failed at 4 or 5 years--we came out one morning and it was at 50.

Compare to the Samsung dryers whose stainless steel barrels tend to crack and go out of round, wanting a $400 replacement!

The refurbisher who came out with our temporary dryer told us that from his experience (primarily washers & dryers), Samsung had the highest failure rate, while the other Korean brand, lg,had the lowest, with everything else in between.

>Agree, and don't even allow my TStat's to connect to wifi.

Have you *read* the license on those?

I brought home a wifi thermostat, thinking it would be nice to be able to change it half an hour out when coming home, and then read the terms.

It was like a parody of the terms you find offered sarcastically around here.

Pretty much, "you agree that we can send armed goons into your house, torture your dog, rape your cat, and sell your children into slavery. We may do anything we want with your data, and even more so if someone is willing to pay us for it."

It went back.

They tried that, briefly.

Then they gave up . . .

The USB-A should be relocated between the Centronics and RS-232 ports. Save space by mounting it vertically!

bizarre as it sounds, try Walmart's house brand, Onn.

they'er the only brand (other than apple itself) that I've tried that consistently works (and I've tried most if not all of the major brands).

They usually last until I do something stupid (leave behind, catch in hinges, drop laptop cable first, etc.). And the price is right, too--most are $6-$10.

>I'm hoping to see the first recycled reactor core! ;^)

c'mon, now.

*everyone* knows that reactor cores blow into a fireball of plasma when you eject them, as soon as they're far enough out that the writers think the ship can (almost) plausibly escape! :)

hawk

My CU offers a bit of reimbursement, which I don't use.

Fidelity, however, has "all fees reimbursed" for a number of accounts.

Then again, you're not likely to have a cash account there if you don't have significant other assets with them.

>Dawn Wells (Maryann on Gilligan's Island) did because her
>manager/husband asked for them and the studio thought it would
>flop so they said OK as they didn't expect to pay them.

this appears to be an urban legend, although oft repeated.

In the last years of her life, she was pretty much pleading for help for her medical bills.

The end game will be dismissal of the case for lack of standing.

It is well established that cows lack standing to sue, even if they can be in chk-a-fil ads! :)

hawk

>I can hit the mute button if need be.

the mute button was the most important technological advance in the second half of the twentieth century, even ahead of recording and fast forward.

It does, though, mean missing all those opportunities to by precious metals for a third their value, guaranteed acceptance insurance with a benefit of three months or so of premiums, and so forth. Oh, and all those products worth about the shipping cost, but with the opportunity to pay a few tines that plus shipping.

>Some of the antenna farms are 50 miles away.

you don't need that kind of distance go have a problem.

most of the transmitters in town are something like 5-7 miles from me. I can clearly see them with my naked eye from about half my front porch (a two story pool building across the street blocks the line form about half).

But they seem to have crammed two many sub-channels into too little bandwidth. Some days my wife's favorite western channel comes in perfectly clearly, but mild weather variation can cause it to collapse into non-watchable, with no sound and a half a frame every several seconds. All the while, the main .1 station would be coming in just fine.

over time, they allocate more and less bandwidth to the various little channels.

But the real question is: is he making this up?

hawk

more importantly, what happens to the cats that eat these mice?