= = = This seems like the sort of problem that could be much more logically and less painfully solved by breaking out the (more or less constant, at least within a given size class and geographic area) grid hookup cost and the per-KW/h price for electricity as separate items on the bill. = = =

Problem comes in when an entire region gets three day of hot, cloud-covered, calm weather. Then everyone expect "the grid" to produce the power that the panels and wind turbines aren't. The result where this has happened in the Midwest and Texas regions over the last two years has been spot market power prices going up to $1000/MWh but no power being available.

I personally think the US needs a lot more solar and at least a fair amount more wind, but there are real problems that need to be worked out. And the Chicago School - which doesn't acknowledge the existence of market failure - doesn't have answer for those problems.

sPh

= = =As a free market fan, I absolutely favor privatizing their state -supported industry. Let the entire network be split up into parallel systems, = = =

That is exactly what has been happening to the US provision-of-electricity industry since 1994, with three successive "market reform" acts getting closer and closer to the University of Chicago ideal. The results have been absolutely disastrous for the consumer (both household and any business smaller than an aluminum smelter) and I would argue are driving the US ever-closer to both short-term grid collapse and long-term grid instability. The "answer" to the clearly-observable problems has so far been to impose even more, more extreme, Chicago School "markets" - every one of which gets gamed within 18 months.

Might want to read up a bit on the actuality there sport.

sPh

Western Electric desk phones. Had to buy one on eBay to replace a string of junky modern ones that failed within a year each; the WE phone was manufactured around 1970 per the serial number.

sPh

HP LaserJet II and LaserJet 3 - worked reliably for 20 years and probably quite a few of them still in use.

sPh

Admittedly as noted above no high-tech product can yet match the longevity of a well-built plumbing system - some of them are over 2000 years old and still functioning as designed, while most major cities still depend on water and plumbing infrastructure build 1880-1920.

You might consider Reading The Fine Summary. I know, that's Crazy Talk! But, if you had, you might have noticed something about the statute of limitations (lawyer speak for "timely manner") has been lifted on these types of debt.

From page 212:

Credit Cards With Intelligence? The Battelle Memorial Institute is studying the feasibility of a credit card with a built-in micro-processor. Such a card has already been developed in Europe, and will soon be tested. It is expected that intelligent credit cards will provide added security without requiring large computer networks.

Everyone who shopped at Target last fall saw how well that was implemented here in the U.S.

From the linked site: "He sent at least 2.5 million requests over the course of the day." So, no rate limiters, anti-DDS protection, or other active countermeasures in operation. Reasonable for this challenge but not overly realistic.

sPh

Under both federal and California law it is illegal for non-profits to contribute to political campaigns. For example, religious organizations organized as non-profits contributing to California proposition campaigns. Do you _really_ want to follow up on violations of California law?

sPh

I'm impressed that I remembered mine.

TL;DR it became a shopping site in the Philippines and then went belly-up. True story.

Multiply was sold to some entity overseas. Apparently the shopping had always been there, but we were never really noticed. It was huge in Asia. Anyway, in December 2012, they shut down the social networking part of the site, which seemed really dumb because it turns out that the stores actually used the blog part of the site for their goods and there was actually never any sort of shopping cart system on the site to buy stuff.

So, yeah...the social stuff went away, and now the entire site is defunct because apparently just being a shopping site didn't work out. I think I got that all right.
http://multiply.com/

On the plus side, they did give us a lot of warning and allowed us to export all of our posts into a format that could be imported into blogger, which actually also conserved the comments. I posted my on its own blogger site and sometimes peruse it still for the memories.

- - - - - - NOPE! And I assure you, this mode of payment is not thousands of years old. - - - - - -

Another crytocoin fanatic who hasn't bothered to read a detailed history of money, much less a standard theory of money textbook. Hint: more than one ancient language has been deciphered by translating magic documents known as "letters of credit".

sPh

= = = Alcoholic beverages allowed and provided. Unlimited fastfood allowances. An in-house Bunny Ranch (legal for a Nevada campus). No bullshit anti-discrimination training and assorted brainwashing. Crash couches where you can chill or sleepover if you don't feel like going home. Generous basements for those of us who can't stand direct sunlight anymore. = = =

I can't tell if this is Swiftian satire or not - which I guess makes it a brilliant piece of writing either way.

For the record a very large percentage of men would find a work environment such as the parodist describes disgusting and depart within a few days as well. Leaving the rest to surf "game" web sites until the organization collapsed and the bankruptcy trustee started filing clawback lawsuits.

sPh

Indeed it was....

= = = I strongly suspect it's the most-widely-travelled wheeled vehicle on earth actually :) = = =

I believe Rolls Royce has some demo vehicles that have been on the road since the aughts (the 19-aughts that is, not the 20-aughts) and have visited more countries than all US Presidents combined ;-)

sPh

Unfortunate when the thieves cut your hand off to get the phone though.

sPh