My wife got a Kindle a few years ago and liked it but still found it hard to read.

At one point I saw her reading something in Comic Sans and I thought it was odd and unrelated.

Somewhat later she found about about dyslexie font and OpenDyslexic font and started using them on various devices.

I found out you could manually import fonts onto the kindle paperwhite so we ordered one.

Amazon patched all the Kindles to block importing fonts and limit you to the preloaded fonts.

There is a workaround involving downloading free ebooks and converting them in such a way that you embed the font but it isn't an option for the vast majority of what she would like to read on the Kindle.

We then sold our Kindles and she just reads on a laptop instead.

To add to the fun it isn't just Amazon, I haven't found a way to add the dyslexie/opendislexic font to a non rooted android phone. How hard would it be for device manufacturers to just add a simple font import or heaven forbid actually include more fonts in the base configuration?

As is phones/phablets/tablets are more common than Kindles and now big enough/cheap enough to make the Kindle less important but it's just moved my concern about this issue from Amazon to Android.

I got one and watching shows live was the focus of the diary. They wanted me to use a blank page or insert loose paper of my own if I watched DVR later.

So it was 20 pages with something like 18 for live TV, and 2 for DVR.

Since I watch 99% of my TV timeshifted or on demand I didn't bother filling out the diary. Too much work to do it by the letter as they requested.

15/2 wasn't enough for Netflix + one online game at the same time
30/5 is doing it fine

I'd like to have something more symmetrical like 30/15 or 50/25 or any sort of fiber to the home that starts at 100/100.

http://logmysc.com/cpo-reports... will let you filter quite nicely

VIN
Locale
Trim
Auto Pilot
Dual Motors
Color
Roof
Wheels
Interior
Year
Miles
Price
Date Added

You are correct that none have CPOd with autopilot or dual motors yet. The consolidator also lets you see the sold cars (or at least ones removed). Presumably some could be removed without selling.

Cheapest so far was $53,000 S60 Grey Metallic 2013 26,569 miles
Cheapest 85kWh so far was $55,850 S85 Black 2012 18,633 miles
Cheapest P85 so far was $63,400 Black 2012 33,013 miles

Do yours include the cost of a replacement transmission?

The majority of US cars have transmissions that are less reliable than the gas engine which is less reliable than the EVs battery which is less reliable than the EVs motor.

So I don't usually worry about replacement parts because every step closer to EV I go I see less repairs.

Compare my Late 90s and early 2000s Saturns with no EV ability with moderate maintenance (the 98 consumes oil randomly and has had transmission work twice in the first 100,000 miles but is still a daily driver at 130,000 miles, I had to replace the 12V battery once in it so far)

to my 2005 Prius with light maintenance (I had to replace the 12V battery in this one as well, I replaced the rear shocks for comfort, it burns oil enough that I top it off with a partial quart between 10,000 mile oil changes with 120,000 miles on the car) but will never need brake pads*, the rotors and drums will last the life of the car. I'll probably never replace the HV battery

to a Nissan Leaf (no oil changes, no engine filters, no real maintenance at all). with the leaf you might replace the battery some day for $2000 and some have already replaced the battery for free and one has paid around $6000.

Honestly you could have taken that guys Leaf with the "bad worn out battery" and given the whole car to me as is and I would have retired a Saturn and saved thousands of dollars on gas and repairs. I have a 15 mile commute each way and a 2011 or 2012 Leaf even with "severe" battery degradation would do the 35 miles a day I need to go to work, lunch, and home.

If you have a commute outside the range of the vehicle don't buy it. But for those of us that can drive the shorter distances its a fine car and will be more reliable than 90% of the ICE cars on the road.

so the progression is

ICE - less reliable
Hybrid - more reliable, lower cost per mile than ICE
EV - more reliable, lowest cost per mile (assuming you don't pay outrageous prices for electricity)

Then of course some troll will say: Yeah, but the up front cost...

and

Some other troll will say you drive it because it looks odd...

and to that I say, fffft. I buy used and right now a used Leaf is cheaper than a used Prius. I don't care what they look like or how green they are. I want a car that takes less maintenance, requires less repairs/parts replacements, and costs me less per mile. I don't care what it is. Give me a Tahoe that somehow gets me down the road for $0.01 per mile and I'll drive an SUV. Give me a Cadillac with spinners and curb feelers that gets me down the road for $0.01 per mile and I'll drive it too.

I expect a Leaf to cost me half the cost per mile of a Prius which cost me half the cost per mile of the Saturn.

I'm not married to a brand, a style, or an energy source. I happen to be moving towards electricity but I'd just as quickly move back to gas if gas somehow dropped to $1 a gallon and electricity became $1 a kwh. As it is at $2 a gallon and $0.10 a kwh I'm moving towards more electric and less gas.

*Prius, Leaf, Tesla, Kia Soul EV, doesn't matter ask anyone that has an EV for 100,000 miles to measure their break pads. They'll be like new for most drivers somewhere around 70-90% pad. People with a real lead foot might run through a set of brake pads in 300,000 miles, others will never under any circumstances wear out the brake pads even at 500,000 miles. Try that on an ICE vehicle.

all I want to know is will I be able to buy a retail copy for less than $50 without having to play the OEM/System builder/school edition/illegal download copied to a disk to look like the real thing/whatdidImiss game?

Dude you've apparently never made a pizza crust and also apparently don't pay attention to the types of bread in the world.

You don't have to freeze pizza dough to have a rising crust. In fact every bread that isn't a flatbread has a rising crust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

I'm going to suggest you start with http://www.pizzamaking.com/for... and make some pizza from scratch until you make something that isn't a hocky puck. Then if you want to go back to frozen pizza you can or you can move on to trying white whole wheat, red whole wheat, or one of the regional styles (NY, Chicago, Neapolitan, California, Sicilian, etcetera) see http://www.pizzamaking.com/for... for more options.

Doesn't matter if you harvest your own yeast (sourdough starter method) or you buy store bought yeast, any type of pizza I've ever made has yeast in it and thus had a rising crust.

I got it from eyeballing http://www.trbimg.com/img-53e6... so why does that map show FL in green not yellow? Apparently whoever chose the color scale on that map made the yellow band way too narrow.

but yes, that was very very inaccurate rough math.

I'm sure Bakersfield is the entire state of California.

Now if you don't believe that Bakersfield fills the entire state you could look for areas with higher solar insolation.

For example

Victorville, CA Annual Avg. (kWh/m2/day): 8.15 vs
Tamp, FL Annual Avg. (kWh/m2/day): 4.98

Nope it isn't twice the solar insulation but it's getting up there.

So edit my erroneous statement to something more like:

No the cost isn't just being subsidized. Florida gets half to 3/4 the solar energy at the rooftop that California gets to for the same power usage you have to install more panels.

Another factor is hurricanes. In California you can use cheaper panels because they don't have to be rated to withstand hurricane force winds. Even if you use the same number of panels in an Florida installation you'll have to pay for more expensive panels and more expensive mounting brackets/rail systems. Everything has to be stronger in a state that is likely to see a hurricane every few years when the panels would otherwise last >30 years.

With no subsidy in either state you'd still spend more for solar PV to get the same power in Florida.

No the cost isn't just being subsidized. Florida gets half to one quarter the solar energy at the rooftop that California gets to for the same power usage you have to install twice to four times as many panels.

Another factor is hurricanes. In California you can use cheaper panels because they don't have to be rated to withstand hurricane force winds. Even if you use the same number of panels in an Florida installation you'll have to pay for more expensive panels and more expensive mounting brackets/rail systems. Everything has to be stronger in a state that is likely to see a hurricane every few years when the panels would otherwise last >30 years.

With no subsidy in either state you'd still spend more for solar PV to get the same power in Florida.

your information is outdated, as is that Wikipedia entry. I'll try to update it after this post.

The quote below is from "Nuclear Development, June 2011, http://www.oecd-nea.org/"

"Modern nuclear plants with light water reactors are designed to have strong maneuvering capabilities. Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode, i.e. they participate in the primary and secondary frequency control, and some units follow a variable load programme with one or two large power changes per day.

The minimum requirements for the maneuverability capabilities of modern reactors are defined by the utilities requirements that are based on the requirements of the grid operators. For example, according to the current version of the European Utilities Requirements (EUR) the NPP must at least be capable of daily load cycling operation between 50% and 100% of its rated power Pr, with a rate change of electric output of 3-5% of Pr per minute.

Most of the modern designs implement even higher maneuverability capabilities, with the possibility of planned and unplanned load-following fast power modulations in the frequency regulation mode with ramps of several percent of the rated power per second, but in a narrow band around the rated power level."

the above excerpt is just a small portion of http://www.google.com/url?sa=t...

I'm not sure why the URL has to be so god awful long to work, I tried to shorten it manually but it killed the link. I suppose if I could find a direct link from http://www.oecd-nea.org/ it might be shorter but I'm not in the mood to dig for it.

"The average age of U.S. commercial reactors is about 33 years. The oldest operating reactors are Oyster Creek in New Jersey, and Nine Mile Point 1 in New York. Both entered commercial service on December 1, 1969. The last newly built reactor to enter service was Watts Bar 1 in Tennessee, in 1996" from http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/...

where are my mod points now? koan needs a mod +1 insightful for this one.

I never thought of it that way but imagine a fast food place with a manager or two but no shift leaders or fewer shift leaders. Or imagine those poorly managed fast food places with a much more productive workforce. Imagine if the google glasses talked to each other and the store central computer decided there weren't enough bodys in motion and sent an email to the manager to hire more employees.

Of course it could also decide to send an email to a manager suggesting there were too many employees if I liked as well. Just so long as the manager can make the decision based on redundancy (as a positive aspect of reliability not as a pure cost only decision) and customer satisfaction.

who knows, maybe some day an employee will be making his complaint/suggestion to google glass as he works and the recording/email can be forwarded to the appropriate person.

The question is will it be any better than those mall clothing store employees with headset/radio calling the manager in the back? What store is that "The Gap", I think they made fun of those headsets on SNL also.

So many ways it could be better or worse. Knowing some companies they'll assume it does all the good things without any bad side and they'll alienate more workers but eventually when the tech is cheap enough even the good companies will find a use for it.

go take a look at theoildrum.com the site is archive only now (http://www.theoildrum.com/special/archives) but numerous versions of charts like that were posted there.

It's somewhat misleading to call the current versions "Mr Hubbert's predictions" since he died in 1989 and we keep changing the charts as new numbers are revealed by the oil industry.

One reason someone else might drive 40 miles a day in it would be if they live in a congested supercity / large state where rush hour commutes are greatly sped up by access to HOV lanes. Not an issue for me where I live but it is for some.

You can get a Telsa Model S for about $70K before tax breaks. If you live in the right state/city you can get one below $60K.

Even at $70K it would be insanely nicer and more comfortable than my Toyota Prius, someone elses Nissan Leaf, or the other guys Hyndai/Kia.

It's a friggen luxury car. If you can afford a $70K car it's the BEST $70K car on the market. So if you can afford it why wouldn't you commute 40 miles a day in it?

From http://www.teslamotors.com/mod...

If I won the lottery with a moderate payout (think 6 figures) I'd pick Blue paint, supercharging, the Primacy tire upgrade (saves fuel), and paint armor.

If the payout was really large I might upgrade that to the 85KW battery ($7000 more (tires and supercharging were separate on lower model but included on this one)) and High Power Home Charging ($2700) bringing the car up to roughly $80K.

even if I had millions of dollars either build I just described is nicer than in a dozen ways than any car I have or have had, I wouldn't need every single option maxed out. I'd just geek a bit and then relax in a truly luxurious car properly configured to my desires.

again if you could ride in a car this nice why would you focus on the 40 miles as significant?

There are currently 70+ supercharger locations (some of which have 10+ chargers, many have 6 or 8, a few have 3 or 4), they added 20 locations in Jan so far and 13 locations in December before that. At this rate there will be hundreds of supercharger locations with thousands of individual supercharger spots in the US in a year or so.

That's not counting the hundreds of J1772 charger locations (with many having multiple chargers each) and the dozens of Chademo charger locations (most of which only have 1 to 3 chargers).

There may come a point when there are more Supercharger spots than J1772 but I doubt that as even Tesla is said to be working on plans for new J1772 chargers to coexist with the supercharger network (for local travel or destination charging, not to bridge the distance between superchargers).

and lets pull some statistics while we are here

Total number of gas stations in the US 121,446
Percent of gasoline stations with convenience stores 82.2 %

so I guess you underestimated the number of both types of refueling gas and electric.