Wow... Seattle sucks if a significant number of you are still on dial-ups... Does the Internet even work on connections that slow anymore? When my phone goes to 3G (which can anywhere from 2X to 90X the speed of the fastest dial-up connections), data speeds are so slow that web pages barely load or fail to load.

FWIW, I'm in Chicago and I can get high-speed internet from AT&T, Comcast XFinity, and RCN at both of my buildings. Comcast and RCN offer 1 Gbps service that is actually fairly close to the advertised speed most of the time. AT&T has slower DSL speeds but they are dedicated and I've never seen slowdowns ever at the apartment where it's installed.

My bigger issue is datacaps. RCN doesn't have datacaps but AT&T and Comcast charge extra if you go over 1 TB per month. That might seem like a lot of data but if you have a number of Nest Cameras (7 in my case) or Internet Cameras running 24/7 at a higher quality setting, you can easily exceed that and be charged extra. To get "unlimited" data (no datacap) on AT&T or Comcast, you have to start paying about 5-6X the price of the limited data plans.

You can also connect the Dishwasher to IFTTT to Trigger actions on a number of events.

You can monitor how much time is left in the cycle, it will notify you if the rinse agent is low and needs refilling, and if you use dish detergent pods, you can have it automatically keep track of how many pods you've used and reorder pods on Amazon for you (similar to Amazon Dash Button) automatically when you are running low.

For more details click here.

Oh... and I forgot

August Locks (2 Connect Modules)
Samsung SmartThings Hub

I had to ditch my Netgear Nighthawk Router because it only supported 64 WiFi devices. I have close to 100 WiFi devices (mostly IoT) in my house at this time. I switched to Google WiFi Mesh Router because it can actually handle all the devices I have.

But here's a short list of most of what is connected to my WiFi Network and I plan on adding more in the future:

Haiku Homes Lights (40), Switches (10), and Fans (7)
Mitsubishi Ductless Heating System (4 Headers)
Ecobee (controls a Boiler)
Nest Thermostat (controls a forced air HVAC system)
Nest Cameras (4 Outdoor, 3 Indoor)
Nest Smoke and CO Alarms (4)
TP-Link Switches (2 lights, 5 others)
GE Dishwasher
Samsung Washer + Dryer
Sense Electrical Monitor
Amazon Echos (2 regular, 2 dots)
Yamaha Receivers (2)
Samsung TVs (4)
Google Chromcast (4)
Apple TV (2)
Amazon Fire (2)
Harmony Ultimates (2 Remotes, 2 Hubs)

My guess is people who are actively pursuing Smart Home Technologies will need much higher than 20 device capacity.

Really, it seems like the ability to do AdHoc WiFi is the biggest feature backers wanted.... not DRM.

If you read the comments on the project, nearly all of the recent comments are backers that would be perfectly happy with a device that didn't have any DRM. Why don't they just completely the device development as is and skip the DRM? It's what most of their backers want anyhow.

Actually, her use of a private email server was legal. The requirement that email servers for official government business must be on a government server was an amendment to the Federal Records Act that was passed in late 2014, *AFTER* Clinton had resigned as secretary of state. It's worth noting that previous Sec of States, including Colin Powell, also used private email servers (legally) for government business although the RNC-hosted services "lost" all of his emails so we'll never see what thoughts went into, say, the Iraq War Part 2.

She claims that she deleted only e-mails of a personal nature and handed over all of the "requested" emails. It's your word against hers.

The information in question was classified at a later date. It was not classified at the time it was transmitted.

Again, no proof of wrongdoing yet, unless you believe everything that Fox News is saying. So far there is only the fact that a couple of officials have asked to open an investigation.

Also, considering that there have been something like 55 investigations and hearings into Benghazi and not a single one of them has found any fault for Clinton, I'm going to take any "inquiry" requests with a grain of salt until there is an actual factual finding of wrongdoing.

Do you remember when the RNC accidentally wiped as many as 22 million emails from their private servers -- including 379GB of data from gwb43.com, the email server that was used by Bush and Cheney as well as White House staffers who were told to use the private servers rather than the gov't ones.

Not to mention that for 2001-2004, these servers automatically deleted emails older than 30 days. And then there's the fact that Karl Rove used these private servers (also RNC hosted) and continued to delete emails for at least a year after they changed their rentention policies.

Furthermore, Colin Powell used the private email server as well as Secretary of State and all of his private emails were lost.

And mind you... here's a few disasters they discussed in those deleted e-mails on private servers: The leaking of Valerie Plame's CIA identity, the decisions to fire 7 US attorneys who were investigating Republican political scandals, the Patriot Act and the initiation of the NSA warrantless wiretapping program, the highly-secretive Cheney Energy Task Force, lobbying of Medicare Part D (which they knew was an unfunded deficit bomb), the administrative response to Hurricane Katrina, etc. Not to mention the whole Iraq War and the Abu Ghraid prison torture policies.

Oh, and NO ONE WAS EVER PUNISHED.

As long as there isn't flexing (decent stiffness) and there is a good balance (the screen doesn't want to topple over a too-light base), a light laptop is better than a heavy one. Especially if you want to carry it around with you.

... and they are in the similar 2 lb weight category.

Ugh... sorry bad formatting, the quote parent didn't come through?

Tin is used for solder but in alloys which reduce whiskering, but you certainly don't want pure tin or zinc used for your connectors with tons of very close signal lines because both of them have issues with whiskering which can lead to shorts... especially at points where mechanical stress can occur (flexing of the connection).

What you really want is a connector plated the same as the connector you're connecting it to. If it's tin-plated, use a tin-plated connector. If it's gold-plated, use gold. What I don't know of is any tin-plated cables which include a sacrificial zinc anode. In motoring (and presumably other places with metal bolted to metal) we use zinc anti-seize where dissimilar metals meet because it gets eaten up first, which is handy. I'm not sure if that applies to tin, though. Also in motoring, tin is what's used as an intermediate between steel or copper and aluminum.

Tin is used for solder but in alloys which reduce whiskering, but you certainly don't want pure tin or zinc used for your connectors with tons of very close signal lines because both of them have issues with whiskering which can lead to shorts... especially at points where mechanical stress can occur (flexing of the connection).

Taxi licenses (cab medallions) in the US can cost over a million to obtain (example New York City just two years ago). http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11...

But yeah, in the case of having copiously large amounts of RAM and the files cached in said RAM, you won't really ever see much of a win with SSD's except for the first time a file is loaded perhaps.