Although my demos were much simpler, they had many moving parts (many out of my control) and I performed the actual demos live, wherever it was shown. At my first in-house demo, a major storm passed through the area the night before, taking down part of the cellular phone system the demo relied upon and likely blowing up (via lightning?) some of the electronics I had tested the day before. Luckily, I was able to tap dance around the issues, but from that point on I tested each of my demos minutes before the audience arrived.

Personally, I'd dabble in abolishing the system. "Systems" often mean corruption, and/or eternal vigilance (that's hard when there will eventually be political back-scratching).

But if we're going to keep it, I've had a similar idea as someone above: Make the minimum salary X times the average US salary so the amount never needs to be revisited by future (often clueless) politicians. Even a very high multiplier should be no big deal if the person is supposedly super-skilled.

What's done is done, and it, too, can be at least recaptured...I think that's the law now. ('Seems insignificant anyway.)

I'd like to see that efficiency data but am at work and can't spend the time to find it right now (if it even exists for those decades). Again, that's irrelevant if the other side of the debate is critically missing: How much DOES it "cost", totally, for an appliance to be made and later recycled?

I'll bet that had you chomping at the bit.

It's a very difficult number to calculate. What about the transportation costs/impacts? Also, the transportation of ALL of the workers who went to the factories to make every single part in the thing, times 8. Plus the resources they consume while AT work. The impact of having refrigerator showrooms. The millions of consumers having to drive themselves to multiple stores while they decide. It goes on and on...

(Our frig is 30+ years old--'repaired it a couple of times. The microwave next to it is 45+ years!)

I'll take that bet. If it was leaking refrigerant, it wouldn't be working. And how much energy would it take to manufacture 8 replacement refrigerators (assuming 1 per decade)? How much extra pollution from that manufacturing, disposal and refrigerant released to the atmosphere upon discarding each?

As an embedded software developer, I suspect that most operating systems are running on 32-bit ICs today. :)

My dense brain is confused. Weren't we talking about daylight-saving time?

I'm only saying end the changes nationally (not change time zones). Then, if a local business wants to begin opening at 10 a.m. instead of 9 a.m., let them. Then, 6 months later, if they want to mess around with that nonsense again, let them. Google will show customers the way; assuming a business is open at a certain time doesn't work well anyway. Whatever; this won't be settled here and today.

I agree--pick one and stick with it. Change all the other work/school times biannually, if the locals want to. Stop messing with people's sleep (health).

Can't wait...

Is this biannual back-and-forth solely because businesses/schools won't change their starting times? Why not let people wake normally and then have the extra time for whatever? If you think it's dangerous for walking students, then change their start time; why is everyone else dragged onto the roller-coaster?

+1 Obvious.

Tell me about it. Back then, we didn't have unreachable strangers from halfway around the world trying to steal from the elderly. It's ridiculous and a shame.

Kids: To make clear the summary, landline phones had caller ID when the feature was invented, available as add-on boxes or possibly integrated into the phones that had LCDs. Also, upon hearing a dial tone, a user could enter a key combination to determine the number of the last caller (for a small phone company fee).