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Comment Generation vs Distribution, and sharing the costs (Score 1) 75

I put a solar roof on; started the process last summer, signed the papers by the end of September, about a 5 month delay from the local utility for permitting, completed in march. My bill has 3 parts: a fixed customer charge (~$20 per meter; I have 2), a delivery charge (about 7 cents per KWh), and a separate generation charge (also about 7 cents per KWh). I pay delivery and generation charges for every KWh that the utility sends me, so 14 cents per KWh, and if I generate more electricity than I'm using, I get a rebate on the generation charge.
This seems to me to be fair. It's as if I'm another electrical supplier, and for the energy I give back to the utility, I'm getting credits at the same rate as I'm paying. Which is, in theory, the wholesale rate for power.
Now I need to find a way to see in real time if I am sending electricity to the grid or taking electricity from it, and move as much of my shiftable consumption to times when I'm supplying, to avoid delivery charges.

Comment Re:Yes we know (Score 1) 141

I don't see any 2K screens here sold as TVs here in Ohio. 720p, 1080p, and 4K are the choices I see in the big-box stores. Haven't seen much 8K or 16K offered, but I bet those are in higher-end AV stores. I went with 43" 4K, which is as big as my walls will allow (windows and doors and bookcases, oh my!), and our viewing distance is just under 8 feet.

Comment Re:Trump crashes the economy and planes (Score 1) 157

Do we have a gigantic budget deficit because of 2017's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act? That cut taxes, but didn't really create jobs? Shouldn't we find every way we can to increase revenue? Like hiring more IRS agents to go after wealthy tax cheats? Oh, no, we have to let those people go because we have to reduce spending. Cutting staff at National Parks, where the park brings in more revenue than it costs to run? Got to cut those positions, too, even though people will have a worse time, and maybe not spend as much.

Comment Colbert nailed in in 2006, nineteen years ago (Score 1) 193

Reality keeps reinforcing Stephen Colbert’s observation that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
Conservatives hate that, and think that by insisting that such liberal bias be countered with their viewpoints, even though they are not of the reality-based community.

Comment Re:Return it (Score 1) 108

I replaced my NetGear readyNAS with a Synology server a couple years back. ReadyNAS is no more. It looks like Synology isn’t to be trusted any more, either. Fewer and fewer choices.
And there are good reasons to buy a specialized device, rather than rolling your own. Power consumption, noise, and heat; a dedicated appliance is better on all three than building it yourself.

Comment Re:Is it going to be a real OS, though? (Score 1) 57

The mac always has a mouse and a mouse pointer; iOS has a touch-screen, and for those with a Magic Keyboard, also a cursor. So a Mac app on iOS with keyboard could be fully functional, but frustrating to users who are used to touch input. iOS apps on a Mac, though, won't have access to features that rely on touch input. I can see Mac laptops getting a touch screen, and then maybe have the touch screen detach from the keyboard, and become a convertible. But only if Apple sees the market for such a device (which could happen if Windows convertibles achieve a sizeable market share).

Comment Re:Is it going to be a real OS, though? (Score 1) 57

I bought an M3 MacBook Air last year after I got frustrated that I couldn't run an IDE on an iPad Pro. My iPad is aging, and has a cosmetic crack in the screen (now underneath a screen protector, but that trapped a visible mote of dust that's another annoyance). So a 13" M5 iPad Pro and Keyboard might be good enough that I could sell the MacBook Air, and travel with one device rather than two.

Comment Re:Are you sure? (Score 1) 188

According to https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/r...

The elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, phi, is 0.25.

I.e the US consumer will pay 25% of the tariff and the foreign supplier will pay 75%.

That is not what price elasticity means. Price elasticity is the percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in price. So if you are selling 100 units a day at $100, and phi is 0.25, then for a four dollar increase in price you would lose one sale per day. It is also not a fixed value; it will change based on the state of the economy, the level of price, and available competition.

If price elasticity is 0, then customers will pay whatever the asking prices is (think cancer drugs; how much would you pay if you had cancer and this drug cured it? Nearly everything, right?), to infinity, e.g. for a basic commodity, where you can sell all you have at the market price, but if you try and charge above the market price, customers all go to your competitors and you sell nothing.

 

Once again, the people in this administration demonstrate they have no idea what they are doing.

Comment Frequency? (Score 1) 69

Brands are struggling to grow profits as people buy new TVs less frequently.

Let's see, I bought a 27" tube TV with stereo sound in 1989 (with S-Video as well as NTSC inputs!), and then a 43" 4K set in 2015 to finally upgrade, and my newest one, another 43" 4K, in 2017 for the guest room, trying to beat tariffs the first time. And there was a 43" 4K computer monitor sometime in there, too. Does that count? I will only buy new TVs/monitors when the old ones die or turn 25, I guess.

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