This is what we had installed back in 2019 and don't regret it at all. They put 714 feet worth of pipe under the ground (two bore holes) which runs through the foundation to the heat pump. When its 100 we have no problem keeping the house around 70 and when its -10 we keep the house around 68 without issue. Definitely don't miss oil and natural gas.

I've been remote for around 8 years now with occasional travel to an office. I wouldn't trade it for anything other than a massive increase in salary. Not that it matters since my nearest office is 5 hours away in a different country.

The company I work for (software, about 500 employees) is taking an "if you want to" approach. Offices are opening, they'd like to see people but no plan to force people back. Considering that over the last 8 years we migrated heavily from a must be in office policy to almost 50% remote (including vps) it makes sense. I want to say maybe 5 years ago the company did surveys at each branch about satisfaction. Most offices ranged from 55% to 65% satisfied. They had remote do this I guess to not have us left out but the results ended up being something like 92% of remote employees were satisfied.

Kids aren't stupid. If it shuts down every day from 12 - 3 they aren't going to consider it magic.

It absolutely is the case in most civilized states. Parent poster is being overly dramatic.

Username checks out.

Also... agreed although I'm not at risk of going back to an office being that the nearest one is 5 hours away and in a different country.

I'm in NY and schools have been open although with various configurations depending on the school and local cases. My youngest has been in school every day since September with only two closings due to cases. My oldest has been full remote but could go in a hybrid option if we wanted.

Maybe I've played too much KSP but with the amount of hardware spread out over the solar system why do we not have a large dish in Earth orbit to act as a relay to the ground?

This isn't just for full electrics, but also for plug-in hybrids.

For example, Prius Prime, about $27,000 MSRP, minus (for that car, based on it's battery kWH, it gets $4,500 from the federal credit. If it gets even half of the NYS credit, that brings the price down another $1,000 to $21,500, which is definitely on the affordable side of new cars.

time warner cable (now spectrum) also has this they are simply affiliated with www.nomorobo.com. I wonder if its the same backend

According to Ooma's FAQ, they also use NoMoRobo.

Some providers are already doing something similar, and have been for a while. Ooma has had this as part of their 'premier' service for years.

http://support.ooma.com/home/call-blocking-meta-article

This unfortunately doesn't help for all the spoofed callerIDs that are being used though - especially for pure fraud (not just simple telemarketing).

They put up the torrents themselves. This isn't leaving a $100 on the floor. This is putting a stack of $100s out with a sign saying "Free - take me!". They can't explicitly give the file out to people, then say you can't take it.

Oddly, the party known for vote fraud seems to do quite well in Oregon.

There is no party "known for vote fraud". All studies and investigations have shown voter fraud to be virtually non-existent.

There is, on the other hand, a party that continually tries to restrict voting and disenfranchise voters while raising the specter of that non-existent voter fraud.

You do realize that the EPA was brought into existence by the uberRepublican, Richard Nixon, right?

Yes - absolutely. George H.W. Bush's administration got the 1990 extensions to the clean air act passed that were very successful. Environmental protections used to be bipartisan.

Then one party (I'll let you guess which) abandoned any pretense of care for the environment and have actively pushed back against any environmental protections (and not just regarding climate change). That isn't to say under the democrats it has been perfect either. The Flint water crisis was primarily due to Michigan but the Feds (EPA) were asleep at the wheel too.

The best solution I've seen so far, from right here on Slashdot, is to have future firmware updates require the phone to be unlocked. IOW, the user is presented with an alert, and the user must type in the passcode before the update is applied.

This would seem to solve the problem for future releases, Apple could legitimately say that there's no way to unlock the phone.

I think this is a great idea, but I don't think they can do it now until this situation is settled in the court. Not doing what the government has taken them to court on is one thing, but making what they are wanting harder while it isn't settled is obstruction of justice (I'm not a lawyer so the charge may not be exact but you get the idea).