Resolution wise the pixel is better as it isn't diffraction limited as google went with a wider aperture than apple did. However the sensor on the google pixel seems to have less dynamic range than the iPhone. So pick your limitation. Here is an objective comparison and you can select other cell phone cameras as well. I still prefer my old film SLR and when talking objective measures only the best digitalis now (the last 2-3 years) surpass it but to get what I have now I would have to dump probably $15,000 to go digital. For that kind of money I would prefer to jump to medium format film and really get some good gear. Add in that I like film for purely subjective reasons so when my 40+ year old film camera gives up the ghost I will very likely go medium format film.
Well that Nokia 1020 was a very diffraction limited camera. you don't have to take my word for it as a purely objective test clearly shows it (those are some really bad diffraction artifacts). Not to mention it really lacks dynamic range and is a pretty noisy sensor to boot. So while you would get 40 million dots there really isn't 40 million dots worth of data, and from a quick eyeballing of that test it looks like it would be about 8 megapixels of noisy low dynamic range information.
If only some site actually had an ISO12233 test image (to see things you need to allow scripts from gsmarena.com) and did proper testing for an objective comparison. It would be nice if they also had a few other test images as well, but no one would ever be interested in that, nor would they every go through the trouble of doing such a thing./sarcasm
Unfortunately this will tend to blow a lot of peoples' inflated worth of their iPhone camera out of the water. Also it appears that apple's cameras aren't as good as they claim.
That isn't to say that you can't take a really nice photo with proper framing, exposure, composition, and what not with an iPhone or any cellphone but those are all subjective items. One can also take nice photos with a Holga toy camera but don't go on about the objective image quality aspects of those images, just like one shouldn't do the same with cell phone cameras.
But what if I really want diffraction limited low res low dynamic range photographs taken with low quality fixed aperture lenses captured with a noisy little sensor.
Even setting that aside I would still prefer a DSLR over a cellphone or point and shoot camera because with a cellphone you are stuck with one lens and a fixed field of view where as the DSLR gives you options. While I don't have a DSLR I still have an old film SLR with a selection of really good lenses ranging from a 17mm fish eye up to a 500mm telephoto. Yes you can "zoom" with a cellphone but there the camera is just making crap up as it is digital zoom. Then lets add in the other accessories like extension tubes (for macro photography), polarizing filters (if you have never used one they are wonderful), ND filters (in case you want to do super long exposures in daylight), ring flashes, bounce flashes, a tripod mount, etc. that don't exist for cellphone cameras of if they do are a cheesy add on that will only decrease the image quality.
You are right that the DSLR isn't going away for proper photography as there are hard optical limits for what can be done can be done with a tiny sensor and tiny lens and that limit was passed years ago. For most people a cellphone camera is all they need and the more automated it is they better photos they will take because they don't want to understand photography and the photos they take will just get dumped onto facebook. For those who's photos get blown up to poster size (24 inches x 36 inches), or get published in glossy high quality printed books a cellphone camera doesn't cut it and never will.
No this is an actual real safe not one of those case hardened sheet metal cabinets with some fire board glued to the inside. This is a real safe with a 2.5 hour at 1200F fire rating that took a 4 big guys to move in and initially place because it weighs in at just under 1000 lbs empty (I got the small one). I am aware of the inexpensive gun safes you speak of and went for something else specifically because of the reasons you mentioned. Add in that I do have other valuable and important documents so now I have a good place to store them as well. Even one of those cheap gun safes or metal cabinets would be better than what most people have given how they just store them up on a shelf or in one of those locking glass display cabinets (what the fuck is the purpose of that lock).
If firearm safety is what you are after then proper storage and training would go farther than any smart gun technology ever could. I own several firearms and the safe they live in cost more than all of them combined. That safe is securely bolted to the poured concrete floor and wall of my basement. If you wanted to steal the contents you would need a forklift or thermal lance, which if you have access to those you would be better off buying your own firearms. Then there is the training, I've been through the standard firearm safety course that most states require for going hunting, back when I was younger I got the various BSA shooting sports merit badges, have my state's CCW license, and recently have become a certified range officer and instructor for BSA shooting sports. Almost every "accidental" shooting I hear about really should be called negligent. Even the case you mention was negligence as I would never leave my firearms where a child could get at them and that is one of the many things that is drilled into you with any proper training course.
If you really want to confuse them have an old metal chassis film SLR, some good lenses, a bunch of filters, bulb cable, extension tubes, a couple of telephoto converters, a big flash, a compact tripod, a light meter, and a bunch of film and then fit it all in one larger camera bag. When they open it up it is like a fucking clown car as they start taking things out and the effort they go through to claim that half of that stuff is a weapon is rather sad. I have learned to not fly with film in the camera as they frequently open the camera because they are rather stupid.
Sounds about right. They didn't want to disclose who they were when they called the first few times which to me means scam, and then after that it was always a robo call with no one on the line. When you look up the number and don't find anything on the internet and the calelr ID reports it as "Toll Free Caller" it sure smells like a scam. It was my state's Attorney General that identified them as a debt collector and not some scam operator like Rachel from card holder's services as that is what I thought I was initially reporting.
I have dealt with some other debt collectors who were trying to collect a debt from the previous owner of my house and since they were likely the ones to first buy the debt they would always state that they are calling from XYZ debt collector and looking for Dumb Bitch Lady and when I tell them she hasn't lived there for 10+ years they hang up and never call back. I still don't get how calling a number that was never attached to Dumb Bitch Lady at a house where public records show Dumb Bitch Lady sold it well over 10 years ago might provide a way of contacting Dumb Bitch Lady. At least those ones don't keep calling but they shouldn't even be calling me in the first place if they actually did the proper due diligence.
Damn I actually wish that I had known about that as it would have been another thing to go after them with. Although I'm not sure if I would have been able to make any claims since they only threatened to sue but they did fuck up badly in a lot of other ways so maybe.
Well there was no judge involved in my matter with that debt collector. Had there been it would have been either them filing a lawsuit against me to collect a debt that was very clearly not mine (which they threatened to do), me filing a counter suit seeking punitive damages, or the results of me filing a criminal complaint against them. The only one of those where I would as a judge take issue woudl be counter suing for punititive damages but the others I would have been fully within my rights. Had they continued to press the issue I would have filed a criminal complaint as anyone should as at that point they were willfully attempting to defraud me. Had they hauled me into court I would have sought out any legal actions to punish that company as again they were clearly trying to defraud me. I also don't get vindictive at first as I do try to resolve things in a rational manner first but when the other party acts irrationally, illegally, immorally, or any combination then I will go full scorched earth on them.
When they first called and refused to identify themselves I hung up. After doing that a few times then they robo call multiple times a day. Then I take a bunch of action to get it to stop including informing them in writing with things clearly time and date stamped and they continue to call. They then lie about stopping when there was a clear paper trail indicating otherwise. Then they willfully disclosed information about the debt (clearly not mine if they would have done their initial due diligence or looked at the information I provided) to an unauthorized 3rd party (it wasn't my debt so I was the unauthorized 3rd party). I respond that they are lying to me and point out every illegal action they have taken thus far. They respond by doubling down on their previous lies and threaten to freeze my assets, garnish my wages, have liens assessed, and sue me. Throughout this ordeal I had been the one going through proper channels, and documenting everything along the way and was the rational one. The scorched earth part was turning over all the evidence to the proper authorities and there was a lot of it and letting them decide what to do.
At all points I was the rational actor doing the correct things attempting to resolve the issue but the debt collector wrongfully pressed on. It shouldn't have started as the only thing they had a match on was a first name, not birth date, not last name, not last 4 of SSN, not states I had lived in, only a first name match on a debt that was older than I am They could have stopped it with the first phone call but they refused to identify themselves and only asked for the person by first name They didn't have to robo call multiple times a day for several weeks They could have stopped it when receiving notification from the CFPB or Attorney General to not contact me by phone They could have stopped it when I had provided clear evidence through the CFPB that I was the wrong person They could have stopped it when I further proved it wasn't me and that they were now illegally attempting to collect a debt. They could have stopped it before they threatened to sue me The only thing that did stop it was when I told them that if action against me continued I would file a criminal complaint against them for attempting to defraud me and that I was going to be passing all of the information on this issue along to all federal and state bodies that deal with debt collectors.
Having dealt with a debt collector that screwed the pooch bad I can understand the courts frustration. When you have a debt collector trying to collect a debt from you that is older than you are and the only match is on the first name something is very wrong with the system. That debt collector screwed up bad enough and I was meticulous enough in my documenting of the incident that my State Attorney General, State Department of Commerce, and Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau all opened investigations into them. It didn't hurt that they broke several laws, did in in writing, and then continued to do so over the course of the correspondence, and then denied saying things that there was a provable paper trail for. Things like lie to someone, threaten to garnish their wages and seize assets, disclose information about the debt to an unauthorized 3rd party, calling multiple times a day after making initial contact that day, refusing to identify themselves on the phone, continuing to call after being contacted in writing informing them to no longer call, etc. It also didn't hurt that I can be a vindictive dick who will see things like this through.
I can think of one thing that would be useful for self driving cars that would benefit greatly from low latency. The use of RTK for getting highly accurate positions using the CORS network that the US has and supplementing with state CORS networks if available. I know it is being used by some MnDOT and MetroTransit vehicles but can't find the article that I read stating as such but did find a paper from the University of MN when they were doing some trials.
Then again for something like that maybe having a dedicated system that continuously broadcasts the current (last few seconds) of data to all would be better as it would be even lower latency and wouldn't require massive amounts of bandwidth.
My guess is that you are not paying past rent, a debt, but future rent as usually first months rent and security deposit is due before you move in. I believe that if you have past due rent and tried to pay in cash and they refuse it then that debt needs to be canceled as they refused payment. Then again IANAL so that was just my wild but seemingly reasonable guess on the subject.
Personally I like cash and still use it. Also the look on a kid's face when they get a bill that is bigger than they every have before is great. My little nieces, nephews, and cousins, get the universal gift cards every year and and they think it is great. When you are 3 a $5 bill is a big deal, when you are 12 a $50 bill is, and when your deadbeat illegal immigrant husband flees back to Mexico stealing your car and a bunch of other stuff while you are on a work trip a stack of 10 $100 bills helps a lot.
Well sometimes I do deliberately post to offend someone. Not in the name calling way, more in the challenge their thinking way. Some people really don't like that.
I have had far too many people over the years mistake my posts as serious when they are not and if in doubt will include a/sarcasm and considered it for that one but thought it should be obvious. Although it has been a long few weeks so mentally I am a bit burned out so that may be part of it.
Not protecting citizens from bad memes and crude jokes, but protecting themselves from dissenting views being visible to their people.
Which is why I now like to ask the people working in calls centers in China when they call trying to scam me: If they are aware of the book sellers in Hong Kong that have turned up in mainland Chines jails If they know that Tibet was a sovereign nation until it was invaded and now its native population is being replaced. If they are aware of the Uyghur issues Asking if they know about the June 4th incident or the student protest of 1989 in Tienanmen Square. Personally I am hoping to get the Chines government to shut down these scam call centers by bringing up issues it doesn't want discussed as there is a whole list of things one can bring up. Anything else is a side benefit.
Hell even if you don't want to go and get trained in one of those skilled positions the military is a really good way to get ahead. While I did not do the military I had a lot of friends and relatives who did and there are ways to really game the system. Not only the tuition assistance and GI bill but a bunch of other stuff. From what I can gather the best way to get ahead is to:
1. Become an Eagle Scout, give you a an initial rank boost, I gather that being fairly high up in the civil air patrol also does this 2. Join the national guard reserves when you turn 17 and you do your basic training the summer between your junior and senior year 3. Apply to a college that has an ROTC program and get in it 4. Inform your reserve unit leader that you are doing ROTC in college, this usually gets you another bump in rank and the additional pay 5. Because you are in the reserves and ROTC you 4 year degree is fully paid for as well as everything else for college plus spending money 6. After completing college if there is a commission available you get to serve out your ROTC debt and there will very likely be a spot for you given how much has already been invested 7. At this point you have between 5 and 5.5 years of service and remember that Eagle scout you earned, so instead of going in as second lieutenant you will be at least a first lieutenant with a likely rapid promotion or even start as a captain. 8. While serving out your officer duty continue taking advantage of the military for additional courses and continued education 9. At the end of your mandatory service, I think it is now 6 years, you now have at least 11 years in total, so you can continue for another 9 and get an officers pension at age 37, go into the private sector as someone with lots of schooling and experience, go work for a government contractor, or decide to ladder climb and see if you can become an general or admiral.
Once done you will have a debt free college education, training in a useful skill (you enlisted job training), have clear leadership skills (you were an officer), maybe a pension, additional classes beyond a bachelors degree, and provided you didn't drink your paycheck or do other really dumb things with it a good amount of savings. This assumes that everything works out perfectly and you get things sorted out early which is usually the hard part for most people as those first 3 steps are the hard ones to take. I know people who have done one or more from 1, 2 and 3 but never all and in each case they do have a leg up over those who didn't do any. This also assumes that you did fairly well in high school and got a reasonable ASVAB score that doesn't limit you.
That may work for simple old wall clocks but for any accurate timing NTP or a satellite clock is by far the better option. I don't think it is used much anymore other than in older antiquated devices (I have a fancy electric clock that tracks sun and moon positions I got from my father in law that uses the 60Hz frequency of the mains for timing), but a good thermally regulated quartz oscillator isn't that expensive and would keep much better time, even just a good quartz oscillator keeps damn good time and are cheap enough to be included with a watch that comes free with a kids meal from subway would be better than the 60 Hz frequency of the mains.
In this case if it were me I would just file complaints with your state's Attorney General and provide a tone of evidence like meter readings and copies of bills since I would call it fraud. Then again I am a dick and when companies pull shit like that on me I go full scorched earth on them like I did to the debt collector who fucked up bad trying to collect a debt from me that was older than I am.
I''ve also read that solar can't power the world (not enough sun reaches our surface).
Then you have read incorrectly. We get about 10,000 times as much energy from the sun than we currently use. So by covering 1% of earth's surface with 1% efficient solar panels we could meet our current energy needs. Since 1% efficient panels are absolute garbage (can you even find 1%) it would require even less area so instead we could over 0.05% of earth's surface with 20% efficient panels (chosen because I believe that is the average efficiency of panels now). Now there are some losses from what reaches the upper atmosphere to what we get at the ground but it doesn't affect the calculation in a meaningful way, as in we still get like 7,000 times the amount of energy than we use.
Slashdot Mirror
Resolution wise the pixel is better as it isn't diffraction limited as google went with a wider aperture than apple did. However the sensor on the google pixel seems to have less dynamic range than the iPhone. So pick your limitation. Here is an objective comparison and you can select other cell phone cameras as well. I still prefer my old film SLR and when talking objective measures only the best digitalis now (the last 2-3 years) surpass it but to get what I have now I would have to dump probably $15,000 to go digital. For that kind of money I would prefer to jump to medium format film and really get some good gear. Add in that I like film for purely subjective reasons so when my 40+ year old film camera gives up the ghost I will very likely go medium format film.
Well that Nokia 1020 was a very diffraction limited camera. you don't have to take my word for it as a purely objective test clearly shows it (those are some really bad diffraction artifacts). Not to mention it really lacks dynamic range and is a pretty noisy sensor to boot. So while you would get 40 million dots there really isn't 40 million dots worth of data, and from a quick eyeballing of that test it looks like it would be about 8 megapixels of noisy low dynamic range information.
If only some site actually had an ISO12233 test image (to see things you need to allow scripts from gsmarena.com) and did proper testing for an objective comparison. It would be nice if they also had a few other test images as well, but no one would ever be interested in that, nor would they every go through the trouble of doing such a thing. /sarcasm
Unfortunately this will tend to blow a lot of peoples' inflated worth of their iPhone camera out of the water. Also it appears that apple's cameras aren't as good as they claim.
That isn't to say that you can't take a really nice photo with proper framing, exposure, composition, and what not with an iPhone or any cellphone but those are all subjective items. One can also take nice photos with a Holga toy camera but don't go on about the objective image quality aspects of those images, just like one shouldn't do the same with cell phone cameras.
But what if I really want diffraction limited low res low dynamic range photographs taken with low quality fixed aperture lenses captured with a noisy little sensor.
Even setting that aside I would still prefer a DSLR over a cellphone or point and shoot camera because with a cellphone you are stuck with one lens and a fixed field of view where as the DSLR gives you options. While I don't have a DSLR I still have an old film SLR with a selection of really good lenses ranging from a 17mm fish eye up to a 500mm telephoto. Yes you can "zoom" with a cellphone but there the camera is just making crap up as it is digital zoom. Then lets add in the other accessories like extension tubes (for macro photography), polarizing filters (if you have never used one they are wonderful), ND filters (in case you want to do super long exposures in daylight), ring flashes, bounce flashes, a tripod mount, etc. that don't exist for cellphone cameras of if they do are a cheesy add on that will only decrease the image quality.
You are right that the DSLR isn't going away for proper photography as there are hard optical limits for what can be done can be done with a tiny sensor and tiny lens and that limit was passed years ago. For most people a cellphone camera is all they need and the more automated it is they better photos they will take because they don't want to understand photography and the photos they take will just get dumped onto facebook. For those who's photos get blown up to poster size (24 inches x 36 inches), or get published in glossy high quality printed books a cellphone camera doesn't cut it and never will.
No this is an actual real safe not one of those case hardened sheet metal cabinets with some fire board glued to the inside. This is a real safe with a 2.5 hour at 1200F fire rating that took a 4 big guys to move in and initially place because it weighs in at just under 1000 lbs empty (I got the small one). I am aware of the inexpensive gun safes you speak of and went for something else specifically because of the reasons you mentioned. Add in that I do have other valuable and important documents so now I have a good place to store them as well. Even one of those cheap gun safes or metal cabinets would be better than what most people have given how they just store them up on a shelf or in one of those locking glass display cabinets (what the fuck is the purpose of that lock).
If firearm safety is what you are after then proper storage and training would go farther than any smart gun technology ever could. I own several firearms and the safe they live in cost more than all of them combined. That safe is securely bolted to the poured concrete floor and wall of my basement. If you wanted to steal the contents you would need a forklift or thermal lance, which if you have access to those you would be better off buying your own firearms. Then there is the training, I've been through the standard firearm safety course that most states require for going hunting, back when I was younger I got the various BSA shooting sports merit badges, have my state's CCW license, and recently have become a certified range officer and instructor for BSA shooting sports. Almost every "accidental" shooting I hear about really should be called negligent. Even the case you mention was negligence as I would never leave my firearms where a child could get at them and that is one of the many things that is drilled into you with any proper training course.
If you really want to confuse them have an old metal chassis film SLR, some good lenses, a bunch of filters, bulb cable, extension tubes, a couple of telephoto converters, a big flash, a compact tripod, a light meter, and a bunch of film and then fit it all in one larger camera bag. When they open it up it is like a fucking clown car as they start taking things out and the effort they go through to claim that half of that stuff is a weapon is rather sad. I have learned to not fly with film in the camera as they frequently open the camera because they are rather stupid.
I believe that is the Science Victory in Civ V
An app is what you get when you port a 1990's flash game to iOS and add microtransactions.
Now I want to play defend your castle on my phone although it might be too easy with a touch interface.
Sounds about right. They didn't want to disclose who they were when they called the first few times which to me means scam, and then after that it was always a robo call with no one on the line. When you look up the number and don't find anything on the internet and the calelr ID reports it as "Toll Free Caller" it sure smells like a scam. It was my state's Attorney General that identified them as a debt collector and not some scam operator like Rachel from card holder's services as that is what I thought I was initially reporting.
I have dealt with some other debt collectors who were trying to collect a debt from the previous owner of my house and since they were likely the ones to first buy the debt they would always state that they are calling from XYZ debt collector and looking for Dumb Bitch Lady and when I tell them she hasn't lived there for 10+ years they hang up and never call back. I still don't get how calling a number that was never attached to Dumb Bitch Lady at a house where public records show Dumb Bitch Lady sold it well over 10 years ago might provide a way of contacting Dumb Bitch Lady. At least those ones don't keep calling but they shouldn't even be calling me in the first place if they actually did the proper due diligence.
Damn I actually wish that I had known about that as it would have been another thing to go after them with. Although I'm not sure if I would have been able to make any claims since they only threatened to sue but they did fuck up badly in a lot of other ways so maybe.
I always thought IoT stood for Internet of Trash. So far that hypothesis holds.
Well there was no judge involved in my matter with that debt collector. Had there been it would have been either them filing a lawsuit against me to collect a debt that was very clearly not mine (which they threatened to do), me filing a counter suit seeking punitive damages, or the results of me filing a criminal complaint against them. The only one of those where I would as a judge take issue woudl be counter suing for punititive damages but the others I would have been fully within my rights. Had they continued to press the issue I would have filed a criminal complaint as anyone should as at that point they were willfully attempting to defraud me. Had they hauled me into court I would have sought out any legal actions to punish that company as again they were clearly trying to defraud me. I also don't get vindictive at first as I do try to resolve things in a rational manner first but when the other party acts irrationally, illegally, immorally, or any combination then I will go full scorched earth on them.
When they first called and refused to identify themselves I hung up. After doing that a few times then they robo call multiple times a day. Then I take a bunch of action to get it to stop including informing them in writing with things clearly time and date stamped and they continue to call. They then lie about stopping when there was a clear paper trail indicating otherwise. Then they willfully disclosed information about the debt (clearly not mine if they would have done their initial due diligence or looked at the information I provided) to an unauthorized 3rd party (it wasn't my debt so I was the unauthorized 3rd party). I respond that they are lying to me and point out every illegal action they have taken thus far. They respond by doubling down on their previous lies and threaten to freeze my assets, garnish my wages, have liens assessed, and sue me. Throughout this ordeal I had been the one going through proper channels, and documenting everything along the way and was the rational one. The scorched earth part was turning over all the evidence to the proper authorities and there was a lot of it and letting them decide what to do.
At all points I was the rational actor doing the correct things attempting to resolve the issue but the debt collector wrongfully pressed on.
It shouldn't have started as the only thing they had a match on was a first name, not birth date, not last name, not last 4 of SSN, not states I had lived in, only a first name match on a debt that was older than I am
They could have stopped it with the first phone call but they refused to identify themselves and only asked for the person by first name
They didn't have to robo call multiple times a day for several weeks
They could have stopped it when receiving notification from the CFPB or Attorney General to not contact me by phone
They could have stopped it when I had provided clear evidence through the CFPB that I was the wrong person
They could have stopped it when I further proved it wasn't me and that they were now illegally attempting to collect a debt.
They could have stopped it before they threatened to sue me
The only thing that did stop it was when I told them that if action against me continued I would file a criminal complaint against them for attempting to defraud me and that I was going to be passing all of the information on this issue along to all federal and state bodies that deal with debt collectors.
Having dealt with a debt collector that screwed the pooch bad I can understand the courts frustration. When you have a debt collector trying to collect a debt from you that is older than you are and the only match is on the first name something is very wrong with the system. That debt collector screwed up bad enough and I was meticulous enough in my documenting of the incident that my State Attorney General, State Department of Commerce, and Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau all opened investigations into them. It didn't hurt that they broke several laws, did in in writing, and then continued to do so over the course of the correspondence, and then denied saying things that there was a provable paper trail for. Things like lie to someone, threaten to garnish their wages and seize assets, disclose information about the debt to an unauthorized 3rd party, calling multiple times a day after making initial contact that day, refusing to identify themselves on the phone, continuing to call after being contacted in writing informing them to no longer call, etc. It also didn't hurt that I can be a vindictive dick who will see things like this through.
I can think of one thing that would be useful for self driving cars that would benefit greatly from low latency. The use of RTK for getting highly accurate positions using the CORS network that the US has and supplementing with state CORS networks if available. I know it is being used by some MnDOT and MetroTransit vehicles but can't find the article that I read stating as such but did find a paper from the University of MN when they were doing some trials.
Then again for something like that maybe having a dedicated system that continuously broadcasts the current (last few seconds) of data to all would be better as it would be even lower latency and wouldn't require massive amounts of bandwidth.
My guess is that you are not paying past rent, a debt, but future rent as usually first months rent and security deposit is due before you move in. I believe that if you have past due rent and tried to pay in cash and they refuse it then that debt needs to be canceled as they refused payment. Then again IANAL so that was just my wild but seemingly reasonable guess on the subject.
Personally I like cash and still use it. Also the look on a kid's face when they get a bill that is bigger than they every have before is great. My little nieces, nephews, and cousins, get the universal gift cards every year and and they think it is great. When you are 3 a $5 bill is a big deal, when you are 12 a $50 bill is, and when your deadbeat illegal immigrant husband flees back to Mexico stealing your car and a bunch of other stuff while you are on a work trip a stack of 10 $100 bills helps a lot.
Well sometimes I do deliberately post to offend someone. Not in the name calling way, more in the challenge their thinking way. Some people really don't like that.
I have had far too many people over the years mistake my posts as serious when they are not and if in doubt will include a /sarcasm and considered it for that one but thought it should be obvious. Although it has been a long few weeks so mentally I am a bit burned out so that may be part of it.
I really hope your last comment was tongue in cheek, as mine was.
Because most of us here are Americans and dammit we don't want none of that commie metric measurements here on this site.
Not protecting citizens from bad memes and crude jokes, but protecting themselves from dissenting views being visible to their people.
Which is why I now like to ask the people working in calls centers in China when they call trying to scam me:
If they are aware of the book sellers in Hong Kong that have turned up in mainland Chines jails
If they know that Tibet was a sovereign nation until it was invaded and now its native population is being replaced.
If they are aware of the Uyghur issues
Asking if they know about the June 4th incident or the student protest of 1989 in Tienanmen Square.
Personally I am hoping to get the Chines government to shut down these scam call centers by bringing up issues it doesn't want discussed as there is a whole list of things one can bring up. Anything else is a side benefit.
Hell even if you don't want to go and get trained in one of those skilled positions the military is a really good way to get ahead. While I did not do the military I had a lot of friends and relatives who did and there are ways to really game the system. Not only the tuition assistance and GI bill but a bunch of other stuff. From what I can gather the best way to get ahead is to:
1. Become an Eagle Scout, give you a an initial rank boost, I gather that being fairly high up in the civil air patrol also does this
2. Join the national guard reserves when you turn 17 and you do your basic training the summer between your junior and senior year
3. Apply to a college that has an ROTC program and get in it
4. Inform your reserve unit leader that you are doing ROTC in college, this usually gets you another bump in rank and the additional pay
5. Because you are in the reserves and ROTC you 4 year degree is fully paid for as well as everything else for college plus spending money
6. After completing college if there is a commission available you get to serve out your ROTC debt and there will very likely be a spot for you given how much has already been invested
7. At this point you have between 5 and 5.5 years of service and remember that Eagle scout you earned, so instead of going in as second lieutenant you will be at least a first lieutenant with a likely rapid promotion or even start as a captain.
8. While serving out your officer duty continue taking advantage of the military for additional courses and continued education
9. At the end of your mandatory service, I think it is now 6 years, you now have at least 11 years in total, so you can continue for another 9 and get an officers pension at age 37, go into the private sector as someone with lots of schooling and experience, go work for a government contractor, or decide to ladder climb and see if you can become an general or admiral.
Once done you will have a debt free college education, training in a useful skill (you enlisted job training), have clear leadership skills (you were an officer), maybe a pension, additional classes beyond a bachelors degree, and provided you didn't drink your paycheck or do other really dumb things with it a good amount of savings. This assumes that everything works out perfectly and you get things sorted out early which is usually the hard part for most people as those first 3 steps are the hard ones to take. I know people who have done one or more from 1, 2 and 3 but never all and in each case they do have a leg up over those who didn't do any. This also assumes that you did fairly well in high school and got a reasonable ASVAB score that doesn't limit you.
That may work for simple old wall clocks but for any accurate timing NTP or a satellite clock is by far the better option. I don't think it is used much anymore other than in older antiquated devices (I have a fancy electric clock that tracks sun and moon positions I got from my father in law that uses the 60Hz frequency of the mains for timing), but a good thermally regulated quartz oscillator isn't that expensive and would keep much better time, even just a good quartz oscillator keeps damn good time and are cheap enough to be included with a watch that comes free with a kids meal from subway would be better than the 60 Hz frequency of the mains.
In this case if it were me I would just file complaints with your state's Attorney General and provide a tone of evidence like meter readings and copies of bills since I would call it fraud. Then again I am a dick and when companies pull shit like that on me I go full scorched earth on them like I did to the debt collector who fucked up bad trying to collect a debt from me that was older than I am.
I''ve also read that solar can't power the world (not enough sun reaches our surface).
Then you have read incorrectly. We get about 10,000 times as much energy from the sun than we currently use. So by covering 1% of earth's surface with 1% efficient solar panels we could meet our current energy needs. Since 1% efficient panels are absolute garbage (can you even find 1%) it would require even less area so instead we could over 0.05% of earth's surface with 20% efficient panels (chosen because I believe that is the average efficiency of panels now). Now there are some losses from what reaches the upper atmosphere to what we get at the ground but it doesn't affect the calculation in a meaningful way, as in we still get like 7,000 times the amount of energy than we use.