That's nice. Wish I lived in that world you have in your head, I'd be a Pro road cyclist and only have to get up to ride every day. Meanwhile I got news for you, Sunshine: No one is going to pay you to learn Latin, they're going to pay you to do WORK that earns them a PROFIT. We're never going to live in a Socialist world where everything is handed to you, and if we did IT IS MY OPINION that people would do NOTHING but lay around, get fat, weak, sick, and dumb. Work for it's own sake is not something the vast majority of people are willing to do, work-for-pay is the carrot on the end of the stick that keeps them getting out of bed in the morning, it is a PURPOSE: Survival, and it has the nice side effect of not allowing them to decay into nothing.
Here's the fact of the matter: There are MANY, MANY older folks now, and they're already hurting for work. Guess what? There's going to be MANY, MANY MORE, sooner than anyone wants to believe. Turning us into Soylent Green isn't an option, kids, and despite what some of the edgier of you post online, we're not just going to 'kill ourselves' to make way for YOU. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm actually getting stronger, quicker, and overall healthier as I get older, not fat, decrepit, and addled-brained. There won't BE any 'retirement' for someone like me, I'm going to WORK until I drop dead., most likely. You think there's a homelessness problem now? How about it being multiples of ten times worse, except it's all people who had professional careers at one point, and have been kicked to the curb for the 'new hotness' that will accept a fraction of the salary and twice the abuse with a smile? Meanwhile even Social Security means nothing, it's all going to collapse into dust long before someone like me and my contemporaries will ever be eligible to collect on it, despite paying a nice sized chunk of our earnings into it our entire lives. To make matters worse I see people getting stupider and lazier instead of smarter, more skilled, and more active; I see a recipe for disaster in the making, all so some dickhead CEOs can improve this quarter's bottom line, and get a bigger bonus. You want to see the U.S. get back on top with regards to innovation and tech in general? Stop pushing out the experienced people so you can hire know-nothing twenty-somethings for less pay.
Several years ago, as a cost-cutting measure, I put up an antenna and got rid of Comcast cable TV. Too many channels I was ostensibly paying for but never ever watching. I'm perfectly happy with OTA broadcasts and the local stations, major networks. I'll supplement that with a small amount of programming from the Internet, but not anywhere near as much as you might think. I think I'm not alone in this, I think many people are going back to OTA broadcasts for the one-time cost of an antenna and saying 'FU' to cable and satellite costs, it just doesn't show up as much because beyond the cost of the antenna there's no subscription for anyone to track. I also cite ventures like Aereo, which despite their being killed off, showed that there is a market for OTA broadcasts still. I think this is the direction things are -- and should -- move back towards. Honestly the picture quality of OTA DTV is better than cable or satellite anyway, no re-compressing happening.
Facebook seems to want to be the Internet for everyone, much like AOL. We can but hope that it becomes irrelevant at least an order of magnitude faster than AOL itself has. You can all accelerate this process by ceasing your usage of Facebook immediately.
Everything you're saying is true. However: I'll bet you that electric utility companies will put as many roadblocks in the way of homeowners purchasing and using these as they possibly can, up to and including making it more expensive to own and use one of these than to not have solar at all. They're already whinging and whining about existing rooftop solar, and this will just make them whine even louder. Wouldn't at all be surprised if they try to find some way to block this product entirely. It's growing pains, that's for sure, and it's an exercise in futility on the part of the electric companies, this sort of thing is the way the future is going to look. They'd be better off jumping in on it rather than fighting it.
What we need is an energy storage system with a lifespan of 20 years; will this Tesla battery last that long, or will it last about as long as a laptop battery before losing enough capacity to make it useless?
Would energy storage be a good idea? Yes. But it needs to be durable, and preferably cheap.
Oh, and memo to the guy who says we should just use lead-acid gel-cell batteries instead? They have one quarter to one fifth the energy density of the cell technology we're talking about; you really want to have half or more of your garage taken up by batteries?
Probably logs everything you do with it and sends it directly to the government for analysis, and probably has censorship hardcoded right into it.
Someone else asked 'any chance of it being available in North America'; why would you want it? Aren't we surveilled enough here already? You want the Chinese government knowing everything you do with your mobile device? Are you nuts?
I'm curious, how do you explain the fact that Sucralose makes me ravenously hungry for at least 24 to 48 hours after ingesting it, and by 'ravenously' I mean no amount of food or drink will satisfy it, then?
Of course they're going from bad to worse if you ask me. I drink a soda with Sucralose in it? For the next 24 to 48 hours, I will be hungry CONSTANTLY, and no amount of food or drink will make it stop. Why can't they use something like Stevia, which has no side effects of any kind and is a plant extract, instead of some crap made in a chem lab?
Thanks so much Pepsi, you still aren't getting a penny from me for any your products, except the occasional Throwback Dr. Pepper.
..instead passing light around the individual drops
What the hell is THIS crap anyway? Sounds like a great way to both add a couple thousand dollars onto the price of a new car, and to also create a highly complex point of failure that you can't just stop by any auto parts store to fix in 10 minutes. Lights that follow the path of the car based on steering angle, sure, that's sensible (I have a helmet-mounted instead of handlebar-mounted light for night riding on my bike for that very reason) but the rest of it? Nonsense. Standard lighting on a gimbal that can adjust for conditions and steering would be good though.
Not even going to mince words here: They want to be assholes.
Of course this will never be allowed to happen. If so it might well completely collapse the economy. There are many, many people who cannot afford to pay someone to do repair work on their vehicles, and what are you going to tell them? "Sorry, you have to quit your job you're just getting by on, and take a shittier job within walking distance of home, because you can't afford to pay exhorbitant fees to have simple repairs done to your car that you otherwise were doing yourself, for the cost of parts and supplies". Also, what about auto parts stores? You'd essentially be declaring them illegal, too, putting more people out of work, as you collapse an entire industry.
It's madness, it's stupid, it'll never, ever happen. Nothing to see here, move along, everyone..
Better look out, Monsanto (aka Umbrella Corporation IRL), will probably find some way of patenting tree DNA, then sue the fuck out of everyone who has trees on their land.
..but all bullshitting aside: Mod parent up to 'Score:9.99E+36, Ultimate Truth'. Stop cutting down trees, plant MORE trees, do it NOW.
Oh for fuck's sake.. it's very simple: Avionics need to be on a physically separate network from everything else, preferably encrypted. If there was 'air gap hacking' going on or even possible, wouldn't we have seen it long before now? Wouldn't an intelligent, capable, well-organized, well-thought-out terrorist (yes, Virginia, they do exist) have found a way to sneak the equipment necessary aboard a flight and implemented his hack, taken control of the plane?
Oh yeah? On the other hand it's easy for anyone to criticize anything that anyone else does, now isn't it, and since when does someone's personal tastes in literature qualify them to be a 'critic'? Fucking bite me.
What have YOU written that was any good at all, let alone worthy of being published and marketed at major brick-and-mortar booksellers? You speak boldly for someone who isn't even willing to sign their own name to a shitpost they're making on Slashdot. I stand utterly amazed that you can even use correct capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure, while at the same time finding nothing of relevance or value in your ill-considered 'opinion'. Perhaps his works are just beyond your comprehension? Maybe Dr. Seuss would be more your speed. No, I take that back; probably still too sophisticated for you. The slogans on coasters at your local dive bar are probably more appealing to you, as are the graffitti on the mens' room wall. But please, continue to grace us with your wisdom.
If what you're implying is that rooftop solar generators should be paid the same as what the utility companies would spend generating it themselves, then sure, that's fair. Their main complaint about rooftop solar proliferation is that they're not paying their fair share of the upkeep for the grid itself. Who knows how valid that point is and/or how much they're overstating it.
Unfortunately from what I hear there are many places where your house will literally be declared 'condemned' by the local County if it does not have an active connection to the local electric grid. That, however, I find to be unreasonable, but something that can (and should) be remedied legally by updating the relevant laws, which are obviously behind the times. Like with the proliferation of digital music, which the RIAA is still largely fighting against tooth and nail, the utility industry is operating with a now-outdated business model and must change. Nobody said this would be easy or quick.
Buddy, I could almost admire what you claim to have accomplished here, except for two things:
1. You're posting as Anonymous Coward instead of taking credit for what you claim to have done for yourself. 2. Your claims about the electric grid/utility companies being 'socialist'; what the actual fuck, dude?
Electric companies may seem heartless and evil sometimes, but face it: they're a for-profit venture in a capitalist system. So sorry your electric bills didn't have hearts and unicorns in them when you opened them, but that's the breaks I guess. As is that last sentence in your post makes you sound like a right-wing libertarian whack-job, and as such, you should just keep to yourself and not chime in on discussions about solar power at home -- you're just going to make everyone else look like a whack-job, too. Sorry to have to tell you but to get solar power generation at home to be even more mainstream is going to take the cooperation of the power generation companies and completely demonizing them by calling them 'socialist' or other baseless inaccurate insults isn't going to help with that in the least.
I think that whoever decided to fund this 'study' were stoned when they did it, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if the 'researchers' were stoned the entire time they were conducting it.
Slashdot Mirror
Come up with a Tesla motorcycle and a Tesla light pickup truck, and then we'll have a conversation. Especially a motorcycle.
That's nice. Wish I lived in that world you have in your head, I'd be a Pro road cyclist and only have to get up to ride every day. Meanwhile I got news for you, Sunshine: No one is going to pay you to learn Latin, they're going to pay you to do WORK that earns them a PROFIT. We're never going to live in a Socialist world where everything is handed to you, and if we did IT IS MY OPINION that people would do NOTHING but lay around, get fat, weak, sick, and dumb. Work for it's own sake is not something the vast majority of people are willing to do, work-for-pay is the carrot on the end of the stick that keeps them getting out of bed in the morning, it is a PURPOSE: Survival, and it has the nice side effect of not allowing them to decay into nothing.
Here's the fact of the matter: There are MANY, MANY older folks now, and they're already hurting for work. Guess what? There's going to be MANY, MANY MORE, sooner than anyone wants to believe. Turning us into Soylent Green isn't an option, kids, and despite what some of the edgier of you post online, we're not just going to 'kill ourselves' to make way for YOU. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm actually getting stronger, quicker, and overall healthier as I get older, not fat, decrepit, and addled-brained. There won't BE any 'retirement' for someone like me, I'm going to WORK until I drop dead., most likely. You think there's a homelessness problem now? How about it being multiples of ten times worse, except it's all people who had professional careers at one point, and have been kicked to the curb for the 'new hotness' that will accept a fraction of the salary and twice the abuse with a smile? Meanwhile even Social Security means nothing, it's all going to collapse into dust long before someone like me and my contemporaries will ever be eligible to collect on it, despite paying a nice sized chunk of our earnings into it our entire lives. To make matters worse I see people getting stupider and lazier instead of smarter, more skilled, and more active; I see a recipe for disaster in the making, all so some dickhead CEOs can improve this quarter's bottom line, and get a bigger bonus. You want to see the U.S. get back on top with regards to innovation and tech in general? Stop pushing out the experienced people so you can hire know-nothing twenty-somethings for less pay.
Humans need a purpose. Without it they wither away, like muscles that atrophy from lack of use. We can't have a world where everything is automated.
Several years ago, as a cost-cutting measure, I put up an antenna and got rid of Comcast cable TV. Too many channels I was ostensibly paying for but never ever watching. I'm perfectly happy with OTA broadcasts and the local stations, major networks. I'll supplement that with a small amount of programming from the Internet, but not anywhere near as much as you might think. I think I'm not alone in this, I think many people are going back to OTA broadcasts for the one-time cost of an antenna and saying 'FU' to cable and satellite costs, it just doesn't show up as much because beyond the cost of the antenna there's no subscription for anyone to track. I also cite ventures like Aereo, which despite their being killed off, showed that there is a market for OTA broadcasts still. I think this is the direction things are -- and should -- move back towards. Honestly the picture quality of OTA DTV is better than cable or satellite anyway, no re-compressing happening.
Facebook seems to want to be the Internet for everyone, much like AOL. We can but hope that it becomes irrelevant at least an order of magnitude faster than AOL itself has. You can all accelerate this process by ceasing your usage of Facebook immediately.
Everything you're saying is true. However: I'll bet you that electric utility companies will put as many roadblocks in the way of homeowners purchasing and using these as they possibly can, up to and including making it more expensive to own and use one of these than to not have solar at all. They're already whinging and whining about existing rooftop solar, and this will just make them whine even louder. Wouldn't at all be surprised if they try to find some way to block this product entirely. It's growing pains, that's for sure, and it's an exercise in futility on the part of the electric companies, this sort of thing is the way the future is going to look. They'd be better off jumping in on it rather than fighting it.
What we need is an energy storage system with a lifespan of 20 years; will this Tesla battery last that long, or will it last about as long as a laptop battery before losing enough capacity to make it useless?
Would energy storage be a good idea? Yes. But it needs to be durable, and preferably cheap.
Oh, and memo to the guy who says we should just use lead-acid gel-cell batteries instead? They have one quarter to one fifth the energy density of the cell technology we're talking about; you really want to have half or more of your garage taken up by batteries?
Probably logs everything you do with it and sends it directly to the government for analysis, and probably has censorship hardcoded right into it.
Someone else asked 'any chance of it being available in North America'; why would you want it? Aren't we surveilled enough here already? You want the Chinese government knowing everything you do with your mobile device? Are you nuts?
I'm curious, how do you explain the fact that Sucralose makes me ravenously hungry for at least 24 to 48 hours after ingesting it, and by 'ravenously' I mean no amount of food or drink will satisfy it, then?
Of course they're going from bad to worse if you ask me. I drink a soda with Sucralose in it? For the next 24 to 48 hours, I will be hungry CONSTANTLY, and no amount of food or drink will make it stop. Why can't they use something like Stevia, which has no side effects of any kind and is a plant extract, instead of some crap made in a chem lab?
Thanks so much Pepsi, you still aren't getting a penny from me for any your products, except the occasional Throwback Dr. Pepper.
..instead passing light around the individual drops
What the hell is THIS crap anyway? Sounds like a great way to both add a couple thousand dollars onto the price of a new car, and to also create a highly complex point of failure that you can't just stop by any auto parts store to fix in 10 minutes. Lights that follow the path of the car based on steering angle, sure, that's sensible (I have a helmet-mounted instead of handlebar-mounted light for night riding on my bike for that very reason) but the rest of it? Nonsense. Standard lighting on a gimbal that can adjust for conditions and steering would be good though.
Implying that 4K content will ever really catch on.
Not even going to mince words here: They want to be assholes.
Of course this will never be allowed to happen. If so it might well completely collapse the economy. There are many, many people who cannot afford to pay someone to do repair work on their vehicles, and what are you going to tell them? "Sorry, you have to quit your job you're just getting by on, and take a shittier job within walking distance of home, because you can't afford to pay exhorbitant fees to have simple repairs done to your car that you otherwise were doing yourself, for the cost of parts and supplies". Also, what about auto parts stores? You'd essentially be declaring them illegal, too, putting more people out of work, as you collapse an entire industry.
It's madness, it's stupid, it'll never, ever happen. Nothing to see here, move along, everyone..
You sound like a sales rep trying to get your quota for the month.
Better look out, Monsanto (aka Umbrella Corporation IRL), will probably find some way of patenting tree DNA, then sue the fuck out of everyone who has trees on their land.
..but all bullshitting aside: Mod parent up to 'Score:9.99E+36, Ultimate Truth'. Stop cutting down trees, plant MORE trees, do it NOW.
If I could mod this up to 6, I would. The 'new' version is bloated as hell. I'll be happy to see the simpler, stripped-down version.
Oh for fuck's sake.. it's very simple: Avionics need to be on a physically separate network from everything else, preferably encrypted. If there was 'air gap hacking' going on or even possible, wouldn't we have seen it long before now? Wouldn't an intelligent, capable, well-organized, well-thought-out terrorist (yes, Virginia, they do exist) have found a way to sneak the equipment necessary aboard a flight and implemented his hack, taken control of the plane?
Go collide with a concrete abutment at high speed.
Oh yeah? On the other hand it's easy for anyone to criticize anything that anyone else does, now isn't it, and since when does someone's personal tastes in literature qualify them to be a 'critic'? Fucking bite me.
What have YOU written that was any good at all, let alone worthy of being published and marketed at major brick-and-mortar booksellers? You speak boldly for someone who isn't even willing to sign their own name to a shitpost they're making on Slashdot. I stand utterly amazed that you can even use correct capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure, while at the same time finding nothing of relevance or value in your ill-considered 'opinion'. Perhaps his works are just beyond your comprehension? Maybe Dr. Seuss would be more your speed. No, I take that back; probably still too sophisticated for you. The slogans on coasters at your local dive bar are probably more appealing to you, as are the graffitti on the mens' room wall. But please, continue to grace us with your wisdom.
Also, what are they going to do, outlaw motorcycles and scooters? Never happen either.
If what you're implying is that rooftop solar generators should be paid the same as what the utility companies would spend generating it themselves, then sure, that's fair. Their main complaint about rooftop solar proliferation is that they're not paying their fair share of the upkeep for the grid itself. Who knows how valid that point is and/or how much they're overstating it.
Unfortunately from what I hear there are many places where your house will literally be declared 'condemned' by the local County if it does not have an active connection to the local electric grid. That, however, I find to be unreasonable, but something that can (and should) be remedied legally by updating the relevant laws, which are obviously behind the times. Like with the proliferation of digital music, which the RIAA is still largely fighting against tooth and nail, the utility industry is operating with a now-outdated business model and must change. Nobody said this would be easy or quick.
Buddy, I could almost admire what you claim to have accomplished here, except for two things:
1. You're posting as Anonymous Coward instead of taking credit for what you claim to have done for yourself.
2. Your claims about the electric grid/utility companies being 'socialist'; what the actual fuck, dude?
Electric companies may seem heartless and evil sometimes, but face it: they're a for-profit venture in a capitalist system. So sorry your electric bills didn't have hearts and unicorns in them when you opened them, but that's the breaks I guess. As is that last sentence in your post makes you sound like a right-wing libertarian whack-job, and as such, you should just keep to yourself and not chime in on discussions about solar power at home -- you're just going to make everyone else look like a whack-job, too. Sorry to have to tell you but to get solar power generation at home to be even more mainstream is going to take the cooperation of the power generation companies and completely demonizing them by calling them 'socialist' or other baseless inaccurate insults isn't going to help with that in the least.
I think that whoever decided to fund this 'study' were stoned when they did it, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if the 'researchers' were stoned the entire time they were conducting it.