I am in Sacramento, so we have a very high solar ratio for home rooftop, 4% of power last year came from PVs
There is no talk of charging us extra, they are still giving incentives on new homes and existing homes to add PV. But again, we are customer owned, not corporate.
Yes, because your state has such a history of making great financial choices.:)
4% isn't a huge number, if it grows, the situation won't last, that is my only point.
Western Europe has managed to completely give up fighting each other, and that was after millennia of fighting each other. So in 2000 years a lot has improved.
Ha! It has not been NEARLY long enough for you to make such a claim.
Give it 500 years and we'll see if it holds. Heck, give it 100 years.
For starters, the US (and other countries) should stop using drones to kill people. Especially in other countries. It does not matter that the targeted people are considered terrorists. If so catch them or help those countries to catch them and give them a fair trail.
What is interesting is how far off you really are there, without even knowing it.
"give them a fair trial"
Interesting choice of words, the only catch is most of the people in those countries have a different idea of what that means than you do. Most of them don't feel that you have the right to capture and judge them in the first place.
To their way of thinking, killing them with a drone and capturing them and giving them a mock trial (as they would view it) is really two sides of the same coin.
If you are going to impose your world view on them, at the end of the day, there is no difference between the two outcomes.
You may recall that the US asked Afghanistan to hand over Bin Laden and the Taliban refused?
Thank you... this...
At the end of the day, if one nation wants something (whatever it is) that another nation has, and the other nation doesn't want to give it up, war is one of the possible solutions.
I don't like violence, but sometimes it works pretty darn well.
Sure, just as not long ago murder was an alternative to solve personal conflicts. Fortunately, the evolution of society made it a more costly alternative, as in you'll pay with the restriction of your liberty if you choose it.
Yes, that works because there is a government over the top of society.
At the end of the day, you lack the power to fight the government, so if they want to put you into prison, they can.
War exists because at the end of the day, when two nations can't agree and one side doesn't want to "go the other way", then war happens.
Negotiation requires to people to want to do it. If one side decides that they want more than the other side will give, their other option is to take it by force of arms.
War doesn't require the other side to work with you, it allows you to use force to get what you want.
Oh, that's just silly. VPs at many Bay Area companies aren't making $750k, and I'm pretty sure they aren't being outsourced or competing with H1-Bs. You aren't going to be offered $750k unless the job requires skills that are in such high demand and low supply they are practically unique - which is very rare in this industry.
Perhaps, but someone is getting paid that, who else is buying the $3 to $5 million dollar houses out there?
I don't personally make that much, but I'd need it to replace my standard of living. I make closer to $250K, but in Dallas, you can live very nicely on that.
I was simply saying what it would take to get me to move to the Bay area. For $750k, I probably would... Given the cost of housing and everything else out there, it wouldn't be much of a raise.
I personally don't want to work/live in summer time in a house that is cooled down to an absurd temperature.
And that's fine, if you choose that, more power to you.
Just be careful that you're not trying to choose it for other people too.
It is pretty "normal" that the outside and inside temperature varies over the year.
Yep, here it ranges from below 0 degrees C to above 40 degrees C. Needless to say, humans don't do very well in either extreme. That is why we build these places called "indoors".
It is pretty insane to air condition anything so that you can sit in a suit in summer time in your office.
That is a personal opinion and a judgement, not a fact. If you don't like it, fine. But don't call other people who choose it "insane". I could easily call what you do "insane", but I don't, because I respect your right to do without.
It gets to 35 and even 40 deg C and >90% humidity here in summer, but you can manage that sort of heat without refrigerated air conditioning, if you really want to.
And that is the thing, most people don't want to. At least not anyone who has enjoyed AC at some point in their life.
I don't need a battery system, the "grid" acts as one, and with one year billing cycle, power I put on during the summer I can draw back in winter for no charge.
Yes, but you won't get that forever for free.
If everyone did it, then the power company would have to provide power during the winter and everyone's bill would be zero.
The math simply doesn't work.
Net-zero billing works when very few customers are doing it, it falls apart at any kind of scale.
But that is the whole point, the H1B shouldn't even be in the market.
What you're really doing is use the threat of H1B's to hold down pay.
If you're having trouble finding people, it might be unreasonable expectations, you might be asking for more than you need, or might be asking for the "best" when "good enough" will do.
I can guarantee you the company I work for would pay the same for an American worker as a foreign H1-B worker, if we could actually fine ANY worker that we found competent to do the job...
The part you're leaving out is, "at the same pay we can get away with on an H1-B"
If you're claiming you can't find a worker who can do a job, that is just nonsense. You can ALWAYS find someone... you just might have to pay more than you'd like...
Right now, I live in Texas. If I had the skills you need, offering me $200K isn't going to get me to move. Depending on the part of the country, you'd have to pay me closer to $750K (SF Bay area or LA area), elsewhere, probably $400K would get me interested.
Oh, that's right, you don't want to pay that. Well then just say so, since you can easily find people if you ramp the pay up enough.
You couldn't get me to move there with even the current high end of the pay scale but I might be convinced if I was paid enough to acquire what I have now in the Midwest
^ This, a thousand times this....
I used to live in CA, many years ago...
Was paid well enough, about $75k, then I moved to Texas and bought a house... Holy crap...
In LA, $300k wouldn't buy you much of anything (mid 2000s), but in 2006 I bought a 3,800sqft house in one of the best school districts in Texas, for under $300k that was only 5 years old (built 2001).
That house would be, what.... $2 million in a nice part of town in a 95% ranked school in LA?
---
You'd have to pay me 2/3 of a million dollars to move to LA, really, you would... that is what it would take to simply replace what I have here.
The same crap was said back when 1080p came out, there were even people saying that 720p was enough and that 1080p was overkill unless you were on a 50" screen.
It just isn't true.
Load up a game on a 4k screen, with AA turned off. Find something like stairs and turn left and right with them on screen. You'll still see jaggies.
Then turn AA on, notice it gets better.
When AA no longer makes a difference, then we're there.
You may or may not be able to see each pixel, but that has nothing to do with it. You can see the blended detail.
I would think that the optimal resolution would be just higher than the eye could individually make out. If it looks like a smooth image with no discernible pixels making up the jaggies on a not-quite-horizontal line, then we have reached perfection.
Yes, but that isn't even 8k...
When a 3D image has no jagged lines on curves without the use of AA, then we're there.
Most don't do that, but anything made by the millions is going to have a few issues, and that is true with EVs as well.
Thankfully, that BMW is still under warranty, so it won't cost your neighbor a dime. Since it is a BMW, they shouldn't be without a car either, since their BMW dealer will give them a loaner.
My 2015 Yukon XL recently had the Blu-Ray player break, it wouldn't play any discs. It is less than a year old, this stuff happens.
Called the dealer, they dropped off a Buick Enclave loaner, picked up my truck, took it in, fixed the Blu-Ray player, took care of a few minor recall items, changed the oil, washed it, and returned it, all no charge (not even for the oil change). Their view was that if I had to have service in the first year, the least they could do was comp the oil change.
And that is why I'll buy another truck from them in a few years, that is how you take care of the customer. Some dealers are indeed good.
I stopped reading at the highlighted text. I think you've amply demonstrated that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. All the other PC makers joined into that race to the bottom, and look where it got them.
You might look in the mirror...
While Apple itself is a decent sized PC maker, their share of the desktop market is nothing but single digits...
My point was valid, even if you don't want to see it.
c) I'm now driving an electric car, so your triangulation is shit.
I have come to the conclusion that techies and hipsters from California seem to be over represented on Slashdot...
The reality is that 3 out of every 100 cars sold has some type of electric power train. There is indeed a market for this, but it remains to be seen if it is a large market, or a niche market.
After all, Apple continues to sell Macs, they get a lot of press, people love talking about their Macbook Air and such, but the reality is the Mac has about 6% of the overall PC market. That percentage hasn't moved up or down much in a long time.
There is a market for the Mac, but it isn't ever going to be larger than 5-7% of the PC market unless they change their prices and make them easier to modify.
Likewise, until the range issues and cost issues get sorted, EVs aren't going anywhere. That being said, if an EV comes on the market that is $30k and is a nice midsize car and it has 250 miles of range, then yes, it'll sell. I also think that will be 20 years from now at best, but time will tell.
A friend has a BMW M5, at 23l/100kms and $1.50/litre, that's $1 every 3km. In the first 3 months all he did was rave about the car, now all he does is moan about how much it costs him to run. Servicing over $1000 each, tyres the same, and Insurance is equally ridiculous. Not all people with cash are sensible about how they spend it.
If the cost to run a BMW is a concern, then he shouldn't have bought it. If you can actually afford a BMW, the cost of gas shouldn't be an issue.
Yes, yes, I know, people buy cars they can't really afford all the time. I'm simply saying what *should* happen, not what does happen.
---
Side note: What possible "servicing" could he need done that costs $1,000? Change the oil and drive it for 5 years, that is more or less all it needs.
Don't misunderstand, EVs have a place in the market, I don't think it is as big as you are suggesting.
I'm not rooting against them... I'm telling you which way the wind is blowing... and it isn't in favor of EVs replacing gas cars any time soon, at best they'll supplement them with perhaps 10-20% of the overall market... over the next 30 years...
Slashdot Mirror
For various reasons, added nuclear is a political non-starter in the American West broadly and California specifically.
While I agree with you, your read of the situation is accurate, it just goes to show the flaws in our political system.
People have no clue about stuff, everyone has an opinion, but most people aren't informed enough for that opinion to be worth anything.
Sadly, most people think they know more than they do, "everyone is an expert", so to say.
I am in Sacramento, so we have a very high solar ratio for home rooftop, 4% of power last year came from PVs
There is no talk of charging us extra, they are still giving incentives on new homes and existing homes to add PV. But again, we are customer owned, not corporate.
Yes, because your state has such a history of making great financial choices. :)
4% isn't a huge number, if it grows, the situation won't last, that is my only point.
Western Europe has managed to completely give up fighting each other, and that was after millennia of fighting each other. So in 2000 years a lot has improved.
Ha! It has not been NEARLY long enough for you to make such a claim.
Give it 500 years and we'll see if it holds. Heck, give it 100 years.
I doubt it will, humans are funny things...
For starters, the US (and other countries) should stop using drones to kill people. Especially in other countries. It does not matter that the targeted people are considered terrorists. If so catch them or help those countries to catch them and give them a fair trail.
What is interesting is how far off you really are there, without even knowing it.
"give them a fair trial"
Interesting choice of words, the only catch is most of the people in those countries have a different idea of what that means than you do. Most of them don't feel that you have the right to capture and judge them in the first place.
To their way of thinking, killing them with a drone and capturing them and giving them a mock trial (as they would view it) is really two sides of the same coin.
If you are going to impose your world view on them, at the end of the day, there is no difference between the two outcomes.
You may recall that the US asked Afghanistan to hand over Bin Laden and the Taliban refused?
Thank you... this...
At the end of the day, if one nation wants something (whatever it is) that another nation has, and the other nation doesn't want to give it up, war is one of the possible solutions.
I don't like violence, but sometimes it works pretty darn well.
Sure, just as not long ago murder was an alternative to solve personal conflicts. Fortunately, the evolution of society made it a more costly alternative, as in you'll pay with the restriction of your liberty if you choose it.
Yes, that works because there is a government over the top of society.
At the end of the day, you lack the power to fight the government, so if they want to put you into prison, they can.
War exists because at the end of the day, when two nations can't agree and one side doesn't want to "go the other way", then war happens.
Negotiation requires to people to want to do it. If one side decides that they want more than the other side will give, their other option is to take it by force of arms.
War doesn't require the other side to work with you, it allows you to use force to get what you want.
Oh, that's just silly. VPs at many Bay Area companies aren't making $750k, and I'm pretty sure they aren't being outsourced or competing with H1-Bs. You aren't going to be offered $750k unless the job requires skills that are in such high demand and low supply they are practically unique - which is very rare in this industry.
Perhaps, but someone is getting paid that, who else is buying the $3 to $5 million dollar houses out there?
I don't personally make that much, but I'd need it to replace my standard of living. I make closer to $250K, but in Dallas, you can live very nicely on that.
I was simply saying what it would take to get me to move to the Bay area. For $750k, I probably would... Given the cost of housing and everything else out there, it wouldn't be much of a raise.
I personally don't want to work/live in summer time in a house that is cooled down to an absurd temperature.
And that's fine, if you choose that, more power to you.
Just be careful that you're not trying to choose it for other people too.
It is pretty "normal" that the outside and inside temperature varies over the year.
Yep, here it ranges from below 0 degrees C to above 40 degrees C. Needless to say, humans don't do very well in either extreme. That is why we build these places called "indoors".
It is pretty insane to air condition anything so that you can sit in a suit in summer time in your office.
That is a personal opinion and a judgement, not a fact. If you don't like it, fine. But don't call other people who choose it "insane". I could easily call what you do "insane", but I don't, because I respect your right to do without.
It gets to 35 and even 40 deg C and >90% humidity here in summer, but you can manage that sort of heat without refrigerated air conditioning, if you really want to.
And that is the thing, most people don't want to. At least not anyone who has enjoyed AC at some point in their life.
I don't need a battery system, the "grid" acts as one, and with one year billing cycle, power I put on during the summer I can draw back in winter for no charge.
Yes, but you won't get that forever for free.
If everyone did it, then the power company would have to provide power during the winter and everyone's bill would be zero.
The math simply doesn't work.
Net-zero billing works when very few customers are doing it, it falls apart at any kind of scale.
But that is the whole point, the H1B shouldn't even be in the market.
What you're really doing is use the threat of H1B's to hold down pay.
If you're having trouble finding people, it might be unreasonable expectations, you might be asking for more than you need, or might be asking for the "best" when "good enough" will do.
I can guarantee you the company I work for would pay the same for an American worker as a foreign H1-B worker, if we could actually fine ANY worker that we found competent to do the job...
The part you're leaving out is, "at the same pay we can get away with on an H1-B"
If you're claiming you can't find a worker who can do a job, that is just nonsense. You can ALWAYS find someone... you just might have to pay more than you'd like...
Right now, I live in Texas. If I had the skills you need, offering me $200K isn't going to get me to move. Depending on the part of the country, you'd have to pay me closer to $750K (SF Bay area or LA area), elsewhere, probably $400K would get me interested.
Oh, that's right, you don't want to pay that. Well then just say so, since you can easily find people if you ramp the pay up enough.
You couldn't get me to move there with even the current high end of the pay scale but I might be convinced if I was paid enough to acquire what I have now in the Midwest
^ This, a thousand times this....
I used to live in CA, many years ago...
Was paid well enough, about $75k, then I moved to Texas and bought a house... Holy crap...
In LA, $300k wouldn't buy you much of anything (mid 2000s), but in 2006 I bought a 3,800sqft house in one of the best school districts in Texas, for under $300k that was only 5 years old (built 2001).
That house would be, what.... $2 million in a nice part of town in a 95% ranked school in LA?
---
You'd have to pay me 2/3 of a million dollars to move to LA, really, you would... that is what it would take to simply replace what I have here.
4K is the limit of human visual perception.
Nonsense, stop repeating this untrue lie.
The same crap was said back when 1080p came out, there were even people saying that 720p was enough and that 1080p was overkill unless you were on a 50" screen.
It just isn't true.
Load up a game on a 4k screen, with AA turned off. Find something like stairs and turn left and right with them on screen. You'll still see jaggies.
Then turn AA on, notice it gets better.
When AA no longer makes a difference, then we're there.
You may or may not be able to see each pixel, but that has nothing to do with it. You can see the blended detail.
I would think that the optimal resolution would be just higher than the eye could individually make out. If it looks like a smooth image with no discernible pixels making up the jaggies on a not-quite-horizontal line, then we have reached perfection.
Yes, but that isn't even 8k...
When a 3D image has no jagged lines on curves without the use of AA, then we're there.
Yea, thanks AT&T...
They have been digging here for a few weeks, last week they cut the fiber line in the alley for FIOS.
Thankfully I was home, I called Verizon who had someone out in 3 hours, looked at it, and 3 hours later a construction crew was out fixing it.
Sheesh...
The thing is, data caps... Would I give AT&T a try? For $120 a month, it is temping... 6 times faster for 10% more money...
But... data caps... useless... in less than 3 hours I could hit the monthly cap.
What car was that?
Most don't do that, but anything made by the millions is going to have a few issues, and that is true with EVs as well.
Thankfully, that BMW is still under warranty, so it won't cost your neighbor a dime. Since it is a BMW, they shouldn't be without a car either, since their BMW dealer will give them a loaner.
My 2015 Yukon XL recently had the Blu-Ray player break, it wouldn't play any discs. It is less than a year old, this stuff happens.
Called the dealer, they dropped off a Buick Enclave loaner, picked up my truck, took it in, fixed the Blu-Ray player, took care of a few minor recall items, changed the oil, washed it, and returned it, all no charge (not even for the oil change). Their view was that if I had to have service in the first year, the least they could do was comp the oil change.
And that is why I'll buy another truck from them in a few years, that is how you take care of the customer. Some dealers are indeed good.
I stopped reading at the highlighted text. I think you've amply demonstrated that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. All the other PC makers joined into that race to the bottom, and look where it got them.
You might look in the mirror...
While Apple itself is a decent sized PC maker, their share of the desktop market is nothing but single digits...
My point was valid, even if you don't want to see it.
c) I'm now driving an electric car, so your triangulation is shit.
I have come to the conclusion that techies and hipsters from California seem to be over represented on Slashdot...
The reality is that 3 out of every 100 cars sold has some type of electric power train. There is indeed a market for this, but it remains to be seen if it is a large market, or a niche market.
After all, Apple continues to sell Macs, they get a lot of press, people love talking about their Macbook Air and such, but the reality is the Mac has about 6% of the overall PC market. That percentage hasn't moved up or down much in a long time.
There is a market for the Mac, but it isn't ever going to be larger than 5-7% of the PC market unless they change their prices and make them easier to modify.
Likewise, until the range issues and cost issues get sorted, EVs aren't going anywhere. That being said, if an EV comes on the market that is $30k and is a nice midsize car and it has 250 miles of range, then yes, it'll sell. I also think that will be 20 years from now at best, but time will tell.
A friend has a BMW M5, at 23l/100kms and $1.50/litre, that's $1 every 3km. In the first 3 months all he did was rave about the car, now all he does is moan about how much it costs him to run. Servicing over $1000 each, tyres the same, and Insurance is equally ridiculous. Not all people with cash are sensible about how they spend it.
If the cost to run a BMW is a concern, then he shouldn't have bought it. If you can actually afford a BMW, the cost of gas shouldn't be an issue.
Yes, yes, I know, people buy cars they can't really afford all the time. I'm simply saying what *should* happen, not what does happen.
---
Side note: What possible "servicing" could he need done that costs $1,000? Change the oil and drive it for 5 years, that is more or less all it needs.
Don't misunderstand, EVs have a place in the market, I don't think it is as big as you are suggesting.
I'm not rooting against them... I'm telling you which way the wind is blowing... and it isn't in favor of EVs replacing gas cars any time soon, at best they'll supplement them with perhaps 10-20% of the overall market... over the next 30 years...
Are you developmentally disabled?
So personal attacks are the best you can do?
Fair enough, carry on in your world, I hope it all works out for you.
You're crazy if you think people would do this in large numbers however...
No, I am trying to explain human nature to you.
You're doing a piss-poor job of it, since you've gotten it all wrong.
People aren't as stupid and violent as you seem to think they are.
What is the color of the sky in your world?
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/03/...
Kenya, the US, Europe... people are human, everywhere in the world... Human beings are not the peaceful beings the UN is telling you they are.
The incentive for them not to trash the vehicle is there
Drunk people or people high on drugs don't make rational decisions. Anyone older than about 16 should know this...
If you've been driving stuff that needed transmissions replaced, then you weren't in the market for an EV anyway, you couldn't afford it.
If you could, you wouldn't be driving a car that has a chance of needing a tranny done.
They don't last *forever*, but they are darn close these days.