I understand that Home Depot will progressively lower the amount they are willing to pay their suppliers year over year, until the supplier goes under or gets smart and stops dealing with them.
Walmart was explicitly known for doing this, and not only this, but telling their suppliers things like 'move to china so you can be cheaper!'
Quite the change for a company that used to boast 'made in america'.
Also with drivers on the road there are lot's of 3rd party victims that did not say yes to any EULA or disclaimer. And They should make so that there Branded drivers are covered for the full shift in full liability and can't hide under a subcontractor that they don't fully vet.
I think that the critical point here is that one of the arguments against Uber has been that their drivers are 'Independent Contractors'. Well, it turns out that MOST taxi companies use the same employment model with even less justification/more control over their drivers(which would get them counted as employees most of the time). They even have lower levels of insurance. NYC taxis, if I remember, are only covered for $100k, while Uber has a $1M policy.
As for 3rd party victims, I'd say to get off it. There's 3rd party people no matter what kind of driver you're talking about - from a Walmart truck driver to a Uber driver who works 4 hours every other week or something, when the surge prices hit and it's worth it to him.
I've been transitioning to LEDs as my CFLs burn out. Have you noticed that latest gen LED lights are about twice as energy efficient as the CFLs?
The order of magnitude difference between the two and incandescent makes changing over from them a stupid easy choice, but CFL is close enough to LED(and as I mentioned, LED keeps getting better), that replacing when they burn out makes more sense. I'm down to like 4 incandescent bulbs left - in places like the 2nd bath I don't use, the crawlspace(like 15 minutes of use a month?), etc... I'll replace those with CFLs when it comes up, though those aren't the best spots for CFL(not on long when they're on), but they're not worth the expense of a current LED. I generally move an older CFL over and replace the CFL in a higher use area with an LED. About half/half on those at this point.
Not enough capacity if we're going to do something crazy like ship solar power from the east coast to the west coast to provide them electricity for lighting when they're beginning their day, solar power back to the east coast from the west to cover the evening spike, and wind power from the west in the early morning when the East coast is waking up, and wind power from the east to the west for their evening lighting needs, etc...
That's without getting into the more even power needs - more baseload, less variance, if you stretch your power demands across 4 time zones and roughly 300M people.
Why are you running your power plants? Every KW they are generating is being exported - you don't need it.
1. Money, why else? If their marginal cost is less than what the other countries are willing to pay... 2. Many plants don't like being shut down, much less rapidly. So you keep them running at least at a marginal level.
the strongest is rated at 835 MW. If a nuclear powerplant is to be added, it would produce a massive amount of electricity in a single location, which the current powergrid can't handle.
An AP1000 is only rated at 1,117 MWe. About a third higher than your current biggest plant. If that's too much, the AP600 is only 600MWe.
Grid upgrades would be necessary, as you point out, but depending on location it shouldn't be too bad. With something like a molten salt reactor, you'd put it in your biggest city or something, and export power where you used to import it.
And yes, you'd be able to utilize the power plant incredibly efficiently if you also use it for zone heating.
From some googling (e.g. I found http://www2.buildinggreen.com/... [buildinggreen.com] ) it seems that such systems do exist but they are the exception not the rule.
You are correct. However, I felt that if I mentioned that they did it by shutting down until they got a power signal again, people would have brought that up as incorrect.
But they do this by shutting off. Your home does not get solar power when the grid is down if you have a direct grid tie system.
The majority of them, yes. But there are hybrid battery systems that won't shut down, and there are even ones that will continue to provide a limited amount of power in a system a lot like an automatic transfer switch. They're relatively new.
As such, my not mentioning them shutting off is acceptable, because while a back-feed prevention system is pretty much universal, how they do it varies.
As a utility, you have to plan to be able to generate 100% of the peak capacity without solar input.
Do you have a citation on this? I'm guessing that you don't. They do have to plan on losing any given planet, but given it's distributed nature and the way solar panels work, in order for an area you'd need such weird weather that it would be highly predictable. Yes, it costs a little money, but surprising little.
Grid-connected generators (including solar panels) also often require installation of emergency shutoff switches and upgrades to local transformers.
Emergency shutoff switches are required for line worker protection, so they can ensure that the lines are dead before working on them. All of the common inverters will automatically avoid backfeeding power to the grid when grid power itself is absent. Many electric companies also require a manual switch, which isn't that hard to install.
The transformers are actually fine, it's some of the other devices that need upgrades. Solar power can actually slow the need for upgrading transformers by lowering anticipated peak power demand.
It's you killing the kids. You ARE the problem, not the solution.
I haven't killed anybody* either. Bending over and allowing action to be taken, when I think said actions would be useless, in the name of 'SOMETHING must be done!', is not killing people. Demanding that any proposed law pass a rigorous review to ensure that it will actually help the situation in proportion to it's costs - resources, lives, freedoms, etc... Is not a bad thing.
Why are you shifting the goalposts? Are you having trouble justifying your original assertion?
Not engaging in a formal debate here. Aren't you shifting the goal posts? Are you demanding that we solve gun violence before all violence?
Interesting. You come across as violent - pathologically so, I suspect. Would it be justified to kill you, do you think?
You'd most likely end up on murder charges if you killed me. You see, while I have issues, violence isn't one of them. Yes, there is a line where I'd flip from trying to save your life to doing my best to end it. Said line is, however, well within social norms.
Your view of home invaders is cartoonish and as unbelievable as Wile E Coyote. And you are being serious.
No, you're disconnected from reality, and thus the only image you can come up with is Wile E.
There was quite a long list of dead kids - it went on and on. To be honest, I got tired of citing.
And yet, even with such a list, you weren't able to avoid duplicates. Interesting... That's actually part of the problem - any such incident is rare, so it's reported and re-reported all over the place.
Well that makes all the difference then. I guess we are magically safe from your paranoid stupidity. Because the fact that the criminal took your gun doesn't matter. Only the way you were carrying it matters.
I called you out on not citing properly. Of course the way you're carrying it matters. Police have adjusted the way they carry, using special retention holsters, and have dropped officer deaths from their own firearms taken away from them from about 20% of 'felonious deaths' down to about 5%. It's also why I support police being among the first to use smart guns - because the lack is getting them killed, at a rate of about 5%/3 officers a year.
Even then, one could argue that it's not a huge problem. To me you're missing the forest for the grass.
*Okay, fine, I probably fractionally killed quite a few people during my old career in the USAF by being part of the support structure.
No, it's what other people think that they should have. The Seniors are working for Uber because it makes sense for them, and maximizes what they desire.
Meanwhile, people think Uber are 'exploiting' Seniors because of 'reasons', such as not providing healthcare(already covered), doesn't have advancement(do seniors really need that?), etc...
I have some problems with it as well. I think there should be a process to, well, challenge laws in the court even before standing has been established, but I'm not enough of a lawyer to say how that should work.
But again that's a question of use-cases and how the user balances risk.
Correct. What it means, at least to me, is that smart-guns need to be commercially competitive. Consider something like a hydrogen fuel cell car. When the state of the art, even with the company eating all R&D costs, only charging the marginal cost of production results in a $200k vehicle that has 3 fueling points in the city vs hundreds of gasoline fueling points, said car isn't competitive. Get the marginal cost down to $10k per vehicle(IE sale price of about $15k is profitable if they sell enough of them) and the gas station owners will see an opportunity and those 3 points will expand to dozens(at first), so the problems will be solved. Until then, as you say, there's a lot of risk.
So you're basing all of your arguments on the NJ law and the boycott by current gun owners.
No, I'm basing one of my arguments on it. S&W, for example, nearly died to a grass roots boycott when they made a deal with the Clinton Administration to restrict firearm types, features, and sales. So many gun owners refused to buy S&W firearms and/or sold their S&W firearms in protest that not only were there fewer people buying their weapons - there were so many used S&W firearms available that even those still willing to buy were lured into buying used more often than not. The owners ended up selling the company to another party at a 'fire-sale' price, and the new owners repudiated the deal.
So yes, firearm companies are well aware that they can't piss the gun owners off too much. They're one of the few industries that have actually faced an effective boycott in recent history. Most boycotts aren't widespread enough to be 'effective'.
And I don't think that works for this argument because the police or military wouldn't involve themselves in a boycott, and a new maker could survive on a smaller initial market.
They might not involve themselves in a boycott, but the military does their purchasing their own way, and most firearm companies can't survive on the military market alone. You lose the military contract and you're gone if you're dependent upon that. As for the police - they're more distributed, but note what I was saying - the police might not deliberately boycott the company, but they're not buying the smart gun versions. If all you're producing is smart guns, right now that means that the police will keep buying Glocks.
I will note that police and military are probably the worst market for smart guns since they don't really need to worry about 3rd parties getting their guns and their guns are explicitly for combat situations.
Also, the police are probably one of the better targets for smart guns because being killed by their own weapons is a real problem: http://www.thetruthaboutguns.c... "Fifty-one officers were killed when their department-issued firearms or another officer’s gun were turned against them."
Uh... You might want to explain what you're talking about more, because it is a power circuit, and I'm not sure what you mean by an 'out and back again' distribution network.
Transformers work both ways, but there's other regulatory equipment that needs to be designed with two-way flow in mind in order to work correctly, and previously that wasn't a design requirement. It required solar reaching 30% to start having that problem show up though, and from what I've read, the upgrades to enable bidirectional flow aren't actually that expensive - the engineering to make sure you got everything was more work than what actually needed changing.
Saying they brought that down upon themselves, considering the age of such systems, would be like saying home builders back in the '60s were negligent in not running conduit for data lines.
You have to remember that Hawaii is actually a number of islands. The most inhabited one, as per the last official study, is actually a pretty bad candidate for geothermal power - while they could certainly install it, it'd have to go too deep. That being said, we've developed a LOT of new drilling technology in the last decade or so with the fracking and deep wells and such, so re-doing the math might make it make more sense today.
The 30MW station is on a different island, which is much less inhabited, and they don't really need solar because the plant takes care of their baseload needs, more or less.
There is also talk about running a underwater power-line between the two islands, but that's a rather large expense for not enough potential gain at the current time.
I see net metering as a purposefully over-complicated scheme with a few minor selling points but an all-too-familiar drawback:
If you see net metering as 'over-complicated', I'd hate to think of what you think of 'carbon trading' schemes.
At least to the Consumer, net metering is actually about the most simple system. Net metering: Uses: 1000 kWh. Generated 800 kWh. Electric Bill: 200 kWh@12 cents each. Nevada rough example: Used:1000 kWh. Generated: 800kWh. Internally used: 500 kWh Sold: 300 kWh @ 6 cents (example amount) Bought: 500 kWh @ 12 cents
That being said, given current generation profiles, solar panels aren't displacing 'wholesale' electricity yet, they're displacing electricity that's more expensive than that, so paying wholesale would be a large profit to the company, while net makes 'net zero' installs economical for solar installers.
Under Nevada's scheme, I'd probably survey my house and figure out when I use the least electricity and size my solar install to that so I sell as little solar as possible.
It still lowers the total power that needs to be generated, and 'daytime' is still the point of highest demand. If they're not having to worry about neighborhoods(remember, more retired people means more power use during the day by retirees), they can concentrate on businesses more.
I'm going to agree with others - net metering doesn't scale beyond a point. Nevada has NOT hit that point by any reasonable measure, they'd still need 10X the solar installs for that.
Hawaii has hit that point. I think they're looking into time of use billing (which requires smart meters), and it's quite likely that night time power in Hawaii is going to end up more expensive than daytime due to the amount of solar. The electric company is having to adjust/update their distribution centers to allow backfeeding from them, because a few neighborhoods can actually go negative now.
Which can actually make batteries(which have been dropping cost too), and other storage solutions viable. When electricity is cheap/free, make sure your hot water tank is 'topped off'. Heck, have a cold water tank for what little AC homes there need, and chill that at that point. Etc...
If they really wanted the law gone they could challenge it in court, I haven't found any evidence that they tried this.
They can't. They lack standing until the law goes into effect.
Or it's a problem that has at least partially been solved [politifact.com].
Perhaps. There's also concerns about power(I haven't heard of one larger than.22), durability, longevity, and cost.
1. New product category means new customers and taking competitors customers.
Only if they can create a smart gun people actually want to buy.
2. Why would they stop selling traditional guns?
Where did I say that? I said they'd have to face a boycott as long as the NJ law is in effect. I said 'if any', because I figure there's a good chance that any company getting into the business of selling a smart gun will be a new maker, selling a limited line up consisting only of smart guns. 3/4.
So there's a market, except for the fact you make sure there's no market.
Welcome to the suck that is the NJ law. This just goes by to my original NRA statement: 1. I have nothing against smart guns ideologically. 2. I have problems with the NJ law politically 3. While acceptable models might quickly come out, especially if the political concerns are removed to enable more development money, none have thus far been produced.
Note that there are a number in this thread that mentioned that they'd be much more accepting if the police/marines/secret service(was that an earlier thread?)/etc... were using them as well.
More like, because I don't drink, not everybody drinks, an even larger percentage never drinks to excess.
Guess this didn't happen then [nydailynews.com]. or this. [fox10phoenix.com] or this. [timesfreepress.com] or this. [koco.com] or this. [cbslocal.com] Aren't the things that don't happen amazing?
It's more that the firearms aren't required. Most of those attacks would still have happened, and some would still have been fatal. Thus, it's probably better to address the domestic violence, you know?
So it's ok to kill people while on methamphetamine, because people high on coke also kill people sometimes?
Nope. It's 'ok' to kill violent people who break into your home while you're there. The meth just shows an increased tendency to said violence.
And also, he's constantly chasing a long legged bird with the aim of capturing/killing said bird with products he has purchased from ACME corporation. And you forgot to mention he is a coyote.
Not actually a counter-argument.
As for the rest of your stuff, it's so amazing that you were able to find so many stories. You only had a few duplicates.
and congratulations on finding a non-example of taking a firearm from somebody's hands. The criminal in that took it from the holster. That's how about 3 police officers lose their lives each year.
Sure. We don't need to worry about the dead kids. Just pile em up out back.
False. We worry about the dead kids. It's just that we think the solution's different.
Even though that strikes me as weak reasoning for stopping smart guns across the country.
That's because you don't care, and are thus not thinking about it. NJ gets away with it's law, even briefly, and it'd likely spread to NY, California, and such. Thus to be opposed on all fronts.
And I'll note that the reason it's stopping smart guns 'across the country' is that the firearm doesn't have to be sold in NJ at all. As long as it's sold in the USA, it trips the statute.
Irrelevant. The existence of buggy beta tech doesn't make it an unsolvable problem.
Irrelevant to you because you're not in the market. Relevant to ME because I am, and have knowledge of the issue at hand. Please note that I'm not saying it's not an unsolvable problem. I'm saying that it's no where near solved. Meanwhile we have legislation on the books and the occasional attempt to sell said buggy technology in order to trip the statute.
And they'll probably always cost a bit more but it shouldn't be massive, and I don't see any reason why gun manufacturers couldn't solve the performance issues if there was allowed to be enough of a market that they had a reason to invest.
Believe it or not, but the market is actually mostly allowed - the manufacturer/dealer would just have to deal with: 1. Higher prices for their firearms meaning that they sell less, meaning higher costs per unit sold 2. Not having any police or military forces buying their weapons(they've campaigned hard to be exempt from any such proposals) 3. a probable boycott against their non-smart firearms(if any), as long as the NJ law is in effect. 4. Having the problem that they're pleasing non-customers more than their potential customers. Pleasing you means jack shit. Pleasing me means something to them. I'm opposed to smart guns in the current legal climate, and think lots of work needs to be done technologically.
I don't see any reason why gun manufacturers couldn't solve the performance issues if there was allowed to be enough of a market that they had a reason to invest.
It's actually a really complicated problem? Seriously, you have to put this safety in, keep the firearm reliable, armor the electronics against moister, shock, cleaning chemicals, heat, cold, etc... The conditions are actually worse than a car engine compartment.
If you want to say they shouldn't be mandated that's fine, but that's a different story because that's not what the survey asked nor the essence of the objections here.
I was trying to explain WHY the NRA is leery of smart guns - they've said before that they believe that it should be a personal/market decision. What they object to is the NJ law mandating that ALL firearms sold there be smart a period after the FIRST is available for sale. Without considering issues like the recoil differences between a.22lr pistol, a.40S&W, a.44 Mag, or a magnum rifle.
I think that it's relevant because one of the implied reasons for the survey is that there's some crowd out there, supposedly the NRA, that's opposed to smart guns. Like I've said, they're actually NOT opposed.
Even if I wanted a gun for self-defence I would be willing to accept a small chance of failure in a smart gun if I had a teenager in the house and was rationally aware of the risk of suicide or horseplay.
Your use of the word 'even' means that, really, you're not even part of the potential market. I am more than you. Even then, you put a conditional on it - a teenager in the house. Well, I don't have a teenager in the house, I DO have 3 firearm containers without including cases.
There's also the question of 'small chance of failure' - the last 'smart gun' offered for sale(briefly) couldn't even make it through a single 10 round magazine without failing. It also had numerous problems - half an hour to pair up to the watch, taking 5 minutes to activate via the watch for a shooting session, and having a remote kill option.
That's circular reasoning, the only reason they cost a lot is because the NRA is trying to force them off the market so you don't get economies of scale. Allow them on the market the price will drop and performance issues go away.
I just explained that the NRA doesn't actually oppose smart guns. And no, I'm not sure that the price and performance issues will just 'go away'. Not anytime soon.
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I understand that Home Depot will progressively lower the amount they are willing to pay their suppliers year over year, until the supplier goes under or gets smart and stops dealing with them.
Walmart was explicitly known for doing this, and not only this, but telling their suppliers things like 'move to china so you can be cheaper!'
Quite the change for a company that used to boast 'made in america'.
Also with drivers on the road there are lot's of 3rd party victims that did not say yes to any EULA or disclaimer. And They should make so that there Branded drivers are covered for the full shift in full liability and can't hide under a subcontractor that they don't fully vet.
I think that the critical point here is that one of the arguments against Uber has been that their drivers are 'Independent Contractors'. Well, it turns out that MOST taxi companies use the same employment model with even less justification/more control over their drivers(which would get them counted as employees most of the time). They even have lower levels of insurance. NYC taxis, if I remember, are only covered for $100k, while Uber has a $1M policy.
As for 3rd party victims, I'd say to get off it. There's 3rd party people no matter what kind of driver you're talking about - from a Walmart truck driver to a Uber driver who works 4 hours every other week or something, when the surge prices hit and it's worth it to him.
I've been transitioning to LEDs as my CFLs burn out. Have you noticed that latest gen LED lights are about twice as energy efficient as the CFLs?
The order of magnitude difference between the two and incandescent makes changing over from them a stupid easy choice, but CFL is close enough to LED(and as I mentioned, LED keeps getting better), that replacing when they burn out makes more sense. I'm down to like 4 incandescent bulbs left - in places like the 2nd bath I don't use, the crawlspace(like 15 minutes of use a month?), etc... I'll replace those with CFLs when it comes up, though those aren't the best spots for CFL(not on long when they're on), but they're not worth the expense of a current LED. I generally move an older CFL over and replace the CFL in a higher use area with an LED. About half/half on those at this point.
What's wrong with the old ones [wikipedia.org]?
Not enough capacity if we're going to do something crazy like ship solar power from the east coast to the west coast to provide them electricity for lighting when they're beginning their day, solar power back to the east coast from the west to cover the evening spike, and wind power from the west in the early morning when the East coast is waking up, and wind power from the east to the west for their evening lighting needs, etc...
That's without getting into the more even power needs - more baseload, less variance, if you stretch your power demands across 4 time zones and roughly 300M people.
Why are you running your power plants? Every KW they are generating is being exported - you don't need it.
1. Money, why else? If their marginal cost is less than what the other countries are willing to pay...
2. Many plants don't like being shut down, much less rapidly. So you keep them running at least at a marginal level.
the strongest is rated at 835 MW. If a nuclear powerplant is to be added, it would produce a massive amount of electricity in a single location, which the current powergrid can't handle.
An AP1000 is only rated at 1,117 MWe. About a third higher than your current biggest plant. If that's too much, the AP600 is only 600MWe.
Grid upgrades would be necessary, as you point out, but depending on location it shouldn't be too bad. With something like a molten salt reactor, you'd put it in your biggest city or something, and export power where you used to import it.
And yes, you'd be able to utilize the power plant incredibly efficiently if you also use it for zone heating.
mdsolar doesn't like it when I propose a mix of power supplies, combining nuclear with solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal(just to name a few).
The point relies on a concept called "investment"
With interest rates as low as they are, there's lots of things out there calling for investments.
6.4% coal as of 2014.
5.5% large hydro.
8.5% Nuclear
44.5% Natural Gas
20.1% Renewables(Wind, geothermal, Solar, Biomass, small hydro).
15% unspecified.
From some googling (e.g. I found http://www2.buildinggreen.com/... [buildinggreen.com] ) it seems that such systems do exist but they are the exception not the rule.
You are correct. However, I felt that if I mentioned that they did it by shutting down until they got a power signal again, people would have brought that up as incorrect.
But they do this by shutting off. Your home does not get solar power when the grid is down if you have a direct grid tie system.
The majority of them, yes. But there are hybrid battery systems that won't shut down, and there are even ones that will continue to provide a limited amount of power in a system a lot like an automatic transfer switch. They're relatively new.
As such, my not mentioning them shutting off is acceptable, because while a back-feed prevention system is pretty much universal, how they do it varies.
Oh, I'm well aware of WHY electricity is so expensive in Hawaii, I just didn't want to expand and keep expanding my post. Yes, it's a special case.
I'll also note that, at least to me, 'cheap' is a relative measure, IE 'less expensive than other available options'.
'Free' would be an 'effective' measure - IE demand is low, supply is high, and the electric company pays jack.
As a utility, you have to plan to be able to generate 100% of the peak capacity without solar input.
Do you have a citation on this? I'm guessing that you don't. They do have to plan on losing any given planet, but given it's distributed nature and the way solar panels work, in order for an area you'd need such weird weather that it would be highly predictable. Yes, it costs a little money, but surprising little.
Grid-connected generators (including solar panels) also often require installation of emergency shutoff switches and upgrades to local transformers.
Emergency shutoff switches are required for line worker protection, so they can ensure that the lines are dead before working on them. All of the common inverters will automatically avoid backfeeding power to the grid when grid power itself is absent. Many electric companies also require a manual switch, which isn't that hard to install.
The transformers are actually fine, it's some of the other devices that need upgrades. Solar power can actually slow the need for upgrading transformers by lowering anticipated peak power demand.
It's you killing the kids. You ARE the problem, not the solution.
I haven't killed anybody* either. Bending over and allowing action to be taken, when I think said actions would be useless, in the name of 'SOMETHING must be done!', is not killing people. Demanding that any proposed law pass a rigorous review to ensure that it will actually help the situation in proportion to it's costs - resources, lives, freedoms, etc... Is not a bad thing.
Why are you shifting the goalposts? Are you having trouble justifying your original assertion?
Not engaging in a formal debate here. Aren't you shifting the goal posts? Are you demanding that we solve gun violence before all violence?
Interesting. You come across as violent - pathologically so, I suspect. Would it be justified to kill you, do you think?
You'd most likely end up on murder charges if you killed me. You see, while I have issues, violence isn't one of them. Yes, there is a line where I'd flip from trying to save your life to doing my best to end it. Said line is, however, well within social norms.
Your view of home invaders is cartoonish and as unbelievable as Wile E Coyote. And you are being serious.
No, you're disconnected from reality, and thus the only image you can come up with is Wile E.
There was quite a long list of dead kids - it went on and on. To be honest, I got tired of citing.
And yet, even with such a list, you weren't able to avoid duplicates. Interesting... That's actually part of the problem - any such incident is rare, so it's reported and re-reported all over the place.
Well that makes all the difference then. I guess we are magically safe from your paranoid stupidity. Because the fact that the criminal took your gun doesn't matter. Only the way you were carrying it matters.
I called you out on not citing properly. Of course the way you're carrying it matters. Police have adjusted the way they carry, using special retention holsters, and have dropped officer deaths from their own firearms taken away from them from about 20% of 'felonious deaths' down to about 5%. It's also why I support police being among the first to use smart guns - because the lack is getting them killed, at a rate of about 5%/3 officers a year.
Even then, one could argue that it's not a huge problem. To me you're missing the forest for the grass.
*Okay, fine, I probably fractionally killed quite a few people during my old career in the USAF by being part of the support structure.
No, it's what other people think that they should have. The Seniors are working for Uber because it makes sense for them, and maximizes what they desire.
Meanwhile, people think Uber are 'exploiting' Seniors because of 'reasons', such as not providing healthcare(already covered), doesn't have advancement(do seniors really need that?), etc...
A good point. A relatively small amount of battery, just to charge at minimum demand/max production points, might also make sense.
Damn standing, I hate standing.
I have some problems with it as well. I think there should be a process to, well, challenge laws in the court even before standing has been established, but I'm not enough of a lawyer to say how that should work.
But again that's a question of use-cases and how the user balances risk.
Correct. What it means, at least to me, is that smart-guns need to be commercially competitive. Consider something like a hydrogen fuel cell car. When the state of the art, even with the company eating all R&D costs, only charging the marginal cost of production results in a $200k vehicle that has 3 fueling points in the city vs hundreds of gasoline fueling points, said car isn't competitive. Get the marginal cost down to $10k per vehicle(IE sale price of about $15k is profitable if they sell enough of them) and the gas station owners will see an opportunity and those 3 points will expand to dozens(at first), so the problems will be solved. Until then, as you say, there's a lot of risk.
So you're basing all of your arguments on the NJ law and the boycott by current gun owners.
No, I'm basing one of my arguments on it. S&W, for example, nearly died to a grass roots boycott when they made a deal with the Clinton Administration to restrict firearm types, features, and sales. So many gun owners refused to buy S&W firearms and/or sold their S&W firearms in protest that not only were there fewer people buying their weapons - there were so many used S&W firearms available that even those still willing to buy were lured into buying used more often than not. The owners ended up selling the company to another party at a 'fire-sale' price, and the new owners repudiated the deal.
So yes, firearm companies are well aware that they can't piss the gun owners off too much. They're one of the few industries that have actually faced an effective boycott in recent history. Most boycotts aren't widespread enough to be 'effective'.
And I don't think that works for this argument because the police or military wouldn't involve themselves in a boycott, and a new maker could survive on a smaller initial market.
They might not involve themselves in a boycott, but the military does their purchasing their own way, and most firearm companies can't survive on the military market alone. You lose the military contract and you're gone if you're dependent upon that. As for the police - they're more distributed, but note what I was saying - the police might not deliberately boycott the company, but they're not buying the smart gun versions. If all you're producing is smart guns, right now that means that the police will keep buying Glocks.
I will note that police and military are probably the worst market for smart guns since they don't really need to worry about 3rd parties getting their guns and their guns are explicitly for combat situations.
Uh, say what? I'd suggest doing a couple google searches on topics like 'military weapons stolen'.
http://www.myfoxboston.com/new...
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12...
https://www.gunandgame.com/thr...
Also, the police are probably one of the better targets for smart guns because being killed by their own weapons is a real problem:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.c...
"Fifty-one officers were killed when their department-issued firearms or another officer’s gun were turned against them."
Uh... You might want to explain what you're talking about more, because it is a power circuit, and I'm not sure what you mean by an 'out and back again' distribution network.
Transformers work both ways, but there's other regulatory equipment that needs to be designed with two-way flow in mind in order to work correctly, and previously that wasn't a design requirement. It required solar reaching 30% to start having that problem show up though, and from what I've read, the upgrades to enable bidirectional flow aren't actually that expensive - the engineering to make sure you got everything was more work than what actually needed changing.
Saying they brought that down upon themselves, considering the age of such systems, would be like saying home builders back in the '60s were negligent in not running conduit for data lines.
You have to remember that Hawaii is actually a number of islands. The most inhabited one, as per the last official study, is actually a pretty bad candidate for geothermal power - while they could certainly install it, it'd have to go too deep. That being said, we've developed a LOT of new drilling technology in the last decade or so with the fracking and deep wells and such, so re-doing the math might make it make more sense today.
The 30MW station is on a different island, which is much less inhabited, and they don't really need solar because the plant takes care of their baseload needs, more or less.
There is also talk about running a underwater power-line between the two islands, but that's a rather large expense for not enough potential gain at the current time.
I see net metering as a purposefully over-complicated scheme with a few minor selling points but an all-too-familiar drawback:
If you see net metering as 'over-complicated', I'd hate to think of what you think of 'carbon trading' schemes.
At least to the Consumer, net metering is actually about the most simple system.
Net metering:
Uses: 1000 kWh. Generated 800 kWh. Electric Bill: 200 kWh@12 cents each.
Nevada rough example:
Used:1000 kWh.
Generated: 800kWh.
Internally used: 500 kWh
Sold: 300 kWh @ 6 cents (example amount)
Bought: 500 kWh @ 12 cents
That being said, given current generation profiles, solar panels aren't displacing 'wholesale' electricity yet, they're displacing electricity that's more expensive than that, so paying wholesale would be a large profit to the company, while net makes 'net zero' installs economical for solar installers.
Under Nevada's scheme, I'd probably survey my house and figure out when I use the least electricity and size my solar install to that so I sell as little solar as possible.
It still lowers the total power that needs to be generated, and 'daytime' is still the point of highest demand. If they're not having to worry about neighborhoods(remember, more retired people means more power use during the day by retirees), they can concentrate on businesses more.
I'm going to agree with others - net metering doesn't scale beyond a point. Nevada has NOT hit that point by any reasonable measure, they'd still need 10X the solar installs for that.
Hawaii has hit that point. I think they're looking into time of use billing (which requires smart meters), and it's quite likely that night time power in Hawaii is going to end up more expensive than daytime due to the amount of solar. The electric company is having to adjust/update their distribution centers to allow backfeeding from them, because a few neighborhoods can actually go negative now.
Which can actually make batteries(which have been dropping cost too), and other storage solutions viable. When electricity is cheap/free, make sure your hot water tank is 'topped off'. Heck, have a cold water tank for what little AC homes there need, and chill that at that point. Etc...
If they really wanted the law gone they could challenge it in court, I haven't found any evidence that they tried this.
They can't. They lack standing until the law goes into effect.
Or it's a problem that has at least partially been solved [politifact.com].
Perhaps. There's also concerns about power(I haven't heard of one larger than .22), durability, longevity, and cost.
1. New product category means new customers and taking competitors customers.
Only if they can create a smart gun people actually want to buy.
2. Why would they stop selling traditional guns?
Where did I say that? I said they'd have to face a boycott as long as the NJ law is in effect. I said 'if any', because I figure there's a good chance that any company getting into the business of selling a smart gun will be a new maker, selling a limited line up consisting only of smart guns.
3/4.
So there's a market, except for the fact you make sure there's no market.
Welcome to the suck that is the NJ law. This just goes by to my original NRA statement:
1. I have nothing against smart guns ideologically.
2. I have problems with the NJ law politically
3. While acceptable models might quickly come out, especially if the political concerns are removed to enable more development money, none have thus far been produced.
Note that there are a number in this thread that mentioned that they'd be much more accepting if the police/marines/secret service(was that an earlier thread?)/etc... were using them as well.
So because you don't drink, nobody every drinks?
More like, because I don't drink, not everybody drinks, an even larger percentage never drinks to excess.
Guess this didn't happen then [nydailynews.com]. or this. [fox10phoenix.com] or this. [timesfreepress.com] or this. [koco.com] or this. [cbslocal.com] Aren't the things that don't happen amazing?
It's more that the firearms aren't required. Most of those attacks would still have happened, and some would still have been fatal. Thus, it's probably better to address the domestic violence, you know?
So it's ok to kill people while on methamphetamine, because people high on coke also kill people sometimes?
Nope. It's 'ok' to kill violent people who break into your home while you're there. The meth just shows an increased tendency to said violence.
And also, he's constantly chasing a long legged bird with the aim of capturing/killing said bird with products he has purchased from ACME corporation. And you forgot to mention he is a coyote.
Not actually a counter-argument.
As for the rest of your stuff, it's so amazing that you were able to find so many stories. You only had a few duplicates.
and congratulations on finding a non-example of taking a firearm from somebody's hands. The criminal in that took it from the holster. That's how about 3 police officers lose their lives each year.
Sure. We don't need to worry about the dead kids. Just pile em up out back.
False. We worry about the dead kids. It's just that we think the solution's different.
Even though that strikes me as weak reasoning for stopping smart guns across the country.
That's because you don't care, and are thus not thinking about it. NJ gets away with it's law, even briefly, and it'd likely spread to NY, California, and such. Thus to be opposed on all fronts.
And I'll note that the reason it's stopping smart guns 'across the country' is that the firearm doesn't have to be sold in NJ at all. As long as it's sold in the USA, it trips the statute.
Irrelevant. The existence of buggy beta tech doesn't make it an unsolvable problem.
Irrelevant to you because you're not in the market. Relevant to ME because I am, and have knowledge of the issue at hand. Please note that I'm not saying it's not an unsolvable problem. I'm saying that it's no where near solved. Meanwhile we have legislation on the books and the occasional attempt to sell said buggy technology in order to trip the statute.
And they'll probably always cost a bit more but it shouldn't be massive, and I don't see any reason why gun manufacturers couldn't solve the performance issues if there was allowed to be enough of a market that they had a reason to invest.
Believe it or not, but the market is actually mostly allowed - the manufacturer/dealer would just have to deal with:
1. Higher prices for their firearms meaning that they sell less, meaning higher costs per unit sold
2. Not having any police or military forces buying their weapons(they've campaigned hard to be exempt from any such proposals)
3. a probable boycott against their non-smart firearms(if any), as long as the NJ law is in effect.
4. Having the problem that they're pleasing non-customers more than their potential customers. Pleasing you means jack shit. Pleasing me means something to them. I'm opposed to smart guns in the current legal climate, and think lots of work needs to be done technologically.
I don't see any reason why gun manufacturers couldn't solve the performance issues if there was allowed to be enough of a market that they had a reason to invest.
It's actually a really complicated problem? Seriously, you have to put this safety in, keep the firearm reliable, armor the electronics against moister, shock, cleaning chemicals, heat, cold, etc... The conditions are actually worse than a car engine compartment.
If you want to say they shouldn't be mandated that's fine, but that's a different story because that's not what the survey asked nor the essence of the objections here.
I was trying to explain WHY the NRA is leery of smart guns - they've said before that they believe that it should be a personal/market decision. What they object to is the NJ law mandating that ALL firearms sold there be smart a period after the FIRST is available for sale. Without considering issues like the recoil differences between a .22lr pistol, a .40S&W, a .44 Mag, or a magnum rifle.
I think that it's relevant because one of the implied reasons for the survey is that there's some crowd out there, supposedly the NRA, that's opposed to smart guns. Like I've said, they're actually NOT opposed.
Even if I wanted a gun for self-defence I would be willing to accept a small chance of failure in a smart gun if I had a teenager in the house and was rationally aware of the risk of suicide or horseplay.
Your use of the word 'even' means that, really, you're not even part of the potential market. I am more than you. Even then, you put a conditional on it - a teenager in the house. Well, I don't have a teenager in the house, I DO have 3 firearm containers without including cases.
There's also the question of 'small chance of failure' - the last 'smart gun' offered for sale(briefly) couldn't even make it through a single 10 round magazine without failing. It also had numerous problems - half an hour to pair up to the watch, taking 5 minutes to activate via the watch for a shooting session, and having a remote kill option.
That's circular reasoning, the only reason they cost a lot is because the NRA is trying to force them off the market so you don't get economies of scale. Allow them on the market the price will drop and performance issues go away.
I just explained that the NRA doesn't actually oppose smart guns. And no, I'm not sure that the price and performance issues will just 'go away'. Not anytime soon.