Thanks, I realize that's probably best case, I just wanted to see if I was off by an order of magnitude or something. I'll check out PVWATTS, but I can't see me getting a PV system until the payback is a little shorter.
I am a solar installer. A typical 3 kW rooftop installation costs about $20k, nowhere near the 60k you came up with.
This is slightly OT, but I'm interested - if I were to put a 3kW system on my house in MD, I'd expect to get about 13.5 kW/h per day (3kW * 4.5 hours average sun), correct? So at my current rates ($0.105 kW/h) I could expect to generate about $500 worth of electricity per year. Does that sound about right? I'm always unsure if I'm missing something in my calculations.
That's my thought too. There are lots of reasonably priced VPN services out there, or you could run your own. But for ~$10 a month or less, why bother? I've used the $6 "Premium" service from hideipvpn.com & it was fine, I'm sure that there are others that are just as good though.
ABC News said the total would be $200 million over 5 years, which sounds more plausible. I quote:
"The raw data for the map comes from roughly 1,650 Internet service providers — primarily phone, cable and wireless companies — across the country. The NTIA awarded grants to government agencies or non-profits in every state to collect, confirm and package the data to go into the nationwide map, which was then compiled by the NTIA and the FCC. The total price tag of the map, which will be updated twice a year, comes out to $200 million over five years."
"MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products."
Really? How? Because this is what it comes down to. Maybe by bringing everything in-house they could do this, but I'd say it's a long shot. But then again, so is going with Windows Phone...
On the other hand, when I buy a gift for my uncle who lives up on Washington, and have it shipped directly, I pay Washington sales tax, even though I am the one doing the purchasing. Amazon's systems appear not to be sophisticated enough to handle that situation.
I don't think that it's their systems not being sophisticated, it's that sales tax is based on where the good is shipped. If they have a physical presence in a state, and are shipping to that state, they need to collect the tax.
That was my first thought too. Maybe they're an independent subsidiary or something; as the poster above noted, they always collected Texas tax, but gave it back so the customer was paying the same in the end.
Newegg even touts it in their description: "Linksys WRT54GL 802.11b/g Wireless Broadband Router up to 54Mbps/ Compatible with Open Source DD-WRT (not pre-load)" $50 delivered, load DD-WRT or Tomato, done.
Wait what? I have a WRT54G v1 that's still kicking, as well as working upgraded models, they have always been great to me.
I have to agree - all I'll buy now are WRT54GLs, they are solid. I have a stack of D-Links et al that have died on me, but the WRT54s are good. I like them with Tomato, has enough features for me & makes life easy. If IPV6 becomes necessary, it looks like TomatoUSB supports it.
The biggest issue with the Archos is probably that it uses an uncertified version of Android 2.2. Even so It's a sign of things to come. When Google get their finger out and release Android 3.0 there will be numerous models to choose from and many will be perfectly functional and a great deal cheaper than the iPad.
This is the crux of the matter - even at 3/5 the price, Android tablets are sucky because they're trying to work around the limitations of the phone-only releases. This should change this year, but right now, there's nothing that I (or, indeed, many others) want to buy. I'm waiting until the end of this year to get a tablet; I'm hoping I'll have some decent choices (Android, doubtful on the WebOS thing though I still use my Palm), but if not the ipad 2 will probably be just fine.
USB sticks with "physical read-write switch" don't exactly grow on trees. As far as I know only Kanguru and Imation(aka 3M) make them and Imation's USB Sticks are slow. Kanguru Sticks are hard to come by.
Is there such a thing as an inline USB write protect switch?
Would an SD card in a reader respect the write protect switch? Both SD cards & USB readers for them are cheap & easily available.
You know there are specific Truck/Professional GPS units available? Off course they don't cost $50 but closer to $500 for the same 7" but the maps are specifically laid out for big rigs, hazmat and other restrictions to the roads that might come along on a cross-country drive.
There are also trucker add-ons for MS Streets & Trips you can buy, that you can run on a laptop. I bought a one-year out of date version for $20 to get the GPS dongle for maritime software, but it's handy having a netbook be a GPS if you want it.
Last I saw, estimates for most big players were something like $.50 to $.80 per view. For DVD's Netflix has to maintain a huge network of warehouses, staff, and buy replacements for what is broken, and the shipping, but in many cases that still seems to be cheaper than getting a license to stream the same film.
Well, if the cost of mailing is ~$1, and streaming is ~$.80 +.05, then the streaming is still cheaper. I'd bet it's that the studios won't give them the license to stream at all on some of their newer releases.
You can't tether it (without rooting it) but the Virgin Mobile USA Samsung Intercept with unlimited data & 300 minutes is a pretty good deal - $250 for the phone, $25 a month. It's not the absolute latest and greatest, but as an intro to Android I like it. If you're already in a good Sprint coverage area, it's a good deal. Not as good deal as $60/year, though...
I'm not sure what is "improper" about the current support.
What I'm waiting for is official Google Marketplace support for non-3g, wifi only tablets. Sure, you can unofficially install the marketplace on the Archos devices, but reportedly it only kinda works, with some apps being partially covered by icons etc. I want an Android version of the Touch, and so far they aren't quite there yet.
A lot of libraries (mine, certainly) have ebooks in DRM'd epubs. The fact that Kindle doesn't support this keeps me on my Palm, and reading dead tree books from the library.
Yeah, I'm just not comfortable with that personally, but that's just me. And like I said, I'm ready to have that discussion, but I don't want to force it either.
I certainly think that the original is what should be taught in high school and above level classes. I do think that there is a place for abridged/modified versions for younger kids, however. I recently read Huckleberry Finn to my elementary-age kids, and I did just what these people did, substitute "slave" where the text said "n----r". Kids that age shouldn't be expected to take things just in a historical context, and I'm not ready for them to try. We discussed the impact of slavery etc, but I'm saving the n-word discussion for another day - perhaps when they pick it up and re-read it for themselves. As long as this new book is clearly marked as having been modified, I think there's a place for it.
is about making people feel the capital costs needed at peak times. Currently this is not the case. I fail to see how this will make energy more affordable.
I'd think that, as people avoid the peak-priced energy, there should be a leveling of demand, which should reduce the need for more power plants in the longer term, controlling costs. Right now they need to build plants to meet a few peaks (around here, the hottest summer days). Pepco came and installed a thermostat for me which can turn off my central ac at peak times (I noticed it once last summer) and I get a little money back for being part of the program. If enough houses have these types of devices (and the smart grid would be much better than this) then power companies can better spread the load & avoid adding natural gas plants which are rarely used.
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just by thinking, passengers would tell the cab where to go.
I'm sorry, I'm not putting some nasty EEG cap in a cab on my head just to tell it where to go. Voice recognition for me!
The Derate Factor seems to be what I was missing - thanks again for the pointers.
Thanks, I realize that's probably best case, I just wanted to see if I was off by an order of magnitude or something. I'll check out PVWATTS, but I can't see me getting a PV system until the payback is a little shorter.
I am a solar installer. A typical 3 kW rooftop installation costs about $20k, nowhere near the 60k you came up with.
This is slightly OT, but I'm interested - if I were to put a 3kW system on my house in MD, I'd expect to get about 13.5 kW/h per day (3kW * 4.5 hours average sun), correct? So at my current rates ($0.105 kW/h) I could expect to generate about $500 worth of electricity per year. Does that sound about right? I'm always unsure if I'm missing something in my calculations.
That's my thought too. There are lots of reasonably priced VPN services out there, or you could run your own. But for ~$10 a month or less, why bother? I've used the $6 "Premium" service from hideipvpn.com & it was fine, I'm sure that there are others that are just as good though.
ABC News said the total would be $200 million over 5 years, which sounds more plausible. I quote:
"The raw data for the map comes from roughly 1,650 Internet service providers — primarily phone, cable and wireless companies — across the country. The NTIA awarded grants to government agencies or non-profits in every state to collect, confirm and package the data to go into the nationwide map, which was then compiled by the NTIA and the FCC. The total price tag of the map, which will be updated twice a year, comes out to $200 million over five years."
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=12943817&page=3
No, more likely because after a cop visited him:
Less than 10 minutes later, Adams posted a second Facebook message that said he “needed this girl knocked off right now”
The first could be a joke, the second sounds like he's serious...
The list a strategy. They have a plan.
But their plan includes stuff like this:
"MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products."
Really? How? Because this is what it comes down to. Maybe by bringing everything in-house they could do this, but I'd say it's a long shot. But then again, so is going with Windows Phone...
On the other hand, when I buy a gift for my uncle who lives up on Washington, and have it shipped directly, I pay Washington sales tax, even though I am the one doing the purchasing. Amazon's systems appear not to be sophisticated enough to handle that situation.
I don't think that it's their systems not being sophisticated, it's that sales tax is based on where the good is shipped. If they have a physical presence in a state, and are shipping to that state, they need to collect the tax.
That was my first thought too. Maybe they're an independent subsidiary or something; as the poster above noted, they always collected Texas tax, but gave it back so the customer was paying the same in the end.
Linksys routers that will flash easily to DD-WRT are getting harder to come by.
This is all you need:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190
Newegg even touts it in their description:
"Linksys WRT54GL 802.11b/g Wireless Broadband Router up to 54Mbps/ Compatible with Open Source DD-WRT (not pre-load)"
$50 delivered, load DD-WRT or Tomato, done.
Wait what? I have a WRT54G v1 that's still kicking, as well as working upgraded models, they have always been great to me.
I have to agree - all I'll buy now are WRT54GLs, they are solid. I have a stack of D-Links et al that have died on me, but the WRT54s are good. I like them with Tomato, has enough features for me & makes life easy. If IPV6 becomes necessary, it looks like TomatoUSB supports it.
The biggest issue with the Archos is probably that it uses an uncertified version of Android 2.2. Even so It's a sign of things to come. When Google get their finger out and release Android 3.0 there will be numerous models to choose from and many will be perfectly functional and a great deal cheaper than the iPad.
This is the crux of the matter - even at 3/5 the price, Android tablets are sucky because they're trying to work around the limitations of the phone-only releases. This should change this year, but right now, there's nothing that I (or, indeed, many others) want to buy. I'm waiting until the end of this year to get a tablet; I'm hoping I'll have some decent choices (Android, doubtful on the WebOS thing though I still use my Palm), but if not the ipad 2 will probably be just fine.
USB sticks with "physical read-write switch" don't exactly grow on trees.
As far as I know only Kanguru and Imation(aka 3M) make them and Imation's USB Sticks are slow. Kanguru Sticks are hard to come by.
Is there such a thing as an inline USB write protect switch?
Would an SD card in a reader respect the write protect switch? Both SD cards & USB readers for them are cheap & easily available.
You know there are specific Truck/Professional GPS units available? Off course they don't cost $50 but closer to $500 for the same 7" but the maps are specifically laid out for big rigs, hazmat and other restrictions to the roads that might come along on a cross-country drive.
There are also trucker add-ons for MS Streets & Trips you can buy, that you can run on a laptop. I bought a one-year out of date version for $20 to get the GPS dongle for maritime software, but it's handy having a netbook be a GPS if you want it.
Last I saw, estimates for most big players were something like $.50 to $.80 per view. For DVD's Netflix has to maintain a huge network of warehouses, staff, and buy replacements for what is broken, and the shipping, but in many cases that still seems to be cheaper than getting a license to stream the same film.
Well, if the cost of mailing is ~$1, and streaming is ~$.80 + .05, then the streaming is still cheaper. I'd bet it's that the studios won't give them the license to stream at all on some of their newer releases.
You can't tether it (without rooting it) but the Virgin Mobile USA Samsung Intercept with unlimited data & 300 minutes is a pretty good deal - $250 for the phone, $25 a month. It's not the absolute latest and greatest, but as an intro to Android I like it. If you're already in a good Sprint coverage area, it's a good deal. Not as good deal as $60/year, though...
And as far as I know, iPod touch is still much cheaper than Android devices that come with Android Market.
Exactly, they only allow the market on 3G devices. When that changes, I'll be looking to buy one. Unless I get a second gen ipad first.
I'm not sure what is "improper" about the current support.
What I'm waiting for is official Google Marketplace support for non-3g, wifi only tablets. Sure, you can unofficially install the marketplace on the Archos devices, but reportedly it only kinda works, with some apps being partially covered by icons etc. I want an Android version of the Touch, and so far they aren't quite there yet.
A lot of libraries (mine, certainly) have ebooks in DRM'd epubs. The fact that Kindle doesn't support this keeps me on my Palm, and reading dead tree books from the library.
Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherf**ker.
Yeah, I'm just not comfortable with that personally, but that's just me. And like I said, I'm ready to have that discussion, but I don't want to force it either.
I certainly think that the original is what should be taught in high school and above level classes. I do think that there is a place for abridged/modified versions for younger kids, however. I recently read Huckleberry Finn to my elementary-age kids, and I did just what these people did, substitute "slave" where the text said "n----r". Kids that age shouldn't be expected to take things just in a historical context, and I'm not ready for them to try. We discussed the impact of slavery etc, but I'm saving the n-word discussion for another day - perhaps when they pick it up and re-read it for themselves. As long as this new book is clearly marked as having been modified, I think there's a place for it.
is about making people feel the capital costs needed at peak times. Currently this is not the case. I fail to see how this will make energy more affordable.
I'd think that, as people avoid the peak-priced energy, there should be a leveling of demand, which should reduce the need for more power plants in the longer term, controlling costs. Right now they need to build plants to meet a few peaks (around here, the hottest summer days). Pepco came and installed a thermostat for me which can turn off my central ac at peak times (I noticed it once last summer) and I get a little money back for being part of the program. If enough houses have these types of devices (and the smart grid would be much better than this) then power companies can better spread the load & avoid adding natural gas plants which are rarely used.
Try the Coralize plugin for Firefox; it doesn't always work, but there's often a cache. It worked in this case, and the picture is pretty amazing.