I never seriously looked at solar and other "off the grid" options until investigating a house on an island off Vancouver.
It was new, purpose built, so had some obvious advantages, but what I took away from it was:
All electricity was from solar panels on the roof, with a small generator for backup when running things like power tools.
All water was from captured and filter/UVed rainwater.
Cooking and refrigeration was propane powered.
Woodstove for heating.
Obviously location and climate matter, but at the end of the day it was a viable and practical option, and one that made economic sense as well.
Sooner or later some bright government will figure out that by heavily subsidizing the installation of solar in homes they'll a) Develop a very viable industry b) drop solar costs due to volume c) get relected because everyone's electric bills will drop d) boost the economy because the money that was going to the electric company can be spent elsewhere.
Now, I'm still a fan of hydroelectricity - if you need to generate electrical without generating CO2 and pollution, and without the no-nukes crowd at your door, there isn't a better way to go.
Minor quibbles: it's friggin blog post, not an "article." And it's not about "navigating an ocean of open source" in any sense that you might imagine. It's more along the lines of an About.com "Here are ten tips for using Open Source in your business" page.
However, there's a lot of truth in it, and points well worth discussion.
When, exactly did we wind up being our own support desks? When did Google, forums, and bug lists become the primary resources for solving problems with software and hardware?
I'm staggered at the issues that I have with a Google branded Android phone running Google branded apps within Google branded operating system. At the end of the day it is IMPOSSIBLE to get any response from anyone at Google to any problem.
This, to me is everything that's wrong with Open Source, even Corporate Open Source; an attitude that goes way, way back to the days downloading Linux boot floppies by modem, then struggling to get X windows or a modem to work using only Man pages and snotty comments from geeks.
There was a time when I would spend hours or days fighting with recalcitrant software trying to make it work. I can no longer be bothered. I know I can install a Windows or Ubuntu variation and they'll just work. I know that LibreOffice will just work 90% of the time. After which I'll boot up Windows and use MS Office.
Beyond that I'll try a software package (Android apps too) once and if it doesn't work out of the box I'll toss it. And if all else fails, yeah, I'll pop the money to buy a commercial, closed source package. Life is too short.
For those not up on our current government, what really happened was the American government phoned up Canada and said "We've decided that you need to tie your cyber infrastructure into ours, and accept whatever controls we demand of it."
Where upon our Prime Minister jumps to his feet, tugs his forelock and chirps "Yes! Sir!"
Are makers of hearing aids more greedy than makers of other products?
That's entirely possible.
Are consumers of hearing aids less greedy or demanding than consumers of other products?
Irrelevant to the discussion if there are no other alternatives. A more interesting question would be: How many people live without hearing aids because they simply can't afford them. Like the x million people who do not have insurance to pay for a $2000 hearing aid.
Seriously folks, is there really anything else that bears discussion? It's about greed on the part of the companies that sell these things. Anything else you might hear are just excuses.
Of late I've been thinking that it might be prudent to establish an on-line persona that can't be traced back to me. Between corporate tracking (Google?) and government's love of surveillance, and a sense that we could be heading for some economically or politically charged time, I can see situations where anonymity could be essential.
It seems to me that if you can start with an untraceable e-mail address and consistent use of Tor, you should be on the way to building up an on-line profile that's recognizable, useful, and fairly disconnected from real life.
I'm not naive enough to think that anything I could do would be 100% safe or secure, but surely you can keep most of the prying eyes away from you.
Synchronize in this context means that if I update a contact on the phone, it will automatically update the same same person's record at Gmail, and vice versa. In other words, both contact lists are identical.
I do want to synchronize my devices. That's why I chose to buy a Google branded phone (a Nexus S), with a Google OS (Android), and use Gmail, Chrome, and other Google products. I'm long past wanting to spend half my life fiddling with technology - I just want my stuff handy, and I don't want to worry about it being on the wrong machine.
(parenthetical notes: Apple does all of this stuff well, but three years as a Mac user turned me off - I just don't like Apple's way of doing things. MS may also do it, but after several years of Linux, Windows seems really fat and sloppy, and the endless updates drive me mad.)
Now, the reality is that however sweet it may look, Google is not 100% - I'm one of the people who found that no matter what I did, my contacts wouldn't sync between the phone and Gmail - something that was a BIG hassle for me. I can accept that bugs happen, but I cannot accept that bug reports go ignored, and that there's apparently no way to actually find a human being at Google who will support their products. That's why I switched the phone to Cyanogenmod.
I guess the upshot is that this kind of unified tech universe has a lot going for it, but locks you into one vendor, and whatever version of "service" they figure they can get away with.
You want Made in the USA? Tell state and federal congress to stop doing everything to drive up the cost of business compared to China and India
Say what? The problem is not, and never has been government "doing everything to drive up the cost of business," it's that the Chinese government has little or no safety, environmental, or labour protections. The regulatory cost of doing business in North America has likely been flat, or even has fallen somewhat in thirty years.
Chasing the downward spiral of Chinese unregulated, poisonous, dangerous, human rights abusing industry won't bring manufacturing back here.
Why anyone would care about the many ways that Facebook mistreats their data sources - ah, users - is beyond me. Unlike Google they never even bothered to pretend to be anything but money-grubbing capitalists with no problem whatsoever with Doing Evil.
From day one their modus operandi has been to push things to the point where even their most loyal users rebel, then back off just enough to quell the noise. And then to repeat, moving the bar even lower with each step.
Yeah I use Facebook, but I also am pretty picky about what information I leave on their servers. Judging by the utterly bizarre collection of ads that show up, I must be doing something right. Today they're promoting: Lord of the Rings Online; Fast and EZ Debt Reduction; Diamond Jewellery; Fitness Membership; Joint Pain Relief; and allegedly "luxury" Real estate, none of which are even remotely interesting to me. Google at least manages to place ads that I might click on.
Our mission is to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. Every article that we publish is open-access - freely available online for anyone to use. Sharing research encourages progress, from protecting the biodiversity of our planet to finding more effective treatments for diseases such as cancer.
The Public Library of Science (PLOS) applies the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) to works we publish (read the human-readable summary or the full license legal code). Under this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, but allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.
Simple, create a new version of the course, with a textbook that offers 97% PROFIT instead the usual textbook mark up of 95%. They'll flock to it in droves. Especially if the book retails for $200+.
I'm always amused by the debates about whether LibreOffice can replace MS Office for the average user. Inevitably there are crys of "LO breaks the formatting and animation and fontly goodness that I put into my documents!"
Here's a newsflash.
90% of home users don't do anything more fancy than put in one picture into a newsletter, and basically use three or four fonts, one of which is Comic Sans.
95% of home users never touch Excel or Powerpoint unless they're opening something created elsewhere.
99% of home users don't use Access, or anything like it.
75% of home users don't share docs with anyone. More likely they just print them out.
Actually, most home users spend more time putting words and pictures into Facebook than they do into any office suite.
My point being that for probably 75% of the public LibreOffice or GoogleDocs are absolutely just fine.
And if LO breaks your dumb Word doc, maybe it's because you've filled it with unnecessary junk that actually detracts from what you're doing.
Always is a long time. Try visiting your local hardware store and asking about the "premium" brand of nails, or copper wire.
Work in construction for while - there are good nails, and cheap crappy nails. In audio work there are good quality cable connectors, and cheap-ass Chinese stamped out of flimsy sheet metal XLR connectors. For that matter try using cheap Chinese plywood.
Home Depot may not have "premium" quality nails, but the yards that sell to contractors will sell you the good stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually they use Satellite for TV and cel for Internet and find it works just fine. YMMV.
It was new, purpose built, so had some obvious advantages, but what I took away from it was:
Obviously location and climate matter, but at the end of the day it was a viable and practical option, and one that made economic sense as well.
Sooner or later some bright government will figure out that by heavily subsidizing the installation of solar in homes they'll a) Develop a very viable industry b) drop solar costs due to volume c) get relected because everyone's electric bills will drop d) boost the economy because the money that was going to the electric company can be spent elsewhere. Now, I'm still a fan of hydroelectricity - if you need to generate electrical without generating CO2 and pollution, and without the no-nukes crowd at your door, there isn't a better way to go.
Take nekkid pictures of yourself with your phone; leave them on the phone; then ask some dweeb at phone store to copy them over to your new phone???
I'm sorry, but what in the hell did you expect??
I really believe that the time has come when the Courts should be able to say "Because you're an idiot, and brought this on yourself! That's why!"
Minor quibbles: it's friggin blog post, not an "article." And it's not about "navigating an ocean of open source" in any sense that you might imagine. It's more along the lines of an About.com "Here are ten tips for using Open Source in your business" page.
However, there's a lot of truth in it, and points well worth discussion.
When, exactly did we wind up being our own support desks? When did Google, forums, and bug lists become the primary resources for solving problems with software and hardware?
I'm staggered at the issues that I have with a Google branded Android phone running Google branded apps within Google branded operating system. At the end of the day it is IMPOSSIBLE to get any response from anyone at Google to any problem.
This, to me is everything that's wrong with Open Source, even Corporate Open Source; an attitude that goes way, way back to the days downloading Linux boot floppies by modem, then struggling to get X windows or a modem to work using only Man pages and snotty comments from geeks.
There was a time when I would spend hours or days fighting with recalcitrant software trying to make it work. I can no longer be bothered. I know I can install a Windows or Ubuntu variation and they'll just work. I know that LibreOffice will just work 90% of the time. After which I'll boot up Windows and use MS Office.
Beyond that I'll try a software package (Android apps too) once and if it doesn't work out of the box I'll toss it. And if all else fails, yeah, I'll pop the money to buy a commercial, closed source package. Life is too short.
For those not up on our current government, what really happened was the American government phoned up Canada and said "We've decided that you need to tie your cyber infrastructure into ours, and accept whatever controls we demand of it."
Where upon our Prime Minister jumps to his feet, tugs his forelock and chirps "Yes! Sir!"
Are makers of hearing aids more greedy than makers of other products?
That's entirely possible.
Are consumers of hearing aids less greedy or demanding than consumers of other products?
Irrelevant to the discussion if there are no other alternatives. A more interesting question would be: How many people live without hearing aids because they simply can't afford them. Like the x million people who do not have insurance to pay for a $2000 hearing aid.
Seriously folks, is there really anything else that bears discussion? It's about greed on the part of the companies that sell these things. Anything else you might hear are just excuses.
Seriously, I thought he was dead. Or was that just his suspenders?
Of late I've been thinking that it might be prudent to establish an on-line persona that can't be traced back to me. Between corporate tracking (Google?) and government's love of surveillance, and a sense that we could be heading for some economically or politically charged time, I can see situations where anonymity could be essential.
It seems to me that if you can start with an untraceable e-mail address and consistent use of Tor, you should be on the way to building up an on-line profile that's recognizable, useful, and fairly disconnected from real life.
I'm not naive enough to think that anything I could do would be 100% safe or secure, but surely you can keep most of the prying eyes away from you.
Synchronize in this context means that if I update a contact on the phone, it will automatically update the same same person's record at Gmail, and vice versa. In other words, both contact lists are identical.
I do want to synchronize my devices. That's why I chose to buy a Google branded phone (a Nexus S), with a Google OS (Android), and use Gmail, Chrome, and other Google products. I'm long past wanting to spend half my life fiddling with technology - I just want my stuff handy, and I don't want to worry about it being on the wrong machine.
(parenthetical notes: Apple does all of this stuff well, but three years as a Mac user turned me off - I just don't like Apple's way of doing things. MS may also do it, but after several years of Linux, Windows seems really fat and sloppy, and the endless updates drive me mad.)
Now, the reality is that however sweet it may look, Google is not 100% - I'm one of the people who found that no matter what I did, my contacts wouldn't sync between the phone and Gmail - something that was a BIG hassle for me. I can accept that bugs happen, but I cannot accept that bug reports go ignored, and that there's apparently no way to actually find a human being at Google who will support their products. That's why I switched the phone to Cyanogenmod.
I guess the upshot is that this kind of unified tech universe has a lot going for it, but locks you into one vendor, and whatever version of "service" they figure they can get away with.
Sorry kids, but there was also a time when "Made in Japan" was synonymous with "crap." The pre-Sony days if you will.
You want Made in the USA? Tell state and federal congress to stop doing everything to drive up the cost of business compared to China and India
Say what? The problem is not, and never has been government "doing everything to drive up the cost of business," it's that the Chinese government has little or no safety, environmental, or labour protections. The regulatory cost of doing business in North America has likely been flat, or even has fallen somewhat in thirty years.
Chasing the downward spiral of Chinese unregulated, poisonous, dangerous, human rights abusing industry won't bring manufacturing back here.
Oh yeah, those poor ass Somalians... K'naan
Why anyone would care about the many ways that Facebook mistreats their data sources - ah, users - is beyond me. Unlike Google they never even bothered to pretend to be anything but money-grubbing capitalists with no problem whatsoever with Doing Evil.
From day one their modus operandi has been to push things to the point where even their most loyal users rebel, then back off just enough to quell the noise. And then to repeat, moving the bar even lower with each step.
Yeah I use Facebook, but I also am pretty picky about what information I leave on their servers. Judging by the utterly bizarre collection of ads that show up, I must be doing something right. Today they're promoting: Lord of the Rings Online; Fast and EZ Debt Reduction; Diamond Jewellery; Fitness Membership; Joint Pain Relief; and allegedly "luxury" Real estate, none of which are even remotely interesting to me. Google at least manages to place ads that I might click on.
Something which Jellybean and ICS refuse to do. Unbelievable that a Google branded phone (Nexus S), refuses to sync the phone contacts with Gmail.
For that matter, does the CM team actually read and act upon bug reports, because the Android team don't seem to.
Ack - no points today. Yes, the hypocrisy of American broadcast media is never-ending.
Simple, create a new version of the course, with a textbook that offers 97% PROFIT instead the usual textbook mark up of 95%. They'll flock to it in droves. Especially if the book retails for $200+.
All I can guess is that IOS5 must have REALLY, REALLY sucked!
Anyone who has battled kudzu will find this report rather hard to believe.
WE ARE THE 47%!
Made them up of course! It's an election year.
Here's a newsflash.
Actually, most home users spend more time putting words and pictures into Facebook than they do into any office suite.
My point being that for probably 75% of the public LibreOffice or GoogleDocs are absolutely just fine.
And if LO breaks your dumb Word doc, maybe it's because you've filled it with unnecessary junk that actually detracts from what you're doing.
Always is a long time. Try visiting your local hardware store and asking about the "premium" brand of nails, or copper wire.
Work in construction for while - there are good nails, and cheap crappy nails. In audio work there are good quality cable connectors, and cheap-ass Chinese stamped out of flimsy sheet metal XLR connectors. For that matter try using cheap Chinese plywood.
Home Depot may not have "premium" quality nails, but the yards that sell to contractors will sell you the good stuff.