While Transformers upgraded his career, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull killed his chances of getting similar roles.
I thought we all agreed that nobody was ever supposed to mention that movie again? I'm pretty sure it's in the official slashdot forum rules somewhere...
I don't think the summary is right either....what actor launched their career from Harry Potter?
Robert Pattinson (see also Twilight) Emma Watson Daniel Radcliffe
That's just off the top of my head. It's possible there are more.
What actor launched their career from Twilight? What actor launched a career from Transformers? It seems like blockbuster movie series normally don't launch huge acting careers, so how is Star Wars really different? Maybe because Carrie Fischer wrote a book about how her career didn't take off?
Those look to have ~80 CRI. Having used LEDs with 80 CRI and ~93/94 CRI, I can absolutely tell a difference. I would prefer 90+ CRI, but those don't really seem to exist yet.
I just made another post about this, but I have about about 15-16 cree bulbs in my house. I take a picture of the receipt and the packaging at the time of every purchase.
I've had trouble with two--both 40W TW series bulbs. These bulbs flickered--they would turn off and if I adjusted--or even tapped on the bulb--the bulb would come back on for a time. The problem got worse until they barely worked anymore. I thought it was the fixture until I tried one of the bad bulbs in a desk lamp and had the same issue.
Anyway, I emailed Cree tech support with the photo of the receipt and packaging and had 3 new bulbs fedexed to me two days later.
I'm annoyed by the quality lapse (less than a year), but I don't have any problems with their response.
Hmmm, interesting. I've upgraded almost my entire house to Cree bulbs over the last two years. I had one fixture that had three 40W TW (high CRI) bulbs--the only 40W crees I've used--that were all bought at the same time. Two of the bulbs died within a week of each other--they flicker off and if you tap them will turn back on. I'm assuming some solder or some other connection has weakened. I'm going to try to fix them, but that's neither here nor there.
I emailed Cree support with a picture of my receipt and a picture of the original packaging (taken at the time I purchased them). Cree immediately offered to Fedex me three new bulbs (including a replacement for the third bulb) and did not even ask for me to send the old bulbs back. I had new bulbs two days later.
I'm disappointed that the bulbs didn't last that long, but I couldn't ask for any better response out of Cree's support.
Since we're talking about hacking your diet, this is something that has worked incredibly well for me. I fast on Mondays (most Mondays, not all)--I don't consume anything with calories. I drink water, and that's it. I usually end up eating dinner Sunday night and then the next meal I eat will be lunch or dinner on Tuesday.
The strangest thing to me is that I end up feeling really good on Tuesdays! It's somewhat difficult to describe, but when I wake up, I just feel good (and not particularly hungry). The best description I can think of is an extreme opposite of that feeling of "I ate too much!" Mondays are sometimes hard in the evenings when I do get hungry, though I don't get headaches (sometimes people report getting headaches when fasting). I do think that fasting is somewhat addictive, and I can see why pretty much every culture and religion around the world incorporates some form of fasting.
If you have never tried fasting for an extended period, I would give it a try. It's an interesting experience, and for me, not at all unpleasant.
I started fasting because I wanted to try it as an exercise of personal discipline, but I have ended up loosing around 30 lbs over the course of the first year (and keeping it off for 2 more years). I don't calorie count on other days, but I do--and did before fasting--eat reasonably healthily.
I cannot determine which of the narrowly defined punishable exemptions from the first amendment the Okies would fall under? They weren't inciting, they weren't fighting, there was no public danger, etc. It was just plain, dumb, hateful speech. And hateful speech is protected.
Not exactly. A noise ordinance that specifically targeted, e.g., loud rap music (but not loud classical music or loud NPR playing--if such a thing exists!), would be considered an unconstitutional law. The law doesn't have to be vague or confusing to be unconstitutional, though vague or confusing laws certainly can be unconstitutional tool!
So you must prove malice for any noise ordinance to be enforced against a noisy neighbor? Reality proves you wrong.
Whoever claimed that "malice" was involved in the standard is quite wrong, but it's worth noting that local noise ordinances are struck down as unconstitutional all the time.
I believe the university will win (and it should). So, when will we know who's right and who's wrong?
Right in terms of predictions? In a couple of months or years?:-) Right in terms of "good outcome or bad outcome"? That's another question. I don't believe the government should be able to punish unpopular speech. That's also pretty much the accepted case law--universities cannot punish students based solely on unpopular speech.
The law doesn't agree. If you deliberately try to aggravate people, you can and will be charged. Whether it's for verbal assault or one of the nuisance laws, there are plenty of ways to compel someone deliberately causing harm from causing that harm.
I should have been more clear. Absolutely there are a very few specific exceptions. Threats of immediate violence are not protected speech--for instance, if the frat members had said "we're going to kill some n*rs" that is a clear threat of violence. That is not protected. Another (famous) example is shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater creating a potentially deadly situation. None of these situations apply here.
Contrary to what you say, you can be aggravating and you can even try to deliberately aggravate people without breaking the law! Think of those "god hates fags" morons. That's pretty much as hateful, stupid, and aggravating as you can get, but it's still protected speech.
The university is not a government institution and they didn't send these kids to jail. The university chose to no longer affiliate with that particular frat.
Well, actually, the University of Oklahoma is a public--meaning government--institution. Given your errant assumption, I don't think the rest of your post needs replying to?
Accusing someone you don't like of "latent homosexual" tendencies is actually pretty insulting to homosexuals (and nonsensical, but I was planning on ignoring that part!).
I'm sure the fraternity brothers in Oklahoma thought it was a hoot to sing a little ditty about making sure no black person every can be pledged, but the university hosting the party thought it kind of sucked, so out you go.
Disagree. I believe this will go to court (and I hope it does), and I believe the university will lose (and it should).
Just because you think something is fun doesn't mean anyone else has to put up with it.
"Put up with it" is an interesting phrase. If you don't like my speech, you can ignore me. You can denounce me. You can organize a boycott. But, you cannot compel me with law to stop.
If you want to make your little dick joke software at home, go right ahead. If you try to distribute it using somebody else's shit, don't whine if they tell you to fuck off.
Agreed. As a private organization, github can do whatever they want. Note that this is different from how, for instance, private bakeries or florists, are allowed to operate. They cannot pick and choose their customers based on customer speech!
This is also apples and oranges because unless you are both heating your homes the same way the numbers are irrelevant.
This is the only thing you said that I disagree with. If the comparison is being made that "A typical german household is not using half of an american but less then a fifth," then you are having to compare apples and oranges. The net energy usage (or, if you get right down to it, the carbon usage) is the point, rather than an irrelevancy.
The biggest factor of course is the price of electricity. There are market forces at work here. In the Pacific Northwest I pay about $.08/kw. I have barely any (financial) incentive to conserve. Add to that 90% of our power comes from hydro and I have very little guilt as well. Compare that with Germany where it is nearly $.40/kw. I'd probably be a lot more conservative if my electricity was 5x more expensive.
HVAC--for most areas--remains the largest consumer of residential electricity.
Like you, my electrical rate is $.105/kw. I live in a sunny area (far more so than Germany) but the mathematics for solar don't really make sense for me. Even with tax breaks my payback would be a decade out. Plus, most of my electricity is from the local nuclear plant and I likewise don't feel guilty at all (I've never been into self flagellation). I do more to conserve water as that can be (during droughts) more scarce.
One reason why you use a huge amount of electric is that in Europe drying clothes on a clothesline (or clothes horse indoors in winter) is normal, whereas when I've discussed it on slashdot et al, Americans seem to think this is some pre-historic cro-magnon regression, barely above living in caves and huddling around a single fire for warmth.
I've run the numbers, clothes drying is not that significant for our household numbers. It is dwarfed by HVAC. For a time we were using cloth diapers and I was counting the number of loads (which, as you might expect, was very high!).
I would like to use a clothesline, but living where I do, we have extreme humidity in the summer that adds some difficulty. A major annoyance of mine is the fascist nature of American home owner's associations, many of which BAN clotheslines. Ridiculous.
Air-con isn't popular either, we'll put up with temperature changes in the home, though with common central heating now, it's more likely our homes will be set to warm up more than it used to.
I also log local weather station data. For July 2014, the average temperature near my house at 1PM was 33 C and the average humidity was around 80% (with 97% not at all uncommon). You would appreciate the air conditioning too if you lived here (and indeed, a German couple who live in my neighborhood are NOT fans of the humidity during July and August at all!).
Why do you use watt per square meter of home? If you closed off half your home, would you use half the power? Hell no. So it's not a useful stat, is it?
Yes, I would expect that outcome, or very close to it anyway.
In 2014, my maximum monthly kWh and lowest monthly:
July: 1599 kWh (almost continual AC usage. max electrical) April: 489 kWh (min, zero AC usage)
I have smart thermostats and a python script running on cron that logs their status every 3 minutes. I have exact HVAC usage records going back three years, so I can say this with some confidence:)
So, establish a baseline of ~500 kWh if you take away my HVAC usage. Almost 50% of all of my electrical usage is HVAC. If you reduced my house space in half, I would expect the HVAC portion to decrease by more than half. For one thing, I could probably ditch one of the HVAC units, for another thing the external wall portion of the house would be proportionally smaller (fewer leaks, etc). Lighting and wiring losses would add some additional reductions in electrical usage.
So, I think watt per square meter of home is a very informative measure.
If you would rather argue kWh / person, I'm guessing--giving the GP's data--that I would still compare favorably to many European households! It's possible I'm missing something, but that GP's data is the first real numbers I have seen of individual, not aggregate, European (German) household usage.
I have 3 cats and I can guarantee they have never killed a bird (they are indoor only)! They did catch a mice once...
To be fair, in both rural and urban areas in many parts of the country, there are large feral cat populations. I still don't believe the 4 billion number.
Fully agreed that those numbers look totally specious.
This discrepancy is almost entirely a function of living space size and the cost to heat or cool this space.
Where I live, 100 sq meters would be a fairly average or small studio (meaning one room with integrated kitchen and separate bathroom/closet) or one-bedroom apartment. I doubt apartment energy usage per sq/meter in the US vs Germany is very different at all.
The real difference comes down to houses. My house is right around 270 sq meters, with a disconnected basement (outside access, though it is heated and cooled) and two living levels, two potable natural gas water heaters (also used for heating) and two HVAC systems. My house was constructed around 1995 and still has all original equipment. The windows are poorly insulated. I run many LED lights, no CFLs, and some incandescents (bathrooms). I have a 55" tv, two desktop computer, one NAS, two laptops and an array of smaller rechargeable electronics. Clothes washer and dryer (both electric), refrigerator, and an extra freezer in the garage are included. Out of curiosity, I just pulled my energy usage for the last year (2014-02-01 through 2015-01-31). Total electricity usage from the electric company was 10,067 kWh. The biggest single month was July when I used almost 1600 kWh on air-conditioning.
So, on the face of it, I use almost 3x the energy you do in a year! I'm one of those pig Americans!
As a rough calculation, your flat gets 3500 kWh / 100 m^2 = 35 kWh / m^2.
My house gets 10,067 kWh / 270 m^2 = 37.2 kWh/m^2
What's that--a 3% difference when you take into account the area?
In all honesty, when I ran these numbers, I was very surprised to see this. I was expecting that you would be far more efficient per area, but the difference is really inconsequential. Is there some error in your numbers (or my math) that I am missing?? The much larger number on my side really just comes down to my much larger space. In fact, if you include the fact that I have 5 people in my space, I think I would be considered more efficient! Americans still do tend to have larger families than Europeans (that's true when comparing immigrant populations in both regions and when comparing non-immigrant populations).
I also pulled the natural gas numbers for my house for the year 2014 (I couldn't get the exact same range) and total usage was 735 CCF (centum cubic feet). I'm not sure what you measure natural gas usage in--m^3? If so, approx 20.8 m^3. I don't know this would compare to you.
Americans a generation ago were used to much smaller houses, and Europeans today are certainly used to smaller spaces and, I should note, smaller families. The reason we moved to our current house (our previous house was ~140 sq meters) was with the birth of our 3rd child, we wanted more space. Not everybody wants to live in the same size space. I'm happy to pay more for the difference.
"Wannabe" is also a negative term that connotes one lacks the ability. It sounds pretty contemptuous! Maybe not what you meant, but that's how I interpreted it as well.
No question that the EFF is happy overall (after all, they've been fighting for net neutrality for years). (And see my other posts on this article if you care about what else I've said.)
What I'm objecting to--or at least curious about--is why so many posts here are so rabidly partisan and specifically attacking Fox News. I must have missed the memo that Fox News was responsible for anyone and everyone who objects to the FCC's net neutrality rules. Even the EFF objects to parts of the rules and has complained about the FCC's lack of transparency. Are they too just lackeys of Fox News for uncritically objecting to the FCC's rules?
However, overall they, like what the FCC is proposing.
No question that the EFF likes net neutrality overall. Over the last decade I have probably flip-flopped about a dozen times on the issue. I loathe greater regulatory loads, but I also loathe many of the ISPs and their practices. Ultimately, I am not happy that the FCC can force through these rules (though I think many aspects of the rules are positive). I believe that any rules that affect such a large portion of the economy (and so many people and companies) should be passed as laws by elected officials.
To say that such concerns constitute "serious issues with the vast extent of the FCC's net neutrality rules" is hyperbolic.
The FCC's net neutrality rules cover a vast regulatory area, that's not in any question. From the link I posted, the EFF's letter stated:
But we are deeply concerned that the FCC’s new rules will include a provision that sounds like a recipe for overreach and confusion: the so-called “general conduct rule.”
I don't think that my saying the EFF has "serious issues" is hyperbolic when the EFF's wording was "deeply concerned."
Furthermore, if you read the ex parte letter [eff.org] linked, the EFF actually suggests additional regulation by considering what unbundling rules "might be appropriate for the 21st century, in a separate proceeding." If the EFF is so concerned about the "vast extent" of these new rules, why would they also be asking for additional rules?
That, I think (IMHO), is the EFF's mistake. They are looking at the net neutrality rules in purely utilitarian fashion. That's certainly a valid approach and effective, at least in the short term. The EFF often fights against too much law (even stating here that "[w]e strongly believe that the Commission should...engage in light-touch regulation"), while here they are asking for more law and regulatory agency. I think this is a bit myopic on their part, and I hope they do not end up fighting tougher battles against government regulation of the Internet in the future.
It's a lot easier to fight against a corporation than it is against the government (though good luck either way).
Slashdot Mirror
While Transformers upgraded his career, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull killed his chances of getting similar roles.
I thought we all agreed that nobody was ever supposed to mention that movie again? I'm pretty sure it's in the official slashdot forum rules somewhere...
I don't think the summary is right either....what actor launched their career from Harry Potter?
Robert Pattinson (see also Twilight)
Emma Watson
Daniel Radcliffe
That's just off the top of my head. It's possible there are more.
What actor launched their career from Twilight? What actor launched a career from Transformers? It seems like blockbuster movie series normally don't launch huge acting careers, so how is Star Wars really different? Maybe because Carrie Fischer wrote a book about how her career didn't take off?
Never seen the other two series, thankfully :)
Those look to have ~80 CRI. Having used LEDs with 80 CRI and ~93/94 CRI, I can absolutely tell a difference. I would prefer 90+ CRI, but those don't really seem to exist yet.
I just made another post about this, but I have about about 15-16 cree bulbs in my house. I take a picture of the receipt and the packaging at the time of every purchase.
I've had trouble with two--both 40W TW series bulbs. These bulbs flickered--they would turn off and if I adjusted--or even tapped on the bulb--the bulb would come back on for a time. The problem got worse until they barely worked anymore. I thought it was the fixture until I tried one of the bad bulbs in a desk lamp and had the same issue.
Anyway, I emailed Cree tech support with the photo of the receipt and packaging and had 3 new bulbs fedexed to me two days later.
I'm annoyed by the quality lapse (less than a year), but I don't have any problems with their response.
That's what I'm really hopeful for--a dimmable, high-CRI, 100W equivalent LED.
Hmmm, interesting. I've upgraded almost my entire house to Cree bulbs over the last two years. I had one fixture that had three 40W TW (high CRI) bulbs--the only 40W crees I've used--that were all bought at the same time. Two of the bulbs died within a week of each other--they flicker off and if you tap them will turn back on. I'm assuming some solder or some other connection has weakened. I'm going to try to fix them, but that's neither here nor there.
I emailed Cree support with a picture of my receipt and a picture of the original packaging (taken at the time I purchased them). Cree immediately offered to Fedex me three new bulbs (including a replacement for the third bulb) and did not even ask for me to send the old bulbs back. I had new bulbs two days later.
I'm disappointed that the bulbs didn't last that long, but I couldn't ask for any better response out of Cree's support.
Try the Cree TW series bulbs (a few more bucks per bulb, and a few more watts). They're still not perfect, but they're much better.
Since we're talking about hacking your diet, this is something that has worked incredibly well for me. I fast on Mondays (most Mondays, not all)--I don't consume anything with calories. I drink water, and that's it. I usually end up eating dinner Sunday night and then the next meal I eat will be lunch or dinner on Tuesday.
The strangest thing to me is that I end up feeling really good on Tuesdays! It's somewhat difficult to describe, but when I wake up, I just feel good (and not particularly hungry). The best description I can think of is an extreme opposite of that feeling of "I ate too much!" Mondays are sometimes hard in the evenings when I do get hungry, though I don't get headaches (sometimes people report getting headaches when fasting). I do think that fasting is somewhat addictive, and I can see why pretty much every culture and religion around the world incorporates some form of fasting.
If you have never tried fasting for an extended period, I would give it a try. It's an interesting experience, and for me, not at all unpleasant.
I started fasting because I wanted to try it as an exercise of personal discipline, but I have ended up loosing around 30 lbs over the course of the first year (and keeping it off for 2 more years). I don't calorie count on other days, but I do--and did before fasting--eat reasonably healthily.
I cannot determine which of the narrowly defined punishable exemptions from the first amendment the Okies would fall under? They weren't inciting, they weren't fighting, there was no public danger, etc. It was just plain, dumb, hateful speech. And hateful speech is protected.
What do you think?
Not exactly. A noise ordinance that specifically targeted, e.g., loud rap music (but not loud classical music or loud NPR playing--if such a thing exists!), would be considered an unconstitutional law. The law doesn't have to be vague or confusing to be unconstitutional, though vague or confusing laws certainly can be unconstitutional tool!
Seems to me you've just picked a couple more unpopular groups to insult!
So you must prove malice for any noise ordinance to be enforced against a noisy neighbor? Reality proves you wrong.
Whoever claimed that "malice" was involved in the standard is quite wrong, but it's worth noting that local noise ordinances are struck down as unconstitutional all the time.
I believe the university will win (and it should). So, when will we know who's right and who's wrong?
Right in terms of predictions? In a couple of months or years? :-) Right in terms of "good outcome or bad outcome"? That's another question. I don't believe the government should be able to punish unpopular speech. That's also pretty much the accepted case law--universities cannot punish students based solely on unpopular speech.
The law doesn't agree. If you deliberately try to aggravate people, you can and will be charged. Whether it's for verbal assault or one of the nuisance laws, there are plenty of ways to compel someone deliberately causing harm from causing that harm.
I should have been more clear. Absolutely there are a very few specific exceptions. Threats of immediate violence are not protected speech--for instance, if the frat members had said "we're going to kill some n*rs" that is a clear threat of violence. That is not protected. Another (famous) example is shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater creating a potentially deadly situation. None of these situations apply here.
Contrary to what you say, you can be aggravating and you can even try to deliberately aggravate people without breaking the law! Think of those "god hates fags" morons. That's pretty much as hateful, stupid, and aggravating as you can get, but it's still protected speech.
The university is not a government institution and they didn't send these kids to jail. The university chose to no longer affiliate with that particular frat.
Well, actually, the University of Oklahoma is a public--meaning government--institution. Given your errant assumption, I don't think the rest of your post needs replying to?
Accusing someone you don't like of "latent homosexual" tendencies is actually pretty insulting to homosexuals (and nonsensical, but I was planning on ignoring that part!).
I'm sure the fraternity brothers in Oklahoma thought it was a hoot to sing a little ditty about making sure no black person every can be pledged, but the university hosting the party thought it kind of sucked, so out you go.
Disagree. I believe this will go to court (and I hope it does), and I believe the university will lose (and it should).
Just because you think something is fun doesn't mean anyone else has to put up with it.
"Put up with it" is an interesting phrase. If you don't like my speech, you can ignore me. You can denounce me. You can organize a boycott. But, you cannot compel me with law to stop.
If you want to make your little dick joke software at home, go right ahead. If you try to distribute it using somebody else's shit, don't whine if they tell you to fuck off.
Agreed. As a private organization, github can do whatever they want. Note that this is different from how, for instance, private bakeries or florists, are allowed to operate. They cannot pick and choose their customers based on customer speech!
This is also apples and oranges because unless you are both heating your homes the same way the numbers are irrelevant.
This is the only thing you said that I disagree with. If the comparison is being made that "A typical german household is not using half of an american but less then a fifth," then you are having to compare apples and oranges. The net energy usage (or, if you get right down to it, the carbon usage) is the point, rather than an irrelevancy.
The biggest factor of course is the price of electricity. There are market forces at work here. In the Pacific Northwest I pay about $.08/kw. I have barely any (financial) incentive to conserve. Add to that 90% of our power comes from hydro and I have very little guilt as well. Compare that with Germany where it is nearly $.40/kw. I'd probably be a lot more conservative if my electricity was 5x more expensive.
HVAC--for most areas--remains the largest consumer of residential electricity.
Like you, my electrical rate is $.105/kw. I live in a sunny area (far more so than Germany) but the mathematics for solar don't really make sense for me. Even with tax breaks my payback would be a decade out. Plus, most of my electricity is from the local nuclear plant and I likewise don't feel guilty at all (I've never been into self flagellation). I do more to conserve water as that can be (during droughts) more scarce.
One reason why you use a huge amount of electric is that in Europe drying clothes on a clothesline (or clothes horse indoors in winter) is normal, whereas when I've discussed it on slashdot et al, Americans seem to think this is some pre-historic cro-magnon regression, barely above living in caves and huddling around a single fire for warmth.
I've run the numbers, clothes drying is not that significant for our household numbers. It is dwarfed by HVAC. For a time we were using cloth diapers and I was counting the number of loads (which, as you might expect, was very high!).
I would like to use a clothesline, but living where I do, we have extreme humidity in the summer that adds some difficulty. A major annoyance of mine is the fascist nature of American home owner's associations, many of which BAN clotheslines. Ridiculous.
Air-con isn't popular either, we'll put up with temperature changes in the home, though with common central heating now, it's more likely our homes will be set to warm up more than it used to.
I also log local weather station data. For July 2014, the average temperature near my house at 1PM was 33 C and the average humidity was around 80% (with 97% not at all uncommon). You would appreciate the air conditioning too if you lived here (and indeed, a German couple who live in my neighborhood are NOT fans of the humidity during July and August at all!).
Why do you use watt per square meter of home? If you closed off half your home, would you use half the power? Hell no. So it's not a useful stat, is it?
Yes, I would expect that outcome, or very close to it anyway.
In 2014, my maximum monthly kWh and lowest monthly:
July: 1599 kWh (almost continual AC usage. max electrical)
April: 489 kWh (min, zero AC usage)
I have smart thermostats and a python script running on cron that logs their status every 3 minutes. I have exact HVAC usage records going back three years, so I can say this with some confidence :)
So, establish a baseline of ~500 kWh if you take away my HVAC usage. Almost 50% of all of my electrical usage is HVAC. If you reduced my house space in half, I would expect the HVAC portion to decrease by more than half. For one thing, I could probably ditch one of the HVAC units, for another thing the external wall portion of the house would be proportionally smaller (fewer leaks, etc). Lighting and wiring losses would add some additional reductions in electrical usage.
So, I think watt per square meter of home is a very informative measure.
If you would rather argue kWh / person, I'm guessing--giving the GP's data--that I would still compare favorably to many European households! It's possible I'm missing something, but that GP's data is the first real numbers I have seen of individual, not aggregate, European (German) household usage.
I have 3 cats and I can guarantee they have never killed a bird (they are indoor only)! They did catch a mice once...
To be fair, in both rural and urban areas in many parts of the country, there are large feral cat populations. I still don't believe the 4 billion number.
Fully agreed that those numbers look totally specious.
This discrepancy is almost entirely a function of living space size and the cost to heat or cool this space.
Where I live, 100 sq meters would be a fairly average or small studio (meaning one room with integrated kitchen and separate bathroom/closet) or one-bedroom apartment. I doubt apartment energy usage per sq/meter in the US vs Germany is very different at all.
The real difference comes down to houses. My house is right around 270 sq meters, with a disconnected basement (outside access, though it is heated and cooled) and two living levels, two potable natural gas water heaters (also used for heating) and two HVAC systems. My house was constructed around 1995 and still has all original equipment. The windows are poorly insulated. I run many LED lights, no CFLs, and some incandescents (bathrooms). I have a 55" tv, two desktop computer, one NAS, two laptops and an array of smaller rechargeable electronics. Clothes washer and dryer (both electric), refrigerator, and an extra freezer in the garage are included. Out of curiosity, I just pulled my energy usage for the last year (2014-02-01 through 2015-01-31). Total electricity usage from the electric company was 10,067 kWh. The biggest single month was July when I used almost 1600 kWh on air-conditioning.
So, on the face of it, I use almost 3x the energy you do in a year! I'm one of those pig Americans!
As a rough calculation, your flat gets 3500 kWh / 100 m^2 = 35 kWh / m^2.
My house gets 10,067 kWh / 270 m^2 = 37.2 kWh/m^2
What's that--a 3% difference when you take into account the area?
In all honesty, when I ran these numbers, I was very surprised to see this. I was expecting that you would be far more efficient per area, but the difference is really inconsequential. Is there some error in your numbers (or my math) that I am missing?? The much larger number on my side really just comes down to my much larger space. In fact, if you include the fact that I have 5 people in my space, I think I would be considered more efficient! Americans still do tend to have larger families than Europeans (that's true when comparing immigrant populations in both regions and when comparing non-immigrant populations).
I also pulled the natural gas numbers for my house for the year 2014 (I couldn't get the exact same range) and total usage was 735 CCF (centum cubic feet). I'm not sure what you measure natural gas usage in--m^3? If so, approx 20.8 m^3. I don't know this would compare to you.
Americans a generation ago were used to much smaller houses, and Europeans today are certainly used to smaller spaces and, I should note, smaller families. The reason we moved to our current house (our previous house was ~140 sq meters) was with the birth of our 3rd child, we wanted more space. Not everybody wants to live in the same size space. I'm happy to pay more for the difference.
What will they think of next--fake Rolex watches? Fake Oakley sunglasses? I'm shocked--SHOCKED--by this most recent development.
"Wannabe" is also a negative term that connotes one lacks the ability. It sounds pretty contemptuous! Maybe not what you meant, but that's how I interpreted it as well.
No question that the EFF is happy overall (after all, they've been fighting for net neutrality for years). (And see my other posts on this article if you care about what else I've said.)
What I'm objecting to--or at least curious about--is why so many posts here are so rabidly partisan and specifically attacking Fox News. I must have missed the memo that Fox News was responsible for anyone and everyone who objects to the FCC's net neutrality rules. Even the EFF objects to parts of the rules and has complained about the FCC's lack of transparency. Are they too just lackeys of Fox News for uncritically objecting to the FCC's rules?
However, overall they, like what the FCC is proposing.
No question that the EFF likes net neutrality overall. Over the last decade I have probably flip-flopped about a dozen times on the issue. I loathe greater regulatory loads, but I also loathe many of the ISPs and their practices. Ultimately, I am not happy that the FCC can force through these rules (though I think many aspects of the rules are positive). I believe that any rules that affect such a large portion of the economy (and so many people and companies) should be passed as laws by elected officials.
To say that such concerns constitute "serious issues with the vast extent of the FCC's net neutrality rules" is hyperbolic.
The FCC's net neutrality rules cover a vast regulatory area, that's not in any question. From the link I posted, the EFF's letter stated:
But we are deeply concerned that the FCC’s new rules will include a provision that sounds like a recipe for overreach and confusion: the so-called “general conduct rule.”
I don't think that my saying the EFF has "serious issues" is hyperbolic when the EFF's wording was "deeply concerned."
Furthermore, if you read the ex parte letter [eff.org] linked, the EFF actually suggests additional regulation by considering what unbundling rules "might be appropriate for the 21st century, in a separate proceeding." If the EFF is so concerned about the "vast extent" of these new rules, why would they also be asking for additional rules?
That, I think (IMHO), is the EFF's mistake. They are looking at the net neutrality rules in purely utilitarian fashion. That's certainly a valid approach and effective, at least in the short term. The EFF often fights against too much law (even stating here that "[w]e strongly believe that the Commission should...engage in light-touch regulation"), while here they are asking for more law and regulatory agency. I think this is a bit myopic on their part, and I hope they do not end up fighting tougher battles against government regulation of the Internet in the future.
It's a lot easier to fight against a corporation than it is against the government (though good luck either way).