Now if they could just stockpile it and figure out a way to re-extract the elements, we could have (yet another) source for "rare earth" metals. The down side is that they're probably in a much lower energy state than when they entered the landfill, but at least all the fluff is gone.
Yeah, that's nice. The claimed 5 hr life is a bit offputting, and I can't quite wrap my head around the wastefulness and simple inelegance of back to back screens (including always having a screen surface out in the open air for scratching). Still, if it's got price parity and the 13" comes with better battery life, without being too heavy, it's a real contender.
Got me all excited for a moment. Then I did a google search and turned up nothing detailed on the stylus input. I can hold my nose on 16:9 if I get real, pressure sensitive stylus input. The next questions is whether the screen will have a decent color gamut and viewable angle without degradation (IPS variant?), and when will the HD actually be available. My laptop is ready for replacement, but the end of the year is is (somewhat) artificial limit so that I can capture the business tax savings as quickly as possible.
You can do all that with a crayon, too, but I wouldn't recommend it. I've hand compiled programs into machine code with no more than a pencil and a legal pad. I've edited photos by coloring them in, or by hand-cutting masks for use in a dark room. I've written term papers with a pen and ruled notebook paper. And I have both a 1st and 3rd gen iPad.
You can do all those things on an iPad, but it's a painful, slow, imprecise process which pales in comparison to even the most basic laptop (like my 11" Acer Timeline), and is only slightly less arduous than a root canal when compared to a fully featured computer (like my quad core i7 with a 30"+2x20" color corrected IPS monitors).
The GP is correct - you can't do any sort of real photo editing on an iPad. Or general drawing,drafting, or handwritten note-taking for any kind of advanced or technical class that can't be done better with a pencil and paper. IMHO, Jobs missed the boat on creative types by not putting a Wacom-style digitizer over the screen. Lightroom or Photoshop on such a beast would be very cool indeed. As it is, it's no better than a crayon, which is what the best stylus is. Yes, I can touch type on it, but get into anything that requires lots of numbers or symbols and you will either become one with the shift key or decide that it's faster just to wait to get back to the office and type on a real keyboard.
I like the iPad, and it's passable for content creation or editing for temporary or low-intensity products. It may still be as good or better than the Surface. But, on average, it's nowhere near high efficiency for technical or detailed artistic creation.
If not, then don't bother me until it does. If I want a crayon-level interface, I'll go with the one that has a bazillion apps for all my media content consuming needs. When a really useful, 256+ pressure level, pen-accurate input with palm/heel rejection gets here, then I'll consider switching.
Well, this one is truly a swing and a miss on both fronts, presuming that it performs poorly. It is very possibly the ugliest yacht I've ever seen. It wouldn't even make for a nice looking house. And it's lousy as sculpture.
A contractor-grade kitchen remodel is going to run $30k if you do everything yourselves. A nice kitchen remodel is more like a $50k+ project. You can do a kitchen remodel for under $20k if you don't count any labor, but it means very pedestrian appliances and disposable-grade cabinets.
I think if their budget is $20k, stripping the house to studs is going to result in an unfinished house that is unsaleable. I'd be willing to bet they drop close to $1000 in roll-off rental and tipping fees at the landfill, and at least a couple hundred more in permits.
I presumed they no owned their in-laws home (who are in a retirement center, or beyond). I'd go with finishes and a good wifi system. If there's money, a mini-split HVAC for the two offices. Residential heating systems are notoriously poorly balanced, and getting your office just the right temperature for work is critical for efficiency. A Mitsubishi Mr. Slim or similar will set them back $4000-5000, but will pay huge dividends in terms of comfort and efficiency.
For a 3000SF house, stripped to the studs, I'd recommend about $50/SF minimum for a rebuild if you're going to do it all yourselves. Maybe $80-100 if you have someone else doing the heavy lifting.
One thing I can't stand is in-your-face electronics. Save that for the Epcot Center exploration exhibits.
With 10-20k - even doing it all yourself - you're really just looking at finishes. New floor covering, new paint. If you're handy, bathrooms might be an inexpensive target with new vanities/fixtures/toilet (hint:Toto). The kitchen is pretty much out. Look at your lighting - is it sufficient? Is it economical? Is is pleasing? Look at colors, window treatments, and accessories.
This is where you will live and, possibly, work. TVs are nice, but don't go overboard. Make it efficient - that's the true geek. Examine how your day workflow is, and install all the things you need so you don't waste time on the mundane stuff. Coffee, meal prep, snacks/entertainment gear, phone system (if hardwire, then distribution matters, if you're a cell-only house, check your signal and look into an amplifier to guarantee strong signal that taxes your mobile phones as little as possible).
On the tech side, you can look into hardwiring for data to the offices, but that's it - and it's not even critical to be honest. Go wireless, but be smart about it. 5GHz and a coordinated distribution system is key. A server closet would be nice. Oh - whatever you buy for your main interface and router, get two identical models. $200 sounds expensive until your network goes down due to a hardware failure. A distributed system is going to have setup configurations you don't want to have to re-create from scratch with new hardware.
If you just have 20k to buy "stuff" and the house is already remodeled, you can start thinking about a heavy duty server system with data/video/etc distribution. If you took my advice above and put in a balls-up wireless system, you're way ahead of the curve for a connected house. Fishing new wire sucks. Installing conduit is even harder. Accept the fact that nothing you are using now will work in 5 years, and build your system so it doesn't pigeon hole you into a single system. If you keep your file server and media server distinct, it will give you the option of upgrading gracefully or in parallel.
Of course, this ignores what you really should be doing with your $20k, which is: do the things that will pay dividends first. Look at your energy efficiency (heat pump?, gas?), inexpensive but energy efficient replacement windows, heat pump based hot water heater, efficient but pleasing lighting, proper ventilation, easily upgraded insulation areas, etc..
IIRC, there was a woman who sued a local TV station and/or weatherman for an incorrect forecast and (I think) her resulting illness doe to being dressed improperly based on his forecast. It was a few years ago (maybe as much as 10-15). A quick google didn't bring it up - though apparently sexual harassment and discrimination is rampant in broadcast meteorology. She did not prevail in her suit.
Unless your entire supply chain is renewable, this isn't even good for renewable (regardless of the efficiency). Here's why:
Currently, all of our renewable energy requires that we build ways to harvest that energy. That's done by mining and manufacturing which generally runs on non-renewable resources. For example: on a small scale, PV solar costs about 12.5c per kWh, amortized at 0% over the life of the panel (0% is the the most conservative number, at 5%, it's closer to 25-30c). Since solar panels take (effetively) 12.5c/kWh worth of energy to create, and that's mostly from fossil fuels, we're essentially burning non-renewables in order to create a solar collection system which manufactures fossil fuels.
As things get better, this may change, but for the time being this it the "green" equivalent of money laundering.
1. Require telcos provide a "call identifier" for every incoming call on your phone to you in real time (i.e. the actual caller ID, along with the displayed one), either by phone or online (in your regular online account area) 2. Set up a site/phone center which allows you to enter/give that unique ID to the FCC, and log your name and address or submit anonymously 3. Based on the data provided, prosecute the originator of the calls, distribute fines to group tuning in complaints 4. Profit!
He's an idiot. I didn't RTFA, and I didn't think he was a bible thumping moron. He sounds like every parent who isn't getting personalized attention for his kids. Here's the thing: he has two kids, a 1:1 ratio in his house of students to instructors. You are not going to get that in a public school. Ever. If you're lucky you'll get 20:1. Providing more personalized service (in the case education) costs more. He's probably also bitching about how high is local taxes are, most of which go to the education costs. If he doesn't like it, go spend $50-60k a year on a private school that does just what he wants.
If you pay for a Tata econobox, you don't get Mercedes Benz luxury.
It's more likely to be like my mountain bike and my golf clubs - used maybe half a dozen times a year combined. But they look nice in my garage, and if I wanted to, I could go out and play any time. The difference is that my bike and clubs cost less than 1% of what a pair of these will run you. And, to be honest, if I were making $20M/yr - sure, I might get a pair.
You don't "buy" favor in Washington, you buy favor by making sure that you are indispensible to (lots of) congressmen through both direct funds and influence in their own backyard. A K Street lawyer with a nice donation and a healthy expense account is really just there to remind congressmen of how much good you do back in their home district, and what an awful economic blow it would be to lose you from their little corner of the world.
This kind of stuff goes on all the time, though it may not be so blatant. Knowing that the house majority would like to strip every last vestige of power from most of the executive branch regulatory agencies makes even Democrats feel confident in flexing a little muscle.
Well, rednecks don't make enough money to afford one, and real rich people don't do actual outdoors stuff where you get wet/dirty, which means the only other people who will buy it are geeks.
So, if the "maker" community were to create an LLC to hold the patents for all possible ways we can think of enforcing DRM on 3D printers, and then choose not to license such technology, we could be DRM free for the next decade or two?
Sorry, orders. I'll try not to make fun of your lack of proper terminology when you need to renovate your house or commercial building.
The recommendation stands, though: make orders non-cancellable and trades taxable for the seller, without regard to the seller's basis. If I sell my house, my broker gets 5-6% (dividable amongst the various parties), and the state get 2.5%. If it's an investment property, only paper (or electronic records) change hands. Make stocks and bonds that way too.
Make trades non-cancellable, and move to a gross receipts tax at the federal level (~3% would run the gov't). That way all this fake movement wouldn't exist - when you enter a trade, it executes; when you execute a trade, you log that transaction and the person receiving money for the trade has a taxable event. This shit, along with a lot of other "skimming" operations, would stop overnight.
Better yet - no cancelled trades. Automated trading means anyone can trade, not just those with a man on the floor of the exchange. Just make a trade non-cancellable.
Oh, and move to a gross receipts tax at the federal level. 3% would actually run a reasonably sized US government (non-stimulus levels), and would effectively stop day traders and other slim margin "skimming" operations. It penalizes those with long, complex supply or legal/tax dodge shell corporation constructs, and rewards the most efficient single entities.
Every single joist hanger and truss uplift clip includes proprietary research and is protected by US Patents. As may be the genetically engineered lumber. Every single appliance you have has a copyrighted warning label on it, and all of the manuals and warranty cards you have are copyrighted. Your house is so IP encumbered you can't move around without bumping into a potential IP violation if you are required to get permission to re-sell.
Slashdot Mirror
Now if they could just stockpile it and figure out a way to re-extract the elements, we could have (yet another) source for "rare earth" metals. The down side is that they're probably in a much lower energy state than when they entered the landfill, but at least all the fluff is gone.
Nope, still no joy. But thanks for the info; I've got my new december "Uncle Sam's Buying" list started.
Yeah, that's nice. The claimed 5 hr life is a bit offputting, and I can't quite wrap my head around the wastefulness and simple inelegance of back to back screens (including always having a screen surface out in the open air for scratching). Still, if it's got price parity and the 13" comes with better battery life, without being too heavy, it's a real contender.
Got me all excited for a moment. Then I did a google search and turned up nothing detailed on the stylus input. I can hold my nose on 16:9 if I get real, pressure sensitive stylus input. The next questions is whether the screen will have a decent color gamut and viewable angle without degradation (IPS variant?), and when will the HD actually be available. My laptop is ready for replacement, but the end of the year is is (somewhat) artificial limit so that I can capture the business tax savings as quickly as possible.
You can do all that with a crayon, too, but I wouldn't recommend it. I've hand compiled programs into machine code with no more than a pencil and a legal pad. I've edited photos by coloring them in, or by hand-cutting masks for use in a dark room. I've written term papers with a pen and ruled notebook paper. And I have both a 1st and 3rd gen iPad.
You can do all those things on an iPad, but it's a painful, slow, imprecise process which pales in comparison to even the most basic laptop (like my 11" Acer Timeline), and is only slightly less arduous than a root canal when compared to a fully featured computer (like my quad core i7 with a 30"+2x20" color corrected IPS monitors).
The GP is correct - you can't do any sort of real photo editing on an iPad. Or general drawing,drafting, or handwritten note-taking for any kind of advanced or technical class that can't be done better with a pencil and paper. IMHO, Jobs missed the boat on creative types by not putting a Wacom-style digitizer over the screen. Lightroom or Photoshop on such a beast would be very cool indeed. As it is, it's no better than a crayon, which is what the best stylus is. Yes, I can touch type on it, but get into anything that requires lots of numbers or symbols and you will either become one with the shift key or decide that it's faster just to wait to get back to the office and type on a real keyboard.
I like the iPad, and it's passable for content creation or editing for temporary or low-intensity products. It may still be as good or better than the Surface. But, on average, it's nowhere near high efficiency for technical or detailed artistic creation.
If not, then don't bother me until it does. If I want a crayon-level interface, I'll go with the one that has a bazillion apps for all my media content consuming needs. When a really useful, 256+ pressure level, pen-accurate input with palm/heel rejection gets here, then I'll consider switching.
Well, this one is truly a swing and a miss on both fronts, presuming that it performs poorly. It is very possibly the ugliest yacht I've ever seen. It wouldn't even make for a nice looking house. And it's lousy as sculpture.
A contractor-grade kitchen remodel is going to run $30k if you do everything yourselves. A nice kitchen remodel is more like a $50k+ project. You can do a kitchen remodel for under $20k if you don't count any labor, but it means very pedestrian appliances and disposable-grade cabinets.
I think if their budget is $20k, stripping the house to studs is going to result in an unfinished house that is unsaleable. I'd be willing to bet they drop close to $1000 in roll-off rental and tipping fees at the landfill, and at least a couple hundred more in permits.
I presumed they no owned their in-laws home (who are in a retirement center, or beyond). I'd go with finishes and a good wifi system. If there's money, a mini-split HVAC for the two offices. Residential heating systems are notoriously poorly balanced, and getting your office just the right temperature for work is critical for efficiency. A Mitsubishi Mr. Slim or similar will set them back $4000-5000, but will pay huge dividends in terms of comfort and efficiency.
For a 3000SF house, stripped to the studs, I'd recommend about $50/SF minimum for a rebuild if you're going to do it all yourselves. Maybe $80-100 if you have someone else doing the heavy lifting.
One thing I can't stand is in-your-face electronics. Save that for the Epcot Center exploration exhibits.
With 10-20k - even doing it all yourself - you're really just looking at finishes. New floor covering, new paint. If you're handy, bathrooms might be an inexpensive target with new vanities/fixtures/toilet (hint:Toto). The kitchen is pretty much out. Look at your lighting - is it sufficient? Is it economical? Is is pleasing? Look at colors, window treatments, and accessories.
This is where you will live and, possibly, work. TVs are nice, but don't go overboard. Make it efficient - that's the true geek. Examine how your day workflow is, and install all the things you need so you don't waste time on the mundane stuff. Coffee, meal prep, snacks/entertainment gear, phone system (if hardwire, then distribution matters, if you're a cell-only house, check your signal and look into an amplifier to guarantee strong signal that taxes your mobile phones as little as possible).
On the tech side, you can look into hardwiring for data to the offices, but that's it - and it's not even critical to be honest. Go wireless, but be smart about it. 5GHz and a coordinated distribution system is key. A server closet would be nice. Oh - whatever you buy for your main interface and router, get two identical models. $200 sounds expensive until your network goes down due to a hardware failure. A distributed system is going to have setup configurations you don't want to have to re-create from scratch with new hardware.
If you just have 20k to buy "stuff" and the house is already remodeled, you can start thinking about a heavy duty server system with data/video/etc distribution. If you took my advice above and put in a balls-up wireless system, you're way ahead of the curve for a connected house. Fishing new wire sucks. Installing conduit is even harder. Accept the fact that nothing you are using now will work in 5 years, and build your system so it doesn't pigeon hole you into a single system. If you keep your file server and media server distinct, it will give you the option of upgrading gracefully or in parallel.
Of course, this ignores what you really should be doing with your $20k, which is: do the things that will pay dividends first. Look at your energy efficiency (heat pump?, gas?), inexpensive but energy efficient replacement windows, heat pump based hot water heater, efficient but pleasing lighting, proper ventilation, easily upgraded insulation areas, etc..
IIRC, there was a woman who sued a local TV station and/or weatherman for an incorrect forecast and (I think) her resulting illness doe to being dressed improperly based on his forecast. It was a few years ago (maybe as much as 10-15). A quick google didn't bring it up - though apparently sexual harassment and discrimination is rampant in broadcast meteorology. She did not prevail in her suit.
...I daresay it does have the potential to be in the league of ....
That and $3* will get you a cup of coffee.
*on your iPhone or Android Starbucks app
No, you only have to describe how it happens, in the most general of terms, and then fill a couple hundred pages with fluff and boilerplate.
Unless your entire supply chain is renewable, this isn't even good for renewable (regardless of the efficiency). Here's why:
Currently, all of our renewable energy requires that we build ways to harvest that energy. That's done by mining and manufacturing which generally runs on non-renewable resources. For example: on a small scale, PV solar costs about 12.5c per kWh, amortized at 0% over the life of the panel (0% is the the most conservative number, at 5%, it's closer to 25-30c). Since solar panels take (effetively) 12.5c/kWh worth of energy to create, and that's mostly from fossil fuels, we're essentially burning non-renewables in order to create a solar collection system which manufactures fossil fuels.
As things get better, this may change, but for the time being this it the "green" equivalent of money laundering.
1. Require telcos provide a "call identifier" for every incoming call on your phone to you in real time (i.e. the actual caller ID, along with the displayed one), either by phone or online (in your regular online account area)
2. Set up a site/phone center which allows you to enter/give that unique ID to the FCC, and log your name and address or submit anonymously
3. Based on the data provided, prosecute the originator of the calls, distribute fines to group tuning in complaints
4. Profit!
He's an idiot. I didn't RTFA, and I didn't think he was a bible thumping moron. He sounds like every parent who isn't getting personalized attention for his kids. Here's the thing: he has two kids, a 1:1 ratio in his house of students to instructors. You are not going to get that in a public school. Ever. If you're lucky you'll get 20:1. Providing more personalized service (in the case education) costs more. He's probably also bitching about how high is local taxes are, most of which go to the education costs. If he doesn't like it, go spend $50-60k a year on a private school that does just what he wants.
If you pay for a Tata econobox, you don't get Mercedes Benz luxury.
It's more likely to be like my mountain bike and my golf clubs - used maybe half a dozen times a year combined. But they look nice in my garage, and if I wanted to, I could go out and play any time. The difference is that my bike and clubs cost less than 1% of what a pair of these will run you. And, to be honest, if I were making $20M/yr - sure, I might get a pair.
You don't "buy" favor in Washington, you buy favor by making sure that you are indispensible to (lots of) congressmen through both direct funds and influence in their own backyard. A K Street lawyer with a nice donation and a healthy expense account is really just there to remind congressmen of how much good you do back in their home district, and what an awful economic blow it would be to lose you from their little corner of the world.
This kind of stuff goes on all the time, though it may not be so blatant. Knowing that the house majority would like to strip every last vestige of power from most of the executive branch regulatory agencies makes even Democrats feel confident in flexing a little muscle.
Well, rednecks don't make enough money to afford one, and real rich people don't do actual outdoors stuff where you get wet/dirty, which means the only other people who will buy it are geeks.
So, if the "maker" community were to create an LLC to hold the patents for all possible ways we can think of enforcing DRM on 3D printers, and then choose not to license such technology, we could be DRM free for the next decade or two?
Sorry, orders. I'll try not to make fun of your lack of proper terminology when you need to renovate your house or commercial building.
The recommendation stands, though: make orders non-cancellable and trades taxable for the seller, without regard to the seller's basis. If I sell my house, my broker gets 5-6% (dividable amongst the various parties), and the state get 2.5%. If it's an investment property, only paper (or electronic records) change hands. Make stocks and bonds that way too.
Make trades non-cancellable, and move to a gross receipts tax at the federal level (~3% would run the gov't). That way all this fake movement wouldn't exist - when you enter a trade, it executes; when you execute a trade, you log that transaction and the person receiving money for the trade has a taxable event. This shit, along with a lot of other "skimming" operations, would stop overnight.
Better yet - no cancelled trades. Automated trading means anyone can trade, not just those with a man on the floor of the exchange. Just make a trade non-cancellable.
Oh, and move to a gross receipts tax at the federal level. 3% would actually run a reasonably sized US government (non-stimulus levels), and would effectively stop day traders and other slim margin "skimming" operations. It penalizes those with long, complex supply or legal/tax dodge shell corporation constructs, and rewards the most efficient single entities.
Every single joist hanger and truss uplift clip includes proprietary research and is protected by US Patents. As may be the genetically engineered lumber. Every single appliance you have has a copyrighted warning label on it, and all of the manuals and warranty cards you have are copyrighted. Your house is so IP encumbered you can't move around without bumping into a potential IP violation if you are required to get permission to re-sell.
Yeah, but that just means that it has to be non-obvious to a much, much smarter group of people.