It's a small install that plays most anything you throw at it including damaged files. It doesn't require you to install CODECs and it's pretty highly optimized code to run on even slow machines. anytime I have someone I know complain they cannot play some file or other I tell them to load VLC - problem solved. Perhaps you just only ever play standard sorts of files
I see a terminal window for this during install for all of about 5 seconds on Win7. Perhaps you've checked the "clear cache" box during install and shouldn't be?
Wow! I can now skip merrily through a multi-gig MKV file at high bitrates without lag. I can jump halfway through the video and with almost no pause it begins playing with only a little pixelation. This is on Win7 so YMMV on other platforms but I can tell you that compared to even the beta I WAS running this is a giant leap forward - no pun intended. Previously it would hang and slog through the video and was just really awful to skip through big files when I wanted to just check something. Now? Zero issues, clear picture, and plenty of control. I can grab the slider and get pretty good playback too although it obviously jumps some. So far I haven't tried many other video containers or ISO etc. just this one test but for me this was a really big one - very very pleased.
Prior to Siri being released it was an APP in the App store, folks I knew used the silly thing and no it wasn't called Siri. Apple had purchased the technology\application and about a week before Siri was released on the 4s the app stopped working as the back end servers were shutdown. I never loaded the app but wish I had because while Siri is interesting it certainly wasn't so interesting as to be a compelling upgrade from an iPhone 4. Siri, like the app before it, is a work in progress for sure! If I can recall the app name or get hold of the friend that was using it I'll post the app name - obviously it's no longer available in the app store and hasn't been for some time now.
Actually I'd argue that people who buy games ALSO have some expectation of value at the end of their game play else stores like GameStop that sell used games wouldn't exist. Would you also argue that buyers of paperback books don't expect some value to remain after it's been read? What about lending the game to a friend like you would a book? These jackasses are even starting to do hardware locks - won't it just suck when kids can't take games to a friend's house to play them together?
The game companies are becoming as greedy as the other "content providers" and I will treat them much the same way - by not buying (oh wait, licensing) their crap. They will then whine about how pirates have "ruined" their business when in fact it's been their own fault all along for pulling stunts like this. Hell IF I buy a game you can bet I'll be cracking the damn thing just to get around the stupid DRM. These publishers are idiots and they sound like spoiled children when they speak like this fool did.
They are preventing someone from having anything of value to sell after they are done with it. Perhaps if the game didn't cost so much in the first place it would have less value used and more would buy it new - what a concept. I don't buy too many games these days but I play many older ones and some online games. It's stunts like this that would prevent me from buying this game new OR used. $50 and $60 dollars per game is crazy and has greatly curtailed my desire to buy. Between crappy DRM that makes my life hell and is now starting to limit even hardware changes to publishers pulling crap like this to ensure I cannot resell any game I buy I simply have no stomach to purchase their crap. Let them go bankrupt and someone who values their customers more take their place so far as I'm concerned....
I think one of these in the car would be perfect actually! I hadn't thought of that use but it sure seems perfectly suited for that. I sort of gave up on a car-PC awhile back but now I might just have to think harder about it. For my home I use ION hardware but the car? Oh yeah!
Umm, XBMC doesn't record either. Neither does Plex or Boxee. However all of them offer experiences better than many of the cheap "streamer" boxes in my experience. Most of us have a central machine recording video to a storage server and small machines as STB at our TV playing back recorded video. The XBMC Headend branch is designed for this I believe - I've not yet tried it out. IMO you shouldn't be using a CPU to do the compression when recording anyway, aren't your tuners supposed to be doing this? You shouldn't need a monster HTPC at each TV for recording, just one in the basement.
This box only draws about 2watts. A HTPC with a full blown CPU will draw far more, this box is perfect to mount on, in, or under a TV somewhere. I'd like to see it play higher bitrate video and other CODEC though before I get too excited. I've already got ION hardware serving my needs and won't switch just for a new toy but this would still be fun to play with and I can see several things it might be good for if not XBMC in my particular home. This may be a good solution though for people who have yet to buy hardware - it's cheap!
Do note that XBMC does NOT support ordered Chapters. I've asked for it but apparently ffmpeg needs to update to support it and they (ffmpeg) refuse for "security reasons"?! I want it so I can rip BD that have multiple cuts and create just one vid but cannot currently get XBMC to allow me to select "tracks". Likewise XBMC won't do MKV menus so far as I know - not that I know how to make them lol.
I happen to use XBMC on Atom\ION hardware. Under $300, full blown Linux installs, plays anything I throw at it (many of my movies hit 11meg bitrates), and I draw no more than 25watts at full tilt. I can mount my ION systems to the back of my TV if I wish, some of them even came with mounts for that purpose (Zotac).
The Raspberry pi on the other hand draws a whopping 2 watts though so it's even better but it sounds like other codec than H.264 could be a problem, I'd like to see a longer demo with higher bitrate video too - say "killa' sample" for instance. Yeah it's a crappy clip but if it can play that it's doing pretty good:-)
and DRM will kill it stillborn. Every single thing he demoed can already be done with XBMC and MythTV including the illegally ripped movies and YouTube channel he showed. Plex also looks more put together. Boxee just killed their PC platform, it cannot support the DRM. How will these guys do it better? NetFlix? Amazon? Huluu? DRM.... CableCard? DRM although maybe something like an HDHomerun CableCard could work - I could do that now I believe.
So what problem exactly are they solving other than putting it into one box with a big fat bulls-eye on their backs if they build it? I have multiple XBMC boxes synched together that can do streaming 'net audio, video, play my movies from a NAS, can show Apple Trailers, YouTube, and could integrate with MythTV if it wasn't a bitch to build. If someone built the boxes I have and sold them I bet $5 the "content providers" would sue them. The only thing a built box solves is the integration and creating a central entity to sue. This would be an awesome project if every provider of media out there wasn't going to try and stop it. Hell Google has had issues, what makes these guys think they can do it better with LESS money to invest?
So how is this different than XBMC, MythTV, or a combination of both of them together? You'll note that several of the services you mentioned are DRM protected and that the ONLY video source save a tuner and some illegally ripped movies he showed was YouTube. How exactly does this box differentiate itself and why aren't they simply supporting what's already pretty mature instead of going their own way? You do realize that much of the claims you've made could be said of the Boxee software right? They just abandoned their PC platform because of DRM issues it seems, how exactly is Canonical going to do that one better?
Why wold you not work with already established projects like MythTV and XBMC? These are already pretty polished and XBMC is most often installed on some form of Ubuntu to begin with. What will they do for content that Google hasn't already attempted? How will they support the draconian DRM that nearly ALL "content providers" insist upon? Did anyone else notice that one of the only providers in his list was YouTube? Sure he had a a listing of TV shows too but MythTV has had that forever too. In fact the movie info he listed looked an awful lot like what XBMC and others have been doing for YEARS. Want to bet he ran afoul of the DMCA getting those movies onto that device in the first place if he even actually had them and not just the meta-data? These guys are really not thinking this through and appear to just want to get their name out there somehow. They would do better to support more mature efforts unless of course they just intend to fork them and piss off everyone...
Honestly? You make great points but if we assume that you're right and we assume that it actually works it comes down to being more expensive per watt than we currently pay. That IMO is where your reasoning goes off the rails a bit.
Personally I'm not really interested in the saving of money so much as I am being a bit less dependent on overseas oil and domestic coal. Cost of electricity could indeed rise if these things proved viable but if not an extreme amount I'd be willing to pay for it especially if it could be some sort of home installation. For that matter if I could get a home solar install done that would cover most of my energy needs for a reasonable cost I'd do it - I'm looking into it actually.
We have it good here, our energy costs are pretty low overall. If doing the right things costs a bit more and will progress the technology I'm okay with it. Hell I'm willing to pay more in taxes if it would help get all of us out of the fiscal mess our Government is in. The cheapest path isn't always the best path long term and long term is what we should all be looking at to the best of our ability...
BTW - for some folks living off the grid far from power lines (the cost of which would shock you BTW) even at a higher cost it might still be cost effective.
It means that I'm not willing to invest a ton of money into the property for a payback years in the future as I might if the home were worth more than I owe. It also means that in order for me to get the money via a loan I wouldn't be able to use my home as collateral. If the price were more reasonable and the returns not so distant I'd be more than willing to make this leap but right now, despite industry hand-wringing about low prices, the cost vs benefit simply isn't there for me and MANY other interested parties just like me.
How exactly do you ever expect to get there? If I slapped a few KW of panels on my roof I'd be spinning my meter backwards for the majority of the day. If all of my neighbors did that too do you really think there would be NO impact?
A point... BP is an oil company or in their terms an energy company. Guess who is VERY progressive about Solar? BP! This is one company at least that APPEARS to be looking at themselves properly and not just as an oil provider. I read about their developments and think they are a company I might respect, sadly I don't often see their stations around here. If they can pump oil profits into solar I say go for it!:-)
Upside down means I owe the bank $240K+ on a home valued at under $220K. The delta between what I could sell the place for in this market and what I owe is over $40K. That's after sinking many years of payments into it, improving everything, and generally trying to make the place a nice home, if someone offered me just what I owed right now I'd tell them to goto hell - I've put too much in. I also cannot refi to the newer low interest rates because the assessment won't support the current debt - nice huh? Nothing in my area provides a terrific comp either and there've been many foreclosures which tank the area as a whole. Honestly my dumbest move was improving the place vs dumping it and moving to someplace much more expensive. If I'd done that I'd be in a nicer place overall with less yard to care for and a better chance of a return sometime soon. However the place was bought to be a home not an investment so I held onto it and improved rather than move, most everyone else didn't do that it seems and quite a few just walked when they found themselves in my situation...
For my area I actually am not that bad - my commute is less than 12 miles. The "city" would be well over 20+. Not only did I pick a home a little further out but I also got a job further out! I drive a fuel efficient vehicle to commute too, I fill up about once a month. I'm not a "greenie" I just don't like to spend money where it's not necessary. I have a second vehicle for "fun" - the horror! Bought it used, take good care of it, could sell it for close to what I paid. I try to enjoy life, not just get by
As for being bothered by others paying less in taxes... If they have a cost of living like my area then they are probably having to use a good bit of that money just to get by! that wouldn't bother me. Now, if they are somehow being paid not to work I'd sure like to know how exactly. I'm betting it's not quite that black and white...
Okay, said this elsewhere but I'll say it here too. My upstairs is new construction - caulked, sprayfoamed (one of the first non-businesses they had done), rigid foil foamed, wrapped, and there's 4inches blown in on top of the sprayfoam in the attic. The windows are top of the line and the second zone up there is efficient - it barely runs no matter the season. In Winter I let heat from downstairs come up, in Summer downstairs is left hotter and the upstairs sealed off. The downstairs has only rock wool blown in the plaster walls, the place was built in the 40s, I'd do sprayfoam but no one will touch the job. But the windows are new and my crawl was recently sealed as well as sprayfoamed around the perimeter - it's a controlled space now.
I've yet to have a second blower door test run but it's impossible to not have improved, my home was awful prior to my sealing the crawl - I would love a basement! When the crawl was done an extremely efficient primary zone system was put in along with all new ducts. Gas heat. I cannot easily do ground-source, it would require dynamite - there's a quarry up the street and I'm told getting sewer required blasting:-) I didn't want to go vertical but I'm aware that's possible. No matter, my bills plummeted with the new system and insulation in the lower half of the house plus it's more comfortable. Oh there's styrofoam board under the siding downstairs too but sadly I was stupid and didn't do wrap - I was poor at the time and ignorant. My doors are steel with magnetic gaskets, they do not leak, I have sealed storm doors too but one leaks in back, oh well. When my blower test was done I found and sealed many leaks, there are caulked gaskets behind all wall plates now! I have fairly new appliances, I use much LED and some CF lighting, very little incandescent. My computers are as efficient as I can make them for now and the CPU's are sized appropriately for their purposes - Atom CPU in several cases. Last year I received 100% of the Govt's refund program for improvements! Oh, I have a tankless gas fired hot water heater too plus a softener\filter system blah blah needed to keep it from clogging when it boils the water. That saved me some serious gas money even in the Summer, the efficiency compared to a tank system is shocking!
I have some guilty pleasures - heated tile floor in the bathroom and a serious desktop system along with two NAS but the NAS spin down when not needed at least and run low end CPU. The tile is on a timer.
So yeah, like I've said elsewhere - I'm a customer for this technology but the current cost of admission as I perceive it is crazy. I DO have a good site though and if prices are truly falling off a cliff maybe I can find someone to not rob me on doing it. I'm skeptical... Oh, Wind isn't an option nor is water. I'm in a wind poor area (I've checked the siting maps and my weather station) plus I have an Oak that would create some pretty bad turbulence. One of these days I'll have room and place for wind, I've read quite a bit on how to build turbines. Seriously, as you can probably now tell, this isn't something I've got a passing interest in;-)
If that's truly the case I'd jump on it with both feet! However no one I have talked to about it has made noises in that price range. If I can find a contractor in my area that doesn't give off sleaze vibes I'll do it at that price. Maybe it has been too long since I've dug into it seriously but for $10K or even $15K I'd do it. I know the panels last a good long time and I've got sun for it. I'd probably spin backwards for most of the day too on a grid-tie!
I said as much to my neighbor when he had his trees removed. However the chances of a screw up taking out his house by someone unlicensed and not bonded was pointed out. He did try to save cash by not having them remove the wood as he expected pickups to arrive in fleets. And they did for awhile until it was just a ton of brush and woodchips. Now a month+ later it's finally all gone but his yard literally looks like a war zone and his grass is toast to say the least. He had to buy a chipper to get rid of the last of it. I just hope his beetles didn't head my way, I love my tree!
$30K liquid cash has intrinsic value IMO. It buys me security should I lose my job or become ill. If I sink every penny I make into all sorts of things and then one day find my income reduced I'm screwed. Given a choice I'd have $60K in the bank and be able to spend $30K on a solar install. I'd also love to hit the lotto but sadly neither of those situations has occurred. I could scrape $30K if I tried hard but the expense to me, not necessarily measured in dollars, is too high. Bring that $30K entrance fee closer to $15K and it becomes palatable!
One thing to clarify for you - I'm looking at a grid-tie solar install. During a blackout I'd be in the dark too. Why? Because the $30K I expect a grid-tie would cost me PALES in comparison to what a battery backed system would cost. Batteries, their charger circuitry, their housing, their care\feeding, all add up - fast. If there's one thing I've learned reading HomePower it's that off-grid living has a high cost of entry if you want to maintain your same standard of living. If you're willing to live life in a vacation cabin like atmosphere then it's not quite so bad. I'm not willing to do that....
That said, if I do a grid-tie and then LATER want to add batteries, that's doable. There might also be something to be said for a sort of in between system where a smaller bank of batteries that could only sustain me a day or two might be specced out. Frankly, I'd love to discuss ALL of this with a qualified contractor, I've yet to find one in my area:(
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Does it really need to accelerate MPEG? I'm pretty sure it's going to be able to decode that on it's CPU without much trouble....
It's a small install that plays most anything you throw at it including damaged files. It doesn't require you to install CODECs and it's pretty highly optimized code to run on even slow machines. anytime I have someone I know complain they cannot play some file or other I tell them to load VLC - problem solved. Perhaps you just only ever play standard sorts of files
I see a terminal window for this during install for all of about 5 seconds on Win7. Perhaps you've checked the "clear cache" box during install and shouldn't be?
Wow! I can now skip merrily through a multi-gig MKV file at high bitrates without lag. I can jump halfway through the video and with almost no pause it begins playing with only a little pixelation. This is on Win7 so YMMV on other platforms but I can tell you that compared to even the beta I WAS running this is a giant leap forward - no pun intended. Previously it would hang and slog through the video and was just really awful to skip through big files when I wanted to just check something. Now? Zero issues, clear picture, and plenty of control. I can grab the slider and get pretty good playback too although it obviously jumps some. So far I haven't tried many other video containers or ISO etc. just this one test but for me this was a really big one - very very pleased.
Bravo to the VLC team!
Prior to Siri being released it was an APP in the App store, folks I knew used the silly thing and no it wasn't called Siri. Apple had purchased the technology\application and about a week before Siri was released on the 4s the app stopped working as the back end servers were shutdown. I never loaded the app but wish I had because while Siri is interesting it certainly wasn't so interesting as to be a compelling upgrade from an iPhone 4. Siri, like the app before it, is a work in progress for sure! If I can recall the app name or get hold of the friend that was using it I'll post the app name - obviously it's no longer available in the app store and hasn't been for some time now.
Should I care? Why would I? His whining is crap no matter what his previous career might have been and lends no substance to his views.
Actually I'd argue that people who buy games ALSO have some expectation of value at the end of their game play else stores like GameStop that sell used games wouldn't exist. Would you also argue that buyers of paperback books don't expect some value to remain after it's been read? What about lending the game to a friend like you would a book? These jackasses are even starting to do hardware locks - won't it just suck when kids can't take games to a friend's house to play them together?
The game companies are becoming as greedy as the other "content providers" and I will treat them much the same way - by not buying (oh wait, licensing) their crap. They will then whine about how pirates have "ruined" their business when in fact it's been their own fault all along for pulling stunts like this. Hell IF I buy a game you can bet I'll be cracking the damn thing just to get around the stupid DRM. These publishers are idiots and they sound like spoiled children when they speak like this fool did.
They are preventing someone from having anything of value to sell after they are done with it. Perhaps if the game didn't cost so much in the first place it would have less value used and more would buy it new - what a concept. I don't buy too many games these days but I play many older ones and some online games. It's stunts like this that would prevent me from buying this game new OR used. $50 and $60 dollars per game is crazy and has greatly curtailed my desire to buy. Between crappy DRM that makes my life hell and is now starting to limit even hardware changes to publishers pulling crap like this to ensure I cannot resell any game I buy I simply have no stomach to purchase their crap. Let them go bankrupt and someone who values their customers more take their place so far as I'm concerned....
I think one of these in the car would be perfect actually! I hadn't thought of that use but it sure seems perfectly suited for that. I sort of gave up on a car-PC awhile back but now I might just have to think harder about it. For my home I use ION hardware but the car? Oh yeah!
Umm, XBMC doesn't record either. Neither does Plex or Boxee. However all of them offer experiences better than many of the cheap "streamer" boxes in my experience. Most of us have a central machine recording video to a storage server and small machines as STB at our TV playing back recorded video. The XBMC Headend branch is designed for this I believe - I've not yet tried it out. IMO you shouldn't be using a CPU to do the compression when recording anyway, aren't your tuners supposed to be doing this? You shouldn't need a monster HTPC at each TV for recording, just one in the basement.
This box only draws about 2watts. A HTPC with a full blown CPU will draw far more, this box is perfect to mount on, in, or under a TV somewhere. I'd like to see it play higher bitrate video and other CODEC though before I get too excited. I've already got ION hardware serving my needs and won't switch just for a new toy but this would still be fun to play with and I can see several things it might be good for if not XBMC in my particular home. This may be a good solution though for people who have yet to buy hardware - it's cheap!
Do note that XBMC does NOT support ordered Chapters. I've asked for it but apparently ffmpeg needs to update to support it and they (ffmpeg) refuse for "security reasons"?! I want it so I can rip BD that have multiple cuts and create just one vid but cannot currently get XBMC to allow me to select "tracks". Likewise XBMC won't do MKV menus so far as I know - not that I know how to make them lol.
I happen to use XBMC on Atom\ION hardware. Under $300, full blown Linux installs, plays anything I throw at it (many of my movies hit 11meg bitrates), and I draw no more than 25watts at full tilt. I can mount my ION systems to the back of my TV if I wish, some of them even came with mounts for that purpose (Zotac).
The Raspberry pi on the other hand draws a whopping 2 watts though so it's even better but it sounds like other codec than H.264 could be a problem, I'd like to see a longer demo with higher bitrate video too - say "killa' sample" for instance. Yeah it's a crappy clip but if it can play that it's doing pretty good :-)
and DRM will kill it stillborn. Every single thing he demoed can already be done with XBMC and MythTV including the illegally ripped movies and YouTube channel he showed. Plex also looks more put together. Boxee just killed their PC platform, it cannot support the DRM. How will these guys do it better? NetFlix? Amazon? Huluu? DRM.... CableCard? DRM although maybe something like an HDHomerun CableCard could work - I could do that now I believe.
So what problem exactly are they solving other than putting it into one box with a big fat bulls-eye on their backs if they build it? I have multiple XBMC boxes synched together that can do streaming 'net audio, video, play my movies from a NAS, can show Apple Trailers, YouTube, and could integrate with MythTV if it wasn't a bitch to build. If someone built the boxes I have and sold them I bet $5 the "content providers" would sue them. The only thing a built box solves is the integration and creating a central entity to sue. This would be an awesome project if every provider of media out there wasn't going to try and stop it. Hell Google has had issues, what makes these guys think they can do it better with LESS money to invest?
So how is this different than XBMC, MythTV, or a combination of both of them together? You'll note that several of the services you mentioned are DRM protected and that the ONLY video source save a tuner and some illegally ripped movies he showed was YouTube. How exactly does this box differentiate itself and why aren't they simply supporting what's already pretty mature instead of going their own way? You do realize that much of the claims you've made could be said of the Boxee software right? They just abandoned their PC platform because of DRM issues it seems, how exactly is Canonical going to do that one better?
Why wold you not work with already established projects like MythTV and XBMC? These are already pretty polished and XBMC is most often installed on some form of Ubuntu to begin with. What will they do for content that Google hasn't already attempted? How will they support the draconian DRM that nearly ALL "content providers" insist upon? Did anyone else notice that one of the only providers in his list was YouTube? Sure he had a a listing of TV shows too but MythTV has had that forever too. In fact the movie info he listed looked an awful lot like what XBMC and others have been doing for YEARS. Want to bet he ran afoul of the DMCA getting those movies onto that device in the first place if he even actually had them and not just the meta-data? These guys are really not thinking this through and appear to just want to get their name out there somehow. They would do better to support more mature efforts unless of course they just intend to fork them and piss off everyone...
Honestly? You make great points but if we assume that you're right and we assume that it actually works it comes down to being more expensive per watt than we currently pay. That IMO is where your reasoning goes off the rails a bit.
Personally I'm not really interested in the saving of money so much as I am being a bit less dependent on overseas oil and domestic coal. Cost of electricity could indeed rise if these things proved viable but if not an extreme amount I'd be willing to pay for it especially if it could be some sort of home installation. For that matter if I could get a home solar install done that would cover most of my energy needs for a reasonable cost I'd do it - I'm looking into it actually.
We have it good here, our energy costs are pretty low overall. If doing the right things costs a bit more and will progress the technology I'm okay with it. Hell I'm willing to pay more in taxes if it would help get all of us out of the fiscal mess our Government is in. The cheapest path isn't always the best path long term and long term is what we should all be looking at to the best of our ability...
BTW - for some folks living off the grid far from power lines (the cost of which would shock you BTW) even at a higher cost it might still be cost effective.
It means that I'm not willing to invest a ton of money into the property for a payback years in the future as I might if the home were worth more than I owe. It also means that in order for me to get the money via a loan I wouldn't be able to use my home as collateral. If the price were more reasonable and the returns not so distant I'd be more than willing to make this leap but right now, despite industry hand-wringing about low prices, the cost vs benefit simply isn't there for me and MANY other interested parties just like me.
How exactly do you ever expect to get there? If I slapped a few KW of panels on my roof I'd be spinning my meter backwards for the majority of the day. If all of my neighbors did that too do you really think there would be NO impact?
A point... BP is an oil company or in their terms an energy company. Guess who is VERY progressive about Solar? BP! This is one company at least that APPEARS to be looking at themselves properly and not just as an oil provider. I read about their developments and think they are a company I might respect, sadly I don't often see their stations around here. If they can pump oil profits into solar I say go for it! :-)
Upside down means I owe the bank $240K+ on a home valued at under $220K. The delta between what I could sell the place for in this market and what I owe is over $40K. That's after sinking many years of payments into it, improving everything, and generally trying to make the place a nice home, if someone offered me just what I owed right now I'd tell them to goto hell - I've put too much in. I also cannot refi to the newer low interest rates because the assessment won't support the current debt - nice huh? Nothing in my area provides a terrific comp either and there've been many foreclosures which tank the area as a whole. Honestly my dumbest move was improving the place vs dumping it and moving to someplace much more expensive. If I'd done that I'd be in a nicer place overall with less yard to care for and a better chance of a return sometime soon. However the place was bought to be a home not an investment so I held onto it and improved rather than move, most everyone else didn't do that it seems and quite a few just walked when they found themselves in my situation...
For my area I actually am not that bad - my commute is less than 12 miles. The "city" would be well over 20+. Not only did I pick a home a little further out but I also got a job further out! I drive a fuel efficient vehicle to commute too, I fill up about once a month. I'm not a "greenie" I just don't like to spend money where it's not necessary. I have a second vehicle for "fun" - the horror! Bought it used, take good care of it, could sell it for close to what I paid. I try to enjoy life, not just get by
As for being bothered by others paying less in taxes... If they have a cost of living like my area then they are probably having to use a good bit of that money just to get by! that wouldn't bother me. Now, if they are somehow being paid not to work I'd sure like to know how exactly. I'm betting it's not quite that black and white...
Okay, said this elsewhere but I'll say it here too. My upstairs is new construction - caulked, sprayfoamed (one of the first non-businesses they had done), rigid foil foamed, wrapped, and there's 4inches blown in on top of the sprayfoam in the attic. The windows are top of the line and the second zone up there is efficient - it barely runs no matter the season. In Winter I let heat from downstairs come up, in Summer downstairs is left hotter and the upstairs sealed off. The downstairs has only rock wool blown in the plaster walls, the place was built in the 40s, I'd do sprayfoam but no one will touch the job. But the windows are new and my crawl was recently sealed as well as sprayfoamed around the perimeter - it's a controlled space now.
I've yet to have a second blower door test run but it's impossible to not have improved, my home was awful prior to my sealing the crawl - I would love a basement! When the crawl was done an extremely efficient primary zone system was put in along with all new ducts. Gas heat. I cannot easily do ground-source, it would require dynamite - there's a quarry up the street and I'm told getting sewer required blasting :-) I didn't want to go vertical but I'm aware that's possible. No matter, my bills plummeted with the new system and insulation in the lower half of the house plus it's more comfortable. Oh there's styrofoam board under the siding downstairs too but sadly I was stupid and didn't do wrap - I was poor at the time and ignorant. My doors are steel with magnetic gaskets, they do not leak, I have sealed storm doors too but one leaks in back, oh well. When my blower test was done I found and sealed many leaks, there are caulked gaskets behind all wall plates now! I have fairly new appliances, I use much LED and some CF lighting, very little incandescent. My computers are as efficient as I can make them for now and the CPU's are sized appropriately for their purposes - Atom CPU in several cases. Last year I received 100% of the Govt's refund program for improvements! Oh, I have a tankless gas fired hot water heater too plus a softener\filter system blah blah needed to keep it from clogging when it boils the water. That saved me some serious gas money even in the Summer, the efficiency compared to a tank system is shocking!
I have some guilty pleasures - heated tile floor in the bathroom and a serious desktop system along with two NAS but the NAS spin down when not needed at least and run low end CPU. The tile is on a timer.
So yeah, like I've said elsewhere - I'm a customer for this technology but the current cost of admission as I perceive it is crazy. I DO have a good site though and if prices are truly falling off a cliff maybe I can find someone to not rob me on doing it. I'm skeptical... Oh, Wind isn't an option nor is water. I'm in a wind poor area (I've checked the siting maps and my weather station) plus I have an Oak that would create some pretty bad turbulence. One of these days I'll have room and place for wind, I've read quite a bit on how to build turbines. Seriously, as you can probably now tell, this isn't something I've got a passing interest in ;-)
If that's truly the case I'd jump on it with both feet! However no one I have talked to about it has made noises in that price range. If I can find a contractor in my area that doesn't give off sleaze vibes I'll do it at that price. Maybe it has been too long since I've dug into it seriously but for $10K or even $15K I'd do it. I know the panels last a good long time and I've got sun for it. I'd probably spin backwards for most of the day too on a grid-tie!
I said as much to my neighbor when he had his trees removed. However the chances of a screw up taking out his house by someone unlicensed and not bonded was pointed out. He did try to save cash by not having them remove the wood as he expected pickups to arrive in fleets. And they did for awhile until it was just a ton of brush and woodchips. Now a month+ later it's finally all gone but his yard literally looks like a war zone and his grass is toast to say the least. He had to buy a chipper to get rid of the last of it. I just hope his beetles didn't head my way, I love my tree!
$30K liquid cash has intrinsic value IMO. It buys me security should I lose my job or become ill. If I sink every penny I make into all sorts of things and then one day find my income reduced I'm screwed. Given a choice I'd have $60K in the bank and be able to spend $30K on a solar install. I'd also love to hit the lotto but sadly neither of those situations has occurred. I could scrape $30K if I tried hard but the expense to me, not necessarily measured in dollars, is too high. Bring that $30K entrance fee closer to $15K and it becomes palatable!
One thing to clarify for you - I'm looking at a grid-tie solar install. During a blackout I'd be in the dark too. Why? Because the $30K I expect a grid-tie would cost me PALES in comparison to what a battery backed system would cost. Batteries, their charger circuitry, their housing, their care\feeding, all add up - fast. If there's one thing I've learned reading HomePower it's that off-grid living has a high cost of entry if you want to maintain your same standard of living. If you're willing to live life in a vacation cabin like atmosphere then it's not quite so bad. I'm not willing to do that....
That said, if I do a grid-tie and then LATER want to add batteries, that's doable. There might also be something to be said for a sort of in between system where a smaller bank of batteries that could only sustain me a day or two might be specced out. Frankly, I'd love to discuss ALL of this with a qualified contractor, I've yet to find one in my area :(