If you tell assholes and useless backstabbing gits they are anything but, they'll have no clue to that fact and keep being useless.
I'm only partially kidding, here. Just STFU, "I have no comment", whatever. Personally, when someone has wronged me, I have a hard time not telling them where to shove it, explaining in detail how they fucked themselves.
Personally, I like working with assholes. Backstabbing useless gits, not so much. I make sure they each know which type they are. I'm rarely disappointed, in that I never have the useless people want to work with me again, and they don't tell their useless friends how awesome I am, so I'm less likely to get a job recommendation to work with more useless people.
Also, this means they're less likely to pester me to keep doing their jobs when they realize, in a panic, that they depend upon you for everything up to and possibly including, wiping their ass.
Is there any building department in the country that will approve stairs with no railing? Your wife is disabled, so you should understand the need for hand railings on stairs.
Bullshit. Have you ever moved furniture up or down stairs? In every single place I have moved into or out of I have removed the banister/handrail (if possible) when moving: it's a necessity to ease moving. The handrail aids you in no way while carrying boxes or moving matress or sofa. If anything, they're a liability.
In some places, city workers take their damn time. 6 weeks seems like the realm of somewhere like Chicago, NY, or California, but I suppose it's possible to happen in other places. It took 4 weeks to get a building permit to do a little fix-up on a patio for me a while back... at about week 3, I said "fuck it" and just fixed it. Nobody was the wiser.
I've noticed that in general it's cheaper to buy a new bookcase than to buy the wood to build your own of the same quality, _if_ you're that good - it's hard to match the precision with which even Ikea furniture is made.
Yes, it is cheaper to go pre-fab, but it's not as satisfying. Also, the prefab stuff is usually under-built.
If you like things which are painfully overbuilt (ie, they're heavy!), then DIY is the only way to go. Those rickety (but load bearing) metal shop shelves won't do; you're going to make it from steel-runner reinforced 1/2" plywood at almost twice the cost (and the shelves will last until your children's children have children).
As someone who is challenged by using a circular saw (maybe I need a better saw, or a cut off saw?), it's still satisfying. I use more wood, and my cuts aren't always even. It takes a long time. But the result, when it's finished, is great. Knowing you are capable and able to face a challenge and having done so is quite the ability - it gives you confidence throughout your other life aspirations.
It's also one hell of a buzz to have someone come into your living room and say "I love the bookcase, where did you get it?" or "Who did you have do it?" and you say "I did it myself. I milled the trim myself, as well." Especially if you don't have anything more 'advanced' or modern than electrical hand tools.
As a "new" homeowner (2 years) of an old house, I'm learning a lot about rebuilding things done wrong initially, and working around them. It's a challenge dealing with a wall which is 15-17.5" off-center, possibly both 15" and 17" off-center at the same joist.:) You learn to work around the problems, and you grow as a person.
The massive market for hand tools and their increased development (eg. Dremel, all the high-end battery powered sets, etc.) is, IMO, a testament to the DIY mentality - especailly in a housing construction recession.
A fatherless nation loses the skills a father teaches.
Not to come off as a right-wing "family values" nut, but it's true. If you don't have the value of work instilled in you as a child - including a do-it-yourself mentality - you're not likely to have the drive to do those things as an adult. Parents set the example. With many fathers either being absentee for the past 20 years due to work or having the "pay it done" mentality which started to become more prevalent in the 1980s, it's no small wonder.
I was raised by an engineer father (who, coincidentally, was raised by his eldest sister). My dad was always fixing and upgrading things around the house (plumbing, walls incl. sheetrock, window installation in the basement, landscaping), engineering terrain improvements for the (large) property like drainage and mass composting, or building new things (at almost 60, he just built his first self-supporting non-mortared stone wall that's 6' tall and 20' long - it took him since last fall to complete).
Personally, I'm not nearly as skilled at many of the things my father does, but I've already done a lot (at 30): I've done every single step of building construction, from framing and roofing to plumbing and electrical - except for foundation laying. I'm familiar with laying cement. I can build a brick wall. I have never taken my vehicles to the mechanic (except on a trip, in an emergency, during the winter) - skills I taught myself and learned from others.
That said, I have the proclivity to try to do things I really don't have the time to do because I want to be able to do them. ( It has caused no small degree of marital friction.:P ) I have a window replacement project coming up (probably next spring - I still have to re-roof this fall), and I will be looking at pre-framed windows. It is easier to install a pre-framed window into an old wall when the wall isn't square and you've got to rebuild the wall anyway, and it saves a significant amount of time. Paying a small premium for that pre-fabrication is worth it, many times. I've bought the "wall spackle in a can" a couple times, and I've mottled the spackle onto the wall by hand as well - both times due to the economy of time.
When you have 1-2 hours a night after family and 5-10 hours on a weekend, doing something like "replacing a window" takes a long damn time - more than a weekend, probably, if you've never done it before and need to get all your supplies as well. This does not bode well if you've gotten the window out already (due to, say, a tree falling through it or ants eating the window supports due to the wood being damp, which you inadvertently discovered while painting). It happens.:)
If we're talking about a conversion from an old drum brake SUV with steel wheels, then unsprung weight isn't exactly an issue. You're forgetting that you can make up for sprung weight loss by adding battery cells (extending range and/or power) or removing unsprung weight.
I wouldn't be surprised if you could take eg. a 1/2 ton Blazer from the 1980s and reduce the curb weight overall, while not impacting sprung weight ratios. There is a lot of metal in the unsprung weight of these beasts (especially the RWD models) which can be made up for with replacing them with modern materials.
The biggest engineering concern you're going to have is that it's an SUV, and the chassis is suitable for off-road/rough use. The vehicle is also relatively heavy, and with the batteries probably significantly more so than something like a Prius. Those motors are going to take a beating.
Kind of along those lines, and relating to ferrous metals as well as wood:
Historic service weapons, like AKs, SKSs, M1s, etc. will commonly rust up pretty badly in most environments without frequent (once a month or so) application of a machine oil. However, most of these 'classic' arms have been stored in some fairly adverse environments without any serious problems to either their wood or their metal. They are preserved in a number of fashions, but most noteable is that many are submerged in cosmoline (similar to but lighter than creosote) and then wrapped in paraphin paper (or creosote paper), then put in crates within a warehouse. The cosmoline requires a very high amount of heat to become fluid (greater than 180F at least) and 'sets up' like a resin with age, and is a pest repellent to boot.
All in all, a petroleum seal of some sort doesn't sound like a bad idea for whatever you're trying to preserve. A ham sandwich, if properly prepared and packaged, will last a very long time indeed.:)
As for wood: it doesn't have the kind of longevity you're thinking it does. It depends on the kind of wood, its curing, and the environment. A warm, damp environment will destroy wood very quickly. Really, moist air alone is enough to do wood in fairly quickly - that's part of why people tend to seal wood structures (at least to some degree). Consider how many 25-year-old houses are already suffering a great many of the signs of age due to improper care and maintenance. Ants, termites, etc. can all do a lot of damage.
My dad carved a small sign with our last name on it while he was in college, 30-odd years ago. He gave it to me when I was a kid, and I left it at home when I left. He then packaged it up with the rest of my things and put it in a box in the basement - in upstate NY. The last time I was home I went through the box and it was starting to show signs of decay, as were most of the papers (brittleness, mostly). Still useable? Certainly. But it wasn't hermatically stored or preserved, by any stretch of the imagination.:) Non-processed (in one form or another) organic matter does not hold up all that well in general: things like twigs, bark, sticks, etc. fall apart pretty quickly.
There is a reason why gold has always been considered valuable. It holds its value, in part, due to being useful for trade. It holds its value in so far as it does not decay and is not consumed.
I found an ancient copy of Mathematica in a university IT department closet once. It was still unopened - an 8" (or so) metal cassette in a plastic cassette case with an "OEM" sticker on the clasp of the cassette box. It was circa mid-1980s, IIRC, but may have been slightly older than that. I suspect it'd been in a closet or a box for most of its life, and had been for at least the past 10 years, but the labels were still faded. I have no idea if the tape works, because I've never seen anything which might be able to play it.
The only thing I think is interesting in time capsules are cultural artifacts. Not pop culture artifacts (though being a child of the late 80s, hammer pants and slap bracelets would be kinda fun to see again), but the bigger things: what are people's concerns; what are people thinking; what is in the news? I remember putting a Scholastic News (school propaganda rag given to elementary kids in the US) in a capsule at one point as a child: it'd be neat to have evidence of the crazy things we were indoctrinated with today - particularly the predictions about population growth, water, and climate change. Things may be "bad" this year and today in general, but nothing like they were projecting for 2010, 20 years ago... Back on topic: it would be very interesting to see eg. news articles from today about Obama, or from several years ago about Bush, and see how 20 years treat them. The past 12 have not been kind to the Clinton legacy.
Find me a modern car which is neither a van, truck, or full-size SUV which has even close to the stowage of the "most models sold" 4-door Sedan in history (basically, a Chevy Impala) and I'll consider your argument against SUVs.
It may be interesting to you to know that legally-required child restraints can not fit 3-across in anything but the largest modern production SUVs and/or trucks (Suburban, Expedition, etc.). This is not true for pretty much every 4-door sedan produced prior to the 1990s.
As for "4 door sedan vs. small SUV" - there is no valid argument against the SUV model. The SUV model is often similar if not identical chassis and engine, but with 100% more rear-end cargo space. Considering they've reduced useable space everywhere else in the vehicle, this is an absolute necessity. (Compare/contrast the Ford Focus to the Ford Transit: same chassis, similar fuel economy and weight, wildly different capacity).
What was your parents' 4-door sedan? My parents had a1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88. You could fit 5 bodies in the trunk and still have room for a couple bags of lye, and there was enough room in the back to seat 3 children (who could not easily reach other), or alternatively to have two teens in the back, "laying down". I'm not immediately aware of any modern sedans which come close to this, not unless you're spending close to twice what a 'normal' SUV costs (eg. Cadillac or Lincoln Town Car). I'm completely unaware of a modern sedan which actually is able to seat 7 adults, like the '88.
Why not go for in-wheel electric motors, since you're already spending the time and money to do the engine conversion? You'd save another (significant) percentage in efficiency by eliminating the drive shaft(s), transfer case, transmission,
Use the weight savings from eliminating the transmission, tcase, differentials, etc. for batteries. Centerline your diesel tank, and put the batteries where the fuel tank would traditionally be. Then the 'more batteries vs. more engine' scenario isn't really as much of a factor. (Additionally, use a turbine with mechanically generated AC driving things primarily, with batteries as secondary only. Your weight savings from a 'smaller engine' aren't going to be significant with a diesel.)
You're doing your hybrid wrong. Using batteries as your primary source of power will drastically reduce efficiency.
A better whole-system efficiency method would be to have a diesel turbine which primarily drives electric per-wheel motors, with batteries serving as your 'boost'. The diesel turbine would ideally be provisioned to provide enough power for highway cruising speeds while generating additional 'top-off' power, and would run at all times at a constant, efficient RPM, with over current being fed to the batteries. The braking would be reactive, and take-off power would pull from your batteries for additional torque.
By doing it this way, you could optionally use the turbine to 'top off' your batteries as you describe, but your whole system design would be more efficient, running from mechanically generated AC from the alternators first, and the batteries second.
Forget the devices as the root cause. Why do you think there aren't all that many which have support? Even industry leading, and industry standard companies are actively avoiding implementing IPv6 (at least at the forefront). I know two CCIEs who hate IPv6 and are actively doing what they can to avoid implementing it.
Why?
Because IPv6 sucks. It's a horrible idea and makes life excruciatingly difficult for those who have to actually work with it. At the technical level it has a lot of merit - but that's not what's being discussed here. Where it falls flat on its face is how horribly unwieldly it is for common applications and uses.
This is, of course, exasperated by the fact that software packages don't support IPv6 yet - never mind devices. IPv6 has a bigger hill to climb than Y2K did.
What makes them think things should always be the same price, everywhere?
Sure, we're talking about essentially the same thing, but there's a reason why things cost different amounts in various places. Avacadoes are cheaper during avacado season, and cherries/apples/pears/etc. during their respective seasons. They're cheaper near where they are grown. Sometimes, they're not even available due to lack of demand.
It's simple economics. There's little/no reason why globally universal prices should be in place - it's an asinine idea.
* file idiotically general patent based on common sense applications in existence today, but for $todays_hot_technology * sit silently and wait for competitors to spend billions of manhours developing new product in concurrency with your product feature improvements * pay a couple million (or billion, if you're Apple) to an unaccountable board which decides import restrictions to prevent your biggest threats from being imported for months if not permanently * profit!
Wait for it - expect to see patents for idiotic everyday things, like touchscreen capable shovels.
What you don't seem to understand is that when you've got product cycles for hardware in the 18-24 month range, and time to market needs to be under 6 months in many cases, a delay of 3-4 months can mean death of a product, no profit, and any number of other things.
Transparency in government - the government you and I know - is a misnomer. It's not going to happen, and any illusion (like the FOIA) to that effect delays people realizing the truth.
Government is like an aquarium. The thicker the aquarium, the harder it is to see through it due to the volume politicians, bills, etc. it contains. The only way to increase the visibility is to reduce the amount of what's in the way.
Personally, I think national and state-level terms for politicians, while prohibiting corporate lobbyists, would be a good idea. Not only would it mean there would be no more career politicians (while obviously increasing the total number of politicians within the population) but it would increase the likelihood that someone you know is a politician, and thereby decreasing the 'political divide' between the political class and the "peasant" class which has developed in America. Having inefficient non-lawyer politicians who write short and simplistic bills would be a side-benefit.
Another similar topic is irradiated food. Blanket fear of radiation.
Oh really? Russian scientists from the 1970s disagree with you. Something about it reducing the nutrient value of the food over 50% while turning "healthy" fats into "unhealthy" fats...
It has been possible to get Android based phones "for free" from most cell providers for some time now. I know of people on Verizon which were waiting until they got Android phones to get one.
The demographic need for 'dumb phones' is slim to none. You're basically looking at old people who can't "get" the touchscreen due to their age - people over 70, I'd wager. Most of them don't have a cell phone, and those that do have no desire to upgrade one at any point in the future if they do have one.
There hasn't been a dumbphone market for over a year now, I'd wager.
He probably won't even be getting 'open' information from the organic produce producers he buys his food from, and I suspect his vehicle (whether a bike, shoes or a car) will not have open blueprints available or be powered from open materials (eg. gasoline).
As someone who is involved with local producers, it's very hard to get anything out of them except in outside scenarios. "Organic" to one means something to another. Only the most/truly organic ones are open about it.
Or you could run a Hackintosh on modern capable hardware (or as a VM) and not worry about it. You're just developing, it's not like you need full GPU rendering of your apps.
Not that that's within the realm of allowed ways to run OS X, but it certainly is an option. That said, $350 a year for the equipment and software you need as a developer to make a living really doesn't seem all that bad to me. As a systems administrator, if I can get by spending that little of my own money to familiarize with new equipment or to get a 'gut feel' for how new things work, I'd be tickled pink.
Does anyone actually sign those non-competes anymore? I thought companies didn't really bother anymore except with highly exceptional people: they're essentially legally unenforceable in places like California now, and most other markets aren't big enough to allow for such a breadth of IT flightiness.
For instance, a company I worked for recently had it written into the contracts of all the customers that they would, for x period of time past employee's leaving the company or the client leaving the company, hire an employee of said company. I think it was something like 12 months. The last noncomp agreement I saw was several years ago, and naturally I didn't sign it: there was no financial incentive for me to do so, as it was not a condition of my employment. Unless it's a right-to-work state, they can't even try that.
You are mistaken, or you must be confusing developers with IT people.
"Highly individualistic" pretty accurately describes most developers I've met. Most of them? I'd pay to watch be thrown off a cliff: obnoxious, usually wrong, unthinking jerkoffs.
Most IT people I've met and worked with have at least been curious and questioning, even if they lack skills, natural ability, or personality. Most IT people who have a "rockstar" personality really are rockstars in one guise or another (or developers pretending to be sysadmin types), or they're something like 18 years old and haven't learned anything yet.
THe mindset between "systems" and "developer" is night and day. There are engineers in both groups, granted - but the people who aren't engineers on the developer side seem to make all the decisions (due to their 'visionary' status, apparently). On the IT side, those are the people you have count spare ethernet cable...
Who wants to come work for my IT managed services company? 3 out of the 4 owners have beards, and a different subset of 3 have open tattoos. One shaves his entire head. They've all BTDT in the field, too. The 'best' IT guys we work with (or rather, work for us) are of a similar mold: straight talking, take-no-prisoners (or bullshit) types who are actually quite reasonable individuals. Yes, there is a high per capita of motorcycles other impractical vehicles at the company, but that's kinda a price you pay for being awesome.
There are only a couple criteria, and most have to do with personality:
* be polite * be honest * be competent * be clean * be prepared for the repercussions if you fail to do any of the above
Does anyone really think anyone else gives half a shit about how "nice" someone looks or how well they play golf? That might matter to peers, but to most people who actually make money or pay those who do so, what matters is whether or not you actually get things done. Customers who work for a living respect that. You don't want to work for people who aren't used to working for their pay, because they don't think they should have to pay for the same kind of cuckoldry they're using on their customers.
* Accountability - employees are employees, they're not someone who can just be shuffled off to another managed services customer when this one finds out they're an idiot. As a result, you're going to have to prove yourself to the employer, your peers, and your superiors. * Control - if you don't like that dipshit who's mulling around the server room, you can have him fired (as a business owner).
IMO, 'outsourcing' works for a handful of things:
* things which "take time" but have negligible returns, or which are a fairly wrote and scriptable process. Play to your strengths and find people who do the other things better (and by better, I don't mean cheaper, necessarily). * Highly skilled and/or specialized tasks you really don't have the 'generalist' experience to handle. Things which 1 in 50 people in the field have even touched, and even fewer are good at - that sort of thing. This is where "security professionals" come into play; it's where IT architecture and (proper) design come to play.
Ideally, if you can spin off a company and create your own dedicated "application" support team, operating within its own budget and trying to cut costs, etc. then more power to you and everyone involved.
Sorry, parisiting your IT staff and budget for the short term gains is the same kind of thinking that gets companies into economic disasters as well as IT disasters. They're both costly, lose more jobs long term than they save, and bankrupt the company of skilled workers, customer loyalty, and of course finances.
Part of the reason why healthcare was leaving "millions of us to get sick, stay sick and die" isn't because government wasn't involved, it's because government had already been involved. Governmental regulations and policy is a big reason why it was even a problem to begin with.
Before spouting things you don't understand, maybe you should look at the relationship role between early healthcare providers and the government. It's quite eye-opening. In short, the people who were considered quacks in their day (and rightfully so, to a large degree) had more lobbying power and preventative care got cast out the door as a result.
Well, to be fair, it's not just the US government who makes this stuff fail. Countries like, oh, Sweden (or wherever it reputedly works out well financially and effectively, I think this was pretty much the only country that fits the mold) don't have the other socioeconomic problems the US does which exasperate the issue: obesity, obesity, diabetes epidemic, and of course, a health system itself which is merely a shell of a host for the pharmaceutical and "healthcare assisting" companies.
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Nonsense.
If you tell assholes and useless backstabbing gits they are anything but, they'll have no clue to that fact and keep being useless.
I'm only partially kidding, here. Just STFU, "I have no comment", whatever. Personally, when someone has wronged me, I have a hard time not telling them where to shove it, explaining in detail how they fucked themselves.
Personally, I like working with assholes. Backstabbing useless gits, not so much. I make sure they each know which type they are. I'm rarely disappointed, in that I never have the useless people want to work with me again, and they don't tell their useless friends how awesome I am, so I'm less likely to get a job recommendation to work with more useless people.
Also, this means they're less likely to pester me to keep doing their jobs when they realize, in a panic, that they depend upon you for everything up to and possibly including, wiping their ass.
Is there any building department in the country that will approve stairs with no railing? Your wife is disabled, so you should understand the need for hand railings on stairs.
Bullshit. Have you ever moved furniture up or down stairs? In every single place I have moved into or out of I have removed the banister/handrail (if possible) when moving: it's a necessity to ease moving. The handrail aids you in no way while carrying boxes or moving matress or sofa. If anything, they're a liability.
In some places, city workers take their damn time. 6 weeks seems like the realm of somewhere like Chicago, NY, or California, but I suppose it's possible to happen in other places. It took 4 weeks to get a building permit to do a little fix-up on a patio for me a while back... at about week 3, I said "fuck it" and just fixed it. Nobody was the wiser.
I've noticed that in general it's cheaper to buy a new bookcase than to buy the wood to build your own of the same quality, _if_ you're that good - it's hard to match the precision with which even Ikea furniture is made.
Yes, it is cheaper to go pre-fab, but it's not as satisfying. Also, the prefab stuff is usually under-built.
If you like things which are painfully overbuilt (ie, they're heavy!), then DIY is the only way to go. Those rickety (but load bearing) metal shop shelves won't do; you're going to make it from steel-runner reinforced 1/2" plywood at almost twice the cost (and the shelves will last until your children's children have children).
As someone who is challenged by using a circular saw (maybe I need a better saw, or a cut off saw?), it's still satisfying. I use more wood, and my cuts aren't always even. It takes a long time. But the result, when it's finished, is great. Knowing you are capable and able to face a challenge and having done so is quite the ability - it gives you confidence throughout your other life aspirations.
It's also one hell of a buzz to have someone come into your living room and say "I love the bookcase, where did you get it?" or "Who did you have do it?" and you say "I did it myself. I milled the trim myself, as well." Especially if you don't have anything more 'advanced' or modern than electrical hand tools.
As a "new" homeowner (2 years) of an old house, I'm learning a lot about rebuilding things done wrong initially, and working around them. It's a challenge dealing with a wall which is 15-17.5" off-center, possibly both 15" and 17" off-center at the same joist. :) You learn to work around the problems, and you grow as a person.
The massive market for hand tools and their increased development (eg. Dremel, all the high-end battery powered sets, etc.) is, IMO, a testament to the DIY mentality - especailly in a housing construction recession.
A fatherless nation loses the skills a father teaches.
Not to come off as a right-wing "family values" nut, but it's true. If you don't have the value of work instilled in you as a child - including a do-it-yourself mentality - you're not likely to have the drive to do those things as an adult. Parents set the example. With many fathers either being absentee for the past 20 years due to work or having the "pay it done" mentality which started to become more prevalent in the 1980s, it's no small wonder.
I was raised by an engineer father (who, coincidentally, was raised by his eldest sister). My dad was always fixing and upgrading things around the house (plumbing, walls incl. sheetrock, window installation in the basement, landscaping), engineering terrain improvements for the (large) property like drainage and mass composting, or building new things (at almost 60, he just built his first self-supporting non-mortared stone wall that's 6' tall and 20' long - it took him since last fall to complete).
Personally, I'm not nearly as skilled at many of the things my father does, but I've already done a lot (at 30): I've done every single step of building construction, from framing and roofing to plumbing and electrical - except for foundation laying. I'm familiar with laying cement. I can build a brick wall. I have never taken my vehicles to the mechanic (except on a trip, in an emergency, during the winter) - skills I taught myself and learned from others.
That said, I have the proclivity to try to do things I really don't have the time to do because I want to be able to do them. ( It has caused no small degree of marital friction. :P ) I have a window replacement project coming up (probably next spring - I still have to re-roof this fall), and I will be looking at pre-framed windows. It is easier to install a pre-framed window into an old wall when the wall isn't square and you've got to rebuild the wall anyway, and it saves a significant amount of time. Paying a small premium for that pre-fabrication is worth it, many times. I've bought the "wall spackle in a can" a couple times, and I've mottled the spackle onto the wall by hand as well - both times due to the economy of time.
When you have 1-2 hours a night after family and 5-10 hours on a weekend, doing something like "replacing a window" takes a long damn time - more than a weekend, probably, if you've never done it before and need to get all your supplies as well. This does not bode well if you've gotten the window out already (due to, say, a tree falling through it or ants eating the window supports due to the wood being damp, which you inadvertently discovered while painting). It happens. :)
Personally, I'm a fan of Even Williams. It's cheap and has bite. JD is too sweet for me. I don't know about good, but it gets me drunk.
Bulleit is indeed very good. It's one of my favorites.
Along those lines, a single malt blended scotch of preference is Sheep Dip. Very smooth.
If we're talking about a conversion from an old drum brake SUV with steel wheels, then unsprung weight isn't exactly an issue. You're forgetting that you can make up for sprung weight loss by adding battery cells (extending range and/or power) or removing unsprung weight.
I wouldn't be surprised if you could take eg. a 1/2 ton Blazer from the 1980s and reduce the curb weight overall, while not impacting sprung weight ratios. There is a lot of metal in the unsprung weight of these beasts (especially the RWD models) which can be made up for with replacing them with modern materials.
The biggest engineering concern you're going to have is that it's an SUV, and the chassis is suitable for off-road/rough use. The vehicle is also relatively heavy, and with the batteries probably significantly more so than something like a Prius. Those motors are going to take a beating.
Kind of along those lines, and relating to ferrous metals as well as wood:
Historic service weapons, like AKs, SKSs, M1s, etc. will commonly rust up pretty badly in most environments without frequent (once a month or so) application of a machine oil. However, most of these 'classic' arms have been stored in some fairly adverse environments without any serious problems to either their wood or their metal. They are preserved in a number of fashions, but most noteable is that many are submerged in cosmoline (similar to but lighter than creosote) and then wrapped in paraphin paper (or creosote paper), then put in crates within a warehouse. The cosmoline requires a very high amount of heat to become fluid (greater than 180F at least) and 'sets up' like a resin with age, and is a pest repellent to boot.
All in all, a petroleum seal of some sort doesn't sound like a bad idea for whatever you're trying to preserve. A ham sandwich, if properly prepared and packaged, will last a very long time indeed. :)
As for wood: it doesn't have the kind of longevity you're thinking it does. It depends on the kind of wood, its curing, and the environment. A warm, damp environment will destroy wood very quickly. Really, moist air alone is enough to do wood in fairly quickly - that's part of why people tend to seal wood structures (at least to some degree). Consider how many 25-year-old houses are already suffering a great many of the signs of age due to improper care and maintenance. Ants, termites, etc. can all do a lot of damage.
My dad carved a small sign with our last name on it while he was in college, 30-odd years ago. He gave it to me when I was a kid, and I left it at home when I left. He then packaged it up with the rest of my things and put it in a box in the basement - in upstate NY. The last time I was home I went through the box and it was starting to show signs of decay, as were most of the papers (brittleness, mostly). Still useable? Certainly. But it wasn't hermatically stored or preserved, by any stretch of the imagination. :) Non-processed (in one form or another) organic matter does not hold up all that well in general: things like twigs, bark, sticks, etc. fall apart pretty quickly.
There is a reason why gold has always been considered valuable. It holds its value, in part, due to being useful for trade. It holds its value in so far as it does not decay and is not consumed.
I found an ancient copy of Mathematica in a university IT department closet once. It was still unopened - an 8" (or so) metal cassette in a plastic cassette case with an "OEM" sticker on the clasp of the cassette box. It was circa mid-1980s, IIRC, but may have been slightly older than that. I suspect it'd been in a closet or a box for most of its life, and had been for at least the past 10 years, but the labels were still faded. I have no idea if the tape works, because I've never seen anything which might be able to play it.
The only thing I think is interesting in time capsules are cultural artifacts. Not pop culture artifacts (though being a child of the late 80s, hammer pants and slap bracelets would be kinda fun to see again), but the bigger things: what are people's concerns; what are people thinking; what is in the news? I remember putting a Scholastic News (school propaganda rag given to elementary kids in the US) in a capsule at one point as a child: it'd be neat to have evidence of the crazy things we were indoctrinated with today - particularly the predictions about population growth, water, and climate change. Things may be "bad" this year and today in general, but nothing like they were projecting for 2010, 20 years ago... Back on topic: it would be very interesting to see eg. news articles from today about Obama, or from several years ago about Bush, and see how 20 years treat them. The past 12 have not been kind to the Clinton legacy.
Concerning #3:
Find me a modern car which is neither a van, truck, or full-size SUV which has even close to the stowage of the "most models sold" 4-door Sedan in history (basically, a Chevy Impala) and I'll consider your argument against SUVs.
It may be interesting to you to know that legally-required child restraints can not fit 3-across in anything but the largest modern production SUVs and/or trucks (Suburban, Expedition, etc.). This is not true for pretty much every 4-door sedan produced prior to the 1990s.
As for "4 door sedan vs. small SUV" - there is no valid argument against the SUV model. The SUV model is often similar if not identical chassis and engine, but with 100% more rear-end cargo space. Considering they've reduced useable space everywhere else in the vehicle, this is an absolute necessity. (Compare/contrast the Ford Focus to the Ford Transit: same chassis, similar fuel economy and weight, wildly different capacity).
What was your parents' 4-door sedan? My parents had a1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88. You could fit 5 bodies in the trunk and still have room for a couple bags of lye, and there was enough room in the back to seat 3 children (who could not easily reach other), or alternatively to have two teens in the back, "laying down". I'm not immediately aware of any modern sedans which come close to this, not unless you're spending close to twice what a 'normal' SUV costs (eg. Cadillac or Lincoln Town Car). I'm completely unaware of a modern sedan which actually is able to seat 7 adults, like the '88.
Next, do you want it to be 4WD when you're done?
Why not go for in-wheel electric motors, since you're already spending the time and money to do the engine conversion? You'd save another (significant) percentage in efficiency by eliminating the drive shaft(s), transfer case, transmission,
Use the weight savings from eliminating the transmission, tcase, differentials, etc. for batteries. Centerline your diesel tank, and put the batteries where the fuel tank would traditionally be. Then the 'more batteries vs. more engine' scenario isn't really as much of a factor. (Additionally, use a turbine with mechanically generated AC driving things primarily, with batteries as secondary only. Your weight savings from a 'smaller engine' aren't going to be significant with a diesel.)
You're doing your hybrid wrong. Using batteries as your primary source of power will drastically reduce efficiency.
A better whole-system efficiency method would be to have a diesel turbine which primarily drives electric per-wheel motors, with batteries serving as your 'boost'. The diesel turbine would ideally be provisioned to provide enough power for highway cruising speeds while generating additional 'top-off' power, and would run at all times at a constant, efficient RPM, with over current being fed to the batteries. The braking would be reactive, and take-off power would pull from your batteries for additional torque.
By doing it this way, you could optionally use the turbine to 'top off' your batteries as you describe, but your whole system design would be more efficient, running from mechanically generated AC from the alternators first, and the batteries second.
Forget the devices as the root cause. Why do you think there aren't all that many which have support? Even industry leading, and industry standard companies are actively avoiding implementing IPv6 (at least at the forefront). I know two CCIEs who hate IPv6 and are actively doing what they can to avoid implementing it.
Why?
Because IPv6 sucks. It's a horrible idea and makes life excruciatingly difficult for those who have to actually work with it. At the technical level it has a lot of merit - but that's not what's being discussed here. Where it falls flat on its face is how horribly unwieldly it is for common applications and uses.
This is, of course, exasperated by the fact that software packages don't support IPv6 yet - never mind devices. IPv6 has a bigger hill to climb than Y2K did.
What makes them think things should always be the same price, everywhere?
Sure, we're talking about essentially the same thing, but there's a reason why things cost different amounts in various places. Avacadoes are cheaper during avacado season, and cherries/apples/pears/etc. during their respective seasons. They're cheaper near where they are grown. Sometimes, they're not even available due to lack of demand.
It's simple economics. There's little/no reason why globally universal prices should be in place - it's an asinine idea.
That's it, let's pit one group of amoral and antagonistic extremist virgins against another. Let's see what happens!
Or:
We've replaced the hardcore soldiers in this scenario with ineffectual internet nerds. Let's see if they notice.
You're missing the model, then.
The actual model is:
* file idiotically general patent based on common sense applications in existence today, but for $todays_hot_technology
* sit silently and wait for competitors to spend billions of manhours developing new product in concurrency with your product feature improvements
* pay a couple million (or billion, if you're Apple) to an unaccountable board which decides import restrictions to prevent your biggest threats from being imported for months if not permanently
* profit!
Wait for it - expect to see patents for idiotic everyday things, like touchscreen capable shovels.
What you don't seem to understand is that when you've got product cycles for hardware in the 18-24 month range, and time to market needs to be under 6 months in many cases, a delay of 3-4 months can mean death of a product, no profit, and any number of other things.
Transparency in government - the government you and I know - is a misnomer. It's not going to happen, and any illusion (like the FOIA) to that effect delays people realizing the truth.
Government is like an aquarium. The thicker the aquarium, the harder it is to see through it due to the volume politicians, bills, etc. it contains. The only way to increase the visibility is to reduce the amount of what's in the way.
Personally, I think national and state-level terms for politicians, while prohibiting corporate lobbyists, would be a good idea. Not only would it mean there would be no more career politicians (while obviously increasing the total number of politicians within the population) but it would increase the likelihood that someone you know is a politician, and thereby decreasing the 'political divide' between the political class and the "peasant" class which has developed in America. Having inefficient non-lawyer politicians who write short and simplistic bills would be a side-benefit.
Another similar topic is irradiated food. Blanket fear of radiation.
Oh really? Russian scientists from the 1970s disagree with you. Something about it reducing the nutrient value of the food over 50% while turning "healthy" fats into "unhealthy" fats...
It has been possible to get Android based phones "for free" from most cell providers for some time now. I know of people on Verizon which were waiting until they got Android phones to get one.
The demographic need for 'dumb phones' is slim to none. You're basically looking at old people who can't "get" the touchscreen due to their age - people over 70, I'd wager. Most of them don't have a cell phone, and those that do have no desire to upgrade one at any point in the future if they do have one.
There hasn't been a dumbphone market for over a year now, I'd wager.
Meh, that's nothing.
He probably won't even be getting 'open' information from the organic produce producers he buys his food from, and I suspect his vehicle (whether a bike, shoes or a car) will not have open blueprints available or be powered from open materials (eg. gasoline).
As someone who is involved with local producers, it's very hard to get anything out of them except in outside scenarios. "Organic" to one means something to another. Only the most/truly organic ones are open about it.
Or you could run a Hackintosh on modern capable hardware (or as a VM) and not worry about it. You're just developing, it's not like you need full GPU rendering of your apps.
Not that that's within the realm of allowed ways to run OS X, but it certainly is an option. That said, $350 a year for the equipment and software you need as a developer to make a living really doesn't seem all that bad to me. As a systems administrator, if I can get by spending that little of my own money to familiarize with new equipment or to get a 'gut feel' for how new things work, I'd be tickled pink.
Does anyone actually sign those non-competes anymore? I thought companies didn't really bother anymore except with highly exceptional people: they're essentially legally unenforceable in places like California now, and most other markets aren't big enough to allow for such a breadth of IT flightiness.
For instance, a company I worked for recently had it written into the contracts of all the customers that they would, for x period of time past employee's leaving the company or the client leaving the company, hire an employee of said company. I think it was something like 12 months. The last noncomp agreement I saw was several years ago, and naturally I didn't sign it: there was no financial incentive for me to do so, as it was not a condition of my employment. Unless it's a right-to-work state, they can't even try that.
You are mistaken, or you must be confusing developers with IT people.
"Highly individualistic" pretty accurately describes most developers I've met. Most of them? I'd pay to watch be thrown off a cliff: obnoxious, usually wrong, unthinking jerkoffs.
Most IT people I've met and worked with have at least been curious and questioning, even if they lack skills, natural ability, or personality. Most IT people who have a "rockstar" personality really are rockstars in one guise or another (or developers pretending to be sysadmin types), or they're something like 18 years old and haven't learned anything yet.
THe mindset between "systems" and "developer" is night and day. There are engineers in both groups, granted - but the people who aren't engineers on the developer side seem to make all the decisions (due to their 'visionary' status, apparently). On the IT side, those are the people you have count spare ethernet cable...
Who wants to come work for my IT managed services company? 3 out of the 4 owners have beards, and a different subset of 3 have open tattoos. One shaves his entire head. They've all BTDT in the field, too. The 'best' IT guys we work with (or rather, work for us) are of a similar mold: straight talking, take-no-prisoners (or bullshit) types who are actually quite reasonable individuals. Yes, there is a high per capita of motorcycles other impractical vehicles at the company, but that's kinda a price you pay for being awesome.
There are only a couple criteria, and most have to do with personality:
* be polite
* be honest
* be competent
* be clean
* be prepared for the repercussions if you fail to do any of the above
Does anyone really think anyone else gives half a shit about how "nice" someone looks or how well they play golf? That might matter to peers, but to most people who actually make money or pay those who do so, what matters is whether or not you actually get things done. Customers who work for a living respect that. You don't want to work for people who aren't used to working for their pay, because they don't think they should have to pay for the same kind of cuckoldry they're using on their customers.
Two more:
* Accountability - employees are employees, they're not someone who can just be shuffled off to another managed services customer when this one finds out they're an idiot. As a result, you're going to have to prove yourself to the employer, your peers, and your superiors.
* Control - if you don't like that dipshit who's mulling around the server room, you can have him fired (as a business owner).
IMO, 'outsourcing' works for a handful of things:
* things which "take time" but have negligible returns, or which are a fairly wrote and scriptable process. Play to your strengths and find people who do the other things better (and by better, I don't mean cheaper, necessarily).
* Highly skilled and/or specialized tasks you really don't have the 'generalist' experience to handle. Things which 1 in 50 people in the field have even touched, and even fewer are good at - that sort of thing. This is where "security professionals" come into play; it's where IT architecture and (proper) design come to play.
Ideally, if you can spin off a company and create your own dedicated "application" support team, operating within its own budget and trying to cut costs, etc. then more power to you and everyone involved.
Sorry, parisiting your IT staff and budget for the short term gains is the same kind of thinking that gets companies into economic disasters as well as IT disasters. They're both costly, lose more jobs long term than they save, and bankrupt the company of skilled workers, customer loyalty, and of course finances.
I have to disagree with your premise here.
Part of the reason why healthcare was leaving "millions of us to get sick, stay sick and die" isn't because government wasn't involved, it's because government had already been involved. Governmental regulations and policy is a big reason why it was even a problem to begin with.
Before spouting things you don't understand, maybe you should look at the relationship role between early healthcare providers and the government. It's quite eye-opening. In short, the people who were considered quacks in their day (and rightfully so, to a large degree) had more lobbying power and preventative care got cast out the door as a result.
Well, to be fair, it's not just the US government who makes this stuff fail. Countries like, oh, Sweden (or wherever it reputedly works out well financially and effectively, I think this was pretty much the only country that fits the mold) don't have the other socioeconomic problems the US does which exasperate the issue: obesity, obesity, diabetes epidemic, and of course, a health system itself which is merely a shell of a host for the pharmaceutical and "healthcare assisting" companies.