We have a pair of potholes here on an on-ramp that takes about 2 months to become holes every time they fix them. They look like twi round buttons, with mous^h car-over effect. When freshly fixed they stick out a bit. Then the buttons slowly move into pressed state;)
Theres a lot of crumbled asphalt accumulating in the steel structure below those holes that the asphalt street is built on. They take about a month or two to fix it up and then it starts "pressing the buttons" again.
You can calibrate the calendar on this, yet I have to avoid these for a month or so every couple months by using the other lane although that lane will exit and I have to go back over again.
Your lane is wider than your car. If you know the precise location of a pothole you can frequently drive around it in the right driving conditions, either by switching lanes or by moving within your lane.
A computer that knows the precise location is substantially more likely to be able to do that than a human driver, resulting in a lot less wear on your vehicle and slower expansion of the pothole.
I also live in San Diego: I'm pretty sure it's a parasite which feeds on Federal Highway Dollars. It normally only afflicts populations in the less fortunate/"weather-challenged" fly-over states. Our state's GDP is subsidizing their unfortunate choice of residence so that the farmers have someone to talk to.
You are poorly-informed.
Potholes on roads in and out of NYC in a bad winter can get *incredibly* bad. That's 800,000+ vehicles a day, many of them *very* high-end, with tires bouncing off jagged holes repeatedly at significant speeds.
This despite the fact that NYC has probably the most extensive use of mass transit in the nation.
"If people imagine that we’ve got the resources to do as much intrusion as they worry about, I would reassure them that it’s impossible."
Sure, we're doing a lot of bad illegal shit, but we don't have time to do as much bad illegal shit as you think we are.
Imagine if that logic were applied by a bank robber: Sure, I robbed the bank, but I didn't have time to steal as much money as you thought I did.
Actually, this is a quintessential part of the debate. The Supreme Court considers it now on technology cases that involve the ability to do dragnet surveillance on large numbers of people or over an extended time period on the same person. The idea is basically that what used to be okay because cops were practically limited by the cost of extensive surveillance might no longer be okay when they are able to collect a LOT of surveillance data cheaply.
This came up in a GPS tracking case a few years back.
The causes of an EMP are nuclear blast or solar flare, I think in case of the former you would have far larger problems than the grid to worry about.
Actually, in the case of a single or small number of nuclear blasts, or a low-atmo nuclear detonation, restoring the power grid is one of the first problems you have.
If you're dealing with total war with a major power, it's pretty much the end of the world anyway. But if you're dealing with a couple of nukes from a newly nuclear nation or as part of a proportional response in a conflict between major powers (game theory in a world where nobody is stupid enough to destroy the world), you have a lot of refugees to deal with and a lot of infrastructure to keep going.
Do you have military needs that take priority? Of course. But you still have civilian needs that you need to provide for and which give your economy the strength to fight a war.
The power grid is very interconnected to provide redundancy. If possible, the major interconnects should *all* be required to be hardened against EMP. I don't know offhand how hard that is, but losing the power grid through New York and DC is a lot better than losing every power plant in the country...
This decision must have passed the legal department.
And it seems they've advised the top brass this case has no merit and they'll happily fight it.
For a cool $100 million + in legal fees:)
So for once HP did the smart thing.
Legal Department probably refused to say point blank that HP would definitely win (because only dumb legal departments do that), but said it would be somewhat expensive to fight. Probably less than $50M unless they are overpaying outside counsel.
Decision was probably motivated by non-legal factors. $100M is a drop in the bucket compared to cost of negative publicity on stock valuation. $100M is also a very small amount to pay to resolve outstanding litigation in anticipation of due diligence on substantial acquisition (e.g. of HP) or merger.
Seems like congress likes to act all indignant (certain congresscritters) and demand that executive branch agencies answer their questions and defend civil liberties, but in the end nothing ever is done. Even Nancy Pelosi, after being temporarily upset that she was the target of some surveillance (if I recall correctly) fully supports the NSA and their illegal information gathering. I am left to conclude that congress just puts on a good show for the masses while the media is focused, and then when things move on they go back to doing what they were doing before. Both parties.
Not much will be done, certainly.
Legal authority is pretty obvious--at least it's obvious that it's not constitutionally restricted. No warrant required under existing precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Doesn't mean they had a funding grant authorized by Congress for it, though.
But they are *THE* last line of defense that most of the citizenry have against violation of their civil rights and against government overreach.
Only if the button man follows orders.
They usually need federal judges too, to legitimize whatever they're trying to do. The Independent Judiciary in South Africa during Apartheid couldn't end it, but made some difference. The Judiciary in Pakistan didn't successfully prevent a warlord taking over, but made some difference. Neither judiciary was entirely gutted and as a result you got some systemic feedback against even oppressive regimes.
Your company has a data retention/destruction policy. Any of your emails can come up in a lawsuit against the company in the future, for example, which is almost certainly why they have a policy of destroying data. Do NOT violate their data policy without permission in writing that you keep a record of in your personal files. You don't want to get stuck with the bill for a lawsuit, or be known as the person responsible for the company losing one.
There is one way to effectively end the last slivers of anonymity on the internet. It's by insulting federal judges.
Sometimes they make bad decisions or don't understand something technical. And there are mostly two kinds--the highly-educated and the locally favored guy who put in his time serving the system. But they are *THE* last line of defense that most of the citizenry have against violation of their civil rights and against government overreach.
Amazon lowers the market price on things without you noticing. They recently announced that they're getting a better deal on shipping wires and such, so they can lower the prices of wires at Amazon Prime, and that should result in Best Buy lowering their prices similarly because their $10 minimum wire cost is based on Amazon's price.
You might not feel like you're beating the market, but you're beating the past prices on a lot of things there.
Yes, because they're screwing over their "partners." They make agreements not to poach certain products and then go in and come in right under their partners' prices on every other product. They're chasing margins, which is good short-term for value but forces all competition out of business. Ebay is the only competitor to amazon out there and they're not even trying to put themselves in the same class.
The Gates foundation invests its current money until it spends it. That's normal. Could it have a more socially conscious investment policy? Sure. That's a policy choice, and there are strong reasons for and against.
Stop apologizing for the immoral, unethical, and illegal actions of Bill Gates.
I'm not apologizing.
Greed implies personal benefit. If you're making less socially conscious investment choices in order to get a higher return that you are using to save people's lives, it seems likely that you are saving more lives than you are harming--especially when dealing with a public company that is not going to shut down a plant because you don't invest. The real world isn't black and white, and sometimes doing something grey helps you in the process of improving the world. If saving the world were as simple as killing Ganondorf, people would be lining up. It's not.
No doubt this thought has not eluded them but it sounds to me like people on a project overselling their good features and ignoring possible showstoppers early in the development process. After all maybe they won't show up down the road as being important.
Yes, it's the defense budget. That's how the procurement process works. To hell with accuracy, every project is someone's darling and must be sold. There was a great comedy about the Bradley fighting vehicle procurement, IIRC, with... maybe Kelsey Grammer and Cary Elwes? It would blow up with soldiers inside and we kept building the damn thing, even when Israel made us redesign the ones they bought because ours weren't safe.
Better yet, look at the Gates foundation or the like
Yes, just look at the Gates foundation.Everything about it is wonderful. How quickly they forget that Bill Gates stole that money. Microsoft was convicted of abusing its monopoly position and general anticompetitive behavior. Then Bush's dog Ashcroft, in control of the DoJ, let them off with a warning. Not even a handslap. Microsoft is part of the evil that is buying and selling this country, and Bill Gates was chief presiding evil bastard. You really think he's changed? Guess what, the Gates Foundation is making money investing in things that kill people. It's not trying to make the world a better place. It's a tax dodge.
Yes, you're very smart. Now stop reacting long enough to think.
The question isn't where the money came from. The question is whether it is being used intelligently--in an attempt to improve major problems that need reform. When you are deciding where to donate your money, it doesn't matter whether you're leveraging it with money made by a warlord or money made by a church--what matters is that you're leveraging it effectively.
The Gates foundation invests its current money until it spends it. That's normal. Could it have a more socially conscious investment policy? Sure. That's a policy choice, and there are strong reasons for and against.
Big endowment schools are simply not the most effective place to donate. If you have a lot of money and it's really where you want to give--or more likely if you're trying to buy someone's way in--sure, nothing's stopping you from donating. But if your goal is improvement of almost anything, it's just dumb.
Donate $1/year to keep up your alumni participation numbers, which influences the ratings of your school and the value of your degree. Aside from that, give someplace where the dollars are more effective.
If you are going to give to a school, give to a school that does a lot of public interest work but has a low endowment-per-capita. (Georgetown Law comes to mind, for example--a law school with a strong public interest program and a small endowment per capita).
If you are going to give to to another non-for-profit, look for direct aid dollars. Better yet, look at the Gates foundation or the like--the people who are spending billions and their life's fortune on this hire pretty good people to run it, aiming at maximizing long-term benefit. That is kind of awesome. Leverage their investment to direct your own. Picking a charity on your own is *hard*--too many are scams or mismanaged.
Having witnessed first hand how the Red Cross spends its money on IT infrastructure it doesn't need, I refuse to give them a single dime.
What I have heard from multiple sources, including people who have worked for it, is that the Red Cross lies to people about where money is being used as part of its business model. It claims to be raising money for disaster X and then puts the money into its coffers. While it does spend some money on disaster X, there is no guarantee (or even likelihood) that the money you sent in for disaster X will be used for disaster X.
Yeah - earthquakes that are dwarfed by the vibrations from passing trucks. Why exactly does that suck?
You are either (1) rationalizing a harmful practice in which you have a vested interest, (2) being paid to take deceptive positions on the internet, or (3) have bought the lies of persons in category 1 or 2. That doesn't necessarily make you bad--the oil companies hire *very* good people to do this, and of course as humans we are all very good at rationalizing things and somewhat bad at spotting lies.
These earthquakes are not limited in effect to the side of an interstate. An oil company should not be causing people living in their own homes to go through an earthquake every day, and certainly shouldn't be doing it unless *paying* to insure all of those people for property, casualty, or medical harm resulting from the earthquakes, not to mention partial loss of the use and enjoyment of their property and any decrease in market value.
Admittedly, most are big enough to be felt but too small to do direct and immediate damage. Still, that doesn't mean they always will be, and shaking houses is obviously not good for them and over time causes settling, cracking, etc...
If you work for the Gov then this information should be public anyway. We pay your salary, we should know whats its going towards. We don't need any more secrecy, all that leads to asides from war in middle east countries is racist white cops shooting innocent blank teens.
You also pay the salary of Apple employees if you buy a computer, and own the company if you own stock. You may be able to see their quarterly reports, but do you really think you should be able to know *everything* they're working on? Won't that take away their competitive advantage and ability to protect themselves against threats to the company?
Most big companies are working on some non-public things because public exposure would make those efforts either much harder or futile. As much as I agree with the "we pay their salary" idea and the need for good civilian oversight recognizing the government monopoly on the use of force, some things *need* to be done in secret.
What we really need is responsible oversight and procedural protections ensuring the surveillance intel isn't misused, and that people (1) who need to report violations within the system or (2) from outside the system who find themselves blackmailed by it are able to get an immediate and massive response from government that severely penalizes the responsible parties within the intelligence community who misused their power.
Right now, we have no reason to believe such a process exists.
Sure, if your disposal wells don't get too close to drinking aquifers and nobody needed the millions of gallons their pumping up to drink, there's not much effect on the water table.
But it's causing hundreds of earthquakes. Which kinda sucks.
If your municipality lets you, install a septic instead of connecting to city sewer. No sewer fee. (Just get it pumped every few years).
You first tell him to minimize maintenance, and then you tell him to opt for something which requires more maintenance and is problem-prone. This makes no sense at all. Of course, some of this depends on location, but in most places I've seen, there's no sewer fee, there's only a water fee. The sewer cost is built in, and handled by the same entity, so there's no advantage in not having sewer service. Sewer service is simple and reliable; most people never have any problems (except maybe clogs, but you'd have those with septic too). Getting a septic tank cleaned is a pain, and worst of all, having a septic system means having a septic field, which can have problems, especially if there's any flooding. Finally, most places probably don't want you to have septic because they want the water back, so it can be processed and put back into the system.
I think this depends a lot on location. Getting a tank pumped is easy--you call a company every five years and they do it. Pay a handyman a few bucks to dig it up if you want to save a few bucks over having the company do it. But there's some competition among the pumping companies, and you're not beholden to a monopoly whose budget you can't control which may turn around and decide to install a massive sewage treatment plant and pass the bill on to you. Now if you don't have enough land or a big enough lot or the right drainage for a septic under ideal conditions, for example, then yes, sewer is much more likely to make sense.
Pick some trees and maybe bushes you like and put them in. Trimming every 1-10 years is easier than cutting the lawn every 3 weeks.
Bushes usually require trimming far more often than that. But avoiding lawns is a good idea if you can do it. Look up "xeriscaping". If you're going to have any lawn, try to keep the grassy area small, and use a manual reel mower to cut it; you'll get better exercise that way and generate no pollution.
This isn't 1995; why would you need wiring for speakers? That's what Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth are for. Direct wiring to speakers is mostly obsolete now (it still probably makes sense for a good stereo system, but I'm talking about situations where the speakers are remote, and not really meant for premium sound quality).
Good point. Yes, it was more one of those "it's easy to do while building and might be useful" things. You don't really need it, but you might want to plan your entertainment system while planning your building.
I agree with your concept, but not your implementation.
Gutters are great for collecting water for a tank. Tank-water is great: personally I will happily drink it, but at the least you can use it for washing, showers, toilets etc.
Also I'm a huge fan of a *productive* garden. Not a pretty-pretty garden full of ornamental shrubs and flowers: that's a pointless waste of space, time and energy. A garden full of fruit trees and veges on the other hand is really, really practical. Add some chooks if the neighbours allow and you'll get eggs, weeding and pest control as well.
But generally yes: practical, low maintenance wins every time.
Oh, yes, sorry, I meant to mention that about greywater use. If you do go with gutters, I agree that they should be set up to feed some kind of non-potable water system if your municipality allows. Although I would want to set it up so that it would be easily changable in case I want to sell it to someone with who sees that as an evil hippy feature instead of as a neat green feature.
I still would absolutely avoid gutters because it is too easy for someone to forget them, or put off the maintenance, or not realize a drywell is plugged up, and have them cause water damage at the roof or foundation.
My parents and I live in the same town. They have septic, I have sewer. The sewer fee is very cheap; much more preferable to dealing with a septic tank. A septic tank is also a liability if you need to get it replaced.
YMMV. There's almost nothing to dealing with a septic--get it pumped every few years. Connection to sewer may well need to get replaced as often, so the delta on capital isn't quite as big as you'd think--a good septic lasts 40 years, anyway. Your local sewer fee is cheap, but some places it isn't--and it's a monopoly you're totally beholden to, so if they have to install a new sewage treatment plant and rates skyrocket, there is nothing you can do about it.
Your first principle should be aiming for low maintenance costs. Minimize the cost of *owning* the house, in terms of *money*, *time*, and *complexity*. It makes a huge difference--much easier to hold onto the house over time if your finances change, for example; much easier to have time to spend with people or on new productive projects rather than doing the same old maintenance; less to remember or coordinate between multiple maintenance people; more return if you ever want to live somewhere else and decide to hang on to this and rent; etc...
Don't install gutters. People put off cleaning gutters and then get water damage or clogging of pipes to drywells. Install french drains under the edges of the roof where the water will drain.
If your municipality lets you, install a septic instead of connecting to city sewer. No sewer fee. (Just get it pumped every few years).
Unless you play in a yard or want on for social reasons or safety reasons (depending on neighborhood), steer clear of having one. They require maintenance and generate pollution. Pick some trees and maybe bushes you like and put them in. Trimming every 1-10 years is easier than cutting the lawn every 3 weeks. I would probably tend to go with evergreens, but there's a bunch you can do. Several people have suggested gardens, and that can also be fun, but there can be a lot of labor so don't count on always being able to do it, or else pick plants that require little labor to produce (like squash).
Install a good security system. Where by "good" I mostly mean "thorough enough that it covers everything." Since you're building, a wired one is relatively easy to install.
Include low-temperature sensors to warn you if the house is going to freeze, and leak detection around the water tanks. These can be wired into the security system (ideal) or on their own.
Include low-voltage wiring for speakers as well as the alarm system.
Overpower it. It's a new house; I would set it up with 400 amp service so you hopefully never need to upgrade the electric. The cost difference between 200 and 400 when you're putting it in is usually relatively small. Also at least a generator interlock; whether you want a permanent generator likely depends on your location.
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He played King Haggard in the Last Unicorn.
You said something arguably bad about NY, or perhaps someone has a relative there who fixes potholes. Don't lose any sleep over it.
What good are sensors that report this?
We have a pair of potholes here on an on-ramp that takes about 2 months to become holes every time they fix them. They look like twi round buttons, with mous^h car-over effect. When freshly fixed they stick out a bit. Then the buttons slowly move into pressed state ;)
Theres a lot of crumbled asphalt accumulating in the steel structure below those holes that the asphalt street is built on. They take about a month or two to fix it up and then it starts "pressing the buttons" again.
You can calibrate the calendar on this, yet I have to avoid these for a month or so every couple months by using the other lane although that lane will exit and I have to go back over again.
Your lane is wider than your car. If you know the precise location of a pothole you can frequently drive around it in the right driving conditions, either by switching lanes or by moving within your lane.
A computer that knows the precise location is substantially more likely to be able to do that than a human driver, resulting in a lot less wear on your vehicle and slower expansion of the pothole.
I also live in San Diego: I'm pretty sure it's a parasite which feeds on Federal Highway Dollars. It normally only afflicts populations in the less fortunate/"weather-challenged" fly-over states. Our state's GDP is subsidizing their unfortunate choice of residence so that the farmers have someone to talk to.
You are poorly-informed.
Potholes on roads in and out of NYC in a bad winter can get *incredibly* bad. That's 800,000+ vehicles a day, many of them *very* high-end, with tires bouncing off jagged holes repeatedly at significant speeds.
This despite the fact that NYC has probably the most extensive use of mass transit in the nation.
"If people imagine that we’ve got the resources to do as much intrusion as they worry about, I would reassure them that it’s impossible."
Sure, we're doing a lot of bad illegal shit, but we don't have time to do as much bad illegal shit as you think we are.
Imagine if that logic were applied by a bank robber: Sure, I robbed the bank, but I didn't have time to steal as much money as you thought I did.
Actually, this is a quintessential part of the debate. The Supreme Court considers it now on technology cases that involve the ability to do dragnet surveillance on large numbers of people or over an extended time period on the same person. The idea is basically that what used to be okay because cops were practically limited by the cost of extensive surveillance might no longer be okay when they are able to collect a LOT of surveillance data cheaply.
This came up in a GPS tracking case a few years back.
The causes of an EMP are nuclear blast or solar flare, I think in case of the former you would have far larger problems than the grid to worry about.
Actually, in the case of a single or small number of nuclear blasts, or a low-atmo nuclear detonation, restoring the power grid is one of the first problems you have.
If you're dealing with total war with a major power, it's pretty much the end of the world anyway. But if you're dealing with a couple of nukes from a newly nuclear nation or as part of a proportional response in a conflict between major powers (game theory in a world where nobody is stupid enough to destroy the world), you have a lot of refugees to deal with and a lot of infrastructure to keep going.
Do you have military needs that take priority? Of course. But you still have civilian needs that you need to provide for and which give your economy the strength to fight a war.
The power grid is very interconnected to provide redundancy. If possible, the major interconnects should *all* be required to be hardened against EMP. I don't know offhand how hard that is, but losing the power grid through New York and DC is a lot better than losing every power plant in the country...
This decision must have passed the legal department.
And it seems they've advised the top brass this case has no merit and they'll happily fight it.
For a cool $100 million + in legal fees :)
So for once HP did the smart thing.
Legal Department probably refused to say point blank that HP would definitely win (because only dumb legal departments do that), but said it would be somewhat expensive to fight. Probably less than $50M unless they are overpaying outside counsel.
Decision was probably motivated by non-legal factors. $100M is a drop in the bucket compared to cost of negative publicity on stock valuation. $100M is also a very small amount to pay to resolve outstanding litigation in anticipation of due diligence on substantial acquisition (e.g. of HP) or merger.
Seems like congress likes to act all indignant (certain congresscritters) and demand that executive branch agencies answer their questions and defend civil liberties, but in the end nothing ever is done. Even Nancy Pelosi, after being temporarily upset that she was the target of some surveillance (if I recall correctly) fully supports the NSA and their illegal information gathering. I am left to conclude that congress just puts on a good show for the masses while the media is focused, and then when things move on they go back to doing what they were doing before. Both parties.
Not much will be done, certainly.
Legal authority is pretty obvious--at least it's obvious that it's not constitutionally restricted. No warrant required under existing precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Doesn't mean they had a funding grant authorized by Congress for it, though.
But they are *THE* last line of defense that most of the citizenry have against violation of their civil rights and against government overreach.
Only if the button man follows orders.
They usually need federal judges too, to legitimize whatever they're trying to do. The Independent Judiciary in South Africa during Apartheid couldn't end it, but made some difference. The Judiciary in Pakistan didn't successfully prevent a warlord taking over, but made some difference. Neither judiciary was entirely gutted and as a result you got some systemic feedback against even oppressive regimes.
Um... archive it and let them search it? Lol
NO. Do not.
Your company has a data retention/destruction policy. Any of your emails can come up in a lawsuit against the company in the future, for example, which is almost certainly why they have a policy of destroying data. Do NOT violate their data policy without permission in writing that you keep a record of in your personal files. You don't want to get stuck with the bill for a lawsuit, or be known as the person responsible for the company losing one.
There is one way to effectively end the last slivers of anonymity on the internet. It's by insulting federal judges.
Sometimes they make bad decisions or don't understand something technical. And there are mostly two kinds--the highly-educated and the locally favored guy who put in his time serving the system. But they are *THE* last line of defense that most of the citizenry have against violation of their civil rights and against government overreach.
Amazon lowers the market price on things without you noticing. They recently announced that they're getting a better deal on shipping wires and such, so they can lower the prices of wires at Amazon Prime, and that should result in Best Buy lowering their prices similarly because their $10 minimum wire cost is based on Amazon's price.
You might not feel like you're beating the market, but you're beating the past prices on a lot of things there.
Yes, because they're screwing over their "partners." They make agreements not to poach certain products and then go in and come in right under their partners' prices on every other product. They're chasing margins, which is good short-term for value but forces all competition out of business. Ebay is the only competitor to amazon out there and they're not even trying to put themselves in the same class.
The Gates foundation invests its current money until it spends it. That's normal. Could it have a more socially conscious investment policy? Sure. That's a policy choice, and there are strong reasons for and against.
Reasons for: greed.
Reasons against: everything else.
Stop apologizing for the immoral, unethical, and illegal actions of Bill Gates.
I'm not apologizing.
Greed implies personal benefit. If you're making less socially conscious investment choices in order to get a higher return that you are using to save people's lives, it seems likely that you are saving more lives than you are harming--especially when dealing with a public company that is not going to shut down a plant because you don't invest. The real world isn't black and white, and sometimes doing something grey helps you in the process of improving the world. If saving the world were as simple as killing Ganondorf, people would be lining up. It's not.
No doubt this thought has not eluded them but it sounds to me like people on a project overselling their good features and ignoring possible showstoppers early in the development process. After all maybe they won't show up down the road as being important.
Yes, it's the defense budget. That's how the procurement process works. To hell with accuracy, every project is someone's darling and must be sold. There was a great comedy about the Bradley fighting vehicle procurement, IIRC, with... maybe Kelsey Grammer and Cary Elwes? It would blow up with soldiers inside and we kept building the damn thing, even when Israel made us redesign the ones they bought because ours weren't safe.
Better yet, look at the Gates foundation or the like
Yes, just look at the Gates foundation. Everything about it is wonderful. How quickly they forget that Bill Gates stole that money. Microsoft was convicted of abusing its monopoly position and general anticompetitive behavior. Then Bush's dog Ashcroft, in control of the DoJ, let them off with a warning. Not even a handslap. Microsoft is part of the evil that is buying and selling this country, and Bill Gates was chief presiding evil bastard. You really think he's changed? Guess what, the Gates Foundation is making money investing in things that kill people. It's not trying to make the world a better place. It's a tax dodge.
Yes, you're very smart. Now stop reacting long enough to think.
The question isn't where the money came from. The question is whether it is being used intelligently--in an attempt to improve major problems that need reform. When you are deciding where to donate your money, it doesn't matter whether you're leveraging it with money made by a warlord or money made by a church--what matters is that you're leveraging it effectively.
The Gates foundation invests its current money until it spends it. That's normal. Could it have a more socially conscious investment policy? Sure. That's a policy choice, and there are strong reasons for and against.
Stop looking for reasons to hate.
Big endowment schools are simply not the most effective place to donate. If you have a lot of money and it's really where you want to give--or more likely if you're trying to buy someone's way in--sure, nothing's stopping you from donating. But if your goal is improvement of almost anything, it's just dumb.
Donate $1/year to keep up your alumni participation numbers, which influences the ratings of your school and the value of your degree. Aside from that, give someplace where the dollars are more effective.
If you are going to give to a school, give to a school that does a lot of public interest work but has a low endowment-per-capita. (Georgetown Law comes to mind, for example--a law school with a strong public interest program and a small endowment per capita).
If you are going to give to to another non-for-profit, look for direct aid dollars. Better yet, look at the Gates foundation or the like--the people who are spending billions and their life's fortune on this hire pretty good people to run it, aiming at maximizing long-term benefit. That is kind of awesome. Leverage their investment to direct your own. Picking a charity on your own is *hard*--too many are scams or mismanaged.
Having witnessed first hand how the Red Cross spends its money on IT infrastructure it doesn't need, I refuse to give them a single dime.
What I have heard from multiple sources, including people who have worked for it, is that the Red Cross lies to people about where money is being used as part of its business model. It claims to be raising money for disaster X and then puts the money into its coffers. While it does spend some money on disaster X, there is no guarantee (or even likelihood) that the money you sent in for disaster X will be used for disaster X.
There's a word for that: fraud.
Yeah - earthquakes that are dwarfed by the vibrations from passing trucks. Why exactly does that suck?
You are either (1) rationalizing a harmful practice in which you have a vested interest, (2) being paid to take deceptive positions on the internet, or (3) have bought the lies of persons in category 1 or 2. That doesn't necessarily make you bad--the oil companies hire *very* good people to do this, and of course as humans we are all very good at rationalizing things and somewhat bad at spotting lies.
These earthquakes are not limited in effect to the side of an interstate. An oil company should not be causing people living in their own homes to go through an earthquake every day, and certainly shouldn't be doing it unless *paying* to insure all of those people for property, casualty, or medical harm resulting from the earthquakes, not to mention partial loss of the use and enjoyment of their property and any decrease in market value.
Admittedly, most are big enough to be felt but too small to do direct and immediate damage. Still, that doesn't mean they always will be, and shaking houses is obviously not good for them and over time causes settling, cracking, etc...
If you work for the Gov then this information should be public anyway. We pay your salary, we should know whats its going towards. We don't need any more secrecy, all that leads to asides from war in middle east countries is racist white cops shooting innocent blank teens.
You also pay the salary of Apple employees if you buy a computer, and own the company if you own stock. You may be able to see their quarterly reports, but do you really think you should be able to know *everything* they're working on? Won't that take away their competitive advantage and ability to protect themselves against threats to the company?
Most big companies are working on some non-public things because public exposure would make those efforts either much harder or futile. As much as I agree with the "we pay their salary" idea and the need for good civilian oversight recognizing the government monopoly on the use of force, some things *need* to be done in secret.
What we really need is responsible oversight and procedural protections ensuring the surveillance intel isn't misused, and that people (1) who need to report violations within the system or (2) from outside the system who find themselves blackmailed by it are able to get an immediate and massive response from government that severely penalizes the responsible parties within the intelligence community who misused their power.
Right now, we have no reason to believe such a process exists.
Sure, if your disposal wells don't get too close to drinking aquifers and nobody needed the millions of gallons their pumping up to drink, there's not much effect on the water table.
But it's causing hundreds of earthquakes. Which kinda sucks.
I have to disagree with some of your advice.
If your municipality lets you, install a septic instead of connecting to city sewer. No sewer fee. (Just get it pumped every few years).
You first tell him to minimize maintenance, and then you tell him to opt for something which requires more maintenance and is problem-prone. This makes no sense at all. Of course, some of this depends on location, but in most places I've seen, there's no sewer fee, there's only a water fee. The sewer cost is built in, and handled by the same entity, so there's no advantage in not having sewer service. Sewer service is simple and reliable; most people never have any problems (except maybe clogs, but you'd have those with septic too). Getting a septic tank cleaned is a pain, and worst of all, having a septic system means having a septic field, which can have problems, especially if there's any flooding. Finally, most places probably don't want you to have septic because they want the water back, so it can be processed and put back into the system.
I think this depends a lot on location. Getting a tank pumped is easy--you call a company every five years and they do it. Pay a handyman a few bucks to dig it up if you want to save a few bucks over having the company do it. But there's some competition among the pumping companies, and you're not beholden to a monopoly whose budget you can't control which may turn around and decide to install a massive sewage treatment plant and pass the bill on to you. Now if you don't have enough land or a big enough lot or the right drainage for a septic under ideal conditions, for example, then yes, sewer is much more likely to make sense.
Pick some trees and maybe bushes you like and put them in. Trimming every 1-10 years is easier than cutting the lawn every 3 weeks.
Bushes usually require trimming far more often than that. But avoiding lawns is a good idea if you can do it. Look up "xeriscaping". If you're going to have any lawn, try to keep the grassy area small, and use a manual reel mower to cut it; you'll get better exercise that way and generate no pollution.
All good ideas.
This isn't 1995; why would you need wiring for speakers? That's what Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth are for. Direct wiring to speakers is mostly obsolete now (it still probably makes sense for a good stereo system, but I'm talking about situations where the speakers are remote, and not really meant for premium sound quality).
Good point. Yes, it was more one of those "it's easy to do while building and might be useful" things. You don't really need it, but you might want to plan your entertainment system while planning your building.
I agree with your concept, but not your implementation.
Gutters are great for collecting water for a tank. Tank-water is great: personally I will happily drink it, but at the least you can use it for washing, showers, toilets etc.
Also I'm a huge fan of a *productive* garden. Not a pretty-pretty garden full of ornamental shrubs and flowers: that's a pointless waste of space, time and energy. A garden full of fruit trees and veges on the other hand is really, really practical. Add some chooks if the neighbours allow and you'll get eggs, weeding and pest control as well.
But generally yes: practical, low maintenance wins every time.
Oh, yes, sorry, I meant to mention that about greywater use. If you do go with gutters, I agree that they should be set up to feed some kind of non-potable water system if your municipality allows. Although I would want to set it up so that it would be easily changable in case I want to sell it to someone with who sees that as an evil hippy feature instead of as a neat green feature.
I still would absolutely avoid gutters because it is too easy for someone to forget them, or put off the maintenance, or not realize a drywell is plugged up, and have them cause water damage at the roof or foundation.
My parents and I live in the same town. They have septic, I have sewer. The sewer fee is very cheap; much more preferable to dealing with a septic tank. A septic tank is also a liability if you need to get it replaced.
YMMV. There's almost nothing to dealing with a septic--get it pumped every few years. Connection to sewer may well need to get replaced as often, so the delta on capital isn't quite as big as you'd think--a good septic lasts 40 years, anyway. Your local sewer fee is cheap, but some places it isn't--and it's a monopoly you're totally beholden to, so if they have to install a new sewage treatment plant and rates skyrocket, there is nothing you can do about it.
Your first principle should be aiming for low maintenance costs. Minimize the cost of *owning* the house, in terms of *money*, *time*, and *complexity*. It makes a huge difference--much easier to hold onto the house over time if your finances change, for example; much easier to have time to spend with people or on new productive projects rather than doing the same old maintenance; less to remember or coordinate between multiple maintenance people; more return if you ever want to live somewhere else and decide to hang on to this and rent; etc...
Don't install gutters. People put off cleaning gutters and then get water damage or clogging of pipes to drywells. Install french drains under the edges of the roof where the water will drain.
If your municipality lets you, install a septic instead of connecting to city sewer. No sewer fee. (Just get it pumped every few years).
Unless you play in a yard or want on for social reasons or safety reasons (depending on neighborhood), steer clear of having one. They require maintenance and generate pollution. Pick some trees and maybe bushes you like and put them in. Trimming every 1-10 years is easier than cutting the lawn every 3 weeks. I would probably tend to go with evergreens, but there's a bunch you can do. Several people have suggested gardens, and that can also be fun, but there can be a lot of labor so don't count on always being able to do it, or else pick plants that require little labor to produce (like squash).
Install a good security system. Where by "good" I mostly mean "thorough enough that it covers everything." Since you're building, a wired one is relatively easy to install.
Include low-temperature sensors to warn you if the house is going to freeze, and leak detection around the water tanks. These can be wired into the security system (ideal) or on their own.
Include low-voltage wiring for speakers as well as the alarm system.
Overpower it. It's a new house; I would set it up with 400 amp service so you hopefully never need to upgrade the electric. The cost difference between 200 and 400 when you're putting it in is usually relatively small. Also at least a generator interlock; whether you want a permanent generator likely depends on your location.