As much as I would have loved to see Clinton's work continued, I was not surprised when it wasn't. As soon as there is a surplus, the jackals start to circle. I supported was happy about us pushing the debt down, but not surprised that the trend was turned. I believe it would have happened whether the war was started or not.
The problems with public schools has nothing to do with funding to the schools. Schools take in huge amounts of money. The problem is in how they spend that money. When I see schools public schools installing stadiums, I have a hard time believing that the reason they can't buy books is because they didn't collect enough money. No matter how much money you throw at public schools, they will never have enough.
So, yes, give me 'cool pictures' and 'colored rocks' any day. It will do far more to create an educated populace than throwing money into a business that has no incentive, and many disincentives to delivering a good education.
I think the war in Iraq is as stupid as the next guy, but none of the problems you state are new since the invasion. The financial crisis that the US is facing is not caused by our war of aggression. It is caused by deficit spending. If the we had never attacked Iraq, we would still be screwed financially.
That is only if you don't think there are any environmental problems. It is also absolutely possible to have localized overpopulation. If your local area is overpopulated, it doesn't matter if the planet as a whole is. You could still want a bunch of people to die so that your local area is no longer overpopulated.
Yes, it is plenty bright with a full moon, and black as pitch during a new moon.
We clearly did not do fine before artificial lighting. Think for a second about what color is associated with evil. In virtually every culture on the planet, it was black. Do you know why? Because when you would wander around in the black of night, your chances of dieing went up dramatically. Since lots more people died in the black of night, the night must have been inhabited by evil beings, and thus black is the color of evil and death. This is a pretty good indication that we didn't do fine.
Of course, maybe I am taking you all wrong. It is possible that you recognize that virtually all of our environmental problems are caused by over population, and when you say 'we did just fine', you could mean that having more people die by turning the lights off would be good for the environment. With that, I could agree, even if it was an uncomfortable agreement.
You just restated your confusion. Most PC games are NOT Windows specific. In fact most PC games run in Flash, and work just as well on Mac, Linux and Windows. If they do not work properly for you, then you have done something seriously wrong to your computer, and you cannot legitimately blame it on MS. Your confusion seems to be that you either don't know what a game is, you are unaware of the vast number of games available, or you think that any game that isn't available on a console doesn't count. My son plays hundreds of different games on a PC that I bought 6 years ago. It plays them just fine. In fact, I think you would be hard pressed to find a PC for sale that won't play most games that have been written in the last 3 years.
3D and Commercial is not the definition of 'Game'. It really is a shame that the FPS players have successfully usurped the title of 'gamer', as it seems to have caused a lot of confusion as to what a game is.
Bzzt... Try running the 20 year old PC game on a 20 year old PC. it will work just fine. Or if you want to go the other way, try stuffing that Nes cartridge into your Wii. It won't even fit. Saying that game for system A won't work because I got rid of system A, but game for system B does work because I kept system B, thus system B is better, is very poor logic.
You also increase dramatically the risk of losing or damaging the lights. Although, even if you take the move out of the equation, the LED lights are a questionable investment. Of course, given the idea that you don't get your money back from solar panels on sale, you should be seriously looking to buy houses with solar panels already on the, as you would be getting them for free.
The same problem can exist with LED lighting. Lets run some numbers:
The price of one of the LED lights is $6.00+. We will give the LED the benefit of the doubt on price here.
The price of an equivalent CF is $0.75.
So, we are looking at a price difference of $5.25 that has to be recouped to make the LED light a break even investment.
Let take for easy math and say that a CF bulb takes 8 watts to match the 4 watt LED light in brightness. That gives you 4 watts greater draw from a CF.
To get 1 kilowatt hour more used, you need to run the light for 250 hours. Looking on my PG&E bill, I can see that my highest tier for electrical cost is $0.22. Since Any energy savings would be applied to the highest cost electricity first, that is what we will use. So, $5.25 / $0.22 = 23.86 kilowatt hours that need to be saved.
So, multiply the 250 hours it takes to save a kilowatt hour by the 23.86 kilowatt hours that need to be saved: 250 x 23.86 = 5965 hours of use to break even.
So, lets say the average household light is used for 5 hours a day. That gives us 5965 / 5 = 1193 days, or 3.26 years. Certainly that is better than the solar panels, but it is a long time to just break even.
We also have to consider that these lights only last for about 20,000 hours, so in it's life, you are going to save 20,000 hour life * 4 watts savings = 80,000 watt hours / 1000 = 80 kilowatt * $0.22 = $17.60 energy savings - $5.25 capital costs = A grand total of $12.15 over the course of ~10 years. And this is only if the none of the lights are lost (during one of your moves) or are broken over the course of those 10 years.
So, given these optimistic numbers, it sounds like the lights might be a little better investment than solar panals if you isolate the investment to a 10 year span. This is certainly not for everyone.
"Why should cost be an issue?"
For the same reason that you need to know the price of anything before you buy it. Early adopters often get screwed. I like to know how close things are to the break even point. It doesn't sound like this has reached it yet. They don't last much longer than a traditional light, and don't last even as long as a CF while costing more.
I would say that you are only half right. If Dish is easier to hack, saying that DirectTV is unhacked is like saying that my front door is secure because it's easier to throw a rock through the 4x8 window right next to it. Largely pointless for the conversation. After all, have you succeeded if the hacker is still getting the data through another channel? Then there is Netflix. Most of the people I knew that hacked DirecTV did were subscribers to DirecTV. They hacked the system for the PPV channels. At $19 a month for way better selection, I know a lot of people switched from hacked DirectTV to Netflix because it was a better value.
They don't. That was just for the parent poster. Another hint for him that he isn't the norm... Prostate exams are normally done by a doctor, not a priest, or your weird uncle Eddie.
I have considered that possibility, I then dismissed it, as I do still play games on the PC. I just don't BUY games. When I think about buying games, I start thinking about all of the hassle it is to buy the game. Things like, having to keep the CD out because they won't allow a full install for copy protection reasons, they are likely to start installing non-game related stuff to my hard drive, degrading my system, and increasing the likelihood that I will have to do a reinstall. They just might install a root kit that will do who knows what to my system. If I put the game away for a couple of years, I might not be able to play it later due to some artificial reason. I will have to make sure that I don't misplace the paper sleeve, as that is likely where the CD-Key is, and if I do, the game can never be reinstalled. Then there is the non-DRM related peeve of mine that they don't include artwork for me to put the CD in a gem case. Even when they do provide a gem case, they often only put the front cover, so you can't read the spine when it is on the shelf.
If didn't play games on my PC, your hypothesis could be correct, but I just play too many games on my PC for that to be the case. If I didn't want to spend the money, you might be right. But, no, I want to go out video game shopping. I want to give them my money, but when I consider it, I know that as soon as I get home, I'll be pissed off. That is why I don't buy commercial games.
I know that my software purchases have reduced to basically 0. Why? Because I expect to be able to pull an old game out of the garage that was fun in the decade I bought it, and still be able to play it. I also don't want to have to reinstall my OS after installing a few different games. I know that I haven't all but given up on PC gaming because consoles are better. I have given up on it because the software manufacturers have driven me off. Well not entirely, I still play some flash games.
So, I guess the correct statement should be that I have not given up on PAYING for PC games because consoles are better. I have have given up on PAYING for PC games because the software manufactures of FOR PAY games have driven me off.
I still remember the final straw. It was "Freedom Force". I bought the game, and when I got it home, I found that they had not packed the CD-Key in with the game. When I called their tech support line all it was was a recording saying that to get a key I would have to mail, yes mail, them a photocopy of the cd, and wait for them to mail me a key. I hung up and went online to find a 'pirate' key. That was the last commercial PC game I ever bought. I figured if I had to go to the trouble "pirating" the game anyway, there was no point in paying for it. When it came down to it, it turned out that buying the game was part of the fun, and it wasn't worth the effort to me to copy commercial games.
While the $200 price point was an exaggerated number pulled out of my bum to make a point, the the link you gave was definitely not a bargain. $6 for a 40 watt equivalent bulb that will only last a couple of years is not a great deal. The 4 watts of actual draw is good, but I have found that all of the led lights I have seen are highly directional, which makes the 40 watt equivalent claim questionable. Even in a best case scenario, it is still about the same energy draw as a CF, and has a much shorter life span. It is hard to compare the costs with CF since CF is subsidized, but prior to the subsidies, I believe that they were a little less expensive than what you linked to.
Now, this bulb might be the best thing since sliced bread, but I am curios as to the actual costs and performance.
Yes, cost is a concern, as lifetime can be dramatically shortened for various reasons. Remember when the CD was supposed to last 100 years? Things like power surges can burn out an led. If they are $200 a pop, you can forget about using them outside. There are already people that will steal a $0.50 light bulb. You can bet that they will be happy to start snagging $200 bulbs. Of course, with how easy that would be, maybe they would stop stealing copper. There is also the issue of opportunity cost. Today, solar panels on the roof will pay for themselves plus some. Why doesn't everyone have them? Because, sometimes the question isn't whether it is cheaper or not, but whether it is cheaper right now.
The price of the unit should be the simplest and most accurate answer of the three questions anyway, so I still want to know.
We are not talking about a person using something after being asked not to. We are discussing people using things with only automated permission, which some want to say is not having permission at all, so your example is not valid for the conversation.
By the way, what state do you live in? It is one I might consider if I ever chose to move to a different state.
You are in fantasy land. Saying someone made you angry is not a legal defense against disturbing the piece.
Saying that you were afraid because of my presence is not the same as sitting on your car, and it is not illegal to be in public places, even if you have an irrational fear of strangers. Go try telling a cop that you think some guy is going to mug you. You won't get far. Why? Because you being afraid is not me committing a crime. Stalking requires a lot more than seeing me sitting on your car, and sitting on a car is not stalking, anymore than breathing is stalking. While it is something that might be doen WHILE someone is stalking, so is breathing.
I know you really really want sitting on your car to be a crime, but the fact of the matter is that it is not a crime.
"Yes, actually it is. There are any number of laws that you could be charged with breaking just by sitting on my car without permission. The simplest being disturbing the peace when I came out and started yelling at you for it. Yes, I would be the one yelling and causing a scene, but you are the one who caused me to do so. The car is not public property, you have no right to do anything with/to it without permission of the owner. You can look at it, thats about it."
Bzzt. I am not disturbing the peace if you start yelling at me.
"I could also claim you were stalking me and you made me afraid, in which cause in most states I can get by with beating your ass since I'm afraid for my life."
Bzzt. You illegally filing a false police report does not make my actions illegal.
"Don't be a dipshit"
You used that word incorrectly. A 'dipshit' would be the one that does NOT know what they are talking about. And since you seem to think that your criminal behavior some how makes me the one breaking the law, you have clearly applied it to the wrong person.
Slashdot Mirror
As much as I would have loved to see Clinton's work continued, I was not surprised when it wasn't. As soon as there is a surplus, the jackals start to circle. I supported was happy about us pushing the debt down, but not surprised that the trend was turned. I believe it would have happened whether the war was started or not.
The problems with public schools has nothing to do with funding to the schools. Schools take in huge amounts of money. The problem is in how they spend that money. When I see schools public schools installing stadiums, I have a hard time believing that the reason they can't buy books is because they didn't collect enough money. No matter how much money you throw at public schools, they will never have enough.
So, yes, give me 'cool pictures' and 'colored rocks' any day. It will do far more to create an educated populace than throwing money into a business that has no incentive, and many disincentives to delivering a good education.
I think the war in Iraq is as stupid as the next guy, but none of the problems you state are new since the invasion. The financial crisis that the US is facing is not caused by our war of aggression. It is caused by deficit spending. If the we had never attacked Iraq, we would still be screwed financially.
Don't worry, someone will ask it a question that is a paradox before then, and the whole thing will destroy itself with sparks and slowed audio.
That is only if you don't think there are any environmental problems. It is also absolutely possible to have localized overpopulation. If your local area is overpopulated, it doesn't matter if the planet as a whole is. You could still want a bunch of people to die so that your local area is no longer overpopulated.
Wow. Did you really think he was serious? Time to tune that sarcasm meter.
Yes, it is plenty bright with a full moon, and black as pitch during a new moon.
We clearly did not do fine before artificial lighting. Think for a second about what color is associated with evil. In virtually every culture on the planet, it was black. Do you know why? Because when you would wander around in the black of night, your chances of dieing went up dramatically. Since lots more people died in the black of night, the night must have been inhabited by evil beings, and thus black is the color of evil and death. This is a pretty good indication that we didn't do fine.
Of course, maybe I am taking you all wrong. It is possible that you recognize that virtually all of our environmental problems are caused by over population, and when you say 'we did just fine', you could mean that having more people die by turning the lights off would be good for the environment. With that, I could agree, even if it was an uncomfortable agreement.
You just restated your confusion. Most PC games are NOT Windows specific. In fact most PC games run in Flash, and work just as well on Mac, Linux and Windows. If they do not work properly for you, then you have done something seriously wrong to your computer, and you cannot legitimately blame it on MS. Your confusion seems to be that you either don't know what a game is, you are unaware of the vast number of games available, or you think that any game that isn't available on a console doesn't count. My son plays hundreds of different games on a PC that I bought 6 years ago. It plays them just fine. In fact, I think you would be hard pressed to find a PC for sale that won't play most games that have been written in the last 3 years.
3D and Commercial is not the definition of 'Game'. It really is a shame that the FPS players have successfully usurped the title of 'gamer', as it seems to have caused a lot of confusion as to what a game is.
I am Sparticus!!!
Bzzt... Try running the 20 year old PC game on a 20 year old PC. it will work just fine. Or if you want to go the other way, try stuffing that Nes cartridge into your Wii. It won't even fit. Saying that game for system A won't work because I got rid of system A, but game for system B does work because I kept system B, thus system B is better, is very poor logic.
You also increase dramatically the risk of losing or damaging the lights. Although, even if you take the move out of the equation, the LED lights are a questionable investment. Of course, given the idea that you don't get your money back from solar panels on sale, you should be seriously looking to buy houses with solar panels already on the, as you would be getting them for free.
The same problem can exist with LED lighting. Lets run some numbers:
The price of one of the LED lights is $6.00+. We will give the LED the benefit of the doubt on price here. The price of an equivalent CF is $0.75.
So, we are looking at a price difference of $5.25 that has to be recouped to make the LED light a break even investment.
Let take for easy math and say that a CF bulb takes 8 watts to match the 4 watt LED light in brightness. That gives you 4 watts greater draw from a CF.
To get 1 kilowatt hour more used, you need to run the light for 250 hours. Looking on my PG&E bill, I can see that my highest tier for electrical cost is $0.22. Since Any energy savings would be applied to the highest cost electricity first, that is what we will use. So, $5.25 / $0.22 = 23.86 kilowatt hours that need to be saved.
So, multiply the 250 hours it takes to save a kilowatt hour by the 23.86 kilowatt hours that need to be saved: 250 x 23.86 = 5965 hours of use to break even.
So, lets say the average household light is used for 5 hours a day. That gives us 5965 / 5 = 1193 days, or 3.26 years. Certainly that is better than the solar panels, but it is a long time to just break even.
We also have to consider that these lights only last for about 20,000 hours, so in it's life, you are going to save 20,000 hour life * 4 watts savings = 80,000 watt hours / 1000 = 80 kilowatt * $0.22 = $17.60 energy savings - $5.25 capital costs = A grand total of $12.15 over the course of ~10 years. And this is only if the none of the lights are lost (during one of your moves) or are broken over the course of those 10 years.
So, given these optimistic numbers, it sounds like the lights might be a little better investment than solar panals if you isolate the investment to a 10 year span. This is certainly not for everyone.
"Why should cost be an issue?" For the same reason that you need to know the price of anything before you buy it. Early adopters often get screwed. I like to know how close things are to the break even point. It doesn't sound like this has reached it yet. They don't last much longer than a traditional light, and don't last even as long as a CF while costing more.
I would say that you are only half right. If Dish is easier to hack, saying that DirectTV is unhacked is like saying that my front door is secure because it's easier to throw a rock through the 4x8 window right next to it. Largely pointless for the conversation. After all, have you succeeded if the hacker is still getting the data through another channel? Then there is Netflix. Most of the people I knew that hacked DirecTV did were subscribers to DirecTV. They hacked the system for the PPV channels. At $19 a month for way better selection, I know a lot of people switched from hacked DirectTV to Netflix because it was a better value.
They don't. That was just for the parent poster. Another hint for him that he isn't the norm... Prostate exams are normally done by a doctor, not a priest, or your weird uncle Eddie.
I have considered that possibility, I then dismissed it, as I do still play games on the PC. I just don't BUY games. When I think about buying games, I start thinking about all of the hassle it is to buy the game. Things like, having to keep the CD out because they won't allow a full install for copy protection reasons, they are likely to start installing non-game related stuff to my hard drive, degrading my system, and increasing the likelihood that I will have to do a reinstall. They just might install a root kit that will do who knows what to my system. If I put the game away for a couple of years, I might not be able to play it later due to some artificial reason. I will have to make sure that I don't misplace the paper sleeve, as that is likely where the CD-Key is, and if I do, the game can never be reinstalled. Then there is the non-DRM related peeve of mine that they don't include artwork for me to put the CD in a gem case. Even when they do provide a gem case, they often only put the front cover, so you can't read the spine when it is on the shelf.
If didn't play games on my PC, your hypothesis could be correct, but I just play too many games on my PC for that to be the case. If I didn't want to spend the money, you might be right. But, no, I want to go out video game shopping. I want to give them my money, but when I consider it, I know that as soon as I get home, I'll be pissed off. That is why I don't buy commercial games.
I know that my software purchases have reduced to basically 0. Why? Because I expect to be able to pull an old game out of the garage that was fun in the decade I bought it, and still be able to play it. I also don't want to have to reinstall my OS after installing a few different games. I know that I haven't all but given up on PC gaming because consoles are better. I have given up on it because the software manufacturers have driven me off. Well not entirely, I still play some flash games.
So, I guess the correct statement should be that I have not given up on PAYING for PC games because consoles are better. I have have given up on PAYING for PC games because the software manufactures of FOR PAY games have driven me off.
I still remember the final straw. It was "Freedom Force". I bought the game, and when I got it home, I found that they had not packed the CD-Key in with the game. When I called their tech support line all it was was a recording saying that to get a key I would have to mail, yes mail, them a photocopy of the cd, and wait for them to mail me a key. I hung up and went online to find a 'pirate' key. That was the last commercial PC game I ever bought. I figured if I had to go to the trouble "pirating" the game anyway, there was no point in paying for it. When it came down to it, it turned out that buying the game was part of the fun, and it wasn't worth the effort to me to copy commercial games.
While the $200 price point was an exaggerated number pulled out of my bum to make a point, the the link you gave was definitely not a bargain. $6 for a 40 watt equivalent bulb that will only last a couple of years is not a great deal. The 4 watts of actual draw is good, but I have found that all of the led lights I have seen are highly directional, which makes the 40 watt equivalent claim questionable. Even in a best case scenario, it is still about the same energy draw as a CF, and has a much shorter life span. It is hard to compare the costs with CF since CF is subsidized, but prior to the subsidies, I believe that they were a little less expensive than what you linked to.
Now, this bulb might be the best thing since sliced bread, but I am curios as to the actual costs and performance.
Yes, cost is a concern, as lifetime can be dramatically shortened for various reasons. Remember when the CD was supposed to last 100 years? Things like power surges can burn out an led. If they are $200 a pop, you can forget about using them outside. There are already people that will steal a $0.50 light bulb. You can bet that they will be happy to start snagging $200 bulbs. Of course, with how easy that would be, maybe they would stop stealing copper. There is also the issue of opportunity cost. Today, solar panels on the roof will pay for themselves plus some. Why doesn't everyone have them? Because, sometimes the question isn't whether it is cheaper or not, but whether it is cheaper right now.
The price of the unit should be the simplest and most accurate answer of the three questions anyway, so I still want to know.
What was the cost?
How many watts does it pull?
What sized incandescent would you compare it to?
We are not talking about a person using something after being asked not to. We are discussing people using things with only automated permission, which some want to say is not having permission at all, so your example is not valid for the conversation.
By the way, what state do you live in? It is one I might consider if I ever chose to move to a different state.
You are in fantasy land. Saying someone made you angry is not a legal defense against disturbing the piece.
Saying that you were afraid because of my presence is not the same as sitting on your car, and it is not illegal to be in public places, even if you have an irrational fear of strangers. Go try telling a cop that you think some guy is going to mug you. You won't get far. Why? Because you being afraid is not me committing a crime. Stalking requires a lot more than seeing me sitting on your car, and sitting on a car is not stalking, anymore than breathing is stalking. While it is something that might be doen WHILE someone is stalking, so is breathing.
I know you really really want sitting on your car to be a crime, but the fact of the matter is that it is not a crime.
My mistake. Let me correct that.
Which has nothing to do with THE original analogy.
"Yes, actually it is. There are any number of laws that you could be charged with breaking just by sitting on my car without permission. The simplest being disturbing the peace when I came out and started yelling at you for it. Yes, I would be the one yelling and causing a scene, but you are the one who caused me to do so. The car is not public property, you have no right to do anything with/to it without permission of the owner. You can look at it, thats about it."
Bzzt. I am not disturbing the peace if you start yelling at me.
"I could also claim you were stalking me and you made me afraid, in which cause in most states I can get by with beating your ass since I'm afraid for my life."
Bzzt. You illegally filing a false police report does not make my actions illegal.
"Don't be a dipshit"
You used that word incorrectly. A 'dipshit' would be the one that does NOT know what they are talking about. And since you seem to think that your criminal behavior some how makes me the one breaking the law, you have clearly applied it to the wrong person.
"But I could easily sue you for causing damage to the hood/bumper or whatever else you may have damaged, provided I had proof/witnesses."
Which has nothing to do with your original analogy.