You, obviously, don't understand time of use metering. In a regulated utility (which most are in the United States at least), TOU metering would result in higher prices for usage at times that the spot price is high (due to higher demand) than when it's low. Utilities typically buy contracts and/or have their own generating capacity for much of their anticipated usage and can predict those costs fairly well so TOU pricing would be fairly predictable (the more predictable, the higher that predictable price will be typically be -- these contracts can be modeled, in part, as options). On the margins though where demand spikes (such as due to unseasonably cloudy weather that, increasingly, will result in low solar yields and spikes in demand from customers relative to their anticipated demand), they often need to go to the spot market.
For some time variants of TOU metering has been commonly available to businesses in areas I've worked -- and there's no question that businesses alter their usage in response. Residential users are not, generally, as accustomed to this yet but will be in the future just as they are now familiar with higher rates for toll lanes based on near instantaneous congestion levels. The days of "contracted fixed rates" being the only (or the most rational) choice for consumers are numbered and utilizing less predictable sources of power (wind and solar in particular) will accelerate this transition.
This is all from the United States viewpoint of course where there may be a stronger tendency to use markets to solve problems than in some other countries.
I can sell that at the spot market or power down my plant.
Your choice if you pay the price I will charge you for it.
That is correct -- but you (and all the other suppliers acting independently in their best interests) are making similar decisions -- which then impacts the spot price as you (and all the other producers acting in independently in their best interests) offer more power on the spot market for the next hour. The utilities nearly always have to buy the power if it's available at a rational price due to regulators. These markets can break down of course as they did in the winter of 2000/2001 in California - it's worth at least skimming this report [PDF] for some analysis of this disaster.
Nope. IoT (or similar) to the rescue - mostly automated.
First, your Tesla is set to charge to x% by time y and monitors energy prices and projections to decide when to turn the charger on/off (or, even decrease charge by backfeeding into the grid to take advantage of high energy prices - you might even be able to work from home often enough to decide to skip the commute to work and drain the Tesla to 10% by the next morning).
Second, your thermostat is hooked to it - and responds quickly to price increases - you notice and respond w/sweaters or reducing clothing (depending on which guests you may have visiting at the moment -- this does, however, have some potentially interesting side benefits in select cases).
Third, your lighting is hooked to it and begins to dim lights.
Fourth, your dishwasher, dryer, and washer is/can be set up to run on a "complete by" schedule and monitor energy prices and projections to decide when to start a preloaded cycle.
Fifth, a crawl appears at the bottom of your TV when prices get really high.
Yes, I think they will. When depends on each person's perceived value and cost of failing to do so. Given an indicator that was hard to miss, I think the majority of middle class people in America would reduce their home electrical use substantially when power hit, say, $3/kwh - although, I suspect enough businesses and others would have cut demand long before the cost rose to $3/kwh in most cases.
Over time, most people who use electric heat or A/C would have their thermostats programed to automatically drop/increase the "on" temp significantly for modest transient increases in electricity prices.
Because the excess of supply or excess of demand are by the minute or hour, not by the week, month, or year.
It's somewhat like buying a last minute airline ticket. If people were unwilling to pay more for a last minute ticket, all tickets would cost more (fine) but it would be impossible (because the airlines would price tickets to insure every seat was sold - or oversold - many hours before wheels up to minimize the risk of a single empty seat) to get a ticket on a commercial airliner to get to mom's bedside 1500 miles away before she expires.
By increasing prices when demand approaches the absolute maximum supply, consumers will reduce demand quickly (good, since supply can't be increased quickly). When power gets expensive enough, they will shut off rooms, wear more sweaters, turn lights off, instead of cooking a fancy dinner they will nuke something in the microwave and use disposable utensils (or, just wait to wash them until the next day), they will sit around in a single room and talk instead of playing on their computer or watching TV in individual rooms. Demand is extremely elastic, supply is inelastic at the top end. In extreme cases, they will shutdown their entire house (using winter shutdown procedures as needed) and gather in friends and neighbor's houses (perhaps, splitting the cost of the very expensive power during those times).
Who is going to build a conventional power plant and get it online within a few minutes of the moment when power will be almost priceless? "Almost priceless" because there simply is no other power available because every region nearby is in the same boat of having 100% renewable, most of which vary dramatically based on weather which has been unusually unfavorable for weeks. (The answer is: No One - It's Not Possible).
Presumably, hospitals et al won't be allowed to have their own generators powered by fossil fuels in 2050 (after all, that would violate the "end the burning of fossil fuels in any form by 2050"). Perhaps, for every two floors of patients, they will have a floor of batteries which they keep charged (and, most of which, get recycled due to old age without ever having been used during a "black swan" climate/power event), but that will drive up health care costs of course.
Realistically, there probably needs to be a tax on anyone connected to the grid to pay for, ironically, fossil (and, perhaps?, nuclear) powered power plants to be kept on standby for a few hours a decade of use. Ironic, because we are used to "green taxes". As well, each meter will probably need a way to cut amperage (and communicate to the house electrical control system) to fairly distribute the limited power -- you decide if you want your refrigerator or your 02 concentrator powered in a limited power shutdown and you will bid for the power you need to buy in a real time market.
It's true that Police, and usually Fire, services are included in your tax bill (directly or perhaps indirectly if you're a renter for example). However, these are not easily "metered" utility services. And, at least on some areas, you will get a bill from the City if you call the Paramedics come to your house unless you pay an annual subscription fee. These services are also for the common good (the person who calls the police is not the one that necessarily benefits from getting the murderer off the street for example or if your neighbor's house is on fire even if it's a complete loss by the time the Fire Department gets there, it's in your interest tha they attack the fire before it spreads and burns down the entire block). These services realistically can't be "metered". Also, it was once fairly common in some areas to subscribe to a fire service -- if you didn't subscribe, and your neighbor did, the service they subscribed to would protect your neighbor's house and not lift a finger to put your house fire out unless doing so would help save your neighbor's house.
Internet service is really much more similar to a utility - in fact it IS a utility. Few cities provide free utilities. Sometimes they offer subsidies for low income residents (life-line rates for example). Private companies often provide the service instead of the city (where I live, all these utilities are provided by a private company -- the resident pays the private company, not the government, for the services - just as they pay Comcast or AT&T for their internet service).
There are some services like education, medical care and child care that are cheaper and more efficient for the government to deliver
Is this why there are relatively few areas in the US where people with money send their kids to public schools? Is it likely that these people prefer an inferior education for their kids and are willing to shell out a lot of money for that while still paying taxes for superior educational services they have chosen not to use? Hmm... Sounds unlikely to me. My, admittedly limited, sample set of people I know who do choose to pay to send their kids to private school certainly don't do it because they are seeking an inferior education for their spawn.
Someone has to pay for purchasing, installing, and maintaining cables in the ground/undersea, switches, routers, head ends, etc. (And, being government provided, likely means the associated labor would have to be Union in many areas which will increase the costs).
I assume you are you offering to pick up the cost. (You must be very wealthy although I don't recall seeing drinkypoo on Forbes 100 list, but I assume you're Bill Gates or someone similar using a alias). Or, perhaps you think I should pay for it? Who? If everybody pays for it, then it isn't free for all and, in fact, is free for none (even those who don't use it).
The government doesn't provide electricity, water, food, sewers, phone service, bus service, or trash pickup "free for all". Why should they do so for internet access?
There's quite a bit of inefficiency with this system at my (very large) local Fry's when it was very busy. Although with NewEgg et al, I rarely go into a Frys now - I used to go in once every week or two now maybe only go once every few months and rarely when they are busy so my experiences may not reflect current practice well. In this case, they have many registers open and it's quite far from the head of the queue to the registers at the extreme reaches of the large register farm. As a result, when a checker is assigned a register a long way from the head of the queue, they end up waiting several seconds for their next customer to arrive and begin their transaction and that waiting time is wasted labor. Those checkers who are assigned registers closer to the head of the queue keep busier -- I don't know if they rotate to compensate for this or the best checkers are put at registers near the head of the queue or there is some other way to help compensate for this phenomena.
Also, without a "line coordinator" (who usually stands on a platform so they can see over the heads of customers), there can be several "green lights" on registers and as people self dispatch to these lights, it's often unclear to the next person in line if all the registers with green lights have been "claimed" by customers ahead of them who are walking towards registers and it's also hard to notice when a register light has just changed from red to green. This results in two people arriving at the same register or the person at the head of the line standing there thinking there's no available register when there is. Fortunately, when they are busy, the always seem to have a line coordinator to keep track of all this.
However, it occurred to me immediately that technology could pretty much solve this problem and eliminate the line dispatcher. At the head of the line, there could be a button (perhaps along with some motion/proximity sensors) which the customer at the head of the line holds down. A screen would display a register number as it becomes available and, perhaps, that register's light could then flash orange or something to make it stand out. When the button is released (and perhaps when sensors note the person at the head of the line has passed beyond the button), the displayed register is considered assigned and the next customer presses the button to get their next assignment. It's a bit complicated, but the average Fry's customer (at least in this area) is probably a little smarter and able to understand such a system than the average Walmart customer.
There, actually, would probably be no reason for the lights anymore on the registers with this system since each customer is told which register to go to.
As well, the system could track how long, on the average, it takes between a transaction finishing and the next one starting (presumably longer for those far from the head of the queue) and as hints of transaction completion are evident (payment in full for example) and item count/size are analyzed (for estimating bagging time), the next customer could be dispatched to the register before the prior transaction was actually complete - sometimes this would result in double stacking but the checker could delay the dispatch if they knew there was some reason the current transaction would take longer to complete "post payment" and if double stacking occurred the checker could notice it and with a single button push put the "stacked" customer at the head of the electronic queue and they would get redispatched to the next available nearby register (perhaps only "downstream" if possible to reduce two way traffic). Redispatches would be indicated on a small screen at each register and would only be done once a target register is immediately available (i.e., no speculative dispatch so customer doesn't get pissed at being "stacked" multiple times).
Extra credit for all the germs passed from customer to customer touching the button - although with some "gating" system sort of like freeway onramp metering and
Largely, though, it's the clientele. Just look at the "People of Walmart" websites...
What, did Walmart breed or cloned these people? Did they raise their own food and make their own stuff before and stopped doing this when Walmart came to town? Surely these people were shopping somewhere before Walmart came to town. So, is your complaint is that "Before Walmart, these people stayed on their side of the tracks where I couldn't see them"?
It's kind of like watching a Hollywood hacking scene.
Speak for yourself. The password cracking programs I use display all the passwords as they are checked (unfortunately, I've been unsuccessful at cracking passwords in keyspaces exceeding 5 alpha numeric characters - I think I need a monitor with a faster response time).
OpenSignal isn't a very reliable source of information on coverage as it's based (at least in part) on crowd-sourced data. If people in an area are not using the app and contributing data, an area will show no coverage.
It's quite likely that the more rural an area is in India (or the United States), the less likely it is that someone will be using OpenSignal's app in a given location for several reasons. First, there are just less people per square km each day - so a 1% market penetration for the app is more likely to leave areas without data. Second, rural areas tend to be less affluent and therefore less likely to have phones that have room for lots of apps and/or subscribers who are willing to spend money for bandwidth for the app. Finally, I wager (admittedly based on my experience in the US) that urban areas have, on the average, a larger percentage of people who are techncally savvy and likely to have even heard of OpenSignal.
I live in one of the world's tech centers with very good cell coverage. However, the heat maps would lead you to believe in many areas that the only coverage is along freeways and arterial streets and there is none on secondary (typically residential) streets. I know this is completely untrue and I assume it reflects that thousands or tens of thousands of people a day use each freeway and arterial streets and drive a significant percentage of their miles on such streets so if a small percentage of the people run the app, one of them will end up using the major streets every so often and providing data. On the other hand, in a quiet residential neighborhood, that same penetration of users would likely show many/most blocks w/o coverage because these streets have so few "passenger miles" per year.
As well, there are large greenspace areas w/hiking trails around where I know there is coverage and there's absolutely NO hint of that shown via OpenSignal - again, low usage by people with their phones on and running the app probably is the cause.
Maybe you can trust OpenSignal where they claim there is coverage, but it's pretty unreliable for showing where there isn't coverage. (This gives me some ideas for a better app - but I won't share that here!)
All of GTAT's creditor's (like all creditors) presumably knew there was a risk that GTAT (like all companies) couldn't pay their bills. The creditors should have (and, probably did) factor that risk into either the loans they made to GTAT (such as via higher interest rates), the price of the products they sold GTAT (i.e., higher prices), or the terms on which they sold to GTAT (such as C.O.D. or net-10 vs. net-60).
It's a stretch to say that GTAT's losses are being "socialized" by the government onto their creditors. The creditors all decided to take a risk. Usually the creditors win, in this case they have probably lost - that's just business. These businesses that will likely absorb these losses could have protected themselves in a variety of ways but, likely, chose not to because they felt the risk adjusted cost of doing so exceeded the benefit.
All the government will be doing in this case is administering contracts between private parties which were entered into willingly. Federal bankruptcy law is implicitly part of every contract to loan money or sell or buy goods - the government will just assist in enforcing that portion of GTAT's contracts just as the government assists in enforcing a contract between you and a roofer when you sue the roofer in small claims court for the roofer's failure to deliver on the contract.
They roam to Verizon for Voice and Text if there's no Sprint service available (although, if you're in an area with marginal Sprint coverage, you may get stuck with a crappy Sprint connection while a Verizon user will get a great Verizon connection).
However, they do NOT roam to any other carrier for Data. In many sparsely populated areas outside where I live, Verizon has MUCH better data coverage than Sprint. It's not been much of a problem for me, but I don't use data much (and I make it a point to keep maps cached on my phone for simple map usage).
If this is really a crash risk, I'm not convinced relying on passengers not forgetting to turn their devices OFF (completely) or put them in Airplane Mode is a terribly comfortable solution.
Anyway, that may not be enough - from the article:
In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was concerned that the screens could be disrupted by mobile satellite communications, cellular signals from phones, and air surveillance and weather radar.
In order to be certified as a Windows 10 system, keyboards, mice, monitors, and system enclosures will have to have shock sensors so MS can tell that users are throwing their mice at the wall, hitting their heads against the monitor, or kicking the system enclosure in frustration.
In Windows 11, users will be required to have shock sensors implanted in their foreheads and hands to detect when they hit their heads against the wall or beat their dog or spouse in frustration over dealing with Windows.
If enough people agree with you, they will vote for the Green Party candidate, the Socialist Party candidate, or the Libertarian Party candidate. However, it seems they don't. (I, personally, haven't voted for a "major party" candidate for President for decades and I've voted in every Presidential election since I was 18).
Rinse and repeat for your Senate and House candidate(s).
Did you vote for the right guy? Maybe not. But, that's on YOU. Remember, Obama was re-elected after it was clear that "hope and change" was just that - "unfulfilled hope for change". Representative democracy is messy and inefficient. The alternative, based on various experiments over the past couple hundred years, is worse.
No, it is NOT necessarily representative. Those who feel strongly about an issue are more likely to comment. If 95% of the people believe in X, but it's not their primary goal in life (more worried about their kids, jobs, families), they won't even be aware of the offer to comment, let alone comment. So, the fact that 5% comment for ~X is NOT even remotely representative. It is a self-selecting sample and is, basically, completely irrelevant. In a (representative) democracy, we each get a vote and the fact I feel more strongly about X than you do should not give me more influence when counting votes.
For the record, I am in favor of a version of "net neutrality", but with technical understanding. The notion that "every packet must be routed without regard to what either end paid or even wanted or what the endpoints are is absurd. Yes (and I hope/. readers understand how absurd this position is), in the masses of people who don't know a router from a switch, or Level 3 from Comcast, or latency from bandwidth, or a packet from a session, "net neutrality" may sound good -- until they discover that it actually requires removing Netflix servers from Comcast data centers (and, increasing their monthly charges to pay for the unnecessary costs both Netflix and Comcast incur by instead both routing the packets through Level 3 et al). It's a return to the old days of monopoly telephone service where the FCC controls every innovation and the incumbent players are insulated from innovation.
Ideally, the subscriber pays (perhaps via Netflix et al) for the service they want. However, the network protocols to do this effectively don't exist yet end-to-end across all levels. We should work on this. Just as if I pay more for 200mbps than my neighbor who pays for 15mbps, I am happy deciding if I should pay more to route my Skype or Netflix or ??? packets with high QoS. However, I sure as hell don't want to pay for that for my BT traffic.
Allowing caching servers on an ISP networks is NOT "net neutrality" (for example, Uncqual Streaming Svcs Inc is unlikely to be offered that because I offer, well, a byte a month to my zero subscribers). The point is,"every packet is identical" and "no packet is treated differently" and "no deals between ISPs and providers" -- all benchmarks of "net neutrality" zealots, PREVENT such deals which save EVERYBODY money and result in a much more efficient delivery system.
3.7 million comments, even if all were rabidly in favor of "net neutrality", is a small fraction of registered voters in the US. Therefore, one can't draw the conclusion that the majority of the voters agree, or disagree, with net neutrality.
For example, many people may be fine with allowing Netflix to partner with their ISP to put Netflix servers in their ISP's datacenters to feed content directly onto the ISP's network - esp. if that would save money for everyone and increase service quality at the same time.
We vote for our representatives (including our President who can exert a lot of control over the FCC) and they manage and direct the organizations that make these decisions. That voting process gives everyone an opportunity to make their opinion heard and their vote counted. It also allows only those who have the right to vote to do so. It also prohibits one person from casting multiple votes w/fake addresses etc. None of that can be said of the FCC comment process.
In the next Presidential election, vote for the a candidate who will push for net neutrality if that's important to you.
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You, obviously, don't understand time of use metering. In a regulated utility (which most are in the United States at least), TOU metering would result in higher prices for usage at times that the spot price is high (due to higher demand) than when it's low. Utilities typically buy contracts and/or have their own generating capacity for much of their anticipated usage and can predict those costs fairly well so TOU pricing would be fairly predictable (the more predictable, the higher that predictable price will be typically be -- these contracts can be modeled, in part, as options). On the margins though where demand spikes (such as due to unseasonably cloudy weather that, increasingly, will result in low solar yields and spikes in demand from customers relative to their anticipated demand), they often need to go to the spot market.
For some time variants of TOU metering has been commonly available to businesses in areas I've worked -- and there's no question that businesses alter their usage in response. Residential users are not, generally, as accustomed to this yet but will be in the future just as they are now familiar with higher rates for toll lanes based on near instantaneous congestion levels. The days of "contracted fixed rates" being the only (or the most rational) choice for consumers are numbered and utilizing less predictable sources of power (wind and solar in particular) will accelerate this transition.
This is all from the United States viewpoint of course where there may be a stronger tendency to use markets to solve problems than in some other countries.
That is correct -- but you (and all the other suppliers acting independently in their best interests) are making similar decisions -- which then impacts the spot price as you (and all the other producers acting in independently in their best interests) offer more power on the spot market for the next hour. The utilities nearly always have to buy the power if it's available at a rational price due to regulators. These markets can break down of course as they did in the winter of 2000/2001 in California - it's worth at least skimming this report [PDF] for some analysis of this disaster.
Nope. IoT (or similar) to the rescue - mostly automated.
First, your Tesla is set to charge to x% by time y and monitors energy prices and projections to decide when to turn the charger on/off (or, even decrease charge by backfeeding into the grid to take advantage of high energy prices - you might even be able to work from home often enough to decide to skip the commute to work and drain the Tesla to 10% by the next morning).
Second, your thermostat is hooked to it - and responds quickly to price increases - you notice and respond w/sweaters or reducing clothing (depending on which guests you may have visiting at the moment -- this does, however, have some potentially interesting side benefits in select cases).
Third, your lighting is hooked to it and begins to dim lights.
Fourth, your dishwasher, dryer, and washer is/can be set up to run on a "complete by" schedule and monitor energy prices and projections to decide when to start a preloaded cycle.
Fifth, a crawl appears at the bottom of your TV when prices get really high.
Sixth, I'm sure there is a sixth.
Yes, I think they will. When depends on each person's perceived value and cost of failing to do so. Given an indicator that was hard to miss, I think the majority of middle class people in America would reduce their home electrical use substantially when power hit, say, $3/kwh - although, I suspect enough businesses and others would have cut demand long before the cost rose to $3/kwh in most cases.
Over time, most people who use electric heat or A/C would have their thermostats programed to automatically drop/increase the "on" temp significantly for modest transient increases in electricity prices.
Because the excess of supply or excess of demand are by the minute or hour, not by the week, month, or year.
It's somewhat like buying a last minute airline ticket. If people were unwilling to pay more for a last minute ticket, all tickets would cost more (fine) but it would be impossible (because the airlines would price tickets to insure every seat was sold - or oversold - many hours before wheels up to minimize the risk of a single empty seat) to get a ticket on a commercial airliner to get to mom's bedside 1500 miles away before she expires.
By increasing prices when demand approaches the absolute maximum supply, consumers will reduce demand quickly (good, since supply can't be increased quickly). When power gets expensive enough, they will shut off rooms, wear more sweaters, turn lights off, instead of cooking a fancy dinner they will nuke something in the microwave and use disposable utensils (or, just wait to wash them until the next day), they will sit around in a single room and talk instead of playing on their computer or watching TV in individual rooms. Demand is extremely elastic, supply is inelastic at the top end. In extreme cases, they will shutdown their entire house (using winter shutdown procedures as needed) and gather in friends and neighbor's houses (perhaps, splitting the cost of the very expensive power during those times).
Who is going to build a conventional power plant and get it online within a few minutes of the moment when power will be almost priceless? "Almost priceless" because there simply is no other power available because every region nearby is in the same boat of having 100% renewable, most of which vary dramatically based on weather which has been unusually unfavorable for weeks. (The answer is: No One - It's Not Possible).
Presumably, hospitals et al won't be allowed to have their own generators powered by fossil fuels in 2050 (after all, that would violate the "end the burning of fossil fuels in any form by 2050"). Perhaps, for every two floors of patients, they will have a floor of batteries which they keep charged (and, most of which, get recycled due to old age without ever having been used during a "black swan" climate/power event), but that will drive up health care costs of course.
Realistically, there probably needs to be a tax on anyone connected to the grid to pay for, ironically, fossil (and, perhaps?, nuclear) powered power plants to be kept on standby for a few hours a decade of use. Ironic, because we are used to "green taxes". As well, each meter will probably need a way to cut amperage (and communicate to the house electrical control system) to fairly distribute the limited power -- you decide if you want your refrigerator or your 02 concentrator powered in a limited power shutdown and you will bid for the power you need to buy in a real time market.
It's true that Police, and usually Fire, services are included in your tax bill (directly or perhaps indirectly if you're a renter for example). However, these are not easily "metered" utility services. And, at least on some areas, you will get a bill from the City if you call the Paramedics come to your house unless you pay an annual subscription fee. These services are also for the common good (the person who calls the police is not the one that necessarily benefits from getting the murderer off the street for example or if your neighbor's house is on fire even if it's a complete loss by the time the Fire Department gets there, it's in your interest tha they attack the fire before it spreads and burns down the entire block). These services realistically can't be "metered". Also, it was once fairly common in some areas to subscribe to a fire service -- if you didn't subscribe, and your neighbor did, the service they subscribed to would protect your neighbor's house and not lift a finger to put your house fire out unless doing so would help save your neighbor's house.
Internet service is really much more similar to a utility - in fact it IS a utility. Few cities provide free utilities. Sometimes they offer subsidies for low income residents (life-line rates for example). Private companies often provide the service instead of the city (where I live, all these utilities are provided by a private company -- the resident pays the private company, not the government, for the services - just as they pay Comcast or AT&T for their internet service).
Is this why there are relatively few areas in the US where people with money send their kids to public schools? Is it likely that these people prefer an inferior education for their kids and are willing to shell out a lot of money for that while still paying taxes for superior educational services they have chosen not to use? Hmm... Sounds unlikely to me. My, admittedly limited, sample set of people I know who do choose to pay to send their kids to private school certainly don't do it because they are seeking an inferior education for their spawn.
Because this is impossible.
Someone has to pay for purchasing, installing, and maintaining cables in the ground/undersea, switches, routers, head ends, etc. (And, being government provided, likely means the associated labor would have to be Union in many areas which will increase the costs).
I assume you are you offering to pick up the cost. (You must be very wealthy although I don't recall seeing drinkypoo on Forbes 100 list, but I assume you're Bill Gates or someone similar using a alias). Or, perhaps you think I should pay for it? Who? If everybody pays for it, then it isn't free for all and, in fact, is free for none (even those who don't use it).
The government doesn't provide electricity, water, food, sewers, phone service, bus service, or trash pickup "free for all". Why should they do so for internet access?
The amount seems to vary by store -- perhaps based on their chargeback history or willingness to accept some of the risk?
ARGH... I meant to post the above response to the previous comment.
There's quite a bit of inefficiency with this system at my (very large) local Fry's when it was very busy. Although with NewEgg et al, I rarely go into a Frys now - I used to go in once every week or two now maybe only go once every few months and rarely when they are busy so my experiences may not reflect current practice well. In this case, they have many registers open and it's quite far from the head of the queue to the registers at the extreme reaches of the large register farm. As a result, when a checker is assigned a register a long way from the head of the queue, they end up waiting several seconds for their next customer to arrive and begin their transaction and that waiting time is wasted labor. Those checkers who are assigned registers closer to the head of the queue keep busier -- I don't know if they rotate to compensate for this or the best checkers are put at registers near the head of the queue or there is some other way to help compensate for this phenomena.
Also, without a "line coordinator" (who usually stands on a platform so they can see over the heads of customers), there can be several "green lights" on registers and as people self dispatch to these lights, it's often unclear to the next person in line if all the registers with green lights have been "claimed" by customers ahead of them who are walking towards registers and it's also hard to notice when a register light has just changed from red to green. This results in two people arriving at the same register or the person at the head of the line standing there thinking there's no available register when there is. Fortunately, when they are busy, the always seem to have a line coordinator to keep track of all this.
However, it occurred to me immediately that technology could pretty much solve this problem and eliminate the line dispatcher. At the head of the line, there could be a button (perhaps along with some motion/proximity sensors) which the customer at the head of the line holds down. A screen would display a register number as it becomes available and, perhaps, that register's light could then flash orange or something to make it stand out. When the button is released (and perhaps when sensors note the person at the head of the line has passed beyond the button), the displayed register is considered assigned and the next customer presses the button to get their next assignment. It's a bit complicated, but the average Fry's customer (at least in this area) is probably a little smarter and able to understand such a system than the average Walmart customer.
There, actually, would probably be no reason for the lights anymore on the registers with this system since each customer is told which register to go to.
As well, the system could track how long, on the average, it takes between a transaction finishing and the next one starting (presumably longer for those far from the head of the queue) and as hints of transaction completion are evident (payment in full for example) and item count/size are analyzed (for estimating bagging time), the next customer could be dispatched to the register before the prior transaction was actually complete - sometimes this would result in double stacking but the checker could delay the dispatch if they knew there was some reason the current transaction would take longer to complete "post payment" and if double stacking occurred the checker could notice it and with a single button push put the "stacked" customer at the head of the electronic queue and they would get redispatched to the next available nearby register (perhaps only "downstream" if possible to reduce two way traffic). Redispatches would be indicated on a small screen at each register and would only be done once a target register is immediately available (i.e., no speculative dispatch so customer doesn't get pissed at being "stacked" multiple times).
Extra credit for all the germs passed from customer to customer touching the button - although with some "gating" system sort of like freeway onramp metering and
What, did Walmart breed or cloned these people? Did they raise their own food and make their own stuff before and stopped doing this when Walmart came to town? Surely these people were shopping somewhere before Walmart came to town. So, is your complaint is that "Before Walmart, these people stayed on their side of the tracks where I couldn't see them"?
Speak for yourself. The password cracking programs I use display all the passwords as they are checked (unfortunately, I've been unsuccessful at cracking passwords in keyspaces exceeding 5 alpha numeric characters - I think I need a monitor with a faster response time).
OpenSignal isn't a very reliable source of information on coverage as it's based (at least in part) on crowd-sourced data. If people in an area are not using the app and contributing data, an area will show no coverage.
It's quite likely that the more rural an area is in India (or the United States), the less likely it is that someone will be using OpenSignal's app in a given location for several reasons. First, there are just less people per square km each day - so a 1% market penetration for the app is more likely to leave areas without data. Second, rural areas tend to be less affluent and therefore less likely to have phones that have room for lots of apps and/or subscribers who are willing to spend money for bandwidth for the app. Finally, I wager (admittedly based on my experience in the US) that urban areas have, on the average, a larger percentage of people who are techncally savvy and likely to have even heard of OpenSignal.
I live in one of the world's tech centers with very good cell coverage. However, the heat maps would lead you to believe in many areas that the only coverage is along freeways and arterial streets and there is none on secondary (typically residential) streets. I know this is completely untrue and I assume it reflects that thousands or tens of thousands of people a day use each freeway and arterial streets and drive a significant percentage of their miles on such streets so if a small percentage of the people run the app, one of them will end up using the major streets every so often and providing data. On the other hand, in a quiet residential neighborhood, that same penetration of users would likely show many/most blocks w/o coverage because these streets have so few "passenger miles" per year.
As well, there are large greenspace areas w/hiking trails around where I know there is coverage and there's absolutely NO hint of that shown via OpenSignal - again, low usage by people with their phones on and running the app probably is the cause.
Maybe you can trust OpenSignal where they claim there is coverage, but it's pretty unreliable for showing where there isn't coverage. (This gives me some ideas for a better app - but I won't share that here!)
All of GTAT's creditor's (like all creditors) presumably knew there was a risk that GTAT (like all companies) couldn't pay their bills. The creditors should have (and, probably did) factor that risk into either the loans they made to GTAT (such as via higher interest rates), the price of the products they sold GTAT (i.e., higher prices), or the terms on which they sold to GTAT (such as C.O.D. or net-10 vs. net-60).
It's a stretch to say that GTAT's losses are being "socialized" by the government onto their creditors. The creditors all decided to take a risk. Usually the creditors win, in this case they have probably lost - that's just business. These businesses that will likely absorb these losses could have protected themselves in a variety of ways but, likely, chose not to because they felt the risk adjusted cost of doing so exceeded the benefit.
All the government will be doing in this case is administering contracts between private parties which were entered into willingly. Federal bankruptcy law is implicitly part of every contract to loan money or sell or buy goods - the government will just assist in enforcing that portion of GTAT's contracts just as the government assists in enforcing a contract between you and a roofer when you sue the roofer in small claims court for the roofer's failure to deliver on the contract.
Ting resells Sprint service.
They roam to Verizon for Voice and Text if there's no Sprint service available (although, if you're in an area with marginal Sprint coverage, you may get stuck with a crappy Sprint connection while a Verizon user will get a great Verizon connection).
However, they do NOT roam to any other carrier for Data. In many sparsely populated areas outside where I live, Verizon has MUCH better data coverage than Sprint. It's not been much of a problem for me, but I don't use data much (and I make it a point to keep maps cached on my phone for simple map usage).
If this is really a crash risk, I'm not convinced relying on passengers not forgetting to turn their devices OFF (completely) or put them in Airplane Mode is a terribly comfortable solution.
Anyway, that may not be enough - from the article:
(Is it really a crash risk? That I don't know.)
In order to be certified as a Windows 10 system, keyboards, mice, monitors, and system enclosures will have to have shock sensors so MS can tell that users are throwing their mice at the wall, hitting their heads against the monitor, or kicking the system enclosure in frustration.
In Windows 11, users will be required to have shock sensors implanted in their foreheads and hands to detect when they hit their heads against the wall or beat their dog or spouse in frustration over dealing with Windows.
If enough people agree with you, they will vote for the Green Party candidate, the Socialist Party candidate, or the Libertarian Party candidate. However, it seems they don't. (I, personally, haven't voted for a "major party" candidate for President for decades and I've voted in every Presidential election since I was 18).
Rinse and repeat for your Senate and House candidate(s).
Did you vote for the right guy? Maybe not. But, that's on YOU. Remember, Obama was re-elected after it was clear that "hope and change" was just that - "unfulfilled hope for change". Representative democracy is messy and inefficient. The alternative, based on various experiments over the past couple hundred years, is worse.
No, it is NOT necessarily representative. Those who feel strongly about an issue are more likely to comment. If 95% of the people believe in X, but it's not their primary goal in life (more worried about their kids, jobs, families), they won't even be aware of the offer to comment, let alone comment. So, the fact that 5% comment for ~X is NOT even remotely representative. It is a self-selecting sample and is, basically, completely irrelevant. In a (representative) democracy, we each get a vote and the fact I feel more strongly about X than you do should not give me more influence when counting votes.
For the record, I am in favor of a version of "net neutrality", but with technical understanding. The notion that "every packet must be routed without regard to what either end paid or even wanted or what the endpoints are is absurd. Yes (and I hope /. readers understand how absurd this position is), in the masses of people who don't know a router from a switch, or Level 3 from Comcast, or latency from bandwidth, or a packet from a session, "net neutrality" may sound good -- until they discover that it actually requires removing Netflix servers from Comcast data centers (and, increasing their monthly charges to pay for the unnecessary costs both Netflix and Comcast incur by instead both routing the packets through Level 3 et al). It's a return to the old days of monopoly telephone service where the FCC controls every innovation and the incumbent players are insulated from innovation.
Ideally, the subscriber pays (perhaps via Netflix et al) for the service they want. However, the network protocols to do this effectively don't exist yet end-to-end across all levels. We should work on this. Just as if I pay more for 200mbps than my neighbor who pays for 15mbps, I am happy deciding if I should pay more to route my Skype or Netflix or ??? packets with high QoS. However, I sure as hell don't want to pay for that for my BT traffic.
Allowing caching servers on an ISP networks is NOT "net neutrality" (for example, Uncqual Streaming Svcs Inc is unlikely to be offered that because I offer, well, a byte a month to my zero subscribers). The point is,"every packet is identical" and "no packet is treated differently" and "no deals between ISPs and providers" -- all benchmarks of "net neutrality" zealots, PREVENT such deals which save EVERYBODY money and result in a much more efficient delivery system.
3.7 million comments, even if all were rabidly in favor of "net neutrality", is a small fraction of registered voters in the US. Therefore, one can't draw the conclusion that the majority of the voters agree, or disagree, with net neutrality.
For example, many people may be fine with allowing Netflix to partner with their ISP to put Netflix servers in their ISP's datacenters to feed content directly onto the ISP's network - esp. if that would save money for everyone and increase service quality at the same time.
We vote for our representatives (including our President who can exert a lot of control over the FCC) and they manage and direct the organizations that make these decisions. That voting process gives everyone an opportunity to make their opinion heard and their vote counted. It also allows only those who have the right to vote to do so. It also prohibits one person from casting multiple votes w/fake addresses etc. None of that can be said of the FCC comment process.
In the next Presidential election, vote for the a candidate who will push for net neutrality if that's important to you.
Or, you can just drop a brick in the tank.
However, make sure to shut the water off and empty the tank first so you don't make a mess from splashing water.
This can dramatically reduce water usage - at least for a couple of days.
Try this (at your own risk of course): https://plus.google.com/downgrade/
You may have to login.
Read everything carefully - there appears to be no Undo and Goggle+'s spiky tentacles can reach far and wide in the Google environs.