I don't know the exact details, but in the case of cars, the warranty applies cannot be canceled for independant service, unless they can prove that the independant service caused the problem. Appearently at one time manufacuters tried that trick, and the goverment doesn't allow it anymore.
I prefer to type domain names into google myself. When I don't know for sure what name I'm looking for google will figgure out if I want a.com or.org. Google also figgures out (often right) that I spelled that name diffebad spelling) If I know the name for sure I will type it in the location bar, but I don't always know.
Two: science understands. Something with a halflife of a few days isn't a problem, it is gone before it sits around long. Something with a half life of thousands of years can still be radioactive enough to be very dangerious, but because of the long halflife it will be very dangerious for years. Once you get into millions of years for a halflife, it isn't very dangerious, but thousands of years turns out to still be dangerious.
Note, I'm talking total half life until it decays either into something stable. If something has a halflife of 10e-16 seconds, but decays into something with a halflife of 10,000 years, it is still dangerious in quanity.
Most of my phones end up in the lake. Fisrt time it was in my pocket when I fell overboard. The canoe was unstable, I realized it was going and jumped before the entire canoe went.. Overall I lost less than if the contents of the canoe went down, but the phone didn't survive.
Next one I put in a ziplock bag in the waterproof compartment of my jetski, but when I arrived at my destination the phone was wet. Never worked again.
Yeah I've seen the sites on how to care for a phone that falls overboard, but they didn't work, at least not for me.
DC is much harder to transform than AC. With AC you take a simple transformer and you get a different voltage with little loss. DC doesn't have anything as easy.
In fact DC is used for long distance power transmission in the US too. Most of my power comes from a DC line that is convereted to AC just a few miles from my house. (in theory anyway, in practice who knows where the electrons really came from)
However the problems I stated for DC still exist, and they don't really know how to solve them. (circuit breakers on the lines I mentioned are on the AC side, and then the power is transformed to DC)
Billions were spent fixing the problem. Because the problem was fixed before 2000 there was no problem! Now people think it was wasted money because there wasn't a problem.
More importantly though, the power grid wasn't greatly at risk. Much of it was still mechanical systems, or embedded systems that don't know the date anyway. (In many cases nobody set the date when the equipment was installed, so if it even keeps track of a date, it is a default date that is wrong)
Do not confuse a diaster avoided with a fear mongering. Plenty of people made perdictions that had no basis in reality in effort to get money or fame. However there were very real problems out there, and they needed to be solved.
DC still isn't perfect. When you get voltages high enough you can no longer make a circuit breaker for instance, because the sparc never stops. (There are solutions, most involving blowing something in the breaker so the plasma of the arc doesn't complete the circuit)
DC is also more dangerious. AC crosses 0 volts 120 (100 in europe) times a second, so if you touch a line and it doesn't fry you instantly you can let go, sort of. DC forces your muscles to contract, which can cause you to grab the conductor harder. (depending on how it effects you, it can also throw you violently away from the conducter). AC will relaxs those muscles several times a second giving you a chance to let go. And don't forget the arc in the previous paragraph if you do manage to let go of a DC line.
Of course in the voltages involved with cross country power transmission it is all theroitcial nonsense, you die either way. In lower voltages it can make a difference. Eventially voltages get low enough that it doesn't matter. Unfortunatly without knowing exactly where and how the power travels though you nobody can tell what will happen in any particular case, which is why we tell people to stay away.
As a last point though: induction moters cannot work without AC. This isn't going to be a point for much longer though. Already some manufactures are finding that it is better to use electronics to make their own AC to their specs. (Some maytag washers for instance use 3 phase moters, and the controller not only generates AC in the required 3 phases from the one phase that comes in, it sets the exact speed they want the moter to turn at eliminating complex gear boxes)
True, but if don't know which game you want to play having 5 to choose from is better than 1. Imangine that you are curious bout online games, maybe have played a couple different ones at friend's houses, but never got into any one. By having 5 you can subscribe for a month, and have 5 games to play with. Eventially you will get into one and the rest won't matter anymore, but the choice is important at first.
Many people get into their soap on TV, typically at a time when there are 3 to choose from on TV. (One from each network) They have the choice to watch any one, but in practice they only watch one.
Everyone knows that publishing an electronic document costs
next to nothing.
and Availability. If the book is on the net and costs $0 to reproduce, then
essentially it becomes available to everyone, and not just those that can afford
it.
Reproduction costs nothing, but editing still costs. Nobody would publish my works on slashdot on paper. The grammer and spelling are too horrid for that. However it seems that anyone would publish and read them electronicly. Editors cost money. Authors mostly want to be paid. (Professors are paid by the school, so that isn't an issue with books they write, but it is an issue for other authors) Sure some of it will be done for free, but that overheard needs to be paid.
Most quarters my entire book bill was $200, less than the cost of a computer, and I sold many books back, so overall the cost was more like $100. A computer (which realisticly is more than the $300 you quoted) would need to last a long time to make that up compared to books, which in many public schools are expected to last 5-10 years!.
Books are more portable than a computer. I always had the right to take my text books home. Is the school going to provide a computer to every poor student who can't afford one? Don't forget that books are relativly robust, drop a book and it almost always survives. A book will survive warmer tempature than a computer. School kids still destroy a lot of books faster than normal wear and tear.
Re-read your word substituion. Books fit gramaticly, but the word itself has meaning, and that meaning in the contect of a classroom makes your substituion less valid. Sure there are classrooms where you don't need books. (In shop and home ecc we had books, and I saw it maybe 3 days in the entire semester, because as a tool they were useless there) In the majority of classrooms books are the best tool for the job of suplimenting the teachers ability to educate us. (those exceptions prove my point, but distract from it)
I wouldn't begin to perdict the next election this far in advance.
You underrate single issue voters. The NRA isn't the [amoung the] most power powerful group in washington because of money. Plenty of orginizations can outspend them. The NRA however has what is more important than votes. In many areas if the NRA endorses your opponant you may as well drop out because you have no chance of winning. There are a lot of single issue gun voters, and the NRA gets them to vote. (IIRC the AARP is the only group better able to get the vote out)
Remember too that if you are not a single issue voter, those single issue votes are probably important to you and get more attention than ohter issues that you care about. If there is a conflict you may end up voting on a single issue because canidate you vote for to be the lesser of the evils.
Don't underestimate the poer of votes. Nothing gets the attention of polititions faster than votes going to the other guy. Sure they have to sacrifice a few, but they can't afford to lose too many. Votes are more powerful than money in washington, if you control them.
Fine, but I havn't yet changed my video card since I built this machine 4 years ago. (Matrox Millimun II, awesome card today if you don't do 3D, which I don't) I build a custom kernel for my machine. Sure I don't have the ability to plug something obsucre like an ATA harddrive[1] but I don't have any of those, nor do I plan to get one. If I did enabeling support is just a compile away and meanwhile I save just a little memory.
Sure not everyone compiles a custom kernel, and for most people it is pointless to do so. However the ability to do so is worth it. Embedded systems often suffer for limits that general purpose PCs don't have, a custom X server with only the features used internaly might be worth it to someone writing one.
[1]For those who didn't get the joke, ATA harddrives are perhaps the most common periferal in a computer.
I've used X over a dialup link. IT works for the most part just fine. Well programed apps have no problem. XV did just fine for instance displaying a picture on my screen. It took a while to display, but not that long really. Not something I'd like to do often, but considering I was on a dialup it was surprizingly useful.
Did you ever ask why the hard way was tought first? In calculis Derivitives are taught as limit problems for the first week, even though that is the hard way, because it is much easier to understand derivities in application as a limit problem, than by using the short cut. (If all you knew was the derivitive of x^2 is x, you know nothing even though everyone does it that way)
Third grade has the same problems, just on a diiferent level. Sometimes you need to know the hardway first before you can go to the easy way.
Sure space missions use money, but most important for India and China is they use up the resource of smart people. I don't know about China, but I know India has plenty of smart, well educated people who have nothing to do with their skills. Take a few of those people and have them work on space, and they suddenly have a job. And since each person working now has money, the effect snowballs meaning many more people work to do the jobs that the sapce people don't have time to do now that they have a good job... Good for the ecconomy so long as dept doesn't get out of control.
Note that I'm not convinced that the above argument is a good idea, but it is very common, and has some points in its favor.
I havne't used a mac in years, but when someone asks what computer to buy I recomend a mac. For my own protection. I don't use windows, but I get many questions on Windows. I have no idea how to deal with a windows machine that is described over the phone as having given a dialog box that mentioned registery corruption. With a Mac I'm comfortable that I won't get a call like that. Those details are taken care of, so when something bad happens they can normally deal with the problem. (and it doesn't happen as often)
I couldn't imanging my grandpa on a windows machine, but he can work his mac just fine.
PTT is a public conversation. When the foreman calls the boss to get the answer to a question I asked, I hear the boss's response and go do it. A speaker phone would work instead, but our with the generator nearby that would be more annoying to the other end than we want. (and the boss isn't far from his generater either)
The other thing is you know don't have to answer the phone nessicarly. Someone with PTT can just ring out to everyone "Joe fell off the ladder, ha ha". (Which is something we do when whoever is unhurt and we should all enjoy a laugh, if he was hurt the message would be worded differently, and come after first aid) If whoever you call is not in a place where he can answer the phone, they may or may not get the message, it isn't important enough to ensure it is recived, but you would like to send it.
Lastly, drivers using PTT seem to be less distracted and thus safer than on a phone. I don't know why, but I've been a passenger with the foreman when on a normal call, and a PTT call, and even though the same information is exchanged over a long conversation, he is a better driver under PTT. Not scientific, but something to consider.
The second ammendment doesn't specify gender at all. The milita act that impliments part of it specifies Males. Back in the late 1700s, early 1800s women were not given all the rights of men.
The engineers (for the private companies) that I've talk to suggest that the design spec from Nasa specified operating in that weather, so when concern was expressed NASA responed with "You mean that you don't meat the design specifications?", with a lot of implications in that statement. No wonder Execs wanted to back off, they had promised it would work, and someone was threatening to hold them to that. They of course trusted the engineers to design it to work in that weather.
And even then there wouldn't have been a problem if the boosters were assembled (and in particular torqued) in the cold weather, but when assembled in warm conditions, and then put in cold ones, everything shrunk resulting in gaps that were not there origionally.
And I'm willing to bet there are even more factors that I'm not aware of.
Depends on how you operate as close to capacity as you can. My utility tries to get closer to capacity by charging less for power used when they are at less than capacity. (Mostly implimented in the form of people heating water at night and storing it for the day, devices to prevent all air conditioners from kicking in at once, and heaters with a non-electric backup they can start when needed)
A good solution that I'm surprized more utilties don't impliment, by shifting some of the use to they save a lot of money and help prevent problems like this.
We used to laugh at my granparents, in summer their house was at 62 all the time, in winter they set it to 85. And didn't see any problem with that.
I'm the reverse, I set my thermostat to 62 in winter, and 85 in summer. As much as I can I try to not use AC, I'm too cheap to pay the power company, but sometimes it is worth it. Id set my thermostat lower in winter, except that is as low as it goes. I have heat to protect the plumbing.
I don't know how it plays here, but my power from the base plants is transmitted by DC. The pwoer goes 800 miles in DC lines, and is transformed to AC 50 miles from downtown Minneapolis. Of course there are other power plants, some local, but that is the major source of my power. So the generators don't themselves need to sync up with local power, just that inverting plant. (I have no idea what the right term for it is)
Contary to popular belief DC is better for long distance power transmission, the belief started because it is difficlut to achive the right voltages with DC.
For those who care, there is a limit to how much voltage you can put in a wire before other things happen. With Dc your peak voltage is the voltage, and you can transmite V*A watts, while with AC peak voltage is still the one that counts, but you normally measure volts RMS, and in particular your power is Vrms*A. (or something close to that, real power enginners will find fault with the above, but agree it is close enough)
True the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6 can be given by a random number generator. However if an unknown random number generator gave me that sequence I would give it serious question, or find a different one in lazyness. That sequence is just as likely as any other (assuming a bunch of details that I will ignore) in a proper generator, but a flawed generator appears highly likely to generate that sequence, while in a good one the odds of it are fairly low. Thus I filter random number generators by assuming that if it looks random and they claim random, then it probably is, while if it looks non-random but they claim non-random they probably screwed up. Considering how difficult random number generators are to make, it isn't an invlaid assumption.
Giving teachers a raise is not proven to increase quality of teaching. (There is in fact a small number of bad teachers who will stay in teaching if their wage goes up, but some good teachers who will leave if they get more money elsewhere)
The first clue of how good someone will do in school is at home. Parents that don't care about their kids end up with kids that fail, while parents that care end up with kids that pass. In general of course - we can all think of exceptions of the best familys turning out rotten kids, and the reverse, but in general family is the best indicater I know of to success in school)
The other problem with looking at computers as teachers saleries is that a computer is a one time purchase. In the dot.com boom of a few years back most schools had more money, by spending it on computers and the like they have that equipment to get through the lean years, those who increased saleries now have to pay teachers more.
Teacher saleries vary from place to place. I live in an area where they make more than average (not that they are getting rich, but more than average), while in other states they make far less than average.
I think the best thing a school can do to improving teaching is to eliminate tenure for all teachers. Tenure makes sense for professors who need a few years to research a complex part of their field before publishing. In grade school and high school they don't need that. I can (as everyone else) recall several teachers who could not teach, but the school did nothing to get rid of them. Teachers who could teach didn't get raises any faster. (admitidly this isn't a path we want to go down without thought, otherwise students will be taught to pass a test so the teacher gets a raise and not what the course is really trying to teach)
I agree that many houses are not well built. However the presence of codes means that the worst houses of today are better (when built) than the worst houses of 100 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know the exact details, but in the case of cars, the warranty applies cannot be canceled for independant service, unless they can prove that the independant service caused the problem. Appearently at one time manufacuters tried that trick, and the goverment doesn't allow it anymore.
I prefer to type domain names into google myself. When I don't know for sure what name I'm looking for google will figgure out if I want a .com or .org. Google also figgures out (often right) that I spelled that name diffebad spelling) If I know the name for sure I will type it in the location bar, but I don't always know.
One, people don't understand.
Two: science understands. Something with a halflife of a few days isn't a problem, it is gone before it sits around long. Something with a half life of thousands of years can still be radioactive enough to be very dangerious, but because of the long halflife it will be very dangerious for years. Once you get into millions of years for a halflife, it isn't very dangerious, but thousands of years turns out to still be dangerious.
Note, I'm talking total half life until it decays either into something stable. If something has a halflife of 10e-16 seconds, but decays into something with a halflife of 10,000 years, it is still dangerious in quanity.
Most of my phones end up in the lake. Fisrt time it was in my pocket when I fell overboard. The canoe was unstable, I realized it was going and jumped before the entire canoe went.. Overall I lost less than if the contents of the canoe went down, but the phone didn't survive.
Next one I put in a ziplock bag in the waterproof compartment of my jetski, but when I arrived at my destination the phone was wet. Never worked again.
Yeah I've seen the sites on how to care for a phone that falls overboard, but they didn't work, at least not for me.
DC is much harder to transform than AC. With AC you take a simple transformer and you get a different voltage with little loss. DC doesn't have anything as easy.
In fact DC is used for long distance power transmission in the US too. Most of my power comes from a DC line that is convereted to AC just a few miles from my house. (in theory anyway, in practice who knows where the electrons really came from)
However the problems I stated for DC still exist, and they don't really know how to solve them. (circuit breakers on the lines I mentioned are on the AC side, and then the power is transformed to DC)
Billions were spent fixing the problem. Because the problem was fixed before 2000 there was no problem! Now people think it was wasted money because there wasn't a problem.
More importantly though, the power grid wasn't greatly at risk. Much of it was still mechanical systems, or embedded systems that don't know the date anyway. (In many cases nobody set the date when the equipment was installed, so if it even keeps track of a date, it is a default date that is wrong)
Do not confuse a diaster avoided with a fear mongering. Plenty of people made perdictions that had no basis in reality in effort to get money or fame. However there were very real problems out there, and they needed to be solved.
DC still isn't perfect. When you get voltages high enough you can no longer make a circuit breaker for instance, because the sparc never stops. (There are solutions, most involving blowing something in the breaker so the plasma of the arc doesn't complete the circuit)
DC is also more dangerious. AC crosses 0 volts 120 (100 in europe) times a second, so if you touch a line and it doesn't fry you instantly you can let go, sort of. DC forces your muscles to contract, which can cause you to grab the conductor harder. (depending on how it effects you, it can also throw you violently away from the conducter). AC will relaxs those muscles several times a second giving you a chance to let go. And don't forget the arc in the previous paragraph if you do manage to let go of a DC line.
Of course in the voltages involved with cross country power transmission it is all theroitcial nonsense, you die either way. In lower voltages it can make a difference. Eventially voltages get low enough that it doesn't matter. Unfortunatly without knowing exactly where and how the power travels though you nobody can tell what will happen in any particular case, which is why we tell people to stay away.
As a last point though: induction moters cannot work without AC. This isn't going to be a point for much longer though. Already some manufactures are finding that it is better to use electronics to make their own AC to their specs. (Some maytag washers for instance use 3 phase moters, and the controller not only generates AC in the required 3 phases from the one phase that comes in, it sets the exact speed they want the moter to turn at eliminating complex gear boxes)
True, but if don't know which game you want to play having 5 to choose from is better than 1. Imangine that you are curious bout online games, maybe have played a couple different ones at friend's houses, but never got into any one. By having 5 you can subscribe for a month, and have 5 games to play with. Eventially you will get into one and the rest won't matter anymore, but the choice is important at first.
Many people get into their soap on TV, typically at a time when there are 3 to choose from on TV. (One from each network) They have the choice to watch any one, but in practice they only watch one.
Mostly good points, but a few nits:
Everyone knows that publishing an electronic document costs next to nothing. and Availability. If the book is on the net and costs $0 to reproduce, then essentially it becomes available to everyone, and not just those that can afford it. Reproduction costs nothing, but editing still costs. Nobody would publish my works on slashdot on paper. The grammer and spelling are too horrid for that. However it seems that anyone would publish and read them electronicly. Editors cost money. Authors mostly want to be paid. (Professors are paid by the school, so that isn't an issue with books they write, but it is an issue for other authors) Sure some of it will be done for free, but that overheard needs to be paid.
Most quarters my entire book bill was $200, less than the cost of a computer, and I sold many books back, so overall the cost was more like $100. A computer (which realisticly is more than the $300 you quoted) would need to last a long time to make that up compared to books, which in many public schools are expected to last 5-10 years!.
Books are more portable than a computer. I always had the right to take my text books home. Is the school going to provide a computer to every poor student who can't afford one? Don't forget that books are relativly robust, drop a book and it almost always survives. A book will survive warmer tempature than a computer. School kids still destroy a lot of books faster than normal wear and tear.
Re-read your word substituion. Books fit gramaticly, but the word itself has meaning, and that meaning in the contect of a classroom makes your substituion less valid. Sure there are classrooms where you don't need books. (In shop and home ecc we had books, and I saw it maybe 3 days in the entire semester, because as a tool they were useless there) In the majority of classrooms books are the best tool for the job of suplimenting the teachers ability to educate us. (those exceptions prove my point, but distract from it)
I wouldn't begin to perdict the next election this far in advance.
You underrate single issue voters. The NRA isn't the [amoung the] most power powerful group in washington because of money. Plenty of orginizations can outspend them. The NRA however has what is more important than votes. In many areas if the NRA endorses your opponant you may as well drop out because you have no chance of winning. There are a lot of single issue gun voters, and the NRA gets them to vote. (IIRC the AARP is the only group better able to get the vote out)
Remember too that if you are not a single issue voter, those single issue votes are probably important to you and get more attention than ohter issues that you care about. If there is a conflict you may end up voting on a single issue because canidate you vote for to be the lesser of the evils.
Don't underestimate the poer of votes. Nothing gets the attention of polititions faster than votes going to the other guy. Sure they have to sacrifice a few, but they can't afford to lose too many. Votes are more powerful than money in washington, if you control them.
Fine, but I havn't yet changed my video card since I built this machine 4 years ago. (Matrox Millimun II, awesome card today if you don't do 3D, which I don't) I build a custom kernel for my machine. Sure I don't have the ability to plug something obsucre like an ATA harddrive[1] but I don't have any of those, nor do I plan to get one. If I did enabeling support is just a compile away and meanwhile I save just a little memory.
Sure not everyone compiles a custom kernel, and for most people it is pointless to do so. However the ability to do so is worth it. Embedded systems often suffer for limits that general purpose PCs don't have, a custom X server with only the features used internaly might be worth it to someone writing one.
[1]For those who didn't get the joke, ATA harddrives are perhaps the most common periferal in a computer.
I've used X over a dialup link. IT works for the most part just fine. Well programed apps have no problem. XV did just fine for instance displaying a picture on my screen. It took a while to display, but not that long really. Not something I'd like to do often, but considering I was on a dialup it was surprizingly useful.
Did you ever ask why the hard way was tought first? In calculis Derivitives are taught as limit problems for the first week, even though that is the hard way, because it is much easier to understand derivities in application as a limit problem, than by using the short cut. (If all you knew was the derivitive of x^2 is x, you know nothing even though everyone does it that way)
Third grade has the same problems, just on a diiferent level. Sometimes you need to know the hardway first before you can go to the easy way.
Sure space missions use money, but most important for India and China is they use up the resource of smart people. I don't know about China, but I know India has plenty of smart, well educated people who have nothing to do with their skills. Take a few of those people and have them work on space, and they suddenly have a job. And since each person working now has money, the effect snowballs meaning many more people work to do the jobs that the sapce people don't have time to do now that they have a good job... Good for the ecconomy so long as dept doesn't get out of control.
Note that I'm not convinced that the above argument is a good idea, but it is very common, and has some points in its favor.
I havne't used a mac in years, but when someone asks what computer to buy I recomend a mac. For my own protection. I don't use windows, but I get many questions on Windows. I have no idea how to deal with a windows machine that is described over the phone as having given a dialog box that mentioned registery corruption. With a Mac I'm comfortable that I won't get a call like that. Those details are taken care of, so when something bad happens they can normally deal with the problem. (and it doesn't happen as often)
I couldn't imanging my grandpa on a windows machine, but he can work his mac just fine.
In addition to the above:
PTT is a public conversation. When the foreman calls the boss to get the answer to a question I asked, I hear the boss's response and go do it. A speaker phone would work instead, but our with the generator nearby that would be more annoying to the other end than we want. (and the boss isn't far from his generater either)
The other thing is you know don't have to answer the phone nessicarly. Someone with PTT can just ring out to everyone "Joe fell off the ladder, ha ha". (Which is something we do when whoever is unhurt and we should all enjoy a laugh, if he was hurt the message would be worded differently, and come after first aid) If whoever you call is not in a place where he can answer the phone, they may or may not get the message, it isn't important enough to ensure it is recived, but you would like to send it.
Lastly, drivers using PTT seem to be less distracted and thus safer than on a phone. I don't know why, but I've been a passenger with the foreman when on a normal call, and a PTT call, and even though the same information is exchanged over a long conversation, he is a better driver under PTT. Not scientific, but something to consider.
The second ammendment doesn't specify gender at all. The milita act that impliments part of it specifies Males. Back in the late 1700s, early 1800s women were not given all the rights of men.
The engineers (for the private companies) that I've talk to suggest that the design spec from Nasa specified operating in that weather, so when concern was expressed NASA responed with "You mean that you don't meat the design specifications?", with a lot of implications in that statement. No wonder Execs wanted to back off, they had promised it would work, and someone was threatening to hold them to that. They of course trusted the engineers to design it to work in that weather.
And even then there wouldn't have been a problem if the boosters were assembled (and in particular torqued) in the cold weather, but when assembled in warm conditions, and then put in cold ones, everything shrunk resulting in gaps that were not there origionally.
And I'm willing to bet there are even more factors that I'm not aware of.
Depends on how you operate as close to capacity as you can. My utility tries to get closer to capacity by charging less for power used when they are at less than capacity. (Mostly implimented in the form of people heating water at night and storing it for the day, devices to prevent all air conditioners from kicking in at once, and heaters with a non-electric backup they can start when needed)
A good solution that I'm surprized more utilties don't impliment, by shifting some of the use to they save a lot of money and help prevent problems like this.
We used to laugh at my granparents, in summer their house was at 62 all the time, in winter they set it to 85. And didn't see any problem with that.
I'm the reverse, I set my thermostat to 62 in winter, and 85 in summer. As much as I can I try to not use AC, I'm too cheap to pay the power company, but sometimes it is worth it. Id set my thermostat lower in winter, except that is as low as it goes. I have heat to protect the plumbing.
I don't know how it plays here, but my power from the base plants is transmitted by DC. The pwoer goes 800 miles in DC lines, and is transformed to AC 50 miles from downtown Minneapolis. Of course there are other power plants, some local, but that is the major source of my power. So the generators don't themselves need to sync up with local power, just that inverting plant. (I have no idea what the right term for it is)
Contary to popular belief DC is better for long distance power transmission, the belief started because it is difficlut to achive the right voltages with DC. For those who care, there is a limit to how much voltage you can put in a wire before other things happen. With Dc your peak voltage is the voltage, and you can transmite V*A watts, while with AC peak voltage is still the one that counts, but you normally measure volts RMS, and in particular your power is Vrms*A. (or something close to that, real power enginners will find fault with the above, but agree it is close enough)
True the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6 can be given by a random number generator. However if an unknown random number generator gave me that sequence I would give it serious question, or find a different one in lazyness. That sequence is just as likely as any other (assuming a bunch of details that I will ignore) in a proper generator, but a flawed generator appears highly likely to generate that sequence, while in a good one the odds of it are fairly low. Thus I filter random number generators by assuming that if it looks random and they claim random, then it probably is, while if it looks non-random but they claim non-random they probably screwed up. Considering how difficult random number generators are to make, it isn't an invlaid assumption.
Giving teachers a raise is not proven to increase quality of teaching. (There is in fact a small number of bad teachers who will stay in teaching if their wage goes up, but some good teachers who will leave if they get more money elsewhere)
The first clue of how good someone will do in school is at home. Parents that don't care about their kids end up with kids that fail, while parents that care end up with kids that pass. In general of course - we can all think of exceptions of the best familys turning out rotten kids, and the reverse, but in general family is the best indicater I know of to success in school)
The other problem with looking at computers as teachers saleries is that a computer is a one time purchase. In the dot.com boom of a few years back most schools had more money, by spending it on computers and the like they have that equipment to get through the lean years, those who increased saleries now have to pay teachers more.
Teacher saleries vary from place to place. I live in an area where they make more than average (not that they are getting rich, but more than average), while in other states they make far less than average.
I think the best thing a school can do to improving teaching is to eliminate tenure for all teachers. Tenure makes sense for professors who need a few years to research a complex part of their field before publishing. In grade school and high school they don't need that. I can (as everyone else) recall several teachers who could not teach, but the school did nothing to get rid of them. Teachers who could teach didn't get raises any faster. (admitidly this isn't a path we want to go down without thought, otherwise students will be taught to pass a test so the teacher gets a raise and not what the course is really trying to teach)
I agree that many houses are not well built. However the presence of codes means that the worst houses of today are better (when built) than the worst houses of 100 years ago.