Be happy to provide that as soon as we have reached 5+ year in the wild life spans of a sufficient sample size of SSDs. In the meantime, you can take Intel, Samsung, and Seagate's documentation including the idea that specific engineering measures had to be taken, including such technologies as wear balancing, over subscription of cells to meet loing term storage minimums, and changes to SMART as admission of lifespan restrictions of the technology.
If the drives did not have cell failure issues, why did we need this technology?
Something else to considder: individual megnetic bits in HDDs fail all the time. These do not cause block failure or data loss due to parity used at the block level. in an SSD, when a block fails, we loose the whole block. There is no such thing as bit failure. So, as they admit block failure is not only common, but they've actually designed in EXPECTING it, what happens to the data in the block when we loose it???
Block failure in spinning disks is uslaly considdered critical if more than 5 blocks fail in the lifetime of the drive, and a smart alert is issued on each failure. SSDs expect to loose as much as 0.1% of their blocks over that timeframe, which is why additional blocks are built in as a reserve.
Long term, yes, SSDs may prove to have longer total shelf life, but that is NOT the same as data resiliancy and usable reliability. If we loose a critical block in the OS sectors, boot sector, or application code, you get to re-install from backup. Sin ce that's about 50 times more likely to happen in an SSD than a spinning disk, I'm not putting my money on that technology for any critical application unless I'm also data mirroring. (and I have a LOT of critical apps running on laptops).
degredation in the qwuality of the polycarbonate protective layer mounted above the panel (part of the box frame, not technically paret of the panel and not covered by the waranty) yellows over time, and is also subject to microscratches from particles thrown at it by the wind. Over 10-15 years, 10-20% of the light getting to the panel also won't be. If you don't believe me, look at the headlight covers on a 10 year old car...
You also have to account for battery/capacitor degredation (they need to be replaced every 10 years or so). Also the AC inverter only has a general 10-15 year lifespan. These are maintenance costs that the solar company usually won;t disclose except in fine print, and they're not warantied.
Then there's the insurance costs. Sure, you might only PAY $36K for solar panels, but they cost $80K. (subsidies and discounts apply, but do NOT count towards repair/replacement). Therefor, your insurance company sees this as a $80K valuation improvement. For a $300K home, that's a 25% increase in home value, and one that's highly suceptible to storm damage, so the insurance hike will either be 30-40% anually, or the coverage will be pathetic. (high deductibles and pro-rated replacement cost). I checked into it 4 years ago. Adding $70K in solar panels to my 200K home was going to add $800 a year to my insurance costs, with a $7500 deductible on the panels... We get several hail storms a year here...
That is strictly for crystaline based panels, which are both pricier and considered "old hat" technology. Thin films last 10-12 years, and deplete to about 70% in that timeframe. They're a lot cheaper, but not in the long term. They're poular because they're more profitable to make, and the subsidy applies either way. Don;t count on these subsidies to last long however...
$1200 anually? or monthly? Anually is actually pretty cheap...
I have a 4500 sqft house in central SC. I'm also cold natured, so i keep my house at 77 during the day and 74 at night. (I can't STAND the heat) This means I'm spending MORE during the most expensive months to wun the central air unit.
My bill for electricity in May/June was $117, taxes included. I used just over 1000KWh. I do NOT (for reason's I can't fathom) get a smarthome discount, even though I meet every qualification for it. Everything runs on electric except heat and hot water. I run 5-6 laundry loads a week, the dishwasher daily, have 2 refrigerators, a massive HT system, and 3 high performance desktop computers running all the time.
Heat in the winter is Gas (something I mean to change once I also replace the water heater with an in-line). My gas bill at it's worst was $160. That includes heat, hot water, and my gas log fireplace.
My previous house was 1480sqft, about a 1/3rd the size of my current home. Both homes are less than 4 years old, and similar construction. Power bills at the smaller house were only about $20 less on average. Why so close? a 12 seer AC on the old house vs 3 seperately zoned 14seer AC units on the new one, mostly. Also, ALL my new applicances are energy star, vs the old house having "cheap" appliances that were in the lower half of the efficincy scale at the time (likely the lower 1/4th now). Outside of air handling and new appliances, there really isn't any difference in my daily power use.
If i was paying $300 a month to cool a house in califirnia, I'd MUCH sooner spend $29K upgrading the cooling system, replacing inefficient appliances, and replacing all my light bulbs (oh yea, old house used all CFs, new house is all incandascent so far, haven't had time or money to buy the 67, yes 67, new CFs I need, so my power use will only improve with time).
I was in a 2bdrm apartment for 9 months between houses. Power bills there were nearly twice what I was used to...
Your appartment probably has REALLY BAD appliances, and REALLY BAD insulation, and the cheapest central air system they could legally get at the time. That said, $1200 anually is dirt cheap, your fridge and a few other appliances can use 600KWH easy per month. If you're paying $1200 a month on average, MOVE! (I'd have called everyone I could complain to and would have the landlord in hock by now, that's rediculous!)
Heating oil could possibly double in 10 years, so might natural gas, but everything else points to LOWER electic generation costs moving forward.
Between smartgrid improvements, a few new nuclear plants, and a massive investment in wind (the single cheapest way to make electricity, at less than half the cost of coal), why would it be going up?
Even over the last decade electricity has only risen from 0.10/kwh to 0.12. In my state it went from.11 to.10...
1) this assumes you have enough roof space to accomodate extra panels. My roof already is only large enough to accompodate 60% of my power needs today, so I can't add more in the future... 2) this also assumes adding the extra panel is enough additional energy to offset the efficiency drop. 3) this also assumes your AC inverter can handle the loads, and is scalable 4) this also assumes the panels you add 5-15 years from now have the same power ratings of your current panels, and are compatible in series.
You also forget, it's not just the panel that gets worse with age. microscratches and yellowing of the polycarbonate protective coating are NOT included in that 80% over 25 year number, nor are routine replacement of the batteries and capacitors, and maintenance of the AC inverter.
The reason it does not is because the interum savings are offset by the LOSS of the investment potentiol of the original capitol.
If I invest 30K today my return will be much higher than spending 30K today and saving $30K over 14 years.
This also assumes the investment in solar was CASH, and not financed itself. It also doesn't take increased insurance costs, deductibles paid for storm damage, inverter replacement and battery replacement over time (they're good for 7-10 years), and other maintenance (replacing polycarbonate shields every 10-15 years, etc).
The ENTIRE ROI calculation reasoning for solar is bunk. Especially considdering the annual installation price reduction, including lower pricing, improved generation, and increased subsidy, have actually OUTPACED the annual savings for the last 5 years.
Also, a $300 asverage monthly power bill is quite unusual... I have a 4500sqft house in Central SC, and my power bill last month (Part of May, part of June, with 24 days over 80 degrees, 6 over 90) was $117. I keep it at 77 degrees inside during the day and 74 at night. I used just about 1000KW. My high bill is about $160, low is about $70. Gas heat (1st floor only) runs about $120 in the winter on top of the power bill, so my max bill is under $200 for all utilitiy service.
The smaller your use, the more expensive per KW solar energy is, and the less of a savings you get in areas that use tiered billing. If you're using 2000KW a month (AVERAGE) and in a tiered utility zone, and IF they buy back your power at full metered rates (running the meter backwards instead of the wholesale buying policy now being implemented in most places using dual metering), and IF you can avoid paying any deductibles over 30 years, you'll break even in most cases at 20-25 years. If you invested the $30K now, and buy solar 10-15 years from now, your return then (given known already proven technological and cost improvements that will be hitting the market is mass scale in 10-15 years) your return is GUARANTEED to be better.
With the exception of Columbia, Greenville, and if you like Banks, Charlotte. The rest of the 2 states have virtually no IT opportunities unless you like being a 24/7 on-call IT admin for small firms with no money, no technological understanding, and will be satified with $35K anually... Short of about 50 companies, if you've been rejected by them, or rejected them, you really have no chances...
The concerns are not "baseless" and in fact, there's substantial data to validate.
The return rate on defective SSDs for Dell was reported at nearly an order of magnitude more than HDDs (12% vs less than 2%) in late 2008. Newer SSD models offer "wear balancing" (it;s NOT clearly documented which do and don't, so one must be very cautions). A single cell is good for about 50,000-100,000 write cycles. This shoudl NOT be confused with writes for a typcial HDD however as an SSD cell my be written to multiple times due to block sizing difference vs HDD platters. Write amplification further exacerbates this issue. Wear balancing basically referes to writing to random parts of the disk, continually changing the locations data is used in to balance load across the entire availabel cell count as opposed to HDDs which write continually to the same locations repeatedly.
Many will say that "wear optimized" SSDs can have 3X the longevity of traditional drives. Well, in terms of "spin life" that may be true, but if we're accounting for the fact that MOST people who buy SSDs will be doing so for performance, and that these users experience dramatically higher IO loads than normal users, even with wear pattern analysys the drive will not typically not outlast a typical mid-range drive. In enterprise, especially where high performance data is in use, SSDs are practically doomed to premature failure vs enterprise class traditional drives.
Further, SSDs have far narrower environmental ranges, and are suceptible to heat and rapid temperature changes in ways that HDDs are not. They're also susceptible to data loss due to unexpected power failure to a higher degree than platter drives. They're also DESIGNED to expect block failure over time, and changes to SMART were necessary so that SSDs don;t report themselves as failed to SMART controllers where a HDD with that many bad blocks would be considdered failed. In fact, to account for this, numerous additional "unusable" blocks are included in the base size of an SDD such that capacity is guaranteed to meet a minimum level accounting for those bad blocks. If that bad block contains critical data, it's gone... HDDs generate far fewer bad blocks under normal use (many generate few or zero over their operational life).
Fact is, it's not a simple question of reliability, but the fact that manufacturers are deveoping and advertising NEW DESIGNS and NEW TECHNOLOGY to COUNTER the admited questionable long term availability of the flash drives. some of these design changes are also causing backwards compatability issues with SATA (many of the newest SSDs "require" SATA II due to how the drive's internal systems can backfill a queue that doesn't employ NCQ). Other technologies, like hybridizing the drives using larger cache's that appear as part of the normal disk, have been dropped from Windows OS development for Windows 7, meaning drives that do have that capability won't be able to use it on Windows 7 or on some older SATA systems they may "function" on but don;t have 100% compatabiltiy with. The drive may have great reliability, but only if you run on a pre-SATA III bus using Linux and custom drivers... What good is that?
...and it's not illegal because peope smoke it! It's illegal because the cotton growers in America successfully had this stronger, softer, cheaper to grow fiber banned by the government for fear their industry would collapse... as it would have.
Agreed, you are correct, but it;s not that simple. It actually boils down to the fact that the legalize marijuana movement is a highly organized and long standing grassroots movement with a massive membership. Other movements with their own significant memberships also made the list. For many of the laws we want added/changed, and many of the things we're CURRENTLY really in need of, the movements are just gaining traction, and have small, disorganized representation. It's not that those ideas we not presented, or even proerly represented, they just made 50 posts intead of 1, and their base populous didn't know which one to vote up, so the vote became dilluted and didn't reach the value of others.
You are also correct in that large segments of the populous are not represented at all in this survey. The young have a strong presence, as do the retired and disabled. (people who have nothing better to do than be online, and also who have political motivations and interests). Those who have no interest in politics, do still have an opinion, but you won;t find it here...
We elect people who "represent" us at local, state, and federal levels. The do NOT pass laws we suggest, or even fully support, they pass laws based on their own personal motivations and goals. The laws they pass do NOT prepresent the general interests of the public, nor are they designed to provide a "fairness to all." In fact, we have one of the most regressive tax policies of any country, and our laws are clearly steered toward leniency for large businesses and the rich, and most make small operations difficult or impossible to compete against government protected businesses. Nearly all of our laws are based on controlling money, or on punishing traditional crimes.
Due to this very loose democracy condition, the constitution employs systems of checks and balances, alowing the people, and other branches of government, through time and great expense, to challenge any law passed by our democratically elected major party leaders (lets face it, minor parties have virtually no power).
In reality, the only thing that keeps our politicians even remotely in line (and honestly very close to crossing it at all times) is the threat that they could be impeached from office and potentially imprisoned should they actually cross it, and given the expense, most of them feel it will never happen...
Local government officails are removed from office continually, federal folks rarely in our history. The govornor of SC in fact was so deluded to actually SUE congress because they overrode his veto, thinking that bypassed his powers and rendered his office and position powerless... Um, yea. 1 man can't run the state... that man, and congress, have to have at least 1/3rd of their numbers agree.
This is also why "place of birth" is requested on many government forms and credit applications.
It takes your SSN, DOB, current address, place of birth, and more to formally establish an identity. Quick credit checks don't require all that, just a quick check, since they're not looking to establish additional credit, just determine if they do/don't want to issue you an account (they're treated like utilities, not loans/credit; utilities don't show up on your credit report).
Giving someone an SSN is not in itself dangerous. Unless they have your complete personal profile, they can't get "credit" in your name. Yes, it;s possible someone could put a cellphone in your name, or utility services, but those are EASILY traced, and identity theives know that...
No, they don't maintain this information because it's VALUABLE. They maintain it because if you go into default, the only way to alert the 3 credit bureaus is to have a matching SSN and person. The person at the console NEVER sees your full SSN. The ONLY people who ever do are the person entering it at the counter when you buy, and someone in accounting who's filling out a collection notice against you with the credit companies when you don't pay. Outside of that, it;s'locked in a secured database....and trust me, as a telco, their DOD/STIG requirements for security are TIGHT! NO ONE gets at your data directly. Their backups are encrypted. Even if they have a minor security issue, it's MUCH easier for a hacker to get your SSN from other places (like your local city government systems, or your tax records).
Also, a SSN, name, and address is NOT enough data to steal your identity. And if you're worried, PUT A LOCK ON YOUR CREDIT!
We have to have SOME central way of identifying you. What alternate system would you propose that would not be just as easy to track?
It's not just cell phones. I recently moved, and had to provide my SSN for credit checks for the power company (a local coop), water company (the CITY!), AT&T (dry line for DSL), Dish Network (they also required a credit card with a $1000 minimum credit limit to guarantee the equipment should I default and not return it).
Both my Wife's Verizon phone and my AT&T contract required a SSN number for a credit check. You HAVE to perform the check, if you fail you can pay a deposit and still be offered service. With Dish Network, pass or fail, you still have to either buy all the equipment up front (no lease), or have a credit card with available balance to secure it against (and if you fail the check, pay a deposit for not less than 2 month's service or $200).
These companies have significant initial costs to establish your service, and most provide service first then bill you later, carying a balance on their own dollar until you pay. For Dish, it could take 12-18 months for them to break even on you, more if you have a few service calls. For AT&T, they're out $400 up front on an iPhone, and a portion of their monthly bill to Apple as well. If you buy a device, then bail out without returning the device, they have to have a way to collect, and that requires a SSN.
A fake ID is all well and good to get you into a bar, but it's not going to get you anything else... If it's not in their database, it doesn't exist.
Getting an ID made using valid traceable data, that too CAN be done, but it's extremely expensive, and generally, illegals and other people simply have no idea where to find such a service (and the number of cops online offering that service far out number the criminals who can provide it, good luck).
They did not ban immigrants from getting licences, that's allways been illegal... They demand proof of citizenship, valid work permit, valid green card, or other documentation. Besides, illegals who KNOW they're illegal don't exactly stroll into the DMV where dozens of cops are ever-present anyway.
If you are here illegally, it;s still completely possible for you to have a FOREIGN drivers license, which allows you to drive legally in this country regardless of whether or not you get a license here as well. As soon as you try to attain permanant residency though (90 days in most states) you'll need to apply.
Cops here now also use real-time cameras scanning plates and faces, and pull tag registration information. If you're illegal, you also likely don;t have a valid plate on your car, and they'll pull you over when the computer indicates it. When you can't also provide valid ID and proof of insurance, they'll arrest you, and while being processed, immigration will be notified and they'll simply deport you.
You can only drive so long without them finding you. This is a new system deployed in a limited number of cars in SC, but they plan to have all cruisers equipped in a couple of years.
Also, if you're illegal, getting legal is not that tough, provided you are not already in violation of having come in legally (if you snuck in, you can get legal by turning yourself in to the right people, if you got in legally, but stayed too long, you have a limited grace period...)
I'm all for letting just about anyone into this country, provided they simply document it, and pay taxes. That's all I ask.
Only 1 driver is required to be insured on any vehicle, regardless of the number of drivers in the household.
You DID have to be on his insurance to get your drivers permit.
You were also a minor, so his existing drivers licence and information on file was all the DMV required. Had you gone in ON YOUR OWN, without leveraging his existing DMV information and if you provided your own car, you would have experienced a completely different set of requirements.
I got my lerners permit in CT in 1990. I also had one in NY at the same time (we moved).
Insurance companies do NOT require you to have a license. In fact, in many states, even a vehicle that is unregisterd and parked must still be insured. (and you have to pay texes on it too). Insurance policies for people who don;t have licences yet are simply written as "contingent upon issue" and you can provide the DMV proof of "intent to insure" which is just as good in their eyes as it takes effect instantly upon issue of the license and is a binding contract with the insurer.
You do have to prove the vehicle you;re driving is registered. If it's not in your name, the person who's vehicle it is needs to be present. Having a car is not a requirement to get a license, but having insurance still is (and in fact, getting insurance WITHOUT a car is actually more expensive, since they have no base valuation to determine the car's worth, and since they expect you'll allways be driving vehicle's you;re not intimately familiar with.
More RAM (very cheap) and proper OS tuning can mostly eliminate the major lag issues with Windows, and most other OS. Massive I/O loads are not typically found in notebooks, and many HDDs already offer very close power envelopes to SDD. It's very rare for someone to need extreme performance in a notebook, and power draw from drives is not a huge difference.
Sure, there are probably 5% of people who could truly benefit from an SDD, but with new low power drives, what do you gain, 10-20 minutes out of a 5-7 hour battery!?!? It;s simply NOT worth it.
When SDDs are 50% more than 7200RPM laptop HDDs, people will start seeing a reasonable benefit, but even then, given the HIGHLY questionable reliability of SDD, and the issues with certain types of load, I'll not likely buy one.
In desktops, power is a non-issue, so your idea of using central mass storage isn't a real good idea (especially the additional issues running said storage) and desktops have PLEANTY or room to run miltiple striped drives, including 10Ks, and can hold vast amounts of RAM (or, for cheaper than SDDs, actual RAM DISKS!) and can top the performance of SDDs for less money. i/o cards as opposed to SDDs are also a good (and soon will be cheaper) option for MANY times more IO than even multiple SDDs could produce, and at still lower power.
In micro formfactor machines, and where squeezing every watt of power is important, SDDs do have a place. Also, in rare situations (like video editing on a notebook), an SDD has some additional advantages, but this is a TINY segment of the user base, and the idea they're trying to force $500 upgrades on users who will never notice the benefits is simply insulting.
Getting one, not to hard, proving you're the person who's record it is, a bit harder... That level of identity theft requires a lot of validated personal tidbits, not the least of which includes having a copy of a utility bill in that name that was mailed to the address you're trying to get a drivers license for, and also ensuring the insurance card and vehicle redistration also reflect the same...
Tracking? We're already tracked. The Feds have FULL ACCESS you EVERY STATE SYSTEM today, it;s just clunky and expensive. RealID offers no additional access, just a cheaper, more regulated, and more consistent ability to stop fakes. It also provides the ability to track drivers from state to state as not only the feds would get access to it, but each state could look up driver statuses, assign points from tickets, and perform insurance checks, regardless of the state of your issue and state you're stopped in.
Unless you're REAL good, the government knows where you are, period, give up that fight. The card in your wallet provides no way to "track" you other than in a database. It;s not a GPS, It's just a line item next to the megabytes of data they already have on you. Your address, SSN, tax records, vehicle registration, criminal record, phone numbers, work history, and more are all on file and accessible the the govewrnment anytime they want it. If they want to put out a warent against someone they SHOULD know where to look. If they want to collect back taxes they SHOULD know where to look. If they want to depoer someone they SHOULD know where to look. Outside of that, they really could care less what you do day to day, and have no reason to track your whereabouts or activities.
What having realID means too is that you CAN ONLY HAVE 1. No more drivers licenses in 4 states, choosing where to pay vehicle taxes, where to get insurance, and where to be registered to vote irregardless of where you actually live... No more choosing which license to give a cop when you get stopped. It's all one ID, so no more cheating the system.
Real ID makes it harder for people who should not have a license (because it's been suspended in another state, or due to the lack of a valid address, or citizenship) to get one. If it's been revolked, it's invalid everywhere.
If they want more detail about you, it's a bench warrent away. Phone records, purchase history, putting a tracker on your car, all of these are easy to obtain, but the require a judge to ask "why" and "what proof do you have" before it can be done.
Trust me, i'm sitting in a building with over 3,000 servers, and medical records on every single man and woman who's ever worked for the government, and about 40 million other americans. HAVING this information MEANS NOTHING, since we can't just SEARCH it or run reports against it at will, the ONLY way to GET information is to HAVE information (an ID number and matching name, SSN and matching address, phone number and matching information, and with that you get 1 record. 1. even then a 3rd peice of information is needed to access the record once a match is confirmed. We process 7-10 billion transactions a quarter, we only look at the ones the conputer rejects, or that people make complaints about, or for people who don't pay. Keep your head down, and other than getting confirmation in the mail that a claim was accepted and paid, no one here cares that you exist and will never look you up. A few years ago an executive was doing some snooping on celebrity medical records, but he got fired and imprisoned damn quick for it... They really don;t play around when it comes to unauthoized access to personal information. Have more faith the the people in your government are actually people too, and many of them as paranoid as you are...
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Be happy to provide that as soon as we have reached 5+ year in the wild life spans of a sufficient sample size of SSDs. In the meantime, you can take Intel, Samsung, and Seagate's documentation including the idea that specific engineering measures had to be taken, including such technologies as wear balancing, over subscription of cells to meet loing term storage minimums, and changes to SMART as admission of lifespan restrictions of the technology.
If the drives did not have cell failure issues, why did we need this technology?
Something else to considder: individual megnetic bits in HDDs fail all the time. These do not cause block failure or data loss due to parity used at the block level. in an SSD, when a block fails, we loose the whole block. There is no such thing as bit failure. So, as they admit block failure is not only common, but they've actually designed in EXPECTING it, what happens to the data in the block when we loose it???
Block failure in spinning disks is uslaly considdered critical if more than 5 blocks fail in the lifetime of the drive, and a smart alert is issued on each failure. SSDs expect to loose as much as 0.1% of their blocks over that timeframe, which is why additional blocks are built in as a reserve.
Long term, yes, SSDs may prove to have longer total shelf life, but that is NOT the same as data resiliancy and usable reliability. If we loose a critical block in the OS sectors, boot sector, or application code, you get to re-install from backup. Sin ce that's about 50 times more likely to happen in an SSD than a spinning disk, I'm not putting my money on that technology for any critical application unless I'm also data mirroring. (and I have a LOT of critical apps running on laptops).
and that's just for the PANELS.
degredation in the qwuality of the polycarbonate protective layer mounted above the panel (part of the box frame, not technically paret of the panel and not covered by the waranty) yellows over time, and is also subject to microscratches from particles thrown at it by the wind. Over 10-15 years, 10-20% of the light getting to the panel also won't be. If you don't believe me, look at the headlight covers on a 10 year old car...
You also have to account for battery/capacitor degredation (they need to be replaced every 10 years or so). Also the AC inverter only has a general 10-15 year lifespan. These are maintenance costs that the solar company usually won;t disclose except in fine print, and they're not warantied.
Then there's the insurance costs. Sure, you might only PAY $36K for solar panels, but they cost $80K. (subsidies and discounts apply, but do NOT count towards repair/replacement). Therefor, your insurance company sees this as a $80K valuation improvement. For a $300K home, that's a 25% increase in home value, and one that's highly suceptible to storm damage, so the insurance hike will either be 30-40% anually, or the coverage will be pathetic. (high deductibles and pro-rated replacement cost). I checked into it 4 years ago. Adding $70K in solar panels to my 200K home was going to add $800 a year to my insurance costs, with a $7500 deductible on the panels... We get several hail storms a year here...
That is strictly for crystaline based panels, which are both pricier and considered "old hat" technology. Thin films last 10-12 years, and deplete to about 70% in that timeframe. They're a lot cheaper, but not in the long term. They're poular because they're more profitable to make, and the subsidy applies either way. Don;t count on these subsidies to last long however...
$1200 anually? or monthly? Anually is actually pretty cheap...
I have a 4500 sqft house in central SC. I'm also cold natured, so i keep my house at 77 during the day and 74 at night. (I can't STAND the heat) This means I'm spending MORE during the most expensive months to wun the central air unit.
My bill for electricity in May/June was $117, taxes included. I used just over 1000KWh. I do NOT (for reason's I can't fathom) get a smarthome discount, even though I meet every qualification for it. Everything runs on electric except heat and hot water. I run 5-6 laundry loads a week, the dishwasher daily, have 2 refrigerators, a massive HT system, and 3 high performance desktop computers running all the time.
Heat in the winter is Gas (something I mean to change once I also replace the water heater with an in-line). My gas bill at it's worst was $160. That includes heat, hot water, and my gas log fireplace.
My previous house was 1480sqft, about a 1/3rd the size of my current home. Both homes are less than 4 years old, and similar construction. Power bills at the smaller house were only about $20 less on average. Why so close? a 12 seer AC on the old house vs 3 seperately zoned 14seer AC units on the new one, mostly. Also, ALL my new applicances are energy star, vs the old house having "cheap" appliances that were in the lower half of the efficincy scale at the time (likely the lower 1/4th now). Outside of air handling and new appliances, there really isn't any difference in my daily power use.
If i was paying $300 a month to cool a house in califirnia, I'd MUCH sooner spend $29K upgrading the cooling system, replacing inefficient appliances, and replacing all my light bulbs (oh yea, old house used all CFs, new house is all incandascent so far, haven't had time or money to buy the 67, yes 67, new CFs I need, so my power use will only improve with time).
I was in a 2bdrm apartment for 9 months between houses. Power bills there were nearly twice what I was used to...
Your appartment probably has REALLY BAD appliances, and REALLY BAD insulation, and the cheapest central air system they could legally get at the time. That said, $1200 anually is dirt cheap, your fridge and a few other appliances can use 600KWH easy per month. If you're paying $1200 a month on average, MOVE! (I'd have called everyone I could complain to and would have the landlord in hock by now, that's rediculous!)
based on what numbers???
Heating oil could possibly double in 10 years, so might natural gas, but everything else points to LOWER electic generation costs moving forward.
Between smartgrid improvements, a few new nuclear plants, and a massive investment in wind (the single cheapest way to make electricity, at less than half the cost of coal), why would it be going up?
Even over the last decade electricity has only risen from 0.10/kwh to 0.12. In my state it went from .11 to .10...
1) this assumes you have enough roof space to accomodate extra panels. My roof already is only large enough to accompodate 60% of my power needs today, so I can't add more in the future...
2) this also assumes adding the extra panel is enough additional energy to offset the efficiency drop.
3) this also assumes your AC inverter can handle the loads, and is scalable
4) this also assumes the panels you add 5-15 years from now have the same power ratings of your current panels, and are compatible in series.
You also forget, it's not just the panel that gets worse with age. microscratches and yellowing of the polycarbonate protective coating are NOT included in that 80% over 25 year number, nor are routine replacement of the batteries and capacitors, and maintenance of the AC inverter.
The reason it does not is because the interum savings are offset by the LOSS of the investment potentiol of the original capitol.
If I invest 30K today my return will be much higher than spending 30K today and saving $30K over 14 years.
This also assumes the investment in solar was CASH, and not financed itself. It also doesn't take increased insurance costs, deductibles paid for storm damage, inverter replacement and battery replacement over time (they're good for 7-10 years), and other maintenance (replacing polycarbonate shields every 10-15 years, etc).
The ENTIRE ROI calculation reasoning for solar is bunk. Especially considdering the annual installation price reduction, including lower pricing, improved generation, and increased subsidy, have actually OUTPACED the annual savings for the last 5 years.
Also, a $300 asverage monthly power bill is quite unusual... I have a 4500sqft house in Central SC, and my power bill last month (Part of May, part of June, with 24 days over 80 degrees, 6 over 90) was $117. I keep it at 77 degrees inside during the day and 74 at night. I used just about 1000KW. My high bill is about $160, low is about $70. Gas heat (1st floor only) runs about $120 in the winter on top of the power bill, so my max bill is under $200 for all utilitiy service.
The smaller your use, the more expensive per KW solar energy is, and the less of a savings you get in areas that use tiered billing. If you're using 2000KW a month (AVERAGE) and in a tiered utility zone, and IF they buy back your power at full metered rates (running the meter backwards instead of the wholesale buying policy now being implemented in most places using dual metering), and IF you can avoid paying any deductibles over 30 years, you'll break even in most cases at 20-25 years. If you invested the $30K now, and buy solar 10-15 years from now, your return then (given known already proven technological and cost improvements that will be hitting the market is mass scale in 10-15 years) your return is GUARANTEED to be better.
With the exception of Columbia, Greenville, and if you like Banks, Charlotte. The rest of the 2 states have virtually no IT opportunities unless you like being a 24/7 on-call IT admin for small firms with no money, no technological understanding, and will be satified with $35K anually... Short of about 50 companies, if you've been rejected by them, or rejected them, you really have no chances...
The concerns are not "baseless" and in fact, there's substantial data to validate.
The return rate on defective SSDs for Dell was reported at nearly an order of magnitude more than HDDs (12% vs less than 2%) in late 2008. Newer SSD models offer "wear balancing" (it;s NOT clearly documented which do and don't, so one must be very cautions). A single cell is good for about 50,000-100,000 write cycles. This shoudl NOT be confused with writes for a typcial HDD however as an SSD cell my be written to multiple times due to block sizing difference vs HDD platters. Write amplification further exacerbates this issue. Wear balancing basically referes to writing to random parts of the disk, continually changing the locations data is used in to balance load across the entire availabel cell count as opposed to HDDs which write continually to the same locations repeatedly.
Many will say that "wear optimized" SSDs can have 3X the longevity of traditional drives. Well, in terms of "spin life" that may be true, but if we're accounting for the fact that MOST people who buy SSDs will be doing so for performance, and that these users experience dramatically higher IO loads than normal users, even with wear pattern analysys the drive will not typically not outlast a typical mid-range drive. In enterprise, especially where high performance data is in use, SSDs are practically doomed to premature failure vs enterprise class traditional drives.
Further, SSDs have far narrower environmental ranges, and are suceptible to heat and rapid temperature changes in ways that HDDs are not. They're also susceptible to data loss due to unexpected power failure to a higher degree than platter drives. They're also DESIGNED to expect block failure over time, and changes to SMART were necessary so that SSDs don;t report themselves as failed to SMART controllers where a HDD with that many bad blocks would be considdered failed. In fact, to account for this, numerous additional "unusable" blocks are included in the base size of an SDD such that capacity is guaranteed to meet a minimum level accounting for those bad blocks. If that bad block contains critical data, it's gone... HDDs generate far fewer bad blocks under normal use (many generate few or zero over their operational life).
Fact is, it's not a simple question of reliability, but the fact that manufacturers are deveoping and advertising NEW DESIGNS and NEW TECHNOLOGY to COUNTER the admited questionable long term availability of the flash drives. some of these design changes are also causing backwards compatability issues with SATA (many of the newest SSDs "require" SATA II due to how the drive's internal systems can backfill a queue that doesn't employ NCQ). Other technologies, like hybridizing the drives using larger cache's that appear as part of the normal disk, have been dropped from Windows OS development for Windows 7, meaning drives that do have that capability won't be able to use it on Windows 7 or on some older SATA systems they may "function" on but don;t have 100% compatabiltiy with. The drive may have great reliability, but only if you run on a pre-SATA III bus using Linux and custom drivers... What good is that?
...and it's not illegal because peope smoke it! It's illegal because the cotton growers in America successfully had this stronger, softer, cheaper to grow fiber banned by the government for fear their industry would collapse... as it would have.
Agreed, you are correct, but it;s not that simple. It actually boils down to the fact that the legalize marijuana movement is a highly organized and long standing grassroots movement with a massive membership. Other movements with their own significant memberships also made the list. For many of the laws we want added/changed, and many of the things we're CURRENTLY really in need of, the movements are just gaining traction, and have small, disorganized representation. It's not that those ideas we not presented, or even proerly represented, they just made 50 posts intead of 1, and their base populous didn't know which one to vote up, so the vote became dilluted and didn't reach the value of others.
You are also correct in that large segments of the populous are not represented at all in this survey. The young have a strong presence, as do the retired and disabled. (people who have nothing better to do than be online, and also who have political motivations and interests). Those who have no interest in politics, do still have an opinion, but you won;t find it here...
The USA is a Federated Constitutional Republic.
We elect people who "represent" us at local, state, and federal levels. The do NOT pass laws we suggest, or even fully support, they pass laws based on their own personal motivations and goals. The laws they pass do NOT prepresent the general interests of the public, nor are they designed to provide a "fairness to all." In fact, we have one of the most regressive tax policies of any country, and our laws are clearly steered toward leniency for large businesses and the rich, and most make small operations difficult or impossible to compete against government protected businesses. Nearly all of our laws are based on controlling money, or on punishing traditional crimes.
Due to this very loose democracy condition, the constitution employs systems of checks and balances, alowing the people, and other branches of government, through time and great expense, to challenge any law passed by our democratically elected major party leaders (lets face it, minor parties have virtually no power).
In reality, the only thing that keeps our politicians even remotely in line (and honestly very close to crossing it at all times) is the threat that they could be impeached from office and potentially imprisoned should they actually cross it, and given the expense, most of them feel it will never happen...
Local government officails are removed from office continually, federal folks rarely in our history. The govornor of SC in fact was so deluded to actually SUE congress because they overrode his veto, thinking that bypassed his powers and rendered his office and position powerless... Um, yea. 1 man can't run the state... that man, and congress, have to have at least 1/3rd of their numbers agree.
exactly, hibernate, swap, and go for another 4 hours...
you can't even open a basic bank account without a SSN. So he's a cash only ghost in the system i guess?
This is also why "place of birth" is requested on many government forms and credit applications.
It takes your SSN, DOB, current address, place of birth, and more to formally establish an identity. Quick credit checks don't require all that, just a quick check, since they're not looking to establish additional credit, just determine if they do/don't want to issue you an account (they're treated like utilities, not loans/credit; utilities don't show up on your credit report).
Giving someone an SSN is not in itself dangerous. Unless they have your complete personal profile, they can't get "credit" in your name. Yes, it;s possible someone could put a cellphone in your name, or utility services, but those are EASILY traced, and identity theives know that...
No, they don't maintain this information because it's VALUABLE. They maintain it because if you go into default, the only way to alert the 3 credit bureaus is to have a matching SSN and person. ...and trust me, as a telco, their DOD/STIG requirements for security are TIGHT! NO ONE gets at your data directly. Their backups are encrypted. Even if they have a minor security issue, it's MUCH easier for a hacker to get your SSN from other places (like your local city government systems, or your tax records).
The person at the console NEVER sees your full SSN. The ONLY people who ever do are the person entering it at the counter when you buy, and someone in accounting who's filling out a collection notice against you with the credit companies when you don't pay. Outside of that, it;s'locked in a secured database.
Also, a SSN, name, and address is NOT enough data to steal your identity. And if you're worried, PUT A LOCK ON YOUR CREDIT!
We have to have SOME central way of identifying you. What alternate system would you propose that would not be just as easy to track?
It's not just cell phones. I recently moved, and had to provide my SSN for credit checks for the power company (a local coop), water company (the CITY!), AT&T (dry line for DSL), Dish Network (they also required a credit card with a $1000 minimum credit limit to guarantee the equipment should I default and not return it).
Both my Wife's Verizon phone and my AT&T contract required a SSN number for a credit check. You HAVE to perform the check, if you fail you can pay a deposit and still be offered service. With Dish Network, pass or fail, you still have to either buy all the equipment up front (no lease), or have a credit card with available balance to secure it against (and if you fail the check, pay a deposit for not less than 2 month's service or $200).
These companies have significant initial costs to establish your service, and most provide service first then bill you later, carying a balance on their own dollar until you pay. For Dish, it could take 12-18 months for them to break even on you, more if you have a few service calls. For AT&T, they're out $400 up front on an iPhone, and a portion of their monthly bill to Apple as well. If you buy a device, then bail out without returning the device, they have to have a way to collect, and that requires a SSN.
A fake ID is all well and good to get you into a bar, but it's not going to get you anything else... If it's not in their database, it doesn't exist.
Getting an ID made using valid traceable data, that too CAN be done, but it's extremely expensive, and generally, illegals and other people simply have no idea where to find such a service (and the number of cops online offering that service far out number the criminals who can provide it, good luck).
They did not ban immigrants from getting licences, that's allways been illegal... They demand proof of citizenship, valid work permit, valid green card, or other documentation. Besides, illegals who KNOW they're illegal don't exactly stroll into the DMV where dozens of cops are ever-present anyway.
If you are here illegally, it;s still completely possible for you to have a FOREIGN drivers license, which allows you to drive legally in this country regardless of whether or not you get a license here as well. As soon as you try to attain permanant residency though (90 days in most states) you'll need to apply.
Cops here now also use real-time cameras scanning plates and faces, and pull tag registration information. If you're illegal, you also likely don;t have a valid plate on your car, and they'll pull you over when the computer indicates it. When you can't also provide valid ID and proof of insurance, they'll arrest you, and while being processed, immigration will be notified and they'll simply deport you.
You can only drive so long without them finding you. This is a new system deployed in a limited number of cars in SC, but they plan to have all cruisers equipped in a couple of years.
Also, if you're illegal, getting legal is not that tough, provided you are not already in violation of having come in legally (if you snuck in, you can get legal by turning yourself in to the right people, if you got in legally, but stayed too long, you have a limited grace period...)
I'm all for letting just about anyone into this country, provided they simply document it, and pay taxes. That's all I ask.
Only 1 driver is required to be insured on any vehicle, regardless of the number of drivers in the household.
You DID have to be on his insurance to get your drivers permit.
You were also a minor, so his existing drivers licence and information on file was all the DMV required. Had you gone in ON YOUR OWN, without leveraging his existing DMV information and if you provided your own car, you would have experienced a completely different set of requirements.
I got my lerners permit in CT in 1990. I also had one in NY at the same time (we moved).
Insurance companies do NOT require you to have a license. In fact, in many states, even a vehicle that is unregisterd and parked must still be insured. (and you have to pay texes on it too). Insurance policies for people who don;t have licences yet are simply written as "contingent upon issue" and you can provide the DMV proof of "intent to insure" which is just as good in their eyes as it takes effect instantly upon issue of the license and is a binding contract with the insurer.
You do have to prove the vehicle you;re driving is registered. If it's not in your name, the person who's vehicle it is needs to be present. Having a car is not a requirement to get a license, but having insurance still is (and in fact, getting insurance WITHOUT a car is actually more expensive, since they have no base valuation to determine the car's worth, and since they expect you'll allways be driving vehicle's you;re not intimately familiar with.
More RAM (very cheap) and proper OS tuning can mostly eliminate the major lag issues with Windows, and most other OS. Massive I/O loads are not typically found in notebooks, and many HDDs already offer very close power envelopes to SDD. It's very rare for someone to need extreme performance in a notebook, and power draw from drives is not a huge difference.
Sure, there are probably 5% of people who could truly benefit from an SDD, but with new low power drives, what do you gain, 10-20 minutes out of a 5-7 hour battery!?!? It;s simply NOT worth it.
When SDDs are 50% more than 7200RPM laptop HDDs, people will start seeing a reasonable benefit, but even then, given the HIGHLY questionable reliability of SDD, and the issues with certain types of load, I'll not likely buy one.
In desktops, power is a non-issue, so your idea of using central mass storage isn't a real good idea (especially the additional issues running said storage) and desktops have PLEANTY or room to run miltiple striped drives, including 10Ks, and can hold vast amounts of RAM (or, for cheaper than SDDs, actual RAM DISKS!) and can top the performance of SDDs for less money. i/o cards as opposed to SDDs are also a good (and soon will be cheaper) option for MANY times more IO than even multiple SDDs could produce, and at still lower power.
In micro formfactor machines, and where squeezing every watt of power is important, SDDs do have a place. Also, in rare situations (like video editing on a notebook), an SDD has some additional advantages, but this is a TINY segment of the user base, and the idea they're trying to force $500 upgrades on users who will never notice the benefits is simply insulting.
11th dimension? hell, have you even tried working in 5D?
http://www.gravitation3d.com/magiccube5d/
In this state, SC, you do, as well as in both NY and CT when i lived there. NC also does.
Getting one, not to hard, proving you're the person who's record it is, a bit harder... That level of identity theft requires a lot of validated personal tidbits, not the least of which includes having a copy of a utility bill in that name that was mailed to the address you're trying to get a drivers license for, and also ensuring the insurance card and vehicle redistration also reflect the same...
Tracking? We're already tracked. The Feds have FULL ACCESS you EVERY STATE SYSTEM today, it;s just clunky and expensive. RealID offers no additional access, just a cheaper, more regulated, and more consistent ability to stop fakes. It also provides the ability to track drivers from state to state as not only the feds would get access to it, but each state could look up driver statuses, assign points from tickets, and perform insurance checks, regardless of the state of your issue and state you're stopped in.
Unless you're REAL good, the government knows where you are, period, give up that fight. The card in your wallet provides no way to "track" you other than in a database. It;s not a GPS, It's just a line item next to the megabytes of data they already have on you. Your address, SSN, tax records, vehicle registration, criminal record, phone numbers, work history, and more are all on file and accessible the the govewrnment anytime they want it. If they want to put out a warent against someone they SHOULD know where to look. If they want to collect back taxes they SHOULD know where to look. If they want to depoer someone they SHOULD know where to look. Outside of that, they really could care less what you do day to day, and have no reason to track your whereabouts or activities.
What having realID means too is that you CAN ONLY HAVE 1. No more drivers licenses in 4 states, choosing where to pay vehicle taxes, where to get insurance, and where to be registered to vote irregardless of where you actually live... No more choosing which license to give a cop when you get stopped. It's all one ID, so no more cheating the system.
Real ID makes it harder for people who should not have a license (because it's been suspended in another state, or due to the lack of a valid address, or citizenship) to get one. If it's been revolked, it's invalid everywhere.
If they want more detail about you, it's a bench warrent away. Phone records, purchase history, putting a tracker on your car, all of these are easy to obtain, but the require a judge to ask "why" and "what proof do you have" before it can be done.
Trust me, i'm sitting in a building with over 3,000 servers, and medical records on every single man and woman who's ever worked for the government, and about 40 million other americans. HAVING this information MEANS NOTHING, since we can't just SEARCH it or run reports against it at will, the ONLY way to GET information is to HAVE information (an ID number and matching name, SSN and matching address, phone number and matching information, and with that you get 1 record. 1. even then a 3rd peice of information is needed to access the record once a match is confirmed. We process 7-10 billion transactions a quarter, we only look at the ones the conputer rejects, or that people make complaints about, or for people who don't pay. Keep your head down, and other than getting confirmation in the mail that a claim was accepted and paid, no one here cares that you exist and will never look you up. A few years ago an executive was doing some snooping on celebrity medical records, but he got fired and imprisoned damn quick for it... They really don;t play around when it comes to unauthoized access to personal information. Have more faith the the people in your government are actually people too, and many of them as paranoid as you are...