This makes perfect sense. Why do I need to keep buying apps for different platforms? Now we should be able to buy one app or subscription and use it on up to 10 devices.
It was not "over time" - it was in less than 4 months. Apple would not or replace my battery until some lawsuit came about. "Apple has admitted that some iPhone 6S devices can suddenly shut down for no apparent reason. The tech giant is offering owners of the problematic smartphones free replacement batteries.... Apple's battery replacement offer for the iPhone 6S applies worldwide."
I think this "articile" was written to remind people that there is a new $1000+ phone available at your, possibly-local, Apple store. I am surprised author did not mention that some people may have to go to Target or Best Buy this Friday to get $250 - $300 gift card w/ new activation. Seriously, there is no healthy food or healthy restaurants available in most "hoods" but this is what the author chose to write about..
If South Park is not making an episode out of this, they dropped the ball[s]! Seriously, photoshop your own face onto your favorite porn star and send it to Facebook... then wait and see what happens. (if it surfaces anywhere, sue Facebook!)
is reviewer is Millenial or something? It's like he watched a completely different movie. Even goes on to insult Harrison Ford's acting ability - "so committed to phoning it in that the Verizon "Can You Hear Me Now?" guy should fear for his job." If you loved the first movie, you will like this one as well. This movie may not do well because of R rating. They could have easily made PG-13 version, like what we saw in 1990s on regular tv. Regardless, it was worth the 20+ year wait (for me) and hopefully, there will be a third film to wrap things up. Only negative thing about the movie was how loud the "noise" was - not sure if it's my local theater or if it's designed to make your ears bleed:)
new Ipad is perfect for Skype, Facetime, webex, etc. Ipad2's camera was not sufficient but new Ipad works great. Laptops with their small removable parts, power cords, outlet voltage, and excessive heat are not the safest device for a toddler. At about two years of age, toddlers start asserting themselves by throwing temper tantrums - do not leave one unattended, even with an Ipad; glass display can break if device is thrown or smashed with another toy. Benefit of getting an Ipad is there are a lot of games for 1 to 3 year olds. Peekaboo Farm, Elmo Calls, etc seem to entertain them for 10 - 15 minutes. Learning curve for iOS is about ten minutes. (more for adults who keep trying to "click" on stuff)
He's 100% guilty of: #1 - Forgery - he made up reverse trade that did not exist. When clients were asked about large sums of money that they bet against Jerome's futures, they had no idea what the bank was talking about. That's because he forged all of them. #2 - Unlawful use of "access device" to commit #1. That's the IDs he borrowed from the back office.
That's about all he's guilty of of. In USA he would get about 3 years and get out in 2.5. Then he can go on and write a book about it, make $1 million and retire.
The same thing happened at another French back in August 2007. Those losses amounted to $300 million but you probably haven't heard about it. Why did it happen? Lack of supervision - most of France is on vacation in August. Technology didn't fail. People did. It will continue happening until people wake up and start doing what they are supposed to be doing - working.
"Why the DRM failed to work on 50% of our purchases.." BECAUSE 50% of Windows XP machines that were used to download DRMed movies were using "borrowed" or keygenned serial numbers:) [btw, this was meant to be funny]
I get what you are saying but I also somewhat agree with these "cheaters". Here's my analogy: Some people love building sports kit cars that they may drive some day; They spend months (or years) building the car, dynamo the engine at a facility, then fine-tune based on data collected, buy better upgrades, choose paint jobs, leather, chrome, etc. Then they FINALLY take it to the track or race it on the street. They enjoyed building process as much, if not more, than driving the car. They take prive in what they have accomplished. (even though there are others who may have the same kit car that looks just like theirs) Then there are others, who just buy a fully-loaded sports car (Porsche Carrera 4S, for example) and enjoy driving it from day one. They won't even change oil or wash the car by themselves. BOTH kinds drive on the same roads and while they may not respect or appreciate how the other guy got there, neither one is right or wrong. However, in the real world it's a little easier to tell them apart and in virtual world there should be a way to do the same. Perhaps a flag or description once you "examine" their avatar. Label them "spoon-fed-until-60" or sleepwalking or something funnier. As far as I know, Blizzard doesn't sue Chinese players who charge $200 to level-up your char to 60, so why sue someone who's pretty much doing the same via software? (except taking a "job" away from someone in China?) Someone should sue Blizzard because you have to have arms and/or legs to play the game. WOW cannot be played telepathically...YET.
I spent 30 minutes and actually READ the contract. (had to increase the font since it was placed in a tiny window and was using the smallest font) the one you uploaded at http://wyvern.org/citizenre.pdf didn't load - error 403 - Forbidden. It clearly states the following: 1 - THEY can change any terms of the contract at any time. They just have to mail it to you within a month. 2 - They cannot guarantee that the electricity THEIR unit is going to produce is going to be BOUGHT by your electric company AND that you will continue to pay (for 25 years unless you try to cancel) for ALL electricity that leaves your house even though your public utility company may decide not to honor the agreement or reduce how much they pay per kWh. How's that for fair? Paying for something you cannot even use. From what I understand they directly connect to the grid and there are NO batteries of any kind - so during day when there's no one home it may be charging you money because it's sending most electricity outside the house and this energy cannot be stored for later use. Instead, you have to buy it back from the util company when you get home. Like I said, if electric company pays nothing or next to nothing to you for every kWh you generate and "sell" you may be stuck with a nasty bill from Citizenre. 3 - You have to pay $500 upfront before you even get the system. I think this is the heart of their Ponzi scheme. They will get enough customers and will delay rollouts at any cost - maybe even will promise to give you a preferred rate, a chance to buy company stock (by the way they are not listed on ANY stock exchange) and other things that may delay you from getting your money back. I am normally a pretty trusting person so I actually think they will subcontract some installers to go out and roll out anywhere from 300 to 500 homes @ $30k per house. Even with 10 million out of their pocket they get to keep 40 million dollars IF they decide to capsize their venture at that time. I assume their top performers who signed up the most $500 paying customers will get the free installs" They are not dummies and have chosen the right state to incorporate in. Under limited liability, their personal assets will be protected...whether they decide to give themselves 10 or 5 million dollar bonuses, before filing for bankruptcy, is entirely up to them. Since they are not publicly traded, they are not subject to audit or mandatory financial reporting that companies like BP or Shell have to provide and file every quarter. 4 - when you signed the contract you exempted them from any ERRORS that the billing computer may make. You don't have the right to open the box and examine its function. (i guess you could compare what the meter said and what their unit said but then you would still have to shut off ALL appliances in the house to get accurate results) So you would have to PAY even if their computer screwed up or was off by 1% or 50. You can dispute the charges but you still have to pay first and then wait for arbitration. 5 - unit that they will install will not be insured. So if a tree branch falls on it and breaks $30k install, you are responsible. This means you have have yo get your own insurance or add it to your home owner's policy. You will also have to connect it to your telephone line since they will not pay for one or for phone calls that their computer will make. 6- You are responsible for any taxes due to state, federal or local governments. not too clear but I assume since you will be selling electricity, you will be taxed by at least one of those. (they won't and make it very clear)
I guess we'll see what happens soon enough. They also mentioned something about franchising on their website so they may be targeting bigger fish in the pond. Watch the following - Rob Styler actually explains how this a pyramid scheme and you can make up to 300 per customer you sign, "but the money won't be there, right away" He claims they set aside 5 million to pay off "early visionaries" and if you ware willing to wait (big alert flag here) you will be rewarded. If this isn't another 1980s-catch-phrase-style, ponzi mass-marketing scheme, I don't what is. Powur to the people!
jesus christ! you wouldn't lease a car for 25 years, why agree to pay for something for more than a year? What happens if you sell the house? do you continue to pay for next owner's electrical bills? I would love to see the contract. Is there any way you could scan it and post somewhere? (remove your name, address and town of course!) At least have a lawyer look it. See if there are any strange or vague wording where you can, may or WILL assume any or all responsibility if they(citezenre) cannot pay back the loan or if there are any "minimum" monthly charges. As far as not being able to afford a solar array - things may change in the future where solar panels are cheaper (by a lot) and are far more efficient. also state rebate may change, most likely for the better. I did all the math and it came out to 5 years for system to pay for itself. (loan, installation costs, panels minus the rebate) Unfortunately, I don't plan on living in the same house for more than that and it would be a total waste of money if I moved before 5 years were up (like spending $20k on a swimming pull in August and moving next June - in the NE people don't appreciate swimming pools that much because you can only use them 3 months out of 12 and they are a liability if the lining cracks)
Return on Investment for solar panels that generate electricity is about 5 years and that's WITH state rebates and federal and subsidies. After that it's gravy but panels only last around 25 to 30 years. According their website, they are building a plant that will produce enough panels for up to 100,000 customers per year. That's IF they are actually building something, somewhere - details on their website are pretty murky about this subject. From what I understand, it costs a fortune to build a factory that can make that many panels per year.. (If anyone knows an approx. number please reply w/ info) I guess they COULD just buy them from China, where most panels come from, and assemble them in Cali or elsewhere in USA and thus have the right to label them "made-in-USA" Citizenre's burn rate for the first year would be $2,000,000,000 (2bn) for 100,000 customers PLUS cost of plant, employees, marketing and other expenses. Where are they going to get this kind of cash??? Ah, that's where YOU come in:) For a bag full of money, you can help them spread the burden of that $2billion+ burn. If things don't work out, you'll get your empty bag back. If they continued to install panels for free @ 100k units per year, they would ALWAYS lose money - even after year 5, the first batch of customers would only net them 360million AND that's assuming their customers would pay $300 per month to them directly to heat and cool their house. (In USA most houses are gas and oil heated, so this number would be a lot lower. If they sold excess power to local utilities, this number would be a lot lower as well) So the finances make no sense - if you are going to spend $2bn, you may as well build a solar, nuclear, etc. power plant, somewhere in Arizona or even California where there's a lot of sun all year long. Then sell power to utilities since they already have steady customers AND excellent infrastructure to deliver their and your "product". If Citizenre's customers stop using (and paying for) the electricity from these panels, or even worse, rewire and steal power, what's Citizenre going to do? Spend money and have someone come and remove these panels? That wouldn't be cheap plus you would have to cover repairs to the roof since most solar installs are permanent and require solar panels to be screwed into the roof or south-facing wall. About five years there was a company that charged next to nothing for Internet terminal "PC"s that customers could purchase in major electronics stores (with cash) and take them home (without any kind of commitment!) This company was supposed to make money by charging customers for Internet access since device was dumbed-down to do just that. Well, to make this long story short, many dishonest customers purchased the device but did not activate and sign-up for Internet access. They hacked the box and put Linux on it. Back then LCD monitors were expensive and this box came with one as a all-in-one unit. The point is that once they hand over the goods, there is not much Citizenre can do. (customers can put a tarp over it to speed up that burn rate:)
I spent about 15 mins reading reading their website and was not impressed with CEO's credentials (sounds like some web marketing guy who jumped from company to company) and was alarmed by their "Senior Vice-President of Direct-Sales" this Sr. VP was directly involved with one of the biggest scams in the 1990s in "direct-marketing" when he was at Equinox. not only was he scamming, he even had the balls to write a book about it. (maybe finally woke-up and didn't want to be arrested like Enron's senior management) Below is Julian Wise's review of Rob Styler's book that I copied from Amazon.com: 'This book is an absolutely fascinating read for anyone who came into contact with Equinox International, the Multi-Level Marketing company that flared across America in the early 1990s and lured thousands of Americans into handing over their money, time, and, most often, their self-respect in pursuit of quick fortunes. Equinox,
Guess WHY there are not that many altrustic attractive women and men - positve self-image. Most people go out of their way to please others because they want to be accepted. How's that related? Attractive people in our society are automatically accepted and don't need to go out of their way to please and help others. Respect and help yourself first and forget what everyone else thinks ot says about you.
Others want to help their family, friends and even strangers because that's how they ALSO want to be treated. They are showing examples to others of what would please them or that someone notices.
Notice how angry or depressed you get when you go out of your way to help someone, especially without any hidden agenda, and they blame you when something goes wrong or give you no credit or even worse, call you a push-over. Part of being confident and feeling self-assured is knowing that you don't need assurance or compliments from others on how great and wonderful you are (for helping them) If they thank you - that's good, if they don't - that's OK too; the most important thing is that YOU know you did a good job, everyone else's opinion is secondary and thus, not important.
You've seen one of the biggest ball lightnings...and were lucky that it didn't flow into or through your window. From what I've read, it could be plasma (superheated gas) that can do a lot of damage. I saw one when I was around 11 at a resort on the Black sea in Russia. Shortly after a storm we went outside to play and were shocked to see a reddidh-yellow sphere and about basketball-size floating at 60 feet in the air. We were afraid it was heading for us but fortunately there was a lightning rod to the left of its descent. It curved towards it at about one foot per second and made contact with the rod. Explosion followed and was so loud that the entire camp heard it. We weren't able to find any residue but we did smell molten iron at the bottom of the lightning rod. I've heard stories of ball lightning bouncing on the streets before but didn't think it was true since I thought it would explode on contact.
This universe probably came from when one of the multi-dimensional universes collapsed and broke into universes with different number of dimensions (one of them 3D) or developed a 3D "bubble" inside of a 5, 9, or some other n-dimensional universe that keeps expanding (big bang) and collapsing over and over again. I read somewhere not too long ago that the dark matter could be leftovers from the last time big bang occurred. I see our world as a soap bubble that started expanding many billions of years ago because of extreme energy/heat that "inflated" and will continue to inflate this universe until pressure outside of the bubble is greater than the presssure within. Then as the temperature inside begins to decrease (galaxies cooling off) our universe will start shrinking rapidly. Some say it may even shrink to something as small as football or baseball. Of course everything within will be crushed and there will be no molecules or atoms left - just a blob of very dense matter/energy that will most likely explode again and form another universe, most likely another 3D one. Michio Kaku wrote books on this very topic and while it's all theories it makes a lot of sense to me. Of course we don't know where those other n-dimensional universes begin, end and what else contains them and WHY they are here to begin with.
...just picked up a copy at my local Target (+ pizza from their frozen food dept) and started a 100MB "patch" download. We'll see which one is finished first - pizza, patches OR me reading crapload of replies to this article!
what you probably don't know is that Microsoft has a reserved set of hostnames/ips in the kernel that do no go through normal name-resolution process. so even if you modify your hosts files, spoof dns servers and key servers, at some point it will try to contact them directly without going through "documented" name resolution process. While their intentions may sound reasonable - bypass spyware and viruses that may have hijacked the OS to allow clean-up and windows updates sw through, it may also allow them to disable your system or collect enough information on you to prosecute. Stick with XP or better yet, switch to linux.
Microsoft has enough employees who will have to buy their crappy product (to show company spirit) to stay in the top 3 for at least another two weeks. And then it's over. Apple wasn't the first out to market with an mp3 player but unlike MS they did their research. Every new generation of Ipod gets better its interface is extremely easy to learn and use. Itunes is not bad and I went out and bought 5th gen video ipod just because of how easy it is to subscribe to podcasts (G4, SG, etc) and ease of keeping everything in sync. I purchased the very second mp3 player that became commercially available in USA - Diamond Rio PMP300 in 1998 and Creative Lab's Nomad ][ a little bit later. Both were not great and the first suffered from slow transfer speed and second from just-ok interface but at least both products worked out of the box and I didn't have to wait a year for some feature that was promised to start working - NO wireless sync with PC(even my old motorola e680i phone can do this via bluetooth), crippled song "sharing" and no Vista support YET even though Vista is shipping in a month to PC manufacturers. Very rushed - feels like a pot-luck dinner. Finally, I think MS blew it because they are a software company first and they couldn't even write (OR STEAL) something decent. They only had 10 year to sit there and watch everyone else do it. I feel bad for Toshiba, they didn't really need this. I guess they didn't learn from Panasonic's 3DO fiasco where Trip Hawking tricked them into giving his company $100 million to blow on a video game system that didn't sell well.
Whatever the Xbox division "loses" will be offset by Office and Windows divisions' sales. What do you think the odds are of us seeing MS Office 360 edition on the new xbox? They will intentionally cripple it until MS can figure out how to rent applications without taking a bite out of their core OS and Apps sales.
I am pretty sure Sony will launch some or all of the following apps - Email, Web browser and a simple word processor. Since you will be able to connect PS3 to a PC monitor, I don't see why one couldn't use PS3 as a simple desktop substitute....And if they are really smart, they will give you free versions of "productivity" apps and hit you up for $$$ if you want a full-blown version w/ tech support. Both companies, MS and Sony, have their own internal problems - Sony is driven by music and movie divisions who demand ridiculous control over content and "protection" of their property (movies, music) which may spill over into games. (No more game rentals from blockbuster?) MS has problems with letting its other groups and divisions take sales (and profits) away from its main groups (cash cows such as Office and Windows are here to stay for at least another 5 years.)
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This makes perfect sense. Why do I need to keep buying apps for different platforms? Now we should be able to buy one app or subscription and use it on up to 10 devices.
It was not "over time" - it was in less than 4 months. Apple would not or replace my battery until some lawsuit came about. "Apple has admitted that some iPhone 6S devices can suddenly shut down for no apparent reason. The tech giant is offering owners of the problematic smartphones free replacement batteries. ... Apple's battery replacement offer for the iPhone 6S applies worldwide."
is there a quick guide how to set-up a bot in AWS? This seems to be a requirement.
Put all of the synths on a [future] laptop and hibernate until you reach Mars, Andromeda or whatever.
I think this "articile" was written to remind people that there is a new $1000+ phone available at your, possibly-local, Apple store. I am surprised author did not mention that some people may have to go to Target or Best Buy this Friday to get $250 - $300 gift card w/ new activation.
Seriously, there is no healthy food or healthy restaurants available in most "hoods" but this is what the author chose to write about..
"Two men, a neat freak and a slob separated from their wives, have to live together despite their differences."
If South Park is not making an episode out of this, they dropped the ball[s]!
Seriously, photoshop your own face onto your favorite porn star and send it to Facebook... then wait and see what happens. (if it surfaces anywhere, sue Facebook!)
is reviewer is Millenial or something? It's like he watched a completely different movie. Even goes on to insult Harrison Ford's acting ability - "so committed to phoning it in that the Verizon "Can You Hear Me Now?" guy should fear for his job." :)
If you loved the first movie, you will like this one as well. This movie may not do well because of R rating. They could have easily made PG-13 version, like what we saw in 1990s on regular tv. Regardless, it was worth the 20+ year wait (for me) and hopefully, there will be a third film to wrap things up.
Only negative thing about the movie was how loud the "noise" was - not sure if it's my local theater or if it's designed to make your ears bleed
new Ipad is perfect for Skype, Facetime, webex, etc. Ipad2's camera was not sufficient but new Ipad works great.
Laptops with their small removable parts, power cords, outlet voltage, and excessive heat are not the safest device for a toddler.
At about two years of age, toddlers start asserting themselves by throwing temper tantrums - do not leave one unattended, even
with an Ipad; glass display can break if device is thrown or smashed with another toy.
Benefit of getting an Ipad is there are a lot of games for 1 to 3 year olds. Peekaboo Farm, Elmo Calls, etc seem to entertain
them for 10 - 15 minutes. Learning curve for iOS is about ten minutes. (more for adults who keep trying to "click" on stuff)
I think you need SpinRite. It's important for disks to be read once in a while, to "re-magnetize" disk surface; the same goes for your hard drives.
He's 100% guilty of:
#1 - Forgery - he made up reverse trade that did not exist. When clients were asked about large sums of money that they bet against Jerome's futures, they had no idea what the bank was talking about. That's because he forged all of them.
#2 - Unlawful use of "access device" to commit #1. That's the IDs he borrowed from the back office.
That's about all he's guilty of of. In USA he would get about 3 years and get out in 2.5. Then he can go on and write a book about it, make $1 million and retire.
The same thing happened at another French back in August 2007. Those losses amounted to $300 million but you probably haven't heard about it. Why did it happen? Lack of supervision - most of France is on vacation in August.
Technology didn't fail. People did. It will continue happening until people wake up and start doing what they are supposed to be doing - working.
hehe, if it were MS, it would say
Do you really want to throw away $7,200,000,000?
"Why the DRM failed to work on 50% of our purchases.." :)
BECAUSE 50% of Windows XP machines that were used to download DRMed movies were using "borrowed" or keygenned serial numbers
[btw, this was meant to be funny]
I get what you are saying but I also somewhat agree with these "cheaters". Here's my analogy:
Some people love building sports kit cars that they may drive some day; They spend months (or years) building the car, dynamo the engine at a facility, then fine-tune based on data collected, buy better upgrades, choose paint jobs, leather, chrome, etc. Then they FINALLY take it to the track or race it on the street. They enjoyed building process as much, if not more, than driving the car. They take prive in what they have accomplished. (even though there are others who may have the same kit car that looks just like theirs)
Then there are others, who just buy a fully-loaded sports car (Porsche Carrera 4S, for example) and enjoy driving it from day one. They won't even change oil or wash the car by themselves.
BOTH kinds drive on the same roads and while they may not respect or appreciate how the other guy got there, neither one is right or wrong.
However, in the real world it's a little easier to tell them apart and in virtual world there should be a way to do the same. Perhaps a flag or description once you "examine" their avatar. Label them "spoon-fed-until-60" or sleepwalking or something funnier.
As far as I know, Blizzard doesn't sue Chinese players who charge $200 to level-up your char to 60, so why sue someone who's pretty much doing the same via software? (except taking a "job" away from someone in China?)
Someone should sue Blizzard because you have to have arms and/or legs to play the game. WOW cannot be played telepathically...YET.
I spent 30 minutes and actually READ the contract. (had to increase the font since it was placed in a tiny window and was using the smallest font) the one you uploaded at http://wyvern.org/citizenre.pdf didn't load - error 403 - Forbidden.
It clearly states the following:
1 - THEY can change any terms of the contract at any time. They just have to mail it to you within a month.
2 - They cannot guarantee that the electricity THEIR unit is going to produce is going to be BOUGHT by your electric company AND that you will continue to pay (for 25 years unless you try to cancel) for ALL electricity that leaves your house even though your public utility company may decide not to honor the agreement or reduce how much they pay per kWh. How's that for fair? Paying for something you cannot even use. From what I understand they directly connect to the grid and there are NO batteries of any kind - so during day when there's no one home it may be charging you money because it's sending most electricity outside the house and this energy cannot be stored for later use. Instead, you have to buy it back from the util company when you get home. Like I said, if electric company pays nothing or next to nothing to you for every kWh you generate and "sell" you may be stuck with a nasty bill from Citizenre.
3 - You have to pay $500 upfront before you even get the system. I think this is the heart of their Ponzi scheme. They will get enough customers and will delay rollouts at any cost - maybe even will promise to give you a preferred rate, a chance to buy company stock (by the way they are not listed on ANY stock exchange) and other things that may delay you from getting your money back. I am normally a pretty trusting person so I actually think they will subcontract some installers to go out and roll out anywhere from 300 to 500 homes @ $30k per house. Even with 10 million out of their pocket they get to keep 40 million dollars IF they decide to capsize their venture at that time. I assume their top performers who signed up the most $500 paying customers will get the free installs" They are not dummies and have chosen the right state to incorporate in. Under limited liability, their personal assets will be protected...whether they decide to give themselves 10 or 5 million dollar bonuses, before filing for bankruptcy, is entirely up to them. Since they are not publicly traded, they are not subject to audit or mandatory financial reporting that companies like BP or Shell have to provide and file every quarter.
4 - when you signed the contract you exempted them from any ERRORS that the billing computer may make. You don't have the right to open the box and examine its function. (i guess you could compare what the meter said and what their unit said but then you would still have to shut off ALL appliances in the house to get accurate results) So you would have to PAY even if their computer screwed up or was off by 1% or 50. You can dispute the charges but you still have to pay first and then wait for arbitration.
5 - unit that they will install will not be insured. So if a tree branch falls on it and breaks $30k install, you are responsible. This means you have have yo get your own insurance or add it to your home owner's policy. You will also have to connect it to your telephone line since they will not pay for one or for phone calls that their computer will make.
6- You are responsible for any taxes due to state, federal or local governments. not too clear but I assume since you will be selling electricity, you will be taxed by at least one of those. (they won't and make it very clear)
I guess we'll see what happens soon enough. They also mentioned something about franchising on their website so they may be targeting bigger fish in the pond.
Watch the following - Rob Styler actually explains how this a pyramid scheme and you can make up to 300 per customer you sign, "but the money won't be there, right away" He claims they set aside 5 million to pay off "early visionaries" and if you ware willing to wait (big alert flag here) you will be rewarded. If this isn't another 1980s-catch-phrase-style, ponzi mass-marketing scheme, I don't what is.
Powur to the people!
jesus christ! you wouldn't lease a car for 25 years, why agree to pay for something for more than a year? What happens if you sell the house? do you continue to pay for next owner's electrical bills?
I would love to see the contract. Is there any way you could scan it and post somewhere? (remove your name, address and town of course!)
At least have a lawyer look it. See if there are any strange or vague wording where you can, may or WILL assume any or all responsibility if they(citezenre) cannot pay back the loan or if there are any "minimum" monthly charges.
As far as not being able to afford a solar array - things may change in the future where solar panels are cheaper (by a lot) and are far more efficient. also state rebate may change, most likely for the better. I did all the math and it came out to 5 years for system to pay for itself. (loan, installation costs, panels minus the rebate) Unfortunately, I don't plan on living in the same house for more than that and it would be a total waste of money if I moved before 5 years were up (like spending $20k on a swimming pull in August and moving next June - in the NE people don't appreciate swimming pools that much because you can only use them 3 months out of 12 and they are a liability if the lining cracks)
Return on Investment for solar panels that generate electricity is about 5 years and that's WITH state rebates and federal and subsidies. After that it's gravy but panels only last around 25 to 30 years. According their website, they are building a plant that will produce enough panels for up to 100,000 customers per year. That's IF they are actually building something, somewhere - details on their website are pretty murky about this subject. From what I understand, it costs a fortune to build a factory that can make that many panels per year.. (If anyone knows an approx. number please reply w/ info) I guess they COULD just buy them from China, where most panels come from, and assemble them in Cali or elsewhere in USA and thus have the right to label them "made-in-USA" :)
Citizenre's burn rate for the first year would be $2,000,000,000 (2bn) for 100,000 customers PLUS cost of plant, employees, marketing and other expenses. Where are they going to get this kind of cash??? Ah, that's where YOU come in
For a bag full of money, you can help them spread the burden of that $2billion+ burn. If things don't work out, you'll get your empty bag back.
If they continued to install panels for free @ 100k units per year, they would ALWAYS lose money - even after year 5, the first batch of customers would only net them 360million AND that's assuming their customers would pay $300 per month to them directly to heat and cool their house. (In USA most houses are gas and oil heated, so this number would be a lot lower. If they sold excess power to local utilities, this number would be a lot lower as well)
So the finances make no sense - if you are going to spend $2bn, you may as well build a solar, nuclear, etc. power plant, somewhere in Arizona or even California where there's a lot of sun all year long. Then sell power to utilities since they already have steady customers AND excellent infrastructure to deliver their and your "product".
If Citizenre's customers stop using (and paying for) the electricity from these panels, or even worse, rewire and steal power, what's Citizenre going to do? Spend money and have someone come and remove these panels? That wouldn't be cheap plus you would have to cover repairs to the roof since most solar installs are permanent and require solar panels to be screwed into the roof or south-facing wall.
About five years there was a company that charged next to nothing for Internet terminal "PC"s that customers could purchase in major electronics stores (with cash) and take them home (without any kind of commitment!) This company was supposed to make money by charging customers for Internet access since device was dumbed-down to do just that. Well, to make this long story short, many dishonest customers purchased the device but did not activate and sign-up for Internet access. They hacked the box and put Linux on it. Back then LCD monitors were expensive and this box came with one as a all-in-one unit. The point is that once they hand over the goods, there is not much Citizenre can do. (customers can put a tarp over it to speed up that burn rate:)
I spent about 15 mins reading reading their website and was not impressed with CEO's credentials (sounds like some web marketing guy who jumped from company to company) and was alarmed by their "Senior Vice-President of Direct-Sales"
this Sr. VP was directly involved with one of the biggest scams in the 1990s in "direct-marketing" when he was at Equinox. not only was he scamming, he even had the balls to write a book about it. (maybe finally woke-up and didn't want to be arrested like Enron's senior management) Below is Julian Wise's review of Rob Styler's book that I copied from Amazon.com:
'This book is an absolutely fascinating read for anyone who came into contact with Equinox International, the Multi-Level Marketing company that flared across America in the early 1990s and lured thousands of Americans into handing over their money, time, and, most often, their self-respect in pursuit of quick fortunes. Equinox,
Guess WHY there are not that many altrustic attractive women and men - positve self-image. Most people go out of their way to please others because they want to be accepted. How's that related? Attractive people in our society are automatically accepted and don't need to go out of their way to please and help others.
Respect and help yourself first and forget what everyone else thinks ot says about you.
Others want to help their family, friends and even strangers because that's how they ALSO want to be treated. They are showing examples to others of what would please them or that someone notices.
Notice how angry or depressed you get when you go out of your way to help someone, especially without any hidden agenda, and they blame you when something goes wrong or give you no credit or even worse, call you a push-over.
Part of being confident and feeling self-assured is knowing that you don't need assurance or compliments from others on how great and wonderful you are (for helping them) If they thank you - that's good, if they don't - that's OK too; the most important thing is that YOU know you did a good job, everyone else's opinion is secondary and thus, not important.
You've seen one of the biggest ball lightnings...and were lucky that it didn't flow into or through your window. From what I've read, it could be plasma (superheated gas) that can do a lot of damage.
I saw one when I was around 11 at a resort on the Black sea in Russia. Shortly after a storm we went outside to play and were shocked to see a reddidh-yellow sphere and about basketball-size floating at 60 feet in the air. We were afraid it was heading for us but fortunately there was a lightning rod to the left of its descent. It curved towards it at about one foot per second and made contact with the rod. Explosion followed and was so loud that the entire camp heard it. We weren't able to find any residue but we did smell molten iron at the bottom of the lightning rod.
I've heard stories of ball lightning bouncing on the streets before but didn't think it was true since I thought it would explode on contact.
This universe probably came from when one of the multi-dimensional universes collapsed and broke into universes with different number of dimensions (one of them 3D) or developed a 3D "bubble" inside of a 5, 9, or some other n-dimensional universe that keeps expanding (big bang) and collapsing over and over again. I read somewhere not too long ago that the dark matter could be leftovers from the last time big bang occurred. I see our world as a soap bubble that started expanding many billions of years ago because of extreme energy/heat that "inflated" and will continue to inflate this universe until pressure outside of the bubble is greater than the presssure within. Then as the temperature inside begins to decrease (galaxies cooling off) our universe will start shrinking rapidly. Some say it may even shrink to something as small as football or baseball. Of course everything within will be crushed and there will be no molecules or atoms left - just a blob of very dense matter/energy that will most likely explode again and form another universe, most likely another 3D one.
Michio Kaku wrote books on this very topic and while it's all theories it makes a lot of sense to me. Of course we don't know where those other n-dimensional universes begin, end and what else contains them and WHY they are here to begin with.
...just picked up a copy at my local Target (+ pizza from their frozen food dept) and started a 100MB "patch" download.
We'll see which one is finished first - pizza, patches OR me reading crapload of replies to this article!
what you probably don't know is that Microsoft has a reserved set of hostnames/ips in the kernel that do no go through normal name-resolution process. so even if you modify your hosts files, spoof dns servers and key servers, at some point it will try to contact them directly without going through "documented" name resolution process.
While their intentions may sound reasonable - bypass spyware and viruses that may have hijacked the OS to allow clean-up and windows updates sw through, it may also allow them to disable your system or collect enough information on you to prosecute.
Stick with XP or better yet, switch to linux.
Microsoft has enough employees who will have to buy their crappy product (to show company spirit) to stay in the top 3 for at least another two weeks. And then it's over.
Apple wasn't the first out to market with an mp3 player but unlike MS they did their research. Every new generation of Ipod gets better its interface is extremely easy to learn and use. Itunes is not bad and I went out and bought 5th gen video ipod just because of how easy it is to subscribe to podcasts (G4, SG, etc) and ease of keeping everything in sync.
I purchased the very second mp3 player that became commercially available in USA - Diamond Rio PMP300 in 1998 and Creative Lab's Nomad ][ a little bit later. Both were not great and the first suffered from slow transfer speed and second from just-ok interface but at least both products worked out of the box and I didn't have to wait a year for some feature that was promised to start working - NO wireless sync with PC(even my old motorola e680i phone can do this via bluetooth), crippled song "sharing" and no Vista support YET even though Vista is shipping in a month to PC manufacturers. Very rushed - feels like a pot-luck dinner.
Finally, I think MS blew it because they are a software company first and they couldn't even write (OR STEAL) something decent. They only had 10 year to sit there and watch everyone else do it. I feel bad for Toshiba, they didn't really need this.
I guess they didn't learn from Panasonic's 3DO fiasco where Trip Hawking tricked them into giving his company $100 million to blow on a video game system that didn't sell well.
Whatever the Xbox division "loses" will be offset by Office and Windows divisions' sales. What do you think the odds are of us seeing MS Office 360 edition on the new xbox?
...And if they are really smart, they will give you free versions of "productivity" apps and hit you up for $$$ if you want a full-blown version w/ tech support.
They will intentionally cripple it until MS can figure out how to rent applications without taking a bite out of their core OS and Apps sales.
I am pretty sure Sony will launch some or all of the following apps - Email, Web browser and a simple word processor. Since you will be able to connect PS3 to a PC monitor, I don't see why one couldn't use PS3 as a simple desktop substitute.
Both companies, MS and Sony, have their own internal problems - Sony is driven by music and movie divisions who demand ridiculous control over content and "protection" of their property (movies, music) which may spill over into games.
(No more game rentals from blockbuster?)
MS has problems with letting its other groups and divisions take sales (and profits) away from its main groups (cash cows such as Office and Windows are here to stay for at least another 5 years.)