twothamendment

> Even with a tariff on panels, the cost of a solar installation, with incentives, is still significantly cheaper than grid electricity.

That all depends on where you live. I could cover my house with panels and not have enough in the winter. It would work great in the summer.

It also depends on how your utility bills. During the spring and fall where my bill is the lowest (low usage of heat or a/c) half of my bill is just for being connected to the grid. Since I can't ditch the grid because I need it in the winter, solar doesn't come close to paying for itself in my situation. Power is under 7 cents/kwh, but there is a nearly $40 a month fee for being hooked up to the grid.

That said, it is still exciting to see the price come down. I'll likely get a few panels just so I have a little juice when the grid is down.

Google is failing big in SMS. I have a Google Voice number that I've used since it was announced as Grand Central. Do you know what happens when someone sends a vcard? Nothing good - it just says it isn't supported. There isn't a way on the phone or even from a computer to SEE the vcard. I don't care if you support it, show me the blob of text and I'll read it myself!

I'd like to see the TSA go as much as the next, but they have some job positions I'd call real work. Throwing 80 pound bags on and off conveyor belts, looking forward to ski season when the ski bags hit, opening up suitcases full of things I don't want to see, touch or smell. They have their share of jobs sitting around or standing around looking important, but behind the scenes there is some "real" work going on. Too bad it doesn't accomplish much.

I think CS on its own can be so theoretical and perfect that it is only a part of software engineering. A software engineer who can program can also put that programming and CS to use within business constraints.

Hand a strong theoretical CS person a steaming pile of a project and ask for the smallest tweak and it will take forever - that is if their head doesn't explode or they decide to re-architect it. Task a good software engineer with the same thing and they will get the change done with the understanding that they also hate the steaming pile of a project, but it isn't worth any more time.

Yes - or how well I know and hate the language.

I like to think of it as hiring people with actual years of experience. I don't care what their age is or their title. Are they a senior developer only because they have 6 more months than the other guy at the startup or are they senior because they've had 6 jobs over twice as many years? Those years add add experience in doing things the wrong way and in ways that work.

Not if all the experienced drivers retire and there isn't enough young ones to fill their seats. Raising wages would help, but it still takes time to get people up to speed. Do you want the new guy in a hazmat tanker next to you on the freeway?

It may not be to take more jobs, it may be to keep the one you have. Say it takes 14 hours and 45 minutes and you can only log 14 hours drive time. How do you get the job done when dispatch is promising you'll be there? Start driving before you log the start of your day, log breaks when really you've been peeing in a bottle, log some time to inspect your truck when you are stuck in traffic. A little here and there. You can also fudge when you slept and start so you can get rolling sooner. The pressure to do this is huge. If you won't, someone else will, so you do it to keep your job.

Bonus, if you are caught the company doesn't care, they will hire someone else, but it sticks with your record.

Last mile can be some of the least fun part of the job. Getting in and out of town in traffic in a city you haven't been to, waiting hours or a day for someone to load it unload your truck. Other than trying to keep up with the dispatcher who forgets you aren't driving a racecar, the open road can be the nice part of the trip.

At some point it begins to be obvious when marketing is full of it - I think they passed that point and had to accept what everyone already knew.

I agree it was more of a marketing phrase. The code of conduct is more likely something like "Only do evil if it makes good money and don't get caught."

I don't find it sad to end a bad relationship. If someone only intends to "use" me and has nothing to offer, that isn't much of a loss.

Potato chip company: "We tired to make you stop eating them." Customer: "Sell me more, I don't care if I'm fat." Potato chip company: "OK, but make sure you read the nutrition panel on the back." (Hey guys, increase production, we have them hooked now!)

As long as auto play lives on, they show they have no interest in helping anyone watch less - and why should they pretend they care?

Maybe it mentions it, but if you only read comments that thickness from the cut has a name - kerf. Don't forget the kerf.

Dimensional lumber is anything but that. I once needed to rip down a stack of 2"x6" lumber to the same width. Some pieces would run through the saw without cutting anything off, others would leave a 1/4" strip of scrap. Take into account the kerf and there was almost a 1/2" difference between some pieces.

> Given you need to still draw from the grid, but aren't paying as much...

Right on. Much of the cost of being on the grid is the grid itself. My power company is a co-op. They aren't out to rob me, but the monthly fee just to be hooked up is pretty high. Here it is because the population is thin and a good percentage of homes are vacation/cabin, so they aren't using very much for many months, but they want it to work when they show up. I think it might be similar when people quit using as much on a regular basis, but still want the power company to provide on a whim (theirs or nature). The cost to be on the grid, even if you don't ever use it is going to rise.

I'm about 2 years in on 100% remote. When I moved from one state to another did my employer care that my phone/Internet, my car insurance, my health insurance and cost of food was higher? Did they care that if I hire some guy to work on my house his rate is twice what it was where I used to be? No, and I didn't think they should care. I get paid what they think I'm worth. How and where I spend the money isn't their problem. So I agree, I don't make SV wages, but I sure can't complain - especially when I get to live where I want to live. It is hard to put a price on that.

Doesn't that encourage the hoarding of best practices so one can drink at the expense of the less experienced?

If I started "collecting" stolen credit card numbers as a hobby, but not using them, did I collect any numbers? What if I only put them in a database and never run a select? I doubt that defense would hold up. I hate word games.

There is always someone willing to do a job, but that is one where it doesn't matter how much they want to pay me. No thanks, I don't want to know what goes on if I can't talk about it.

There were times I thought that I'd have to give up, but it is much better than it used to be. I've been running my own email since 2002. There were some rough years, but I think we are past the days where you'd try to send to someone at {{big company} and get rejected. It's been quite a few years since I've thought too much about being rejected or fighting spam.

It is a pain to setup DKIM, SPF, etc., but it all works now. I had to say "etc.", mostly because I don't remember all the hoops I jumped through. THe good news is that it has been so long I don't remember.

I recently soldered a wire to my garage door opener on the wall and ran it to a relay and then to the pins on a raspberry pi. Knowing the state of the door is key because the opener is just a toggle. I also have my alarm system hooked up to the pi, so it checks the state before and after any request. Repeatedly asking it to open will open it, or return success of it already is. Same with close.

It took a bit of testing before I trusted it would all work the way I thought it would, but now I user it and don't even think about it, it just works and is handy to have.

Yes, and they made me stand up when they told the story.

Back in the chat room days, I jumped into one that I knew was frequented by a male coworker. I'm male, but picked a female name and started to chat with him. Since we were local he suggested meeting up. That would have been a bit awkward, so I gave him the address to my friend's all girls apartment and the name of her roommate. She ended up marrying the stranger who showed up unannounced at her door.

> Warehouse jobs have no goal, no end in sight, it's a nonstop churn...

Long haul truckers may see things the same. There may be a destination, but there is always another after that. It is all about timing departure and arrival and those pesky reset periods. They are under constant pressure to keep moving, always pushing to the next place. If you push hard and make it once it will be expected the next time too.

For some it is a conveyor belt and list of orders, for other s it is a highway and a never ending list of destinations.

My wife was shopping for a fan and noticed that Amazon and Costco both had the same one. Costco was about $1.50 more. We buy a ton of stuff from Amazon, but given the chance to get it from someone who is less likely to have a fake and will take it back without an argument - Costco won this time.

69 MB gif - isn't that called a video? I thought we had different formats for that.

What if they dig up dirt on someone with the same or similar name? My mom can't give blood because of some guy with a name that is one letter different than hers. You'd think a different gender would make it easy to fix - but no, she finally gave up.

This was nearly 20 years ago at the same building the news station was in. Maybe a news station was a platform giant in 1999. I guess it was a very restrictive platform. They talked and you listened.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_Center#1999_shooting_i...

After that, they added some bullet proof doors. Since then the heavy doors sagged and have been replaced with ones that "look better".

As long as they play within the rules, fair game. If Trump doesn't like the rules, don't single out a company, change the game.

I've always thought 3D printers were cool, but never found a reason to want one of my own. You just gave me a reason. A big enough reason? We'll see. I hate throwing out things that are 99% fine, but have one little, broken part you know you can't buy anywhere.