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My first answer was going to be maybe the electrical lines aren't up to par to carry the load but given all the computers Merc runs that's highly unlikely. Either it's a central air unit for the entire building which the landlord refuses to fix, or this is one of those buildings which for some...

This is kind of funny because for years one of my sister's coworkers insisted that the government can spy on you through your TV (but according to her only when it's off). Now this was back in the days of analog NTSC TV, making her entire fear tin foil hat material. It's a bit ironic how this is...

Duplicate post-please remove.

When you consider that residences typically hold a temperature of maybe 20°F to 30°F above ambient due to insulation and power dissipation from various appliances you can probably drop the lower end of your range to 40°F or 50°F, perhaps even 30°F for a very well insulated home. It's also worth...

For what it's worth chances are good the cat would have survived if it had fallen from the plane. Fatality rates for falling cats peak at around 5 stories, and go down from there. In general though the survival rate in very high when cats fall from hundreds of feet up.

Nearly the same for me. Mine was a 386/33 with DOS 5.0 and Win 3.1 and 4 MB RAM. I soon upgraded to a friend's spare 386-40 which I maxed out at 16 MB of RAM. I also put in a 387 math coprocessor (anyone remember those). This was c. 1998. The machine was dated even for its time but it served me...

I'm not surprised at any of that. Both Verizon and TWC have virtual monopolies in large swaths of the city. And both suck in their own way. If you have service problems, you'll get lip service and maybe in two weeks someone will come by to see what's the problem. I had to fix my last issue on my...

The real question here would do they have a legal monopoly in these areas? Obviously in that case they're obligated to provide service regardless of whether or not that service is profitable in each and every case. If not, they might still be obligated if they accepted government subsidies to...

For what it's worth, there are places in NYC where you can't get decent internet access. Granted, it's not that many but they exist. That said, AT&T or anyone else shouldn't make promises they can't keep. That's really the heart of the issue here. They promised something which in the end they...

In all fairness to AT&T it looks like a lot of the places where this is happening are in the middle of nowhere. It's just not profitable to run the same array of services to areas where you have houses on 1 acre or 5 acre lots. People have to expect if they choose to live in a place like that...

Honestly, I'm surprised the networks are even in the top 25. I haven't regularly watched any of the major networks for decades. I want to say back in the 1970s their programming went down hill. Other than HBO, I'm surprised more of the movie stations didn't make the top ten. Many of the channels...

Actually temperatures can start to become dangerous even as low as the 90s if humidity is high. Anything much over about 100 to 110 is incompatible with human life in the long run.

While on this subject, embedded microcontrollers of the type you might find in a microwave or refrigerator or washing machine these days offer more computing power than something like a 486 did c. 1990 while having a power draw measured in at most tens of mW. That's a huge leap forward. The...

While we're at it, it's not even clear if installing the update will mean you lose all your settings and installed programs. If that's the case, no thanks, not interested.

Not surprising when you consider the youngest ones are probably 87 or thereabouts, and most are into their 90s. On another note, the last surviving WWI vet died in 2012 at age 110.

Not a good way to start your day although there are some things a lot worse (scroll down to bottom of page).

What's the failure mode? Does it look like the electrolytic caps in the supplies are bulging? That might be symptomatic of too much heat. Incidentally, with the push to have quieter power supplies new supplies will have less airflow, and therefore higher internal temperatures, than many noisy...

Cable clips? Cable hangers? If you post a picture maybe someone here knows the name.

Horseshit was actually one of the reasons people gravitated to automobiles back in the 1920s. Of course, we're not ever going back to horses in cities. It's frankly as bad as cars, and PETA would never allow it anyway. ;)

Read it a few days ago. Great article. We're basically going back to the past here, making cities as they were before automobiles took over.

Actually most of the vehicle miles and gas usage are outside of big cities. You can effectively ban cars from some of the large cities in the US but it will hardly make a dent in gas use. That said, the transition to electric vehicles is inevitable. Big oil only succeeded in delaying it, not...

Actually if you mostly get around the city by walking, biking, or public transit having cars around makes things horrible. Cars are tools, but like any tool there are good and bad uses. Private automobiles are better suited for rural and some suburban areas. Inner ring suburbs and cities would...

Yeah, it is pretty pricey here: From Date To Date Elec Use (Kwh) Elec Demand (Kw) Con Ed Electric Bill Amt ESCO Electric Supply Amt Gas Use (Therm) Con Ed Gas Bill Amt ESCO Gas Supply Amt Total Bill Amt 03/27/2015 04/27/2015 810 0.00 $128.60 $107.75 7 $26.17 $4.63 $267.15 02/26/2015...

Just a rough estimate. Also, the rebates cover something like 40% IIRC, so the system might cost $35K before rebates. Your average power usage might be higher than mine. I'm sizing mine for roughly 1500 kW-hr month average. Based on my location, I would need a 10 to 12 kW system. In any case...

I tend to think the main use for these would be in conjunction with solar panels rather than shifting time of use. We don't have smart electric meters, either, but the economics might work if we did. Right now we're paying about $0.30/kW-hr flat rate. That includes the delivery charge. Now if...

While we're on the subject of price, raw batteries cost more than a complete Powerwell unit will sell for. For example, here is a 640Wh LiFePO4 cell selling for $370. 10kWH worth would be nearly $6,000, and that's without any additional electronics needed to interface to 120VAC. Often not having...

I'm seriously considering it along with an installation of solar panels.

My niece is graduating with a combined music/education degree from CW Post next week. No idea what she'll eventually be doing (most likely teaching music) but she seemed to enjoy the process of getting a degree.

My last one was in 1980. I've seen some lifespan tests where regularly seeing a doctor actually adds negative numbers to your life. Given how many people die from routine screenings or the long-term effects of prescription drugs this probably isn't far from the truth. Back when modern medicine...

I can give you two bits of advice. One is to do as much as you can with your life as soon as you can. Given the condition which runs in your family, if you don't start a career and earn a decent amount by your 30s or 40s, you may never have the chance again. I know this because I was afflicted...

I think writing to the drive a lot is key to not losing performance. I cloned my drive as a copy of the three partitions I had on my old XP install. As such, I generally only write to the two data parititions occasionally. I've noted over time performance drops. It jumps up when I defrag a...

This document on the Samsung migration software might answer some of your questions.

I don't know if anyone here with Samsung Evo 840s experienced a performance drop but I did. HDtune showed STRs under 40 MB/sec in some portions of the drive. Apparently, this is a known issue with these drives. Samsung issued a fix, although there may be a need for another fix down the road. In...

I used testdisk in the past to help me fix a bad partition table. It's not too user friendly but if you read the documentation you might be able to figure it out. BTW, the Windows update problem you mention might simply be caused by a bad partition table. I'm seen all sorts of weird problems...

If you run VMs you can consume an insane amount of RAM. I've nearly maxed out my 16GB running 2 or 3 VMs at the same time. Other than that, it's rare I go much over 4 or 5GB. I happily lived with 3GB in my old Athlon XP3200 machine until 2 years ago. Given that I had XP installed, I couldn't use...

That's exactly what I was thinking, and no I don't think the Samsung migration software resizes partitions automatically.

Would anyone here be able to suggest partition resizing software which apairofpcs might be able to figure out how to use on his own? Based on my reading of the problem, I think all we might need to do is resize the Windows partition. I helped him with the original cloning process but apparently...

If true that's pretty depressing news on two fronts. One, it's sad to lose someone who was a big part of the forums at one time. Two, 57 is too young for anyone to die. Here's hoping that obituary Merc found isn't his, although I doubt there are two people of the same name and age in a...

Actually Walmart is a famous example of how government programs benefit the wealthy. If the programs you mentioned didn't exist, Walmart and McDonald's and many other companies which pay low wages would have to pay more, which in turn would mean the wealthy owners would get less. And practically...

I've heard this before but most of the things poor people buy like food aren't taxed now and wouldn't be taxed under a sales tax scheme. Also, isn't the current combined 15.3% FICA tax highly regressive? BTW, in NYC a living wage would be more like $75K and up, not $15 an hour. They'll never...

I was reading up just now on back door Roth IRAs and I got a major headache. The whole thing doesn't seem to make a bit of sense to me. You put money in a nondeductible traditional IRA. Since the money wasn't deducted you pay taxes on it. Then when you convert to a Roth you have to pay taxes on...

I had a similar situation doing my mom's taxes last year but I just read up a bit. The only time things might be too complex to do it yourself would be selling shares of stock or mutual funds which were purchased at various prices. It then becomes a question of which purchase price and sales...

Especially when that $35,000 is regular wages. I might understand an accountant getting someone who files as an independent contractor a much lower tax liability by taking "liberties" with business deductions but if all you have are W2 wages there isn't much you can do beyond claim the usual...

Most power supplies tend to be slightly more efficient at 240V than 120V, and hence generate less heat. That said, Cougtek is right-these supplies often use marginal components and/or have poor quality of assembly. I've taken apart some cheap supplies which failed and more often than not it's...

I always do my taxes myself if for no other reason than I don't want a stranger knowing my business. Also, the hard part is generally already done because I keep track of expenses as they occur during the year with a spreadsheet. Making decent money is a mixed blessing. Now I owe out 5 figures...

They came to $33.73 each with tax from Amazon. I ordered a pair. Now I should be good on backup space for the next few years. :)

I just tried buying one. It shows up as $59.99 in the shopping cart. Is this Tiger Direct's idea of a late April fool's joke?

That's disgusting. Unfortunately for some segment of the population, religious freedom means making laws which basically force even those who don't beleive in your religion to adhere to some of its tenets. It's no secret some large segment of the religious right would turn the US into a...

One more thing about discrimination. Obviously if you're fat or Asian or black everyone can plainly see it, and hence potentially use it to discriminate against you. Stereotypes aside, there are rarely strongly visual indicators that someone is homosexual. The wedding cake example of course is...

Sure, you can find all kinds of examples of gross heterosexual sex. That wasn't my objection. My rationale here is the biological purpose of sex is procreation. Obviously species evolved to find sex pleasureable because you needed that in a survival situation or it never would occur. Now that...