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It's not a question of wants. It's a question of what people can afford. Lots of people I now can't afford a new car, or even a relatively new used car. Heck, a lot of people, me included, never had money to afford a car period, although at least in NYC you really don't need one. They're driving...

Whatever you're doing sounds interesting. Totally agree about not going it alone. I've had loads of ideas over the years but never put anything into action for lack of contacts who were knowledgeable. Another thing stopping me was the patent situation. I can't afford to patent anything, and I...

Sure, something designed from the ground up as an electric is going to be better but conversions are certainly feasible. People are already doing it. Another problem is have you seen the new car choices? It's really more like new SUV, pickup, and crossover choices. If you like real cars, as...

Last I checked fewer and fewer people have money to buy new cars. There's also a demographic shift. But my point here is today's car bodies last a really long time. If someone is happy with their vehicle, why wouldn't they want to convert it to electric, instead of taking chances buying...

That might not be a bad business to be in. There will be a combination of carrot/stick approaches to get ICEs off the road. That could include outright bans on ICEs in large cities, probably starting in Europe/Asia first, but eventually coming to North America. The end result of this could be...

It's probably more complex than that. The failure of an SSD is some function of the failure rates of the controller and the individual NAND chips. Since drives in any given generation use similar density NAND chips, an individual NAND chip is not more likely to fail based on the size of the...

In the case of SSDs, unlike HDDs, it's not like the larger ones have higher data density. They just have more NAND chips. I have more confidence in SSDs since we've increased chip capacity by stacking cells, instead of using smaller cells. The primary problem with large SSDs is when they fail...

I can say as an individual I probably wouldn't want anything much over 4TB. The problem is backing it up. Some SSDs suffer from a data retention problem if left sitting unpowered for long periods. HDDs in my opinion have squeezed so much data on a platter that they're inherently unreliable, period.

He does have a family and he's at an age when family responsibilities can take up most of your time. Ditto for when you're my age and taking care of an aging parent(s) like I am.

I did something like this maybe 15 years ago when I ran ethernet cables from my bedroom to four other areas. What helped was routing them partway either through the attic or the basement. That meant I just had to either drill a hole in the basement ceiling where the cable would drop down from...

Right now QLC makes little sense because TLC is selling for about the same. However, if the price falls a lot lower I can see it being useful if people realize its limitations. Basically, it's fine for bulk storage where you'll mostly be reading, not writing.

I've noticed the difference on a regular 1080p TV. Cable often compresses the hell out of broadcasts so they can squeeze in more channels.

Not to mention I'm concerned about their ability to retain data over long periods when unpowered.

It sounds like it was a protest of some sort. Unfortunately, thanks to idiots like this we'll end up with heavy-handed legislation which penalizes the good guys.

Also worth mentioning is even if the lower TBW ratings for consumer drives reflected reality, for the majority of people it would take decades to reach those numbers. By then you likely will have moved on to a larger drive anyway. The biggest potential problem with flash is data retention...

That's where electric space heaters come in. Note that every area has this issue if temperatures get low enough. For example, the heating system in my house can't really hold a comfortable temperature when it gets into the single digits F or below. Fortunately, that rarely happens in NYC.

"Camp Creek Road Fire", or even "Camp Creek Fire", probably would have been better choices. Name aside, the images here really tell it all.

Which is probably known to locals familiar with the area but everyone I talked to about this assumed it was started by a camp fire. Awful choice of name by the authorities.

This just sounds horrible. And all this was caused by an errant camp fire? People need to make sure their fires are completely out before leaving their camp site.

Well, not at $150 per TB. That write speed is fine for something which will be used solely for bulk storage but the price per TB needs to be a lot lower. Oh, and I think you meant 80 MB/sec.

The issue here is larger capacities need to come down a lot more in price. Right now the SSD market seems to be differentiating into a few tiers. One tier is very fast SSDs which can command a premium. The second is regular SATA SSDs which are used for both boot drives, and increasingly, if your...

My thoughts exactly. I'd say they won't be a good value proposition until they sell for under $100. But that will likely happen. The 860 EVO 1 TB is regularly going for 30% or more under its $199.99 list price.

The $149.99 retail price for the 1TB model is very interesting when you consider that SSDs are routinely priced well under their MSRP, even under half MSRP during sales. That probably means sub-$100 1TB SSDs will hit the market soon. My only reservation is about data retention. 4-bits per cell...

I'll summarize it in two words-we're f*cked. I'm not seeing any scenario where we're avoiding a mass extinction event, or where human civilization as we know it continues much past the end of the 21st century. Any action we take now is like closing the barn door after the horses already left...

https://www.amazon.com/BEST-Straight-Razor-Japanese-Biblical/dp/B06XY2GY7G

In the last decade the brightness of LED displays has improved enormously, to the point they rival those neon displays if you drive them 10 or 20 mA. I usually drive at less if it's a battery-powered device to save power. In many cases I can drive the segments at well under 1 mA and still have...

I thought much the same thing until I read your link (I actually saw that a few weeks ago while researching). Back when solar panels were very expensive it made no sense to have them facing north. Now that they're around $1/watt or less, putting them in less than optimal orientations still...

I've known about them for ages. I easily have the capability to design and make one, including programming the microcontroller. Right now it's on my bucket list. I would probably go all out and make one with either a surplus rubidium oscillator or a surplus OXCO adjusted using my rubidium...

That's fine if you either have 20/20 vision, or don't mind corrective lenses, plus you have the desk space to move your monitor back. None of those apply to me. Also, if the monitor is far enough away so you don't see the pixelation, that means it's not filling up your field of view. Take...

I don't care about the number of vertical pixels so much as I do about the pixels per inch. If I'm doing my math right, this monitor only has 109 ppi. Not much better than the dual 20" 1600x1200 monitor I'm using which is 100 ppi. The vertical height isn't much better, either, at only 13.33"...

That's the part I'm finding the most daunting. ConEd in NYC is actually encouraging solar, so hopefully things here are less onerous. I'm even willing to have someone do the install if the price is reasonable. Freecleansolar would charge $6,500, but maybe I can get that down considering the...

Sent an email to freecleansolar with my questions: I'm thinking of using the 5.2kW solar kit installed on my garage roof. The garage is detached. The roof is roughly a 40 degree slope. Each half of the roof is 251" x 82", which means I could fit 8 Panasonic panels on each half in a 2x4...

I share SD's skepticism. This demo is purely for dramatic reasons to get legislators to enact a stricter set of regulations than necessary. It's much like those idiotic demos of bike helmets teachers give using eggs. You're either using a situation highly unlikely to happen in the real world...

Costco seems to have a very limited selection of equipment. I have no idea if they'll install equipment you purchase. I've already settled on the Panasonic panels because of the efficiency and lifetime guarantee. In truth, the physical installation isn't the hard part. It's all the legalities...

The credits would be even more worthless to me instead of my mother as my earnings this year are going to be close to zero. Also, there are two problems with having a local company give an estimate: 1) Most charge $1,000 or more for an estimate (non-refundable but they'll credit it towards the...

With the 30% federal tax credit dropping after 2019 I'm seriously looking into doing this next year. I already decided to do it myself. I'm going to put the panels on the detached garage, not the house, because I have no ability or desire to install panels on the house roof. Also, in the medium...

Probably not, but at the rate PCs advance, it will likely be functionally obsolete in 5 to 10 years. That's why electronics these days aren't made to last more than about 5 years They get replaced before they wear out. That said, I tend to think we're reaching a plateau in terms of future...

I know someone who's still using Windows 3.1 on an ancient 386 with I think 4MB or 8MB of RAM. They still back up on an ancient tape drive (the ones with the 50 or 100 MB cartridges). Tape has been obsolete for what, a decade? I've been asked multiple times if there's any way to upgrade the...

When I do a search under his real name I'm still getting his profile at the place he works (worked?) at. Usually companies keep these things fairly current, so I think it's likely he's still alive. He may have reasons for no longer posting here.

I share your pain, literally. :frowner: Unfortunately, CTS runs in the family. My mom had it to the point she couldn't work after her mid 40s. She had a carpal tunnel release which helped to some extent, but the nerve damage was already done. My sister has it. She had the operation also and...

I know the hair thing isn't a health issue, more a cosmetic one, but it's something that can only be addressed with an expensive medical procedure.

I'm only 55 and I've regularly exercised since high school. Exercise is probably the single most important thing for health and longevity. After that it's genetics, and then diet. We actually have pretty good genetics. My nearly 80-year old mom's organs are in great shape. Her only pill is 5mg...

I haven't needed anything like that so far. Hopefully I never will. It's moot anyway. I have no medical insurance to cover such expensive procedures.

No way, no how. I like to be completely conscious when I'm having anything done in my mouth. Besides that, there are all sorts of potential complications from gas. As I said, I react badly to most drugs. My last dentist didn't use gas, anyway, partly for liability reasons.

Try getting one without anesthesia. :eek: I've had teeth pulled without anesthesia also. The reason is that I react badly to most drugs. Novocain will leave me feeling tired (as in I need to sleep 20 hours a day tired) for the next week or so. It's basically a choice then of a few minutes of...

Same thoughts here. My last remaining mechanical drive in daily use is a 2TB Samsung which is pushing 8 years old. I'd like to eventually replace it with an SSD of at least 2TB, but I'm waiting for prices to fall to something under $200 before I do that. $150 would be even better. It's probably...

What's interesting about the pricing now is you can get a useful size SSD for about the same price as the cheapest hard drives are going for, say, around $40. Yes, you'll get less capacity for that $40, perhaps 120GB instead of 1TB, but a lot of people don't need more than 100 or so GB anyway...

I don't need any myself right now but the fairly quick price drop is rather interesting. I had read that some new fabs were going online but that wasn't supposed to be until late this year. This was supposed to drop the price of RAM as well except that RAM hasn't budged much. I researched it a...

Anyone else notice SSD prices have been dropping like a rock lately? 1TB SSDs were going for north of $300 early in the year. Now Newegg has a special on the 1TB 860 Evo for only $178. The regular prices of some of the off brands are under $150. Best prices I can find on mechanical 1TB 2.5"...

I was thinking the same thing. A curved monitor could solve multiple problems. And I hate the idea of curved TVs myself. It makes no sense at the typical distances people watch TV.