Search results

  1. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    No, it just humiliated the Ferrari off the line.
  2. J

    Something Random

    I personally think of retirement as a time when I can just do only work which I find interesting and which pays enough, rather than taking anything which comes my way. I really have no set age when I'll just never take any work. So long as the mind/body are able, and the work is enjoyable, why...
  3. J

    Something Random

    Earnings potential doesn't necessarily mean much at this point. Yes, I was making about $100K annually on my last consulting gig but they no longer need me. I doubt I can get anything that lucrative, especially something where I'm still able to take care on my mother. Outside of 3 trips on site...
  4. J

    Something Random

    I've been doing asset planning for a long time. Basically, I'll have way too much assets to qualify for Medicaid when I'm over 65. I can technically get Medicaid right now since there is no asset limit if you're under 65 but then that means if any lucrative consulting work comes if I'll have to...
  5. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    Well, if I had coverage I would have had it treated. For what it's worth, for a lot of relatively minor stuff, the Internet is a great source of information. Back in early 2006 I was having terrible foot and joint pain, to the point I was walking like I was 90 years old. I read up about it, and...
  6. J

    Something Random

    Here's the thing. Nobody knows what the healthcare landscape in this country will look like in even 5 years. If Trump doesn't get reelected and we have a Democratic-majority Congress we'll likely get some form of universal health care. If not, some states, including New York, are talking about...
  7. J

    Something Random

    Nobody knows how long they'll live. A meteorite could hit me while I'm sleeping tonight. Just going by general family genetics and lifespans though it's highly likely I'll live well past 70 if I take halfway decent care of myself. My father did virtually everything wrong (i.e. obese, smoked...
  8. J

    Something Random

    The problem is since I'm taking care of my mother I won't have any income to pay the part B premium with. This says part A if free if you would qualify for Social Security at age 65, even if you opt to get it later.
  9. J

    Something Random

    I've probably spent $15K on dentists over my entire adult life. Yes, it's a big hit when you need work, but it doesn't happen often. As for glasses, I've still using the same ones I had since college. I just use them to watch TV. Maybe I'll spring for a new pair soon. I can probably get one for...
  10. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    I haven't had it treated or even medically diagnosed. I don't have insurance. I'll get the operation when I'm on Medicare in about 8½ years.
  11. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    The problem is neither of them drove all that frequently. It was mostly short local trips. As a result, their driving skills weren't that great to start with, especially my mother, and got worse due to the problems with age. In the case of my mother, she had joint and other issues which...
  12. J

    Something Random

    I've paid out of pocket for the dentist. It's not that bad. Getting coverage for something like that is pointless when the premiums will likely exceed what you get in dental bills. Ditto for prescriptions. My 80-year old mom is on two very inexpensive prescriptions. I'm not on anything. I know...
  13. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    Yes, very true but at least the pilot is capable of safely flying the aircraft should the autopilot fail. I can't say the same about the majority of drivers on the road who can't drive their way out of a paper bag AND usually get worse as they get older. Both my parents were frightening behind...
  14. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    Right, they're a work in progress. They're not ready prime time now, but probably in 5 to 10 years they should be. The difference here is software and automatic control on planes is supposed to take some of the workload off the pilot, not replace them. For a lot of reasons I would want a human...
  15. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    I don't know if they're working on robot-controlled cats but that would be very interesting since cats hate any attempts to control them. As for cars, it would be an evolving thing. Every time something happens, they analyze why, fix the software, and update every car. It may never be perfect...
  16. J

    Something Random

    Unfortunately in this country, we've decided that medical care isn't something you have a right to. Rather, it's a good only available to those who can either pay out of pocket, or are covered by some type of insurance, usually through work. Even the latter doesn't guarantee a serious illness...
  17. J

    Something Random

    My philosophy is to avoid doctors at all costs. Both my parents spent ridiculous amounts of time seeing specialists for various ailments. Waste of time. Half the time the doctors didn't even listen. I still remember when my mother went to a doctor for knee or back pain and the doctor tried to...
  18. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    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...
  19. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    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...
  20. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    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...
  21. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    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...
  22. J

    I do want to buy a used car

    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...
  23. J

    No one wants over 16TB per drive SSDs

    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...
  24. J

    No one wants over 16TB per drive SSDs

    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...
  25. J

    No one wants over 16TB per drive SSDs

    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.
  26. J

    Missing Members

    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.
  27. J

    Tools for pulling CAT6A cables through walls

    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...
  28. J

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    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.
  29. J

    TVs and things

    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.
  30. J

    SSDs - State of the Product?

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

    DJI drones - New Mavic 2 pro announced tomorrow

    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.
  32. J

    Best USB flash drive for booting and small files

    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...
  33. J

    Two weeks of air quality hell, finally over. Bay Area, Kali fires

    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.
  34. J

    Two weeks of air quality hell, finally over. Bay Area, Kali fires

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

    Two weeks of air quality hell, finally over. Bay Area, Kali fires

    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.
  36. J

    Two weeks of air quality hell, finally over. Bay Area, Kali fires

    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.
  37. J

    Samsung QVO

    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.
  38. J

    Samsung QVO

    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...
  39. J

    Samsung QVO

    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.
  40. J

    Samsung QVO

    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...
  41. J

    HOT

    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...
  42. J

    Buying an electric shaver!?

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

    Nixie Clocks

    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...
  44. J

    Home Solar

    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...
  45. J

    Nixie Clocks

    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...
  46. J

    Curved Ultrawide Monitors

    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...
  47. J

    Curved Ultrawide Monitors

    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"...
  48. J

    Home Solar

    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...
  49. J

    Home Solar

    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...
  50. J

    DJI drones - New Mavic 2 pro announced tomorrow

    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...
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