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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.

The issue though is what I mentioned about the stuff on the sides being viewed off-angle. To not view it off angle you need a very large monitor placed rather far away. As you can see with that picture of my setup I don't have room to move the monitor further back. Nor would I want to as it...

At my viewing distance anything much wider than 4:3 would require me to turn my head. And I would be seeing the display off-angle. With two monitors I still need to turn my head, but at least I'm seeing the second display head-on like it's supposed to be viewed. I don't have room for anything...

It was shot in 4:3 for ages, then they went to 16:9 sometime in the late 1950s I think. Sure, a 21:9 monitor is idea for viewing movies shot in 21:9. Can't see much other practical use for it.

I'm personally not seeing the value of anything wider than 4:3 for CAD or office work. Unfortunately, it seems like monitors and TVs are trending towards wider. I realized recently a lot of movies still have the bars are top and bottom even on a 16:9 TV. WTF is up with that??? Wasn't the whole...

OK, I missed the 2x USB2.0 ports. That takes care of the mouse and keyboard. HDBI is only useful for monitors which have it. VGA or DVI are a lot more universal. Even HDMI is OK. You can use an HDMI to DVI cable for monitors without an HDMI port.

Maybe a stupid question, but how do you connect a monitor, mouse, keyboard to that thing? There is only one USB port for either a mouse or keyboard, and no VGA or DVI connector for a monitor.

Hey, I was expecting to see some cool moves around a moving train. :bglaugh: Seriously, it looks like a nice piece of hardware. If I was still getting a decent number of hours on my consulting gig I might buy one for myself. On the codecs, I concur with SD about using H.265. I learned more...

A bird is actually worse. It's denser overall, plus 100% of it is flammable. A large drone might destroy the turbines but a smaller one would probably just get ground up and spit out. Which brings me to the point that drones should be regulated proportional to their size/weight. Something...

I'm amazed the operator can get a good enough signal to control the drone even from inside a box car. I always thought lots of metal blocks radio signals. He probably broke every law on the books but honestly the only thing that could have been hurt was the drone. A drone is harmless to a train...

Why am I not surprised that commercial drone operators are pushing this? Their attitude seems to be get all those pesky hobbyist drones out of the way of our commercial drones. Or put another way, making money seems to entitle someone with more rights than someone who is just into it for the...

To me, "97°F" and "enjoy" are mutually exclusive.

So basically it sounds like all I could legally do with a drone is fly it directly over my property during the daytime, and no higher than 400'. So much for having it follow me on a bike ride and other cool stuff like that. I also would want to be able to go way higher than 400', which should be...

Call block is your friend. I have Verizon blocking all numbers with no caller ID in addition to the ones I add to the block list. I'm also using Nomorobo. A few assholes still get through each day but I never answer any number I'm not familiar with. And anyone calling from the same number more...

Here's a map: https://www.dji.com/flysafe/geo-map I was pleasantly surprised to see the only restricted zones in NYC are near the airports. With NYC having a penchant for banning just about everything that's remotely fun, I half expected the entire city to be a red zone.

No, but I think I'll try next time I have some.

I obviously was playing on what SD said. It's all tougue-in-cheek. Wines definitely would have measurable resistivity but I doubt that correlates much with taste. However, they certainly do have a fairly low resistance to preventing people from drinking them, and a fairly high capacitance to get...

DMMs are great tools to measure the quality of wine. The capacitance and resistance of wine is crucial, sometimes even the inductance. Fine wines have fairly low resistance, fairly high capacitance, and sometimes exhibit measurable inductance.

No, I would never need a setup like that. I'm just saying if I did, that's the way I would go. My pair of monitors works just fine. Most of the time I'm using the one in front. Sometimes I need to go between two documents open at the same time. That's where two monitors shines. I'm nearsighted...

Multiple monitors are all about ergonomics. Right now I'm using two displays, one in front and the other angled on my right. Both displays are 1600x1200, or will be as soon as I put an LP2065 in place of my Viewsonic VA912b. In theory I would have the same number and size pixels with a (very...

I can easily see the pixels on a 32" 4K monitor. The pixel pitch is 0.185 mm (137 ppi). I'd need to get a 24" or smaller 4K monitor to not notice pixelation but I'm not interested in 4K monitors until they start making them in 4:3, not 16:9. 2880x2160, maybe in a 20" or 21" size, would be...

The AD584s used in those cheap eBay references are salvaged from equipment. That's actually a plus since this means they're nicely aged, and hence already did all their drifting (most of which occurs in the first few months of powered operation). The only open question is whether or not the...

You might be pleasantly surprised. My friend had a Fluke of similar vintage which he asked me to check. Most of the ranges were either dead-on-nuts or a few counts off.

That's one reason I have a few voltage and resistance standards. Occasionally I check my instruments to see if they're still calibrated. Other than the Harbor Freight multimeters, which might drift a few tenths of a percent, everything else holds its calibration nicely. I seriously question if...

Agilent is fine. I was seriously considering getting the U1253B for a while. Love the OLED display, although because of it battery life sucks. For a bench DMM something like the 34461A is great if you want to spend that kind of money. I couldn't justify it personally. Or you can opt for its...

A few questions: 1) What do you intend to use it for? 2) What kind of resolution/accuracy do you need? 3) Why is calibration important here? The answers to these questions will at least give you a starting point. I have a Fluke 189. I really needed the accuracy and 50,000 counts of resolution...

I'm glad it exists also. Generally, products like this foreshadow what may be mainstream a few years down the road. Remember there was a time when many thought 4 cores were overkill and would never be needed. Eventually software caught up. It'll probably be much the same here. However, I still...

I'm glad AMD one-upped Intel here but I totally agree. I can't envision any scenario where most home users would need even a fraction of the computing power this chip offers. Even for most power users this chip is gross overkill. It's evidently for things like a powerful workstation or a server...

For me subtract about 40°F from those temperatures, more if I'm somewhat active. On the flip side, I cope well with cold. I'll be out shoveling snow with just a sweater in the middle of a 15°F blizzard.

Thanks! Been gone a while because of my mother. She was in the hospital with a cranial hematoma in November, then in rehab for ~2 months. The workload taking care of her now is a bit more than it was the past 3 years. Not sure if she'll be able to walk independently again but we'll be seeing an...

And on top of all that, I was sick most of the 3 weeks the system was down. Not sure what exactly, but I had virtually no energy, plus a fever which hit 103°F a few times. I also had to take care of my mother while all this was going on. At this point she's not really able to walk without...

Something similar happened to me a month ago. The power briefly went off. Usually this is no big deal. Just turn the computer back on and all is well. This time around nothing happened. It wouldn't even post. No beeps, no nothing. I was thinking three possibilities-dead CPU, dead motherboard...

Just be aware those step-down transformers likely aren't very efficient (the large heat sink area should be a give away). You need synchronous rectification to get better than low 80% efficiency when stepping down from a high voltage to something like 5V. I doubt these have it, although I could...

The real advantage there is less waste heat to get rid. In a lot of cases it means the PSU fan is either off or turning very slowly. If you have an SSD then this leaves the CPU fan as the only noise source in the machine.