Search results

  1. J

    Tesla Powerwall

    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...
  2. J

    Tesla Powerwall

    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...
  3. J

    Tesla Powerwall

    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...
  4. J

    Tesla Powerwall

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

    Something Random

    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.
  6. J

    Soldering problem

    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...
  7. J

    Something Random

    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...
  8. J

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    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...
  9. J

    problem Problems after replacing a laptop's HDD with an SSD

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

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    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...
  11. J

    problem Problems after replacing a laptop's HDD with an SSD

    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...
  12. J

    Something Random

    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...
  13. J

    problem Problems after replacing a laptop's HDD with an SSD

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

    problem Problems after replacing a laptop's HDD with an SSD

    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...
  15. J

    What happened to P5 ?

    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...
  16. J

    Something Random

    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...
  17. J

    Something Random

    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...
  18. J

    Something Random

    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...
  19. J

    Something Random

    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...
  20. J

    Something Random

    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...
  21. J

    Cheap Power Supply

    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...
  22. J

    Something Random

    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...
  23. J

    PNY 128 GB USB 3 thumb stick - $29.99 + $0.99 shipping

    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. :)
  24. J

    PNY 128 GB USB 3 thumb stick - $29.99 + $0.99 shipping

    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?
  25. J

    Something Random

    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...
  26. J

    Something Random

    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...
  27. J

    Something Random

    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...
  28. J

    Something Random

    SD, I think Merc's point is more about a business offering services to the general public which decides not to offer those services to some group because that group offends the owner. As an example, if you sell wedding cakes then you have to sell them to whomever wants one and is able/willing...
  29. J

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    It sounds to me like 3D NAND will eventually result in dramatic price reductions per GB. The article did mention 10 TB SSDs in the next few years. If they were to cost the same per GB as today's SSDs there wouldn't be much of a market for them. I'm reading between the lines and assuming a 10+TB...
  30. J

    Something Random

    If they're in decent shape they might be worth quite a bit more than a dollar. You might want to check eBay just to see what similar bills are going for.
  31. J

    Nvidia's Titan X is coming soon.

    I'm in the same boat. I think we're at the state where the integrated GPU in most processors is adequate for 99% of the population. Certainly I haven't found myself wanting for more graphics power with my A10-5800K APU. Well, maybe marginally when I get into a scenery intensive area with train...
  32. J

    4k TVs and Monitors

    You might be right but I suspect at this stage OLED is more mature. Regardless, a technology which emits light is superior to one which selectively filters a backlight, like LCD, in terms of contrast and viewing angle.
  33. J

    4k TVs and Monitors

    Well, prices for lower end 4K monitors are starting to get under $500 even now. There's the Dell UltraSharp UP2414Q I was seriously considering eventually which is now around $800. Like everything else in this business, early adopters pay more, those who wait might get it at 25% of what the...
  34. J

    4k TVs and Monitors

    I'm sure the price will come down. Actually my ideal monitor if I had to check all the boxes might be 4096x3072, 24 or 25 inches, and OLED. Still, what you linked to would be quite nice if the price were in the $500 or less area.
  35. J

    CES 2015: LG and 21:9 aspects monitors

    From my own personal perspective I have no use for these huge monitors given that I have limited desk space and need to sit about 15 inches from my monitor to view it clearly. I like the idea of higher resolution 4:3 monitors but a 36" to 40" 3840x2560 would suffer from the same issues that my...
  36. J

    Cycling

    Yep, most of them sucked back then.
  37. J

    Cycling

    Lucky you had teachers who didn't object to the use of Liquid Paper. Many of mine said an erasure or use of Liquid Paper was an automatic fail. I spent many a day retyping pages of term papers where I had made only one or two typos. Computers with word processor software and nice printers were...
  38. J

    Cycling

    I doubt I could put out 400 watts for 6 minutes. Maybe 2 minutes tops if I'm feeling great. According to my Schwinn 240 I peak in the 800 to 900 watt area but I can only manage that for a few seconds. Still, it comes in handy jackrabbiting up to 20 mph to get out of the way of motor traffic just...
  39. J

    Happy Holidays (2014)

    :santa: Merry (belated) Christmas! :reindeer: :tgif:Happy New Year! :drunk:
  40. J

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I'm probably only a semi-weirdo by the standards of the people on this site in that I only have 3 disks and 2.75 TB of local storage on my machine. That's a 2 TB mechanical disk, and 240 and 500 GB SSDs. I suspect the trend towards keeping data only on the cloud might be short-lived. Once one...
  41. J

    "Windows Technical Services"

    You could try the Arnold Schwarzenegger Soundboard. When they ask info about the computer, respond with "My CPU is a neural net processor". Lots of choice phrases there you can have fun with.
  42. J

    "Windows Technical Services"

    I'm sure one of these people called me at one time or another but I never pick up numbers I don't recognize. If someone calls from the same number more than a few times they have the "privilege" of being added to my block list so my phone never rings again when they call. Here's a better...
  43. J

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I was one of those people and I stand by my words. With V-NAND now on a roadmap to increase in density enough to make ~10 TB 2.5" SSDs practical by 2017 or so at around what 1TB SSDs cost now, I think we're seeing the last few years of mechanical hard drives. There's not too many tricks left in...
  44. J

    Something Random

    I'm 5'9". My brother is actually around 140, same height as me, and he doesn't seem overly thin.
  45. J

    Something Random

    I never thought the time would come that you weigh less than me but it has. Congratulations are in order. Right now I'm hovering in the low 200s. I'd like to lose about 60 to 70 pounds.
  46. J

    Cycling

    The first hill sounds like it's well over 15% in places. Ouch! The second one averages 2.5%. Not really steep, but long enough to be brutal. Yeah, I feel your pain on the weight. Just not riding as much this year my weight crept up to maybe 200-205 instead of 190-195. I notice those extra...
  47. J

    Cycling

    I believe those numbers. I notice how just wearing normal winter clothing cuts about 2 mph off my speed. In your case, it's most likely the aerodynamics which take the biggest hit when towing the trailer. You must have some pretty steep hills by you. I'm about 200 pounds but can get up most of...
  48. J

    Something Random

    One of my cats had a thyroid issue. I thought was going to die. After the blood test came back the vet prescribed tapazole. It was a real pain getting her to take the pills. She would notice them in food and spit them out. I finally hit on putting them inside a piece of cheddar cheese. I think...
  49. J

    Cycling

    Bad cycling year for me on account of my new consulting gig. I should barely make 1000 miles for the year. I'm feeling much less fit than if I had done my usual 3000 miles or so. I did finally buy a new rear cassette, chain, and small chainring as those were all getting long in the tooth after...
  50. J

    Something Random

    When I get much past maybe 20 tabs, it's just too confusing for me. More typically, I have less than ten open at any one time.
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