Free Republic

If you must exchange Christmas gifts this year, let it be something old and sturdy. Let’s give the landfills a break.The current minimalism fad might be the only sane response to having so much cheap junk in our lives. When considering Christmas gifts to buy or receive, many weary shoppers find that the most appealing present seems to be nothing at all. It’s a weariness induced by material overload of items that just don’t work.Writing on his Substack, author Walter Kirn bemoans living in “Generation Junk.” In painful detail, to which so many of us can relate, Kirn describes the...

Electric vehicles are failing to live up to their promise, with a new report from Consumer Reports showing that they have an incredible 79 percent more problems than their conventional counterparts, in addition to being less reliable. Plug-in hybrids fared even worse, registering 146 percent more problems than vehicles with traditional internal combustion engines.

Why is defending the Gospels important? Christianity hinges on the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus didn’t resurrect, then Christianity is false. So any claim that the Gospel writers lied, is a claim that they lied about Jesus’ resurrection, and therefore Christianity is false. Most importantly, if things didn’t happen the way the Gospel writers said they did, then Jesus did not fulfill Old Testament prophecies. If He didn’t fulfill the prophecies, He’s not the Messiah.Here are six ways we can know the Gospel writers didn't lie. 1. The Gospels contain details that embarrass the writersIf you were going to make...

We’re on the precipice of a radical experiment with a national electricity grid The AEMO (manager of the Australian grid) has finally released the major report on problems coming in the next ten years on our national grid, and it’s worse than they thought even six months ago. They euphemistically refer to the coming “reliability gaps”. They could have said “blackouts” instead, but a gap in reliability sounds so much nicer. Bizarrely, the lead graph of the 175 page AEMO report goes right off the scale, mysteriously peaking in the unknown and invisible real estate off the top of the...

TOYOTA IS ON TOP Last year's second-place finisher has replaced its sister luxury brand Lexus at the top of Consumer Report's reliability ranking list. The two tied with a rounded-up predicted reliability score of 72, but Toyota was a few decimals better, and they were followed by BMW (65), Mazda (65) and Honda (62). The study surveyed more than 300,000 owners of 2000 to early 2023 model year cars about 17 potential problem areas. " Consumers tell us reliability is one of the most important factors when buying a car," Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer...

The Texas grid may fail again this year, according to a local investigative journalist who this week raised the alarm about the grid's state of preparedness ahead of an Arctic weather front. "This is not a good start. Tried checking @ERCOT_ISO dashboard about grid conditions and it's down. Tried checking hourly resource outage data, that's down too," Jeremy Rogalski from K-HOU TV tweeted on Wednesday. He later added that he had gotten in touch with a spokesperson for the Energy Reliability Council of Texas who'd told him that the grid operator was having issues from an upgrade made back in...

A public database that collects reports of vaccine side effects and injuries isn’t considered a reliable source of information about risks associated with COVID-19 vaccines. Established in 1990, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) collects reports of potential side effects from licensed vaccines. Interest in the database, publicly available online, has grown since COVID-19 vaccines were approved, but the data can be misleading if used to make a direct connection to the reported deaths and injuries. Dr. . Russell Bush, director and chief medical examiner at the Michigan Institute of Forensic Science & Medicine, said conclusions shouldn’t be drawn...

Industry leaders called for 'urgent action' after the National Grid warned electricity supplies would be 'tight'.. ... Latest sign of a grim winter outlook for UK with economy clobbered by rising inflation and supply chain issues.. The supply of electricity to Britain this winter will be 'tight' and there is a greater risk of blackouts, the National Grid warned today - as soaring energy prices leave families facing sky- high bills. ... Gas is in high demand due to the reopening of the global economy, colder temperatures, and reduced wind and solar output due to unfavourable conditions. ... Omni Energy...

California's Independent System Operator has issued a statewide flex alert for Thursday June 17 from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Cal ISO issued the voluntary call to conserve energy Wednesday afternoon as temperatures in the Bay Area soared in the first heat wave of the season and record breaking heat blankets the West Coast this week. By Wednesday, Fairfield reached triple digits. Many other spots in the East Bay, including Fremont, Walnut Creek and Concord are already getting close. The heat is expected to peak on Thursday, with an excessive heat warning in effect through Friday night for many areas...

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the regulatory agency that manages Texas’ power grid, said tight grid conditions are expected this week due to high number of forced generation outages, and urged Texans to conserve energy. The announcement came one month after it published its latest seasonal assessment projecting a less than a 1% chance of blackouts occurring this summer. It also came just four months after the state’s historic power grid failure left millions of Texans in the cold and dark. Without heat and water during sub-zero temperatures in mid-February, 111 Texans died. On Monday, ERCOT asked Texans...

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas announced in a Tuesday notice to the Public Utility Commission of Texas that four of its board members will resign effective Wednesday, Feb. 24.. A fifth board member separately submitted her resignation. Gov. Greg Abbott sent out a statement saying he welcomed the resignations. ... All five members who are resigning live out of state, ... Last week, amid growing frustrations and public outcry during the winter storms in Texas, ERCOT removed the names of its board members from its website. It has since restored those names. Prior to being pulled down, the biographies...

A Public Utility Commission order stated that ERCOT should correct any past prices to reflect the current shortage of energy... TEXAS, USA — With nearly 4 million Texans in need of power amid the winter storm that struck the state, demand for energy is exceptionally high. The demand has exceeded the supply that the state has to offer. As a result, the Public Utility Commission of Texas held an emergency meeting on Monday where officials introduced an order that would adjust energy prices. The order said in part, "Energy prices should reflect scarcity of the supply. If customer load is...

The spot price of wholesale electricity on the Texas power grid spiked more than 10,000% on Monday amid a deep freeze across the state and rolling outages among power producers, according to data on the grid operator’s website. Real-time wholesale market prices on the power grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) were more than $9,000 per megawatt hour late Monday morning, compared with pre-storm prices of less than $50 per megawatt hour, according to ERCOT data.. The surge reflects the real-time megawatt hour price of electricity and the cost of congestion and losses at different points...

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas emphasized the need for people to reduce energy use... As temperatures dropped to near-record lows Sunday, electricity operators warned that demand could overwhelm the state’s power grid and force rotating power outages. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid, emphasized the need for Texans to reduce energy consumption. “We are experiencing record-breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas ... At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines ... If power reserves fell too much, an...

An interview from 1980 which reveals the uncanny vision and consistency of Donald John Trump.

We've been with Verizon for years and have suffered with broken texts, missed calls, spotty notifications, and updates that don't. We are thinking about going with US Cellular. How about sharing experiences to help us out.

Following the subscriber survey of over 90,000 readers, Consumer Reports estimated that 25 percent of devices would have issues by the second year of ownership. The issues included freezing, unexpected shut downs and unresponsive touch screens, but the non-profit didn't list how many of each complaint it got.Microsoft disputes the survey.  “While we respect Consumer Reports, we disagree with their findings. Microsoft’s real-world return and support rates and customer satisfaction data show we are on par if not better than other devices in the category," a Microsoft spokesperson told Laptop Mag. "We stand firmly behind the quality and reliability of...

The latest 2016 RESCUECOM Computer Reliability Report — based on 60,000 service call requests into the computer repair and tech support company’s 1-800-RESCUE-PC hot line annually — rates the Kindle as the most trouble-free device. However, the always-high-ranking Apple hasn’t dropped dramatically in reliability and only slightly in its rank, taking third this year. Its devices account for fewer tech support calls than most and steadily attract consumers, the Mac and MacBook Pro remaining popular alternatives to PCs. Amazon has taken over as the most reliable brand because RESCUECOM's Computer Reliability Report now includes tablets and personal computers of all...

By the end of 2015, the Backblaze datacenter had 56,224 spinning hard drives containing customer data. These hard drives reside in 1,249 Backblaze Storage Pods. By comparison 2015 began with 39,690 drives running in 882 Storage Pods. We added 65 Petabytes of storage in 2015 give or take a Petabyte or two. Not only was 2015 a year of growth, it was also a year of drive upgrades and replacements. Let's start with the current state of the hard drives in our datacenter as of the end of 2015 and then dig into the rest later on. Hard Drive Statistics...

They are of some use in predicting election results but need to be reviewed carefully to be understood. The article is based on my limited understanding as a layman, so please take it for whatever it may be worth. Sample composition Lunatic asylum Public opinion polling is based on a sample of the relevant population as a whole within a given survey area, with margin of error calculations of the degree to which the sample size approaches perfect randomness. Polls attempting to predict how many will vote for one presidential candidate versus another use party affiliation as one means of...