- > "They have argued for placing onshore utility-scale projects on previously disturbed sites and expanding the use of rooftop solar."
Thats rich.
Nevada regulators just killed rooftop solar, through a first-in-the-nation implementation of a demand charge for residential customers. People who put solar on their roofs will still get hit with demand charges when the sun goes down and in the summer it’ll be $30-70/mo. Negating a significant portion of their anticipated solar savings.
- You’re lucky it was only a few months. I think it took until 1999 or 2000 for my cable isp to subnet their entire /16 so that you weren’t flooding the entire city with broadcast packets, getting random windows messaging service messages, etc.
That said, it was super nice to open Quake 3 and be able to plan LAN mode with anyone in town.
- “ Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous.”
Well, considering that most private sector workers don’t have pensions anymore, it probably would make them jealous. In the private sector they’ve all been replaced with 401ks and maybe a feeble matching of a few thousand dollars from your employer.
The way I look at it is, public sector jobs are probably what private sector jobs in America would look like if employee compensation didn’t divorce productivity gains starting in the 1980s. Which is why they look so generous by comparison.
- At my university in the EE program you had to complete all freshman and sophomore level classes before you were allowed to take any junior or senior level classes.
You also had to meet with an adviser towards the end of each semester before you were released to schedule classes for the next. Apparently engineers tried to circumvent the rules too many times, probably because we're always focused on optimizing solutions.
- As a software developer who works with teachers on a regular basis (and one of my parents is one), the issue of becoming "too advanced" is a legitimate problem. Its the same reason why Einstein supposedly got Fs throughout school - he was bored with the curriculum, he was too smart for class.
Teachers have to work within the framework and structure of the current education system. Let me assure you that in education the tallest blades of grass are the first to get cut. I don't really blame them, its just self-preservation.
If you look at the current structure of grouping kids by age, then the teacher's issues are perfectly reasonable. How are they going to keep the 15% of really smart kids from being bored, goofing off, and raising a ruckus while the teacher tries to run around and help the average or behind kids with the exercises. A child could legitimately be 3-4 months ahead in school work if they're brilliant learners. So what do we do, let me out in March if he has mastered all the material for the school year? Let him start on next year's material?
If we start grouping by ability to learn and knowledge level, that has problems too. I was great at math but only a good reader and poor at spelling/grammar. Do I get put in an advanced class and lag the other students in areas where I wasn't as strong? Does elementary school look like high school with different classes throughout the day, and how does that impact students in non-knowledge areas?
The rates at which children learn is not steady across all subjects. The rates at which children learn aren't even steady throughout childhood - they could start slow and speed up at a certain age. Self-paced education would be ideal for every student if we were all self-starters and bright, KA will be great for home-schoolers and tutors. Even kids who need remedial help over the summer, give them an iPad and the Khan Academy app and let them catch up over the summer. But letting a bright, ultra-focused kid master an entire grade level over the summer and then the kid will be a hellraiser in school for the next 9.
Are 30y loans bad? Yes.
Is it still ok to buy a home with a 30y loan? Yes.
However, as your career (hopefully) grows and you earn more, plus inflationary aspects of time, eventually you want to be in a spot to refinance your 30y loan into a 15y or 20y one (and hopefully before the half way point!).
I was able to refi a 30y loan about six years into it into a 15y thanks to low Covid rates, and while I only pay a few hundred more per month I went from maybe $6,000 a year in principal and $8,000 in interest to $14,000 a year in principal and $5,000 a year in interest. “Throwing away” a lot less money in interest payments is good for your net worth.