Thank you very much for your answers -- here's a couple more questions maybe you can give thoughts on if you have time:

Quick googling says the average US home uses a bit under 12,000 kWh per year. Divide that by 365 and get ~33 kWh per day, divide that by 24 and get ~1.4 kW per hour (rounding up in all instances). Of course, that's going to be higher in the day and lower at night, but one of the points of the batteries is to help smooth out that usage curve and make it transparent to the homeowner / user.

Anyway, questions related to those figures:
*Do those numbers sound ballpark to your experience?

*You've got 1kWh of lead acid batteries. Ignoring the fact that night usage would tend to be lower than daytime, an "average home" draw of 1.4 kW per hour would give you about 40 minutes of off-the-grid power (without help from the solar). That would probably require lifestyle changes to deal with; it seems like an average home couldn't get through a night without fully draining the batteries. True?

A 10 kWh pack like shown in the video would give 7+ hours, not accounting for lower drain at night. Seems like an average US house might well be able to go a whole night with that kind of battery without any lifestyle adjustments (assuming solar can handle 100% of the load during daytime PLUS charge up the batteries).

* Could your existing solar cells handle daytime load and charging of 1 or 2 of these 10 kWh packs so that you could be comfortably 100% off-grid?

* How much area do your solar cells cover?


I'm been very impressed with Tesla as a car company, even though I've never driven or even seen one in person (only a very few super-rich people have imported Teslas to Thailand). I thought that electric cars were going to be impractical toys for really out-there tree huggers, but everything I read about the Model S and other Tesla cars tells me that they are the real deal, actually superior to internal combustion for MOST use cases.

Hopefully without sounding too much like Howard Hughes, I believe that baseline practicality will let economy of scale take over and make Tesla and other electrics the way of the future. And this makes me likewise optimistic that Musk can similarly revolutionize the future of energy in general. Pretty exciting stuff!

Back in the days, Y axis mapping was neither standardised nor adjustable, so many of us went through this back and forth countless times. As a result, it takes me just a few seconds to adjust to an inverted Y axis on an input device.

An inverted X axis on the other hand wrecks my brain in any fast-paced situation.

It occurs to me you could probably manage it without too much in the way of Segway-esque magic. Have the outer shell as you'd expect, basically a big hamster ball, then a second ball inside it with all the clever stuff.

For the inside inside have most of the lower half be ballast of some sort - battery packs would be ideal for that - then 8 or so wheels pushing against the outer shell so you can move in a decent number of directions (might have to retract the wheels perpendicular to the direction of movement unless there's a more elegant solution I'm missing).

Then finally for the upper half make a very smooth dome, put a little cart on it whose position you can adjust with a couple of cables, stick a couple of strong magnets on the cart (need a motor on the cart too so you can rotate the head).

This is all based on my years of not having done anything remotely connected to model building!

If I were an insurance adjuster I would ask why they couldn't get these same shots with a boom.

I didn't see anything here that could be captured with a boom.

Is it typical for insurance adjusters to be determining fault in auto accidents like this one? I always that my part of Canada was an anomaly that way because we have a government mandated monopoly on auto insurance. I had thought the rest of the world saw these things go through some kind of civil court where both sides tried to sue one another for damages and the insurance companies ended up picking up the pieces resulting from that. How else do things get resolved when driver 1 is represented by company A and driver 2 has company B?

That's funny, earlier you made that the main point of your argument, now it doesn't matter (maybe because you were dead wrong in your assumption?).
You can say the 'pendulum swings back and forth' all you like, it doesn't make it true. Most religious people never 'swing' away from their religion, and most atheists never adopt religion. You're just plain wrong again on this assumption.
Sweet Zombie Jesus! Atheists have been around longer than theists. It's not a new concept by any means, Christianity is a new concept comparatively. One more terribly backwards assumption.
How can you explain your experience of no real Easter bunny, you can't do it. (EDIT:As I see it, there's more evidence of the Easter Bunny, I've seen thousands of bunnies, and every year those colored eggs appear, that's more factual evidence than I've seen of a god ;-) There's no god, so there's nothing to experience, so nothing to explain. Simple, and done!
Believing in the invisible, capricious, self centered bully in the sky is NOT common sense, it's a complete suspension of common sense.
I see far more religious people complaining constantly over their lot in life, and that society doesn't all follow their beliefs, miserable that they can't 'please god' and blaming all their problems on things beyond their control or understanding. Atheists don't do that, and are statistically happier, better adjusted, more tolerant of others, less criminal people. Which philosophy sounds better?

PS. You owe me an upvote!

First of all, I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with that claim. Auto accidents are never fun to deal with. The goal of a good claims rep should be to do what they can to put the customer at ease and work to get the claim settled fairly and efficiently.

For the most part, the adjusters I deal with at other companies do work in good faith to settle their claims. Insurance adjusters are held to a high ethical standard. At most of the larger carriers (with some exceptions), the ethical standards are quite high. Otherwise, they would be sued right out of business.

There are certainly some bad companies out there and some bad adjusters out there. There are a few smaller companies in Texas and California that I can think of that have particularly bad practices--I'm not sure why the Texas and California DOI's haven't shut them down.

That said, the obligation of an ethical insurance adjuster is to pay what the company owes. No more, and no less. Paying less than what is owed, or stonewalling, delaying, or otherwise acting in bad faith, is certainly unethical. But it is also unethical to overpay claims--to pay out on coverages that have not been purchased, for example, or to pay more than what the claim is worth. Personal lines insurance companies operate on very slim margins. If we consistently overpay on claims, then it will come back to our customers in the form of higher premiums, which could result in losing customers and perhaps the business being closed.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with regard to Florida's Uninsured Motorist laws. They're pretty similar to the UM laws in most other states. There's not a lot of variation there. Florida is a no-fault state, so you do have to file under your Personal Injury Protection first. (Which blows. No-fault laws just make your premiums more expensive.)

It is possible that a forensics expert could use the video to determine if the truck is accelerating by looking at how quickly the painted lines are passing. But that's pretty expensive, and probably wouldn't be used unless the claim was going into litigation.

There are definitely two pieces of information I would want to gather before making a decision--the statements of both drivers. While based on the video I would place liability on the truck 60-70%, the statements from the drivers (and how well they match up with the video) could affect the decision 10-20 points either way. In particular, there is a point in the video at which the VW has partially completed the lane change, appears to be aware that there is an issue, and then continues to move over.

I would want to know what their reasoning was at that point. It could easily impact their degree of negligence, as part of determining negligence is figuring out what people knew, when they knew it, and how they took action to minimize or avoid a loss.

As far as pulling vehicles over for speeding--not my area of expertise. I'd ask a law enforcement officer about that. Insurance adjusters aren't in the business of writing tickets.

Okay, if this seems angry it is because it is. My wife and kids were hit head on by a car (Who sped up to get around the car she was passing...,) in a new van we just purchased, by a lady with no insurance. In Florida we get fucked for it (Thankfully they are alright...)

So here goes. You work for a bunch of cum guzzling money grabbing fuckfaces. It is a shameful job, unappreciated because your bosses want the most money at the expense of those who have just been through a terrible, horrible ordeal.

Insurance companies donate billions to lawmakers to keep these fucking stupid laws up. Florida's You-Pay-for-Uninsured-Motorist's laws are proof-fucking positive about that. "I am responsible so fuck my asshole wide please."

And the scare tactics of god damn claims adjusters?! Holy fuck, that shit would be considered assault anywhere else. Congratulations if you are one of the rare ones that don't threaten or low-ball...

Of course your company would charge it as 50-50 (or 70-30.) They would do it in every situation they could. Because it's all about the money to those anal-warted motherfuckers.

So, I am an auto liability adjuster. I do this for a living--I take statements from drivers and witnesses, review damage and, when it's available, I watch videos of car accidents to see where fault lies.

In this particular accident, it seems pretty obvious that both parties contributed to some degree or another. The VW's driver was obviously making an unsafe lane change. However, the trucker had the last clear chance to avoid the accident, and from the audio in the cab was clearly distracted by a cell phone. The truck thus contributed by failing to maintain driver attention.


So we're going to need to assess partial negligence on both driver's. So, how much will we need to assess, and what does that mean for how much each person might or might not get paid?

In terms of negligence law, Texas is a Modified Comparative state under the Not Greater Than rule. What this means is that in order to recover money from the other party, you cannot have more responsibility than they do in order to recover any money. But you can only recover the percentage that the other party is at fault. So if it's 50/50, each party gets half of their costs from the other party. If it's 51/49, one person owes the other guy 51%, but the other guy doesn't owe a dime.

In this case, 50/50 would be a likely and attractive option for the insurance companies. Both parties clearly contributed, and each party had equal opportunity to avoid the loss, so each insurance company would pay the other 50%.

The gross negligence of the driver of the pickup is such that I don't see less than 50% negligence on that driver. However, I can see the car's insurance company arguing for a higher responsibility on the truck.

When the car puts on the signal and starts moving over, there is clearly room to move over without striking the truck. The car starts moving over, and the truck starts to overtake the VW. The trucker was closing the distance with the traffic ahead. The VW appears to hit their brakes as the traffic ahead is slowing down--but the trucker doesn't, and appears to be accelerating.

Moreover, as the driver of the larger vehicle, the trucker has a greater duty to maintain driver attention and avoid accidents, as a mistake on his part has greater likelihood of causing more serious physical damage, and severe bodily injury or death.

I believe that it would be justified to put a slight majority on the truck, 60-70%. This would be my preference. So they would owe for 60-70% of the VW's damages. The trucker will have to go through his own insurance or pay out of pocket for his damages.

Wrong white balance. Is it a white and gold dress in blue lighting or a black and blue dress in yellow lighting? Depending on the ambient lighting, the monitor (and the current settings) and the person watching, you'll get different result.

Just look to the white and black blotchy fabric to the left, and force yourself to see that it is black and white in yellow lighting - and you'll (probably) see the dress as the correct black and blue.

Here's my own adjusted picture, after a quick adjustment in Adobe Camera Raw. The only changes are the white balance and one stop darkening to the left version (the original picture is severely overexposed).
Left: Temperature -30 / Tint +18 / Exposure -1.00
Middle: original
Right: Temperature +65

Wall of text incoming. Again.

Sorry. Again.

tl;dr:

Debt relief right away was proposed, was neccessary, and was skipped to protect the European financial system.



You are 100% correct, we both are as convinced as one can be that a disorderly collapse would have been much worse for Greece. Might have turned it into a failed state, if things went really bad.

But the situation in Greece at the time the Troika got involved suggested a textbook approach would work just fine. Greece was insolvent, no two ways about it. A debt restructuring, including a haircut, was required to stabilise the system. Yet it was decided against it, thereby creating an enormous debt bubble that keeps growing to this day, destabilising everything.

Why?

People in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin knew in May of 2010 that Greece cannot service its current debt, nevermind pay it back. I remember rather vividly how it was presented to us, as it stirred up a lot of dust in Germany. They pretended as if the problem was a shortage of liquidity, even though they knew it was in fact an insolvency. And to provide an insolvent nation with the largest credit in history (€110-130b) is... well, we can all pick our favorite in accordance to our own bias: madness, idiocy, incompetence, a mistake, intent. They threw Greece into permanent indebtedness(?), and also played one people against another. People in Germany were pissed, still are. Not at the decision makers, but the Greek people.

Again, why?

Every European government, pre-crisis, drank the Cool Aid of deregulation, particularly with regards to the financial sector. When the crisis hit, they had to bail out the banks, a very unpopular decision in Germany, given the scandalous way it was done (different story). Like I pointed out before, when Greece was done for, German banks were on the hook for €17b+, and the French for €20b+. So no haircut for Greek debt.

It gets even better. The entity most experienced in these matters is, of course, the IMF. But IMF couldn't get involved. Its own regulations demand debt to be sustainable for it to become involved in any debt restructuring. Strauss-Kahn had the rules changed in a very hush-hush manner (hidden in a 146 page document) to allow the IMF to lend vast sums to Greece, even though they knew it would not be payed back. Former EC members are on record saying the Strauss-Kahn decided to protect French banks this way as a part of his race for President in France. So they changed IMF rules and ignored European law to bail out German and French banks, using the insolvent Greek government as a proxy.

Several members of the IMF's board were in open opposition. The representatives of India, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland are on record, saying this would merely replace private with public financing, that it would be a rescue package for the private creditors rather than the Greek state. They spoke out in favor of negotiations of a debt relief.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's an IMF email, dated March 25th, 2010, that was published by Roumeliotis, formerly IMF. They put it very bluntly:

"Greece is a relatively closed economy, and the fiscal contraction implied by this adjustment path, will cause a sharp contraction in domestic demand and an attendant deep recession, severely stretching the social fabric."

Even the IMF, who chose parameters according to their own ideology, thought the European program to be too severe. That's saying something.

All that is just about the initial decision. The implementation is another story entirely, with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats telling a democratically elected government what to do. There are former Greek ministers on record, telling how Troika officials basically wrote legislation for them. Blackmail was common, bailout money held as leverage. The Memorandum of Understanding was to be followed to the letter, and the Troika program was as detailed as a government program, so they really had their hand in just about everything.

The specifics of the program are a discussion of their own, with all the corruption going on. The Lagarde list (2000+ Greek tax dodgers) was held in secret by order of an IMF official – that alone should trigger major investigations. The nationalisation and sell-off of the four largest Greek banks, or the no-bid sale of the Hellenikon area to a Greek oligarch – all enforced by Troika officials.

The haircut of 2012, ~€110b wiped out, came two years late. As a result, it didn't hit any German or French institutions in a serious way. Most of the debt was in the hands of these four largest Greek banks -- NBG, Piraeus, Euro, Alpha – who subsequently had to be recapitalised by Greece to the tune of €50b. Cut by 110, up by 50 right away. Banks were nationalised and shares later sold again, at 2/3 the price. Lost another €15b, because the Troika demanded the sale to appease the markets.

The legal aspects of all this are nightmare-inducing as well. They violated numerous European laws, side-tracked parliaments, used governmental decrees, etc.

Let me just say this: when they forced Cyprus to give away two banks' branches in Greece for a fraction of their worth, Cyprus lost €3.5b, at a GDP of €17b, and those two banks went belly-up. It was pure blackmail, do it or you're out. Piraeus Bank received those €3.5b, and its head honcho had €150m of personal bad credit wiped clean right then and there, all at the command of the Troika. Those €3.5b had to be taken from ordinary folks by "suspending" the deposit insurance, perhaps the most stupid decision they had made so far.

Why did they do it? Because Greece was more important than Cyprus, and Cypriot banks were involved in shady deals with Russian oligarchs. Still illegal, and massively so.

Edit: I cut my post in half and it's still too long.

I agree with some of the comments that were already made:
- I missing seeing the channels
- I feel the hover over pop-out is too fast as well
- It feels like a lot of wasted space...its hard to describe, but things feel too big. I use everything from a tablet, to a 27 inch monitor, to a 40 inch TV to browse this site, and I on this new design, I find myself zooming out 3 or 4 times to get a 'comfortable' fit on the screen.

Most importantly, 95% of my activity on this site is opening a video from the front page, or from the "top new videos by vote" list. Then when I'm finished with that video, I quickly find another from that same list. I miss having that list ever-present on the screen. I just dont like the mouse-over pop-out. It lacks ranks and the thumbnails are too big. And it doesnt look like I can adjust the list length like I did on the 'old' design, to show 20 videos, instead of the original 10 or 15 (whatever the default was).

Lastly, I've mentioned this before to some people: I would LOVE a way to filter siftbot replies and user invocations in comments. I hate having to scroll past 8 or 9 siftbot replies, and user invocations, just to find 1 actual comment buried somewhere in there. If all someone does is comment *Down Under, and siftbot replies that its added the Down Under channel, then allow us to hide those messages.

But most importantly, I would like the ever-present Top Videos list on each page.

Agreed that the channels need to be present.

Also, the placement of the vote total with the upvote and downvote arrows are placed so far at the bottom of the page (at least on Firefox) I either need to scroll down to access it to vote or I have to be very accurate with my cursor.

Adjusting that up off the "bottom" of the page (without having to scroll) would be nice to have access to. Otherwise, I could imagine videos not getting voted for at all. Which would not be good needless to say.