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Re:Ultracapacitors by bussdriver · 2008-08-27 13:30 · Score: 1 · on The Power Grid Can't Handle Wind Farms

Not realistic anytime soon. Better off with stuff that likely will get done sooner and cheaper with less losses. Lithium batteries are horrible for this application; they ONLY have portability and density going for them neither of which matter for grid storage.

Kinetic storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage

Gravity storage (cheapest; high loss)
Pump water up hill; hydro power down.

Flow batteries (large, reasonably priced; I've heard that they have 90% ones already.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery

---

Most of all we need a modern grid that doesn't lose so much power; not a hacked one that can handle some spikes.

ULTRA HIGH VOLTAGE pulsed DC. DC doesn't have the problems it did when Edison tried to do it. Its a big switch that would be difficult but has great benefits.
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:ZslU4X6qcCQJ:www.ptd.siemens.de/artikel0707_low.pdf+ULTRA+HIGH+VOLTAGE+pulsed+DC+power+grid&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Here's An Example...VegNews.com by uits · 2008-08-25 14:38 · Score: 1 · on Websites Still Failing Basic Privacy Practices

Great example of poor coding and carelessness...VegNews.com

Trying to register for a launch party at VegNews I come across this (from google site cache)

google site cache of insecure page

Problems
1. No SSL, ssl not supported if you change the URL manually.
2. Lies about being secure, right there on the form. Nope.
3. The "action" points to an email *FormMailer* (http://vegnews.com/cgi-bin/SaveForm.pl).

So, not only does it lie about encrypting your credit card, it goes and emails it out afterward to who-knows-where to sit in personal archives for who-knows-how-long.

Suffice to say I didn't attend, but I'm still pissed I almost fell victim to that.

Re:why digitize vinyl? by bcrowell · 2008-08-13 03:46 · Score: 1 · on Digitizing Rare Vinyl

Interesting -- thanks for the info on copyright law! The law on sound recordings really sounds like a horrible muddle.

It looks like the site is dead now. I'm getting a 508 error. Here is the google cache of his main page. Most likely he went over his webhost's quota due to the slashdot effect, or maybe his webhost already got a DMCA takedown notice, since most of the music on his page was actually still in copyright and still commercially available. As an experiment, I picked the following random sample of seven tunes from his page (scrolling down the list, and taking one line per screenful):

A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND Muggsy Spanier COMMODORE 1504B 12in A THOUSAND KISSES International Novelty Orch VICTOR 19351-A AFTER YOUVE GONE Turk Murphys Jazz Band GOOD TIME JAZZ 39 ALL THE CATS JOIN IN Roy Eldridge DECCA 23532-A AND HER TEARS FLOWED LIKE WINE Ella Fitzgerald DECCA 18633 A ARTISTRY IN RYTHYM Stan Kenton CAPITOL 159 AWAY OUT ON THE MOUNTAIN Jimmie Rodgers VICTOR 21142-B

The Muggsy Spanier tune dates to the 50's, is still in copyright, and is available on a 2006 CD reissue. "A Thousand Kisses" was recorded around 1924, so it's probably still copyrighted, but it doesn't seem to be commercially available now. "After You've Gone" was recorded in 1947, it's still copyrighted, and it's still commercially available. "All the Cats Join In" was recorded in 1936, is still copyrighted, and is still commercially available. "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine," still in copyright, still available. "Artistry in Rhythm", ditto. "Away Out on the Mountain", ditto.

The claim in the slashdot summary that the music is out of print is wildly misleading, since 6 out of 7 songs from my sample are commercially available. The Wired article's statement that "The copyright situation surrounding some of these songs is as murky as their sound quality" is likewise pretty silly -- it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that recordings from the 1950's by famous jazz artists are still in copyright.

Old news by jdb2 · 2008-07-27 10:27 · Score: 1 · on Ohio Researchers Advance Heat Reclamation Technologies

A while back there was an article on /. about a "quantum afterburner" : a device that could directly extract energy from a heat source, say, car exhaust, in the form of a laser beam.

Here's a link to the cached Nature article : http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:RV6U7lxRqFUJ:www.nature.com/nsu%255C/nsu_pf/020128/020128-3.html+quantum+laser+heat+car+exhaust&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

jdb2

Re:Obama lost me as a supporter - here's my letter by TheGratefulNet · 2008-07-09 13:02 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Senate Passes Telecom Immunity Bill

When you don't vote, you have given up that voice.

and yet, here is the late george carlin's view:

http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:UKAsJypmKkUJ:thinkexist.com/quotation/i-don-t-vote-two-reasons-first-of-all-it-s/761194.html+george+carlin+I+don't+vote&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

"I don't vote. Two reasons. First of all it's meaningless; this country was bought and sold a long time ago. The shit they shovel around every 4 years *pfff* doesn't mean a fucking thing. Secondly, I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around - they say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain', but where's the logic in that? If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with."

before you reject it right away, give it a bit of thought. carlin was insightful, way ahead of his time.

Re:Australia is a good common ground. by novakreo · 2008-07-04 00:37 · Score: 1 · on EBay Abandons Plans For PayPal Monopoly

Speculation on Three's blog comments was that Apple wouldn't allow Three to plaster their logo all over the phone and have built-in links to their online content the way Three do with all their other handsets.

Of course, after the comments turned against Three, commenting was disabled, but some of them are still in the Google cache.

What about the engine? by lantastik · 2008-06-18 09:16 · Score: 5, Interesting · on Register, Others Call Plagiarism in "Limbo of the Lost" Game

I started to wonder how they got rips of all of those games in to their engine. Then I started to wonder if they just stole the engine. I did a search and came up with this page:
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:GTYHJgCqVCYJ:www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl%3Faction%3Dviewthread%26threadid%3D88482+%22Limbo+of+the+Lost%22+engine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

I'm still wondering how they were able to import all those assets and levels so flawlessly into their own engine?

That must have been a tremendous job just to write the different converters but then again I don't understand why Steve Bovis, was not able to code a simple CD check into the main menu??? ...this was the follow-up to that question:

They didn't.

"Wintermute Engine Development Kit is a set of tools for creating and running graphical âoepoint&clickâ adventure games, both traditional 2D ones and modern 2.5D games (3D characters on 2D backgrounds). The kit includes the runtime interpreter (Wintermute Engine, or WME) and GUI editors for managing and creating the game content (WME tools) as well as the documentation, demonstrational data and prefabricated templates." - http://dead-code.org/home/

All the backgrounds they stole are screenshots from other games. They made a 3D character to move (with scaling) on 2D backgrounds.

Direct links to mirrors by jarom · 2008-06-17 07:03 · Score: 1 · on Firefox Download Day To Start At 1 p.m. EST

Google cache of the Mozilla mirror list by jarom · 2008-06-17 05:47 · Score: 1 · on Firefox Download Day To Start At 1 p.m. EST

I was able to download the release by going to the Google cache of the mirrors list. A little navigation required, but at least the server wasn't dead.

http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:_PnqbgP1GpIJ:www.mozilla.org/mirrors.html+firefox+3+download+mirror&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

The download from ISC - San Francisco for me was lightning fast.
Here's the link at ISC for the en-US release:

http://pv-mirror01.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/latest-3.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%203.0.exe

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