Slashdot Mirror

Actually, the algae are not quite as efficent as current solar cells http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html and you later lose about 60% of the energy when you burn the biofuels since internal combustion engines are not very efficient.
--
Solar! It's what's for power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

At current system efficiencies (17%) residential rooftops can supply 46% of net generation. That is more that the residential sector consumes. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.htm l. Land area is not really an issue with solar.
--
Rent solar power with no installation charge: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

At current system efficiencies (17%) residential rooftops can supply 46% of net generation. That is more that the residential sector consumes. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.htm l. Land area is not really an issue with solar.
--
Rent solar power with no installation charge: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

First Solar's panels are only available to commercial installers. $1.19/Watt is what it cost them to make, but the sell at over $2/Watt. And, no one is quite sure yet how long they last though they are doing quite a lot of work with NREL to get that nailed down. They want for them to last 20 years. So, if you could buy at cost and you were happy with DC when the sun shines, assuming 5 hours average peak equivilent sun light per day you cost for that electricity would be about 3.3 cents per kWh. Inverters cost about $0.9/Watt assuming you want 20 years out of them. If you could get the panels, you would mount them in a yard because they are not that efficient so your roof would be too small but that means that your installation cost would be low. You can certainly beat 15 cents per kWh though.
--
Rent solar power and save: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Could not resist this: http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.ht ml
--
Solar power for what you pay now: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

I came across an interesting article explaning how California utility PG&E is entering into a contract to obtian used batteries from electric cars: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2 _archive/2007/08/01/100138830/index.htm. They'll use these for stationary storage. If the current fleet is converted to electric, I calculate that these used batteries can store about half a day of our energy use: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.htm l. That does not cover seasonal variations in solar power, but it does look more like getting base load as well as peak from solar.
--
Save money by renting solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

I came across an interesting article explaning how California utility PG&E is entering into a contract to obtian used batteries from electric cars: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2 _archive/2007/08/01/100138830/index.htm. They'll use these for stationary storage. If the current fleet is converted to electric, I calculate that these used batteries can store about half a day of our energy use: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.htm l. That does not cover seasonal variations in solar power, but it does look more like getting base load as well as peak from solar.
--
Save money by renting solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

There were 1.7 GW installed in 2006: http://www.solarbuzz.com/Marketbuzz2007-intro.htm bringing the world up to about 6 GW. At a typical 5 hours per day equivilent peak generation that comes to 11 billion kWh per year. World net generation was 16,590.6 billion kWh per year in 2004: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb1116.html, so your fraction should be 0.07%, off by about 4 orders of magnitude. At 45% growth, how long would it take to replace world net generation? Somewhat less that 22 years since 1.45^22=3550 which would imply that more than half of the worlds net generation would be fabricated in the year 2028, with the rest fabricated prior to that year. Since panels last 25 years or longer there would have been little need to replace existing solar PV capacity by that time.
--
Rent residential solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Oddly enough there are projects to make Vista games (Direct X 10 games) and apps run on Windows.

http://alkyproject.blogspot.com/

It can be done, but Microsoft just wants people to jump to Vista. I think they are barking up the wrong tree. Gamers who want the best possible performance aren't going to jump to an OS that eats more resources and slows their rig down. I'll consider buying a Direct X 10 game the moment Wine/Cedega supports it.

Security is a cost, it has no ROI.
http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2007/07/glutton-fo r-roi-punishment.html

On the contrary - Microsoft can make anything hard, if they try.

Well, GPLv3 fixes this. It allows for "cures" of a violation with specific terms.

http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.blogspot.com/2007/0 7/general-public-license-version-3-legal.html

"5. Termination. The GPLv2 terminated automatically upon failure to comply with its terms and continued use of the program was copyright infringement. GPLv2 did not address how to reinstate the rights under the license after coming back into compliance. This provision was particularly troubling as GPLv2 licensed software was used in consumer products such as television sets and computers which are sold in millions of units: even an inadvertent breach could result in massive liability for copyright infringement. The GPLv3 directly addresses this issue in Section 8. Although it continues to provide for automatic termination, it now includes a procedure for reinstatement. "

They claim that this other guy violated the license terms (From Term 1: Copyright notices must be preserved), but even if that is true there still isn't a copyright violation - just a violation of a license term.

And thus the essence of the case.

JRMI claimed that the preservation of the copyright notice was a condition of the license such that there would be no license unless the notice was preserved. This means that any copying without the notice was outside the license and therefore was unlicensed reproduction, therefore copyright infringement. The judge held that in fact the copying was within the license but in breach of it - a breach of contract. Although it seems as though "the bad guys" did something wrong in each case, there is a difference in remedy.

If you are in breach of a contract the court will generally only grant damages - that is, the person has to pay you for the breach. If you are a copyright violator then the court will grant an injunction (specifically there is a presumption that an injunction is an appropriate remedy for copyright violation, whereas the presumption for contract is that an injunction is inappropriate). An injunction means you can tell the violator to stop what they're doing (or otherwise impose a legal requirement to act in a certain way or to not act in a certain way).

The reason this case is thought of as a bad thing is it seems to imply that any copying of anything released under a free software license (the distinctions between the GPL and the Artistic License are unimportant for this point) is ipso facto not copyright infringement though it may be a violation of the license. This ruling seems inconsistent with the Sun case where anything denoted as a "condition" it was considered would be sufficient to cause the behaviour to fall outside the license.

IANAL; I'm an Australian law student. The summary at Law & Life: Silicon Valley is excellent.

Under GR, the effect of mass in the medium is to change the geodesic but this is achromatic. Are you thinking of electromagnetic effects that change the index of refraction as a function of wavelength?
--
Rent residential solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

what do bloggers know about string theory? Seriously? PUHLEEZE And can we stop talking about what the bloggers are saying? My word.

I don't know, but maybe a blog by a friggin' physicist would do, don't you think? If not, why not?

Life on the lattice

The articles by Lobos Motl and Chris Lee are pretty interesting. Direct URLs: http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/08/magic-dispersion -of-gamma-rays.html http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2007/0 8/23/probing-quantum-gravity-with-gamma-ray-burste rs None of them seems to believe that this observation is connected with quantum gravity.

Most proprietary ISPs tend to have their own End User License Agreements that is either specific to the company or the product. Adding to that 88% of the sourceforge projects choose one of 3 licenses. The GPL license prevails, at 77% of projects. The LGPL is second at 6%, and BSD trails in third at 5%. All other licenses account from 3% to 1%.
http://asay.blogspot.com/2005/09/analyst-nature-an d-size-of-open-source.html

So when dealing with open source projects you supposedly have a problem with license proliferation? You have to deal with 1000 licenses? I don't buy that.

Also it is worth to notice that it is common that EULAs have special clauses on how the software can be used, by who and how the software can be distributed within the organization. Some of these clauses can truly be quite interesting.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/29/microsoft_ vista_eula_analysis/ (plenty of other article if you don't like this source)

All OSI approved open source licenses permit the distribution of software with little to no worry compared to EULA governed software. No more Bussiness Software Allicance audits which can threaten to disrupt your normal bussiness. It is when you change the software or distribute it externally that you have to worry about the open source software license, but then, that is a different discussion since it is not normal for proprietary software to allow that.

see My little pony and More big changes at sun

see My little pony and More big changes at sun

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/

See my reply here.

Also, I would argue (am arguing) that the drive to create is separate from the drive for money. There would still be artists if creating art was punishable by death, it has nothing to do with making money.

The connection between creating art and becoming rich and famous was propagated by the middle men who looked at artists and said, "You know, I could really make a killing by distributing this." That is capitalism.

Now that we are in the "Digital Age" and distribution can be widespread and done by anyone, the middle-men are threatened and are reacting, sometimes by adapting to the new technology, sometimes by suing everyone in sight.

The ideal solution would be to find a way to reward artists, without restricting the distribution of art. That is the goal, remember?

Democrats regularly strip off shirts and try to confiscate signs that are critical of them at their rallies.

So some Democrats suck too. That's no defense of the Bush teams' tactics.

You do realize that being anti-Bush doesn't mean being a Democrat, right? (Indeed, given Congress's track record, it would seem that being a Democrat means being mildly pro-Bush.)

one of the Muslim KKK / "Pro-Palestine"

The Ku Klux Klan accepts Muslims now? You're not making sense.

I took a sign asking Obama what he thinks of the racial supremacist views of his "church"

Nothing at the link you provide supports the charge that the church is "racial supremacist". Please, explain.

That said, if your story about your sign being taken away and destroyed is true, that is unacceptable behavior whether engaged in by Democrats or Republicans. However, we don't know whether Obama backs such actions or whether it was a single overzealous staffer; in the case of the Bush plan, it's an official policy of the White House

is that while those who insist on hating Bush think this is news, this has been "crowd control" tactics for pretty much every political rally or protest that has ever existed.

Democrats regularly strip off shirts and try to confiscate signs that are critical of them at their rallies. Try bringing a counter-sign to one of the Muslim KKK / "Pro-Palestine" events sometime, and see what happens. If you're lucky, they'll just try to cover your sign with theirs or grab it from your hands and rip it up and stomp on it; if you're not, you'll be physically attacked for being a "Jew."

I took a sign asking Obama what he thinks of the racial supremacist views of his "church": when I held it up at his rally, it lasted about 30 seconds, then one of his "staffers" pointed at me and sent cronies into the crowd to take it from my hands and rip it up. Seems they don't want the truth about him pointed out.

I'm curious if there might be any connection between overloud music and the increasingly popular observation that modern music is inferior to older music? I'm sure engineered bands are somewhat to blame for this, and it does seem that people tend to prefer the music they grew up with during their teens and early twenties.

But then there's the case of bands that have existed for twenty or more years. One of my favorite such bands is Rush. I'm not exactly an audiophile, but their later releases seem to suffer from being overloud. The new Snakes & Arrows album has a track "Far Cry" which I think might have been fantastic had it been mastered 15 years ago.

Upon typing the last statement their, I figured I'd do a quick search for "snakes and arrows loudness". WOW:
http://fudgeland.blogspot.com/2007/06/snakes-in-in dustry.html They even used "Far Cry"! I swear I typed the above before I found this link.

So either that or Ozzie and Harriet...
--
Groan for solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Except for mine, where the grass won't grow, I notice I can usually tell how the drain field is laid out by the color of the grass. Probably won't be long before a remote sensing system can manage to figure out what special fertilizers are involved. It would be kind of like those science projects with caffeine and bean seeds. You're next....
--
Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Google LatLong Blog Post

On June 28, the Texas Transportation Commission, the final word on transportation issues in the state, ordered that the Regional Transportation Council and NTTA reach an agreement on the Highway 121 contract before Aug. 27 or else the contract would go to Cintra.

The accident that might have happened would have been similar to Japan's worst accident so far: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_acc ident. Because liquids take on the shape of the container, a spill in the floor is not as important as the liquid accumulating in a narrow shaft. See this description: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi ?dbname=2007_register&docid=fr04my07-111.
--
Bet ter power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

The AC has a point though that slashdot does not do a lot of followup. For example this 2005 article: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/2 8/1224245 has not really had a follow up to say that they have products on the market now: http://www.nanosolar.com/products.htm, or that this 2004 article: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/2 2/1534212 about solar shingles is also seeing application in new housing now. Looking back, there are articles on ideas that have not panned out so far, especially in organic solar technology. But, that does not mean that they won't.
--
Get solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Prices have come down a lot since 2002. Commercial installations a beating grid pricing and some financing mechanisms can get residential down to $0.07/kWh: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/tuppence-in-su n.html. This trend of lower prices should continue for a decade at least and will make solar cheaper than all other sources of power. Some business developments in storage may make the combination of solar plus storage as cheap as any other form of power as well: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html. Nice SolarFest blog entry.
--
Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Prices have come down a lot since 2002. Commercial installations a beating grid pricing and some financing mechanisms can get residential down to $0.07/kWh: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/tuppence-in-su n.html. This trend of lower prices should continue for a decade at least and will make solar cheaper than all other sources of power. Some business developments in storage may make the combination of solar plus storage as cheap as any other form of power as well: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html. Nice SolarFest blog entry.
--
Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Prices have come down a lot since 2002. Commercial installations a beating grid pricing and some financing mechanisms can get residential down to $0.07/kWh: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/tuppence-in-su n.html. This trend of lower prices should continue for a decade at least and will make solar cheaper than all other sources of power. Some business developments in storage may make the combination of solar plus storage as cheap as any other form of power as well: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html. Nice SolarFest blog entry.
--
Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

In a detector you are correct but in a power device you use the doping gradient because bias voltages leak, defeating the purpose.
--
Get solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Here is a link to the original notice in the Federal Register: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi ?dbname=2007_register&docid=fr04my07-111 taken from the very much in flux list of civilian nuclear accidents at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nucl ear_accidents. This is not the way that the NRC usually handles accidents of this magnitiude. The lack of awareness of supervisors of what they were dealing with is pretty amazing.
--
Get better power and save: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Do you realize parallism also involves algorithms

http://gamefab.blogspot.com/2007/03/musing-on-pc-g ames-vs-console-games.html
No, I'm not this guy, but I know him from a forum.

and for the suckers still on Comcast the added competition has forced them to drop their prices in the area to $33/month (well, at least until you add in all the random taxes + fees + surcharges), so even the big guys are having to play along. The best part of this all is that the city doesn't actually pay for the fiber at all unless the project fails, so the only question is why all of the towns in this area don't have it already.

Believe me, if things go well then Comcast will have competition like never before.

I'm in West Jordan and working with several people to help move Utopia forward. I've spoken with my City Council though some still think wireless is awesome compared to fiber. some need to be educated on how silly that really is. Other's still think S.B. 66 is alive and well (prevented other cities from joining Utopia. Thanks Comcast!)

Other cities are starting to figure it out. White City Township (South of Sandy) is VERY interested in joining Utopia. My wife and I attended their last council meeting. Very interesting. Some guy wanted them to bring in Comcast thinking it would be better. We "enlightened" him before the meeting :-) Explained what the company is doing with terminating people's internet access. What a screwy company.

Draper is also discussing bringing Utopia to the city. My wife and I will be speaking with their City Council in case anyone starts talking about bringing Comcast into the picture (or any other non-Utopia provider). We're also visiting with other cities who are looking at bringing Utopia to their area. It's my intention of making sure people understand what a bad idea it is to rely on companies that wish to maintain their Government sponsored monopoly.

I keep telling people Utopia is like public roads or public airports. We need that infrastructure if we want to compete with the world. We're already in 24th place with broadband penetration. Very sad.

The google cookies expire much much sooner then 2038, they will expire after 2 years now for those who do not visit the page again for it to be renewed.
See this for the announcement

My wife had a stroke and we had to communicate by spelling for months, so I know something about this. I bought a piece of plexiglass and a set of adhesive letters. I arranged the alphabet on the board with an empty space in the middle, so you can look through the board.

The person who can't speak looks at the letters with her eyes, and you on the other side read them off. If she can nod or shake her head slightly for yes/no this can go reasonably fast.

http://lindabindner.blogspot.com/2004/03/more-mond ay-stuff-i-forgot-to-mention.html

...I wouldn't mind some consolidation in the VCS arena so the talented VCS guys can work towards three killer VCSs (Subversion, Mercurial or Bazaar, and Git are my choices). And then they can band together and make sure my life doesn't suck in Eclipse when I am forced to use the editor. =)

Subsidies are an interesting question. All energy sectors get them. Here is a link that looks at the period 1943-1999: http://www.crest.org/repp_pubs/pdf/subsidies.pdf. Hyrdo is included, but much of the hydro capital investment happened before 1943. The Hover Dam was completed in 1935, for example. Non-market interest rates play a big role in hydro subsidies since hydro also plays a role in flood control, a government function. Wind gets a production tax credit which is not permanent while hydro appears to recieve a tax break in addition to production credits http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/s tory;jsessionid=0D08A08E27326292C69011005A97F1DE?i d=49601. It seems to me that we can manage a subsidies accounting when wind reaches the market penetration of hydro. I suspect that owing to less favorable financing (private rather than public), wind will turn out to have the lower subsidy at that point.

Panels are tilted to account for the dilution of sunlight owing to the latitude. What you are mostly seeing is that you get rain while deserts don't.
--
Better power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

There are two utilites in North Dakota where you could save money with solar. Don't know if yours is one. North Dakota does well for sunshine, an average of 5 peak equivilent hours per day. At least for Calvert Cliffs, the estimated cost for the new reactor is $2.50/Watt. Perhapshttp://www.tva.gov/news/releases/julysep07/ wbu2.htm you have been looking at delayed plant completion costs. On the other hand, solar and wind come in at about $1.30/Watt plus transmission for wind and inverters for solar. Nuclear also needs transmission plus fuel plus regulation costs (currently discounted). Wind is actually the cheapest right now even compared to hydro. Solar wins in terms of competing with delivered electricity despite installation costs. This is why the commercial sector is adopting it so rapidly. In terms of new construction in California: http://news.com.com/Solar+industry+targets+new+hom es/2100-11392_3-6187964.html.

Especially where air conditioning is used, utlilities get a big benefit from net metering. This is when thier whole sale costs are above their retail rates. So, their net metering customers are providing electricity at a discount and reducing costs for everyone. The cost of wind and solar is falling while the cost of everything else is rising, even hydro since its resource is coming in for more demand as water alone. The current situation on the Tennessee River is an example. It may still be a while before your utility catches on, but I expect you'll be seeing quite a lot of solar when it does.
--
Improve you power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Availability and relability are different. It is the lack of reliability that is driving up costs. You may want to check out what solar and wind actually cost compared to new nuclear power. We are hurting for peak capacity so you are making things a little skewed when you insist on your multiplier I think. In terms of surface area needed, the roofs of homes can generate 46% of all power consumed: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.htm l.
--
Better power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Availability and relability are different. It is the lack of reliability that is driving up costs. You may want to check out what solar and wind actually cost compared to new nuclear power. We are hurting for peak capacity so you are making things a little skewed when you insist on your multiplier I think. In terms of surface area needed, the roofs of homes can generate 46% of all power consumed: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.htm l.
--
Better power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Is the browser going to suck like most phones? Who knows?

Is the browser going to suck like most phones? Who knows?

You'd save money with solar if you had proper net metering. You don't need batteries in that case. Check http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html to see how things work in Georgia and Luisiana.