Domain: freefoto.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to freefoto.com.
Comments · 13
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Re:How many minutes until this is mandatory?
If the conditions are so bad you can't read road signs, you shouldn't be driving.
Under the right conditions snow will stick to the signs looking like these signs even though it's otherwise clear. It doesn't happen often, but when it does I think the self-driving car is pretty much screwed. Humans seem to get by on a combination of routine and heuristics.
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Re:Great idea
Fuel? They use windmills so that their wooden shoes don't get wet. Sure, in the Netherlands everybody walks around like this.
Well. Except the hookers and drug dealers, that is. So about 50%.
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Re:Programming == Cut & Paste
Oakland Bay Bridge, San Francisco, USA: http://www.freefoto.com/images/1215/15/1215_15_5---Oakland-Bay-Bridge-San-Francisco--California_web.jpg
Ponte 25 de Abril, Lisbon, Portugal: http://www.navigators.di.fc.ul.pt/rtss04/images/Ponte25Abril.jpgBoth built by the American Bridge Company, they have basically the same structure and design, adapted to the local conditions. Obviously the effort of designing the second was largely reduced because they based it on the first.
I fail to see how this is a problem, both in bridge or software design.
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Re:ridiculous references
I've tried explaining computer technology to my retired relatives..
Me: "Ok, here's your power cable - that plugs into the back of the base unit just like your DVD player. The cable here goes to the screen just like the SCART connctor to the TV. Now this is the keyboard which is just like a typewriter keyboard, and this is the mouse...."
Relative: "What? Where's the mouse? That plastic thing there? It doesn't look much like a mouse to me. Where are it's whiskers, feet and tail?"
Me: "OK, let's call it an input device. You hold it in your hand and move it around like this. When you want to select something, you press or click the button here..."
And you don't even want to try to explain to them why they can't just use the TV remote to type in the letters of the channel they want to watch (e. C..N...N ) rather than having to type in and remember the desired channel number.
Who remembers Operating System lectures where the professor talked about semaphore signals, monitors and deadlock, or scanners
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They are pretty but..
They are pretty but they don't look very efficient.
http://www.freefoto.com/images/1450/02/1450_02_9---Line-of-Windmills--Kinderdijk--Holland_web.jpg -
Re:Mr. Fusion
Yeah, I goofed the link, and a mass of text disappeared as a result. What I get for working in a hurry. Anyways, Fixed link and restored text(that was hiding in the link:
6MW which is the largest commercial wind turbine made. You'd need 200 turbines to equal the nuke plant's max capacity, more likely 300 to match it's annual generation.With big enough backyard, you can put one in your backyard, which I'd like to do, along with PVs on my roof.
While there'd be complications in how you figure the billing, I think a turbine just outside of my very small village would be neat. Larger turbines are more efficient and operate more evenly as the wind loads are steadier the higher you go. Even a single MW turbine would provide more than enough power for my town, on average. Due to my northern latitude, it'd be far more efficient to stick the solar panels in the nevada desert first.
Oh, there's one more thing I keep on forgetting. I read an article I think in SciAm that nuclear power plants need more water than any other type of power plant.
First, these cooling towers aren't for a nuclear plant.
A nuclear plant, depending on design, requires water for between 0 - 3 systems. Primary cooling, secondary loop, and final waste heat disposal.
Primary cooling loop - the water actually in the reactor. Normally pressurized, it's in relative direct contact with the core. It's tightly sealed up and is never intended to leave. Having to dump a significant amount of water into it would be unusual. Some designs use liquid sodium at ambient pressure instead.
Secondary loop - heat is transferred from the primary to the secondary, this water transforms to steam and is used in the turbines to produce power. It's also distilled water and sealed/recycled. Around the same amount of water will be present in a coal plant of the same power level. Lots more behind a hydro dam.Final waste heat - This is where the massive amounts of waste heat go to keep the secondary loop going. Trick is, it doesn't necesarily 'use up' the water. The water doesn't have to be potable. It merely heats it up a little. Well, depending on design and prevailing conditions. Generally you have three situations.
1. Lots and Lots of water available. Like a river or ocean. You run some river water through the heat exchangers or place the heat exchanger into the ocean. You get a spot where the water is slightly warmer. Fish tend to love these areas.
2. Not so much water available - cooling towers may be used to evaporate some of the water rather than warming more of it to an ecologically damaging level.
3. No water? Pure air cooling. Most expensive option, thus not much used. After last year though, when entry river water reached temperatures exceeding that of what they were allowed to release it at, a number of nuclear plants are adding more of this type of cooling capacity.Throughout the world aquifers are being depleted faster than they can be recharged. Where is the water need to run nuclear power plants going to come from?
You're thinking of unsalinated ground source drinking water. Nuke plants use distilled, distilled, and 'don't really care what state it's in'. Generally they use river water, and put the water right back in the river.
However it is, nuclear power would not be profitable and Wall Street would not pay for it if government did not subsidize it.
You do realize that you can say the exact same thing for wind/solar, right? The only power generation types that get less subsidies than nuclear is NG and dirty coal. Solar and wind generally get at least an order of magnitude more subsidy than nuclear.
It is done in cities though. I don't know if it's still done in NYC but
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Re:Dishwasher?
They key positioning and size differ from normal keyboards. Just check for the differences: http://www.hardwarecentral.com/graphics/screenshots/1091048923521lome343.jpg VS http://www.freefoto.com/images/04/34/04_34_12---Computer-Keyboard_web.jpg. Now you know why you too would have to take a picture of this keyboard.
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Re:Am I the only one getting sick of this?
Flying "car": Here
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Re:Honest question
In addition to what others have said about cutting through traffic, motorcycles can get into parks and pedestrian areas much more easily than cars can. In the UK there are motorcycle-mounted paramedics (example). I once saw one who had attended a medical emergency in a shopping centre -- he had driven his motorcycle right inside the shopping centre to the scene of the incident. I've also seen one of these motorcycles parked inside a train station.
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Re: What else is new?
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Freedom Fighter
Groan! Oh for a few mod points...
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Mobile cameras
Oddly enough, the police department in various parts of Scotland have discovered that the CCTV cameras installed on public buses have helped to catch criminals. Fixed point cameras are helpful in deterring crime in certain areas, but eventually criminals figure out the blind spots in the system.
I've seen the television sized screens on the double deckers. A 16" LCD display is mounted on the ceiling at the front of the top deck of the bus. There are around six cameras on the top of the bus which cover the staircase, both sides of the back row of the bus; the favourite location for drunk teenagers -neds (Non Educated Delinquents) and the front of the bus. The display cycles through the entire set of cameras. Quite entertaining if you can get a front row seat. Then you can watch the ned-cam as the bus goes through the city. -
Re:Why?If you ever want to know where he got Bladerunner's atmostphere from it's from his upbringing in the North East of England, particularly his time studying in Hartlepool. The seal sands were a particular inspiration, it's miles upon miles of chemical plants. When you drive through at night it's just like being in his LA of the future, particularly the flames shooting into the sky.
His nothern upbringing propably also explains why it's always raining in his films...:-)