Sanyo Solar Ark and Giant LED Display

shokk writes "Those of us who have played with CrystalFontz and Matrix Orbital serial LCD displays for geeky messaging will get a kick out of the 77k+ LED Solar Ark by Sanyo (only 21k of which are using as red/green/blue combinations for the presentation display). Not only does this behemoth show off its fantastically huge array of solar panels generating 530,000kWh/year and its high efficiency white LED technology, but it also sports a non-chemical water purification system in a very Feng Shui way. Lighting to restrooms underneath is provided by fiber optic paths from the white LEDs in the giant display above." It's a small plant as power plants go (600 kilowatts, when many plants are hundreds or thousands of megawatts) but it was cheap to produce, aesthetically pleasing, and of course, non-polluting, so that Godzilla won't visit.

Comments

Japanese may be down but they will be back

[asmithmd1]

Their enconomy has been in the doldrums for 10 years but long term thinking and a relentless focus on the customer will bring them around. Check out this quote from the web page:

All of the Solar Batteries used in the Solar Ark where collected from customers who had solar cell modules that did not meet standard output requirements discovered last year. The "Solar Ark" represents SANYO employee's commitment to not forget the lesson learned from the power deficient module incident that occurred last year. Furthermore the system will serve as a useful device to actively test the basic performance of the modules in order to regain customers confidence in using SANYO Solar Batteries.

Compare that attitude with Firestone's policy of deny and cover-up when people's lives were at stake

Speaking of Feng Shui...

[Reality Master 101]

Something I've been thinking about lately...

When I was growing up (born in '64), superstition was still pretty widespread in mainstream society, such as rabbit's feet, black cat's crossing your path, "bread and butter", salt over the shoulder, knock on wood, etc. There were people who really took these things seriously: in fact, you might remember a twilight zone episode where some guy speaking about superstition matter-of-factly noted that many people believed in rabbit's feet (and then some guy piped up with "darn right" or something like that).

It occurred to me that these sort of things are almost totally dead, most likely caused by the homogenization of society caused by television and mass media.

Even astrology seems to have taken some big hits. I'm sure there are still some nutcases that follow it, but nothing like it once was.

One superstition, however, seems to be actually gaining prominence: Feng Shui. There are people who actually take it seriously. My wife has a friend (who's Asian) whose mother actually made her not buy a particular condo she was looking at because some Feng Shui witch doctor didn't like it. I've even heard some stories about dot-com idiots in the Silicon Valley who felt the need to blow big $$$ on Feng Shui analyses of their office spaces.

Not sure what the point of all this is, but I found it interesting.

[of course, I'm leaving out religion from this discussion of superstition, but that's another subject entirely. :)]