>>Fleeing for your life every time a plane fly's a little lower then normal sure wouldn't be a way I would want to live my life.
First of all, this plane was flying a LOT lower than normal. Doing that over NYC would be like lighting off fireworks around vets with PTSD. Trust me.
Secondly, I would rather live my life. Period. You take the honorable route- die saying, "Well, at least I didn't run"- and I will retire in the countryside where there are no fireworks. Aircraft don't frighten me, but other things do, and I would have evacuated had I been in their situation.
Hold up there, Spock. What's the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to you? Watch you kid die in a hit-and-run? Been shot at? Watched your buddy disintegrate from a mortar hit? Ever watched a child with 3rd degree burns over 50% of their body die?
There are things in life that will change you. You don't have to experience them over and over again. This is pure terror/trauma causing a permanent change in the way you think.
There is a reason for people to view an airplane flying *at or below their offices* in New York City as a threat. I wasn't there but I am intimately familiar with PTSD and I am not surprised at their reactions.
>>There's no reason
Why do you like your favorite color? Why do you like your favorite band? Why do you find one show to be funny but not another? No reason, when you boil it down, except that it makes you feel good, or satisfies something fundamentally unexplainable in you. And for these people, taking cover in the face of what could very well be a threat is reasonable. It satisfied an emotional need, something no one with an ounce of empathy would deny them.
>>Vigilance against threat is one thing.
Vigilance is a long-term strategy. Fight or flight, in this case, was proper and it would have saved many lives had this been an attack. There are some threats that by their very nature need instant reactions- A shark fin near me while I was swimming would make me get out of the water. I wouldn't observe its habits and determine how hungry it was, whether I was in its territory, etc. because if the shark WAS a threat, I'd be lunch.
>>and the more deadly previously harmless germs will become.
The rest of us would rather see 20 people die from a superbug than see 18 million people die from something that can be prevented by handwashing, proper cooking, and asepsis in hospitals. I think you're confusing the idea of innoculation such as not getting chicken pox more than once with the emergence of new (this flu is new) viruses. In fact, this virus is most deadly to people with very robust immune systems. And the next flu could target people with compromised immune systems (the usual case).
If you really want to improve your health, get some intestinal parasites and maybe some flukes. Many illnesses in developed countries stem apparently from our lack of parasites: colitis, crohn's, allergies, etc.
You're much more likely to catch this from a doorknob than from food.
Irradiation kills some, but not all, viruses.
You cannot buy a source of radiation powerful enough to irradiate food without major regulatory paperwork. We're talking about doses of multiple kilograys (kGy).
I'm just tired of people calling corporations psychopaths. If I were to say, OK, Merk is a psychopath- then what? Arrest Merk? Institutionalize Merk? Have an intervention? I'm coming at this from a practical point of view. Deceit? OK, we can charge corps with fraud. Disregard for the safety of others? We have laws that cover that. And so on. But anthropomorphizing an organization of thousands of people ranging from janitors to CEOs is just silly. Merk is a business- a shitty one that I wouldn't want to work for- but they are following a trajectory set by the environment like a rock falling to earth.
You might as well say that Merk is sad, or introspective, or jolly- it sounds silly, right? Why is "Psychopath" special?
A better analogy would be to compare merk to an organism- unthinking, bound by a few simple behaviors and laws of nature, and driven towards a singular goal- and in that respect Merk is a very successful organism. Like mosquitoes or zebra mussels, maybe, but successful nonetheless.
>>Failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law - if an individual had acted as Merk did, >>would we as a society consider that to be acceptable behavior? Would that individual have any reason >>to be proud of such behavior? I think not.
You could say that about every business, every organization, and every person ever.
I'm glad you enjoyed the pseudo-documentary. Next up: Cars 'hate' humans! Observe how many people they kill! Look at the damage they do to our environment! Let's carry a synecdoche to an absurd end!
lol... You think we should shoot crazy people? Well, you can be first. Or you can move to Texas, where your cognitive dissonance can roam free among the other good folks who think executing mentally ill prisoners is god's will or something.
Who decides the validity of one of these requests?
"Hi my name is Phil Spector and I'd really appreciate it if you'd not show pictures of me murdering my wife"
"Hi my name is Ted Stevens and these pictures of my free house renovations are really affecting my mental health"
"Hi my name is Dick Cheney and these picture on the internet of my lesbian daughter are really affecting my leadership among the religious right"
Know what I mean? Some people would post these accident photos as a cautionary message while some would be repulsed by them. That's the de facto system we already have and it seems to work fine. If you don't want to see nasty stuff, don't go looking for it.
>>Sadly, three of the top four Google results contain pictures of the accident.
Why else would she show up on Google at all? She is only 'famous' for dying in a particularly grisly way. If you search for Timothy Mcveigh, you're going to get results concerning the Oklahoma City bombing because frankly that's the only thing that made him noteworthy.
My heart goes out to the family, but look- if the only reason people know your daughter's name is her terrible car accident, what do you expect to pop up on Google?
>>The Corporation was right, this is the behavior of a psychopath.
Uhhhg..... This is not the behavior of a psychopath. A corp is not a person. Making the jump from corporate personhood to corporate psychological disorders makes no sense. "Corporate personhood" is a legal construct.
Mountains, bears, asteroids, and clouds are all psychopaths by your definition.
Because time after time, investigations discover that usps employees were stealing discs. I would never say that all (or even very many) usps employees would steal, or that customers never lie about missing games. However, we have several clear-cut instances of theft.
I've never seen the same fedex or ups delivery person twice. On the other hand, over the span of 5 residences, I've had 5 mail carriers.
So if you have a jerk for a mail carrier, that's going to grossly exaggerate the problem. My experiences with the USPS have been overwhelmingly positive, and I ask a lot from them- any time I've asked for my mail to be redirected, or held, or my address changed, or I had a family of ants move into my mailbox literally overnight- they have come through every time.
One time, my deployment overseas was extended a few months past the end date on my 'hold mail' form. I didn't have the receipt or any way to contact my branch office so I assumed that when I got home I'd be missing several months of mail and packages. Nope, they cheerfully handed me a carefully wrapped bundle and commented that they were wondering when I was getting back.
When I read your accounts (cd's snapped, books bent), I laughed and thought, "that's New York for you." I can't in a hundred years imagine that happening around here. On the other hand, fedex left my iBook on my front porch in the rain in plain view of the street in the bad part of town and the package was unwrapped (commercial box, that is, clearly an apple laptop from 30 feet away). I was pretty angry, but everything worked out.
I work for the DoD, too (USAF), and we can't use *anything*. No usb drives, no digital cameras- nothing. If we have to take a picture of a repair for the engineers (happens often), we have to take the camera down to comm and get it scanned and whatever voodoo they do and then burn the 2 or 3 pics to a CD and walk back to the shop.
>>and as more generations grow up with computers, they'll become more adept at using them
Eh. I used to think this as well, but after *actually* growing up with (personal) computers (from Apple II to 486's and performas and imacs and P4's and now multiple cores in laptops), I don't think you're right. Or, maybe you are, but only about the gamers. From my experience, the average 14-21 year old knows about as much about computers as they do about their car, which is almost nothing. The kids who grew up with computers are requiring a lot of handholding when it comes to using dead-simple programs like itunes or internet explorer.
I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, and this is only one person's experience. But do "U RLY C TXT GEN DRVNG INNVTION N CMPUTING? LOL"
Yep, and that's what our best scientists are working on. In the meantime, though, we shouldn't get too scared about resource scarcity. All I mean is that we're not going to have to shut down the LCD factory in 4 years.
See, for example, the progression of aircraft structural materials: wood and canvas, aluminum, aluminum alloys, magnesium, fiberglass and aramids, titanium, carbon fiber, and now I hear that maybe someday they will be constructed with special ceramics. (I left out the soviet union's brief foray into steel aircraft since that's been around for a while)
Titanium is a good example of relative scarcity vs demand; it is one of the most common materials in the earth's crust, yet only recently has it been economical to produce in bulk. This was driven by military needs, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the newest breed of materials also come from military labs.
Play one of those halloween scary sound CD's on repeat, very loud, all day. It's not so much scary as it is unsettling, and people will avoid spending time in there unless it's an emergency.
Alternate titles:
pigs being slaughtered Jokes, except the punchline is cut out one cat, in heat, wailing and meowing to be let out classical out of one speaker, the sound of crazed laughter out the other the sound of two balloons being rubbed together random gunshots spaced 30 sec-90 sec apart. LOUD. highly amplified signal coming from a microphone near the occupant's toilet ticking clock that randomly speeds up and slows down the soundtrack from zombo.com
Much like oil, these substances will never truly 'run out'. We're not shooting them out in to space, after all. What does happen is that, like those mines you mentioned, they become too expensive at today's prices. Tomorrow's prices, on the other hand (since demand will rise while the supply drops/becomes more scarce) will make these mines economical once again. Some mines shut down over very small price changes in the metal.
Copper's price, which was astronomical last summer, has dropped considerably. I know because I bought all the 12/3 cable for my house last summer as a hedge against rising prices and now it costs half what I paid.:(
And we can always harvest these materials from garbage if the price gets high enough to make it economical.
[shot of bin laden sitting in dark cave, lit by monitor glow. Windows moviemaker is visible over his shoulder]
"I'm going to make a little video here that I made with my camera [quick pan to sony handicam with CIA property barcode]. Here we go."
"I like windows vista because it makes this job so easy. I just drag this file into the player window, see, and then I cut out the boring parts like this... and done. Now I just add a music track from windows media player, like this jonas brothers song here. I love them! OK so now I just export to disc, select dvd, ok, and we're off!"
[Jump shot to CNN-looking fake news broadcast] "A new propoganda video has led the intelligence community to believe that Bin Laden has a professional hollywood production team working with him in the mountains of pakistan."
[jump to intel analyst] "I have a Mac at home, and even *I* couldn't create such a good-looking video! Look at those credits! He used the Papyrus font! That's so cool!"
[jump to news broadcast again] [propoganda video is playing, with jonas bros soundtrack while insurgents cross monkey bars at a training camp]
[voice over during fade to MS Vista logo] "I'm Osama bin Laden, and I'm a PC"
On my three deployments to Iraq, I brought a first-gen iPod Shuffle, a first-gen iPod Nano, and an iPhone 3G (in that order). fwiw, I've also brought my iBook or Macbook Pro, depending on which one I had at the time.
Each time, the device lived in my left trouser cargo pocket (hard to get to the device if it's under your body armor). These deployments covered all seasons and thus saw mud, rain, intense heat, dust storms, etc. Not to mention being banged around quite a bit. I've also brought each of these devices to hawaii, iceland, and europe. The chargers are dual-voltage, which means I can plug in anywhere.
And look- soldiers carry around night vision goggles, pictures of their families, ipods, consumer gps units, oakley sunglasses, and a host of other fragile items. We're not barbarians. And on top of that, an off-the-shelf iPod Touch is literally an order of magnitude cheaper than an equivalent device designed purely for the military.
This is perfect because this time, while taxpayers are technically subsidizing a military product by funding Apple's R&D, they get an ipod out of the deal.
Oh and to some posts decrying Apple as being evil for providing products that the military uses: You might want to take stock of your own possessions- I'v heard that some soldiers use linux! And some of them write orders with BIC PENS! Toss your pens!
Some soldiers use Zens and Sansas, too (they work sometimes for a whole WEEK in the battlefield), so toss your Zens. We use post-its every day- toss out your damn post-its.
IIRC, power output increase as the cube of windspeed and the square of surface area. Might have those mixed up. But in either case, no, power output does not scale linearly.
Not to mention the cost (economic and environmental) of each house having its own inverters, batteries, etc. instead of one large centralized power distribution center. The infrastructure to collectively support 100,000 homes via wind will be a tiny percentage of the accumulation of individual power supplies for 100,000 homes. It would be like each house having its own oil refinery just to make a gallon of gas each day for the ride to work and home.
I would like to see Iceland's per capita energy usage with industry included compared to the US and EU.
(A major industry in Iceland is aluminum processing since it is electricity-intensive and electricity is cheap there)
While the US uses a great deal of energy per capita, we also enjoy tremendously high production and standards of living. And if the market will bear it, yes, you will see 24/7 floodlight illumination of buildings and flagpoles that no one sees from 7 pm to 6 am. Environmental concerns aside, you might even say it's testament to our success that we can provide energy cheaply enough for everyone to use so much of it. Supply and demand.
Slashdot Mirror
>>Fleeing for your life every time a plane fly's a little lower then normal sure wouldn't be a way I would want to live my life.
First of all, this plane was flying a LOT lower than normal. Doing that over NYC would be like lighting off fireworks around vets with PTSD. Trust me.
Secondly, I would rather live my life. Period. You take the honorable route- die saying, "Well, at least I didn't run"- and I will retire in the countryside where there are no fireworks. Aircraft don't frighten me, but other things do, and I would have evacuated had I been in their situation.
-b
>>There's no reason
Hold up there, Spock. What's the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to you? Watch you kid die in a hit-and-run? Been shot at? Watched your buddy disintegrate from a mortar hit? Ever watched a child with 3rd degree burns over 50% of their body die?
There are things in life that will change you. You don't have to experience them over and over again. This is pure terror/trauma causing a permanent change in the way you think.
There is a reason for people to view an airplane flying *at or below their offices* in New York City as a threat. I wasn't there but I am intimately familiar with PTSD and I am not surprised at their reactions.
>>There's no reason
Why do you like your favorite color? Why do you like your favorite band? Why do you find one show to be funny but not another? No reason, when you boil it down, except that it makes you feel good, or satisfies something fundamentally unexplainable in you. And for these people, taking cover in the face of what could very well be a threat is reasonable. It satisfied an emotional need, something no one with an ounce of empathy would deny them.
>>Vigilance against threat is one thing.
Vigilance is a long-term strategy. Fight or flight, in this case, was proper and it would have saved many lives had this been an attack. There are some threats that by their very nature need instant reactions- A shark fin near me while I was swimming would make me get out of the water. I wouldn't observe its habits and determine how hungry it was, whether I was in its territory, etc. because if the shark WAS a threat, I'd be lunch.
Sorry to ramble.
-b
And on the other hand I have an (ex) friend who was addicted to benzo and a few other things. Sold all her stuff, stole, the whole nine yards.
I would strongly, strongly caution against self-medicating.
-b
>>and the more deadly previously harmless germs will become.
The rest of us would rather see 20 people die from a superbug than see 18 million people die from something that can be prevented by handwashing, proper cooking, and asepsis in hospitals. I think you're confusing the idea of innoculation such as not getting chicken pox more than once with the emergence of new (this flu is new) viruses. In fact, this virus is most deadly to people with very robust immune systems. And the next flu could target people with compromised immune systems (the usual case).
If you really want to improve your health, get some intestinal parasites and maybe some flukes. Many illnesses in developed countries stem apparently from our lack of parasites: colitis, crohn's, allergies, etc.
-b
ymmv.
-b
You're much more likely to catch this from a doorknob than from food.
Irradiation kills some, but not all, viruses.
You cannot buy a source of radiation powerful enough to irradiate food without major regulatory paperwork. We're talking about doses of multiple kilograys (kGy).
-b
I'm just tired of people calling corporations psychopaths. If I were to say, OK, Merk is a psychopath- then what? Arrest Merk? Institutionalize Merk? Have an intervention? I'm coming at this from a practical point of view. Deceit? OK, we can charge corps with fraud. Disregard for the safety of others? We have laws that cover that. And so on. But anthropomorphizing an organization of thousands of people ranging from janitors to CEOs is just silly. Merk is a business- a shitty one that I wouldn't want to work for- but they are following a trajectory set by the environment like a rock falling to earth.
You might as well say that Merk is sad, or introspective, or jolly- it sounds silly, right? Why is "Psychopath" special?
A better analogy would be to compare merk to an organism- unthinking, bound by a few simple behaviors and laws of nature, and driven towards a singular goal- and in that respect Merk is a very successful organism. Like mosquitoes or zebra mussels, maybe, but successful nonetheless.
>>Failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law - if an individual had acted as Merk did,
>>would we as a society consider that to be acceptable behavior? Would that individual have any reason
>>to be proud of such behavior? I think not.
You could say that about every business, every organization, and every person ever.
I'm glad you enjoyed the pseudo-documentary. Next up: Cars 'hate' humans! Observe how many people they kill! Look at the damage they do to our environment! Let's carry a synecdoche to an absurd end!
-b
lol... You think we should shoot crazy people? Well, you can be first. Or you can move to Texas, where your cognitive dissonance can roam free among the other good folks who think executing mentally ill prisoners is god's will or something.
No offense.
-b
Who decides the validity of one of these requests?
"Hi my name is Phil Spector and I'd really appreciate it if you'd not show pictures of me murdering my wife"
"Hi my name is Ted Stevens and these pictures of my free house renovations are really affecting my mental health"
"Hi my name is Dick Cheney and these picture on the internet of my lesbian daughter are really affecting my leadership among the religious right"
Know what I mean? Some people would post these accident photos as a cautionary message while some would be repulsed by them. That's the de facto system we already have and it seems to work fine. If you don't want to see nasty stuff, don't go looking for it.
-b
>>Sadly, three of the top four Google results contain pictures of the accident.
Why else would she show up on Google at all? She is only 'famous' for dying in a particularly grisly way. If you search for Timothy Mcveigh, you're going to get results concerning the Oklahoma City bombing because frankly that's the only thing that made him noteworthy.
My heart goes out to the family, but look- if the only reason people know your daughter's name is her terrible car accident, what do you expect to pop up on Google?
-b
>>The Corporation was right, this is the behavior of a psychopath.
Uhhhg..... This is not the behavior of a psychopath. A corp is not a person. Making the jump from corporate personhood to corporate psychological disorders makes no sense. "Corporate personhood" is a legal construct.
Mountains, bears, asteroids, and clouds are all psychopaths by your definition.
>>What makes Gamefly so sure it's the USPS?
Because time after time, investigations discover that usps employees were stealing discs. I would never say that all (or even very many) usps employees would steal, or that customers never lie about missing games. However, we have several clear-cut instances of theft.
-b
I've never seen the same fedex or ups delivery person twice. On the other hand, over the span of 5 residences, I've had 5 mail carriers.
So if you have a jerk for a mail carrier, that's going to grossly exaggerate the problem. My experiences with the USPS have been overwhelmingly positive, and I ask a lot from them- any time I've asked for my mail to be redirected, or held, or my address changed, or I had a family of ants move into my mailbox literally overnight- they have come through every time.
One time, my deployment overseas was extended a few months past the end date on my 'hold mail' form. I didn't have the receipt or any way to contact my branch office so I assumed that when I got home I'd be missing several months of mail and packages. Nope, they cheerfully handed me a carefully wrapped bundle and commented that they were wondering when I was getting back.
When I read your accounts (cd's snapped, books bent), I laughed and thought, "that's New York for you." I can't in a hundred years imagine that happening around here. On the other hand, fedex left my iBook on my front porch in the rain in plain view of the street in the bad part of town and the package was unwrapped (commercial box, that is, clearly an apple laptop from 30 feet away). I was pretty angry, but everything worked out.
-b
>>You have to use an encrypted USB thumbdrive
I work for the DoD, too (USAF), and we can't use *anything*. No usb drives, no digital cameras- nothing. If we have to take a picture of a repair for the engineers (happens often), we have to take the camera down to comm and get it scanned and whatever voodoo they do and then burn the 2 or 3 pics to a CD and walk back to the shop.
And it's uphill both ways.
-b
>>In our time, the time of XTs, C64s, etc... you had to learn how the damned thing worked or you couldn't do squat.
That's a really good point. In fact, I think that summarizes the entire topic. Wish I had thought of that. :)
-b
>>and as more generations grow up with computers, they'll become more adept at using them
Eh. I used to think this as well, but after *actually* growing up with (personal) computers (from Apple II to 486's and performas and imacs and P4's and now multiple cores in laptops), I don't think you're right. Or, maybe you are, but only about the gamers. From my experience, the average 14-21 year old knows about as much about computers as they do about their car, which is almost nothing. The kids who grew up with computers are requiring a lot of handholding when it comes to using dead-simple programs like itunes or internet explorer.
I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, and this is only one person's experience. But do "U RLY C TXT GEN DRVNG INNVTION N CMPUTING? LOL"
-b
Yep, and that's what our best scientists are working on. In the meantime, though, we shouldn't get too scared about resource scarcity. All I mean is that we're not going to have to shut down the LCD factory in 4 years.
See, for example, the progression of aircraft structural materials: wood and canvas, aluminum, aluminum alloys, magnesium, fiberglass and aramids, titanium, carbon fiber, and now I hear that maybe someday they will be constructed with special ceramics. (I left out the soviet union's brief foray into steel aircraft since that's been around for a while)
Titanium is a good example of relative scarcity vs demand; it is one of the most common materials in the earth's crust, yet only recently has it been economical to produce in bulk. This was driven by military needs, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the newest breed of materials also come from military labs.
-b
Play one of those halloween scary sound CD's on repeat, very loud, all day. It's not so much scary as it is unsettling, and people will avoid spending time in there unless it's an emergency.
Alternate titles:
pigs being slaughtered
Jokes, except the punchline is cut out
one cat, in heat, wailing and meowing to be let out
classical out of one speaker, the sound of crazed laughter out the other
the sound of two balloons being rubbed together
random gunshots spaced 30 sec-90 sec apart. LOUD.
highly amplified signal coming from a microphone near the occupant's toilet
ticking clock that randomly speeds up and slows down
the soundtrack from zombo.com
I don't know. I think my idea would work.
Much like oil, these substances will never truly 'run out'. We're not shooting them out in to space, after all. What does happen is that, like those mines you mentioned, they become too expensive at today's prices. Tomorrow's prices, on the other hand (since demand will rise while the supply drops/becomes more scarce) will make these mines economical once again. Some mines shut down over very small price changes in the metal.
Copper's price, which was astronomical last summer, has dropped considerably. I know because I bought all the 12/3 cable for my house last summer as a hedge against rising prices and now it costs half what I paid. :(
And we can always harvest these materials from garbage if the price gets high enough to make it economical.
-b
You do realize that body armor has nothing to do with PDA's right? That PDA's do not come at the expense of body armor?
This product is simply being tested right now. It's not like the DoD ordered a million of them already.
-b
I'm a soldier and one of my computers runs Ubuntu. And I brought a livecd with me to iraq.
The military uses products from every electronics manufacturer out there. They don't advertise to us specifically, we just buy what we need.
-b
lol...
[shot of bin laden sitting in dark cave, lit by monitor glow. Windows moviemaker is visible over his shoulder]
"I'm going to make a little video here that I made with my camera [quick pan to sony handicam with CIA property barcode]. Here we go."
"I like windows vista because it makes this job so easy. I just drag this file into the player window, see, and then I cut out the boring parts like this... and done. Now I just add a music track from windows media player, like this jonas brothers song here. I love them! OK so now I just export to disc, select dvd, ok, and we're off!"
[Jump shot to CNN-looking fake news broadcast] "A new propoganda video has led the intelligence community to believe that Bin Laden has a professional hollywood production team working with him in the mountains of pakistan."
[jump to intel analyst] "I have a Mac at home, and even *I* couldn't create such a good-looking video! Look at those credits! He used the Papyrus font! That's so cool!"
[jump to news broadcast again] [propoganda video is playing, with jonas bros soundtrack while insurgents cross monkey bars at a training camp]
[voice over during fade to MS Vista logo] "I'm Osama bin Laden, and I'm a PC"
-b
On my three deployments to Iraq, I brought a first-gen iPod Shuffle, a first-gen iPod Nano, and an iPhone 3G (in that order). fwiw, I've also brought my iBook or Macbook Pro, depending on which one I had at the time.
Each time, the device lived in my left trouser cargo pocket (hard to get to the device if it's under your body armor). These deployments covered all seasons and thus saw mud, rain, intense heat, dust storms, etc. Not to mention being banged around quite a bit. I've also brought each of these devices to hawaii, iceland, and europe. The chargers are dual-voltage, which means I can plug in anywhere.
And look- soldiers carry around night vision goggles, pictures of their families, ipods, consumer gps units, oakley sunglasses, and a host of other fragile items. We're not barbarians. And on top of that, an off-the-shelf iPod Touch is literally an order of magnitude cheaper than an equivalent device designed purely for the military.
This is perfect because this time, while taxpayers are technically subsidizing a military product by funding Apple's R&D, they get an ipod out of the deal.
Oh and to some posts decrying Apple as being evil for providing products that the military uses: You might want to take stock of your own possessions- I'v heard that some soldiers use linux! And some of them write orders with BIC PENS! Toss your pens!
Some soldiers use Zens and Sansas, too (they work sometimes for a whole WEEK in the battlefield), so toss your Zens. We use post-its every day- toss out your damn post-its.
OK sorry for the rant.
-b
IIRC, power output increase as the cube of windspeed and the square of surface area. Might have those mixed up. But in either case, no, power output does not scale linearly.
-b
Not to mention the cost (economic and environmental) of each house having its own inverters, batteries, etc. instead of one large centralized power distribution center. The infrastructure to collectively support 100,000 homes via wind will be a tiny percentage of the accumulation of individual power supplies for 100,000 homes. It would be like each house having its own oil refinery just to make a gallon of gas each day for the ride to work and home.
-b
I would like to see Iceland's per capita energy usage with industry included compared to the US and EU.
(A major industry in Iceland is aluminum processing since it is electricity-intensive and electricity is cheap there)
While the US uses a great deal of energy per capita, we also enjoy tremendously high production and standards of living. And if the market will bear it, yes, you will see 24/7 floodlight illumination of buildings and flagpoles that no one sees from 7 pm to 6 am. Environmental concerns aside, you might even say it's testament to our success that we can provide energy cheaply enough for everyone to use so much of it. Supply and demand.
-b