Solar panels are fine and all, but the idea of solar roadways has been debunked as a costly boondoggle.
The French government would have better spent the money by installing solar panels on the houses and apartment buildings of people in the area.
I would wager that $5 million would have generated much more electricity that way than the roadway.
Anything without an immediate payoff must not be performed. I got it.
In our office, we almost universally had to go in and alter Microsoft Office results - especially PowerPoint, between Mac and PC. And it was different issues depending on the particular Windows version.This even extended to Windows vs Windows versions. Do you doubt my veracity?
So, since I don't meet your criteria, I guess it tells me nothing, right?
Of course it tells you nothing. Some people don't take telling.
Or... It's just a stupid idea that everyone should know will fail from the start?
Perhaps. But what does fail even mean? As I noted in another post, the likely test subject in this whole thing is the material the cells are in, and the connections. Its a tough environment.
So many science/technology projects have a lot of failures. And the earlier you go in the research, the more likely the failure, and the more likely you know it will fail.
I don't need to put my cat in the stove to know it's a bad idea anymore than I need to spend millions on solar panels in the road to know that's a bad idea.
That is a little bit of a non sequitur. There has been a lot of progress in glasses in recent years. The wildly reviled (on Slashdot anyway) solar shingles that the wildly reviled (on Slashdot anyway ) Elon Musk are an interesting bit of technology that is pretty darn strong. Quite likely the cell coverings are made of something similar.
But are you saying that this is some impossible thing that can never ever be accomplished, therefore we should never ever ever try to find out if it can? Should the US do a pre-emptive nuclear strike on France to make certain that they only spend their money the way we dictate?
That was my immediate response as well. It seems like it's a pre-announcement that they've now also succumbed to the monumental brain-rot that is flat UIs, with the ugly, unusable new look to land presently.
Your immediate response was wrong. You don't actually have to change anything But you have the option. I use the spreadsheet program a lot, so maybe the standard UI with a sidebar option will be worth checking out.
Other options are the traditional two row toolbar, or a one row toolbar, or a ribbonish gastraphagus. All is well, even if I know which interface I'll never use - someone might like it.
Honest, this is why Linux can't have nice things. Yea I know many people hate the MS ribbon-style stuff, or the OSX menus, but at least it's consistent (for the apps made by the same developers following the rules) and easy to maintain. I can guarantee that this MUFFIN approach will just result in 4 quasi-usable scenarios, each with bugs, rather than 1 well tested scenario that 80% of people like.
Office was not remotely consistent. When I was working with the suits, and someone brought over a presentation, everything would be all over the place, depending on how they had things set up on the computer they designed for.
And why on earth are you bitching about AO putting in a ribbonish interface being an example of how Linus stinks but it emulates the great Microsoft Ribbon so that's an example of it. That makes no sense. Strange nho many people hate choice.
Considering that the Ribbon was one of my favotite things to lose whne I standardized on the open office suites between OS X Windows and Linux - not to mention I now have compatibility between 3 OS', not a one OS only Office suite, your argument is a little flat.
Before changing anything you should ask what problem you're trying to solve. If you can't answer that question, maybe you should just leave it the fuck alone already.
The problem Microsoft was trying to solve was how can theye get people to continually buy new versions of the Office suite.
I have to ask the question - is it easier for this round of newcomers to learn the new interface than it was for the LAST round of newcomers to learn the OLD interface? If not, then yes, the change is bad (or at least, no better than current state); if not, then it was an improvement. Change isn't bad just because things are now different.
A lot of change kicks ass and is great. A faster computer, better and cheaper memory, higher definition and faster printers. Higher definition screens with more colors. Programs with more capability, most things in fact.
What isn't so great, is a change that doesn't do any of that stuff. A change that is just there to make me and many others waste time learning a new way to do the exact same thing. And if Microsoft believes that their vaunted ribbon is so superior to the stuff that the ancients used, let them give people the choice. If the new people learn it in superior and quicker fashion, and if it better and faster than the olde school menu system, it will show up very quickly in productivity, and the point will have been made.
Anybody arguing for a UI update of an application, must be forced to teach his own elderly parents to use the new interface — and provide them with a satisfactory explanation on why the change from what they were already used to was necessary.
Jeebuz on a waffle iron - THIS! I remember when my sister bought my 85 year old father a Vista basic computer to replace the Windows XP computer that I gave him and he worked it like a boss. Just that interface change threw him off, and he almost never used the thing. And of course, she lived a couple hundred miles away, so I was saddled with supporting one of the world's worst computers.
Even if we stipulate, for sake of argument, that being "like Windows 2000" is bad, is it bad enough to justify forcing users to relearn?
If I might draw a comparison, at some point in the 90's, the mouse "needed improvement". So we had trackballs, joystick doodads, nubbins, and there was one abomination someone in our office bought that had you put your wrist and hand in a holder, and moved a trackball using weird grasping motions. Then there were the mice with dozens of little side clicky things. All a lot of fun to sit down and try to troubleshoot someone's computer problem.
When in fact, nothing has worked out as well as a plain old two button optical mouse with a scroll wheel or it's touch based cousin.
The people who came up with the mouse ended up settling on a good design pretty early on. The people who came up with menu driven Office programs were not stupid. They hit upon a good system, and not much has been an improvement. If Microsoft wants to try a ribbon, put one in that the user can switch between as they like.
I don't use, like some other people, don't use Libre office because it doesn't offer a clean UI like ribbon. Maybe that's why?
You can use anything you want. And from a UI design, "clean" is not remotely what the ribbon is. But if you like it, use it, and then you are stuck on one platform that no one else emulates the UI - which might tell you something.
I've been using word processors since the 80s and I like the ribbon. Much easier to find stuff than the old menu system with sub menus and trying to remember what some rarely used feature is called rather than just looking for a picture of the result.
The other great thing about the ribbon is that for a lot of stuff if guy just hover over it then it gets temporarily applied so you can preview the charge.
The ribbon method is the way to go, just as the GUI interface left the command line interface behind.
Choice is apparently bad for you.
Choices are good. When Microsoft brought out the ribbon, I had to learn yet another way to interface with a stupid damn office suite. The ribbon didn't make me more productive, didn't do anything but be different for the sake of being different. I had work to do, not get a boner over the interface.
I've been using word processors since the 80s and I like the ribbon. Much easier to find stuff than the old menu system with sub menus and trying to remember what some rarely used feature is called rather than just looking for a picture of the result.
The other great thing about the ribbon is that for a lot of stuff if guy just hover over it then it gets temporarily applied so you can preview the charge.
And if the Ribbon works well for you, then you should have that option.
But for most of us, it truly sucks. Why on earth the likely most bloated software program on earth couldn't provide an interface that most of it's users liked is one of those great mysteries. Apparently lowly AO has managed to do this.
I share your fears. When it comes to user-interface, change is almost always bad. The new interface may be easier to use for newcomers, but the folks, who've used the program before, will need to climb the learning-curve again.
I've gone to the site to check it out, and it looks like they have learned something that Microsoft didn't. There are a number of choices, including what is there now. There's a more ribbons sot of layout if you want it, an choices of no sidebar or sidebar, and single row or double row toolbar.
I approve, for what that is worth. It gives people a choice, even if that choice is leep the way it was. We're all skittishe about Microsoft's sand in the vaseline approach - me too. But this appears to have been done right.
Rewriting the laws of physics is roughly as accurate as...
Not in this case. Our current laws of physics say that this is an impossible device IF it operates as claimed and is not due to some effect they have not accounted for (my money is on the latter). Hence this is one of those times when a rewrite really would be required. This device appears to violate some of the most fundamental symmetries of nature changes like that are huge...but need phenomenal evidence to support them which is so far very much lacking.
the Good Doctor White declares this is Zero point energy doing the work. So I would suggest that the EM engine be powered by a fine Cold Fusion reactor.
Yeah, harnessing ZPE would be quite a trick. It would mean that we can extract energy from the quantum vacuum. It would also mean that QV is not indestructible, that we are warping space-time. White says the scaling frm 100 watts that gave 50 microNewtons will give us 6 Newtons at 10 KW and 1300 Newtons at 100 Kw. That would make for a wicked graph. And this thing kicks ass in simulation. Then again, many things do.
Regardless, the idea has to be researched, competition and stuff, you know. It's pretty cheap to do the experiments. And hey, if we have found a way to harvest ZPE, we've pretty much solved all of our energy problems.
5.2 million dollars sounds like a lot, would be curious to see how the price would go down over time...
I'd be interested to see how it performs against piezoelectric roads, which have a far lower price point:
http://large.stanford.edu/cour...
Also, unless the location is always sunny, some days it may barely generate any power at all? So depending on what performs better, it seems to me that a piezoelectric road would generate far more electricity on a busy street.
Yeah sure. I'll bet this experiment is about 99 percent testing the road surface instead of getting maximum bang for the buck out of the solar power. Also, since its powering street lamps, I suspect that there might be a battery or two in the loop as well, since the lights will be on during the night, when the sun isn't in the right place.
Now between us chachalacas, I doubt that solar roadways will be all that great for a long time. But I also remember in 1977 that Solar power from Crystalline silicon was . 76 per watt, and in 2015, it was.30 per watt. So I won't discount roadway solar yet. Let them do the experiments.
Can someone tell us what the benefit of these solar "roadways" is that isn't apparent and justifies the absurd expenditure vs. installation on roofs and open fields? I am truly at a loss to explain why this technology continues to be ramrodded into deployment.
An experiment.
Not too many years ago, some folks were saying the same thing aout any solar installations.
I'm big on solar, and I doubt this particular experiment wll work out that well. But it won't work out at all if no one tries it.
I suspect that you don't actually like solar for some reason or other, because you appear to have the attitude that this ramrodded Research in solar Must Be Stopped!
Any other promising research that you want stopped?
No, the journo isn's "making stuff up". Such an engine would violate CoM (and CoE too if you set it up right) because there's no reaction mass. If there is reaction mass then all they invented is a very inefficient thruster of which we already have vastly better version and, er, not to put too finer point on it, you could point to the mass and say "ooh there it is".
I suspect that if this thing were ever proven to work, that it won't violate any laws, because the reaction mass is coming from the outside - what hits the engine.
But the whole thing smells like cold fusion, and as you point out, it's a rubbish engine even if it does actually work.
If it works how some scientists think it works, that would indeed rewrite the laws of physics as we know them -- and this is scary
Why is it scary? The physical models we have now are good enough for all of the machines that we've built (indeed, many of them are fine with models a few centuries old). Stuff isn't going to break as a result of this, but stuff that we'd previously thought was impossible now might turn out not to be and physicists have a lot more work to do to create models that explain them. That's a pretty exciting, but not very scary.
"Rewriting the laws of physics" is one of those buzzphrases that is used in schlock journalism, Ancient Aliens type shows and some religious folks with an oddball agenda to grind.
Rewriting the laws of physics is roughly as accurate as the same people calling a huge shift in something as a quantum leap, when in fact a quantum "leap" is incredibly small.
Should be interesting when we figure out what the placeholders are, though.
I haven't googled it, but I've always wondered why physicists are so certain that dark matter is a thing
Dark matter is a placeholder. It isn't necessarily dark, nor matter, or even a thing. Its more of "We're not certain exactly why some aspect of the universe isn't what we think it should be.
So you could declare everything wrong, and go back to the caves, or put in a placeholder so you can do further research and eventually figure out what the placeholder "dark matter" is.
Schrodinger's immigrant: Simultaneously takes your job and is too lazy to work.
I've seen this posted several times before.
I've seen several people who hold both opinions simultaneously about all immigrants. That is the point, the silliness of some people, not whatever you think you are engaging me in some intellectual discourse about.
Because in the end, it can become a joke about your lack of a humor gland as well.
You do realize that BOTH could be going on by different illegal immigrants? If you're going to make a smug comment... better to not be one that makes you look like you have cognitive level of a gold fish.
And you have the sense of humor of a chapped ass. If you cannot get a simultaneous joke relating Schrodinger's cat, and two of the most popular memes about immigrants, then you are in the wrong place.
Funny how the alt right pepe's and the left wing Social Justice Warriors are so damn identical.
Slashdot Mirror
Solar panels are fine and all, but the idea of solar roadways has been debunked as a costly boondoggle. The French government would have better spent the money by installing solar panels on the houses and apartment buildings of people in the area.
I would wager that $5 million would have generated much more electricity that way than the roadway.
Anything without an immediate payoff must not be performed. I got it.
ways, never had your single platform issue.
In our office, we almost universally had to go in and alter Microsoft Office results - especially PowerPoint, between Mac and PC. And it was different issues depending on the particular Windows version.This even extended to Windows vs Windows versions. Do you doubt my veracity?
So, since I don't meet your criteria, I guess it tells me nothing, right?
Of course it tells you nothing. Some people don't take telling.
Or... It's just a stupid idea that everyone should know will fail from the start?
Perhaps. But what does fail even mean? As I noted in another post, the likely test subject in this whole thing is the material the cells are in, and the connections. Its a tough environment.
So many science/technology projects have a lot of failures. And the earlier you go in the research, the more likely the failure, and the more likely you know it will fail.
I don't need to put my cat in the stove to know it's a bad idea anymore than I need to spend millions on solar panels in the road to know that's a bad idea.
That is a little bit of a non sequitur. There has been a lot of progress in glasses in recent years. The wildly reviled (on Slashdot anyway) solar shingles that the wildly reviled (on Slashdot anyway ) Elon Musk are an interesting bit of technology that is pretty darn strong. Quite likely the cell coverings are made of something similar.
But are you saying that this is some impossible thing that can never ever be accomplished, therefore we should never ever ever try to find out if it can? Should the US do a pre-emptive nuclear strike on France to make certain that they only spend their money the way we dictate?
That was my immediate response as well. It seems like it's a pre-announcement that they've now also succumbed to the monumental brain-rot that is flat UIs, with the ugly, unusable new look to land presently.
Your immediate response was wrong. You don't actually have to change anything But you have the option. I use the spreadsheet program a lot, so maybe the standard UI with a sidebar option will be worth checking out.
Other options are the traditional two row toolbar, or a one row toolbar, or a ribbonish gastraphagus. All is well, even if I know which interface I'll never use - someone might like it.
Honest, this is why Linux can't have nice things. Yea I know many people hate the MS ribbon-style stuff, or the OSX menus, but at least it's consistent (for the apps made by the same developers following the rules) and easy to maintain. I can guarantee that this MUFFIN approach will just result in 4 quasi-usable scenarios, each with bugs, rather than 1 well tested scenario that 80% of people like.
Office was not remotely consistent. When I was working with the suits, and someone brought over a presentation, everything would be all over the place, depending on how they had things set up on the computer they designed for.
And why on earth are you bitching about AO putting in a ribbonish interface being an example of how Linus stinks but it emulates the great Microsoft Ribbon so that's an example of it. That makes no sense. Strange nho many people hate choice.
Considering that the Ribbon was one of my favotite things to lose whne I standardized on the open office suites between OS X Windows and Linux - not to mention I now have compatibility between 3 OS', not a one OS only Office suite, your argument is a little flat.
Before changing anything you should ask what problem you're trying to solve. If you can't answer that question, maybe you should just leave it the fuck alone already.
The problem Microsoft was trying to solve was how can theye get people to continually buy new versions of the Office suite.
...change is almost always bad.
I have to ask the question - is it easier for this round of newcomers to learn the new interface than it was for the LAST round of newcomers to learn the OLD interface? If not, then yes, the change is bad (or at least, no better than current state); if not, then it was an improvement. Change isn't bad just because things are now different.
A lot of change kicks ass and is great. A faster computer, better and cheaper memory, higher definition and faster printers. Higher definition screens with more colors. Programs with more capability, most things in fact.
What isn't so great, is a change that doesn't do any of that stuff. A change that is just there to make me and many others waste time learning a new way to do the exact same thing. And if Microsoft believes that their vaunted ribbon is so superior to the stuff that the ancients used, let them give people the choice. If the new people learn it in superior and quicker fashion, and if it better and faster than the olde school menu system, it will show up very quickly in productivity, and the point will have been made.
Actually I don't think it was standard until the 1910s....
You are right. But since then, it's been pretty standard. Fortunately Microsoft isn't in automobile design.
You might feel the same once you grow some pubes.
Not sure that will help that much. ;^)
Anybody arguing for a UI update of an application, must be forced to teach his own elderly parents to use the new interface — and provide them with a satisfactory explanation on why the change from what they were already used to was necessary.
Jeebuz on a waffle iron - THIS! I remember when my sister bought my 85 year old father a Vista basic computer to replace the Windows XP computer that I gave him and he worked it like a boss. Just that interface change threw him off, and he almost never used the thing. And of course, she lived a couple hundred miles away, so I was saddled with supporting one of the world's worst computers.
Even if we stipulate, for sake of argument, that being "like Windows 2000" is bad, is it bad enough to justify forcing users to relearn?
If I might draw a comparison, at some point in the 90's, the mouse "needed improvement". So we had trackballs, joystick doodads, nubbins, and there was one abomination someone in our office bought that had you put your wrist and hand in a holder, and moved a trackball using weird grasping motions. Then there were the mice with dozens of little side clicky things. All a lot of fun to sit down and try to troubleshoot someone's computer problem.
When in fact, nothing has worked out as well as a plain old two button optical mouse with a scroll wheel or it's touch based cousin.
The people who came up with the mouse ended up settling on a good design pretty early on. The people who came up with menu driven Office programs were not stupid. They hit upon a good system, and not much has been an improvement. If Microsoft wants to try a ribbon, put one in that the user can switch between as they like.
I don't use, like some other people, don't use Libre office because it doesn't offer a clean UI like ribbon. Maybe that's why?
You can use anything you want. And from a UI design, "clean" is not remotely what the ribbon is. But if you like it, use it, and then you are stuck on one platform that no one else emulates the UI - which might tell you something.
I've been using word processors since the 80s and I like the ribbon. Much easier to find stuff than the old menu system with sub menus and trying to remember what some rarely used feature is called rather than just looking for a picture of the result.
The other great thing about the ribbon is that for a lot of stuff if guy just hover over it then it gets temporarily applied so you can preview the charge.
The ribbon method is the way to go, just as the GUI interface left the command line interface behind.
Choice is apparently bad for you.
Choices are good. When Microsoft brought out the ribbon, I had to learn yet another way to interface with a stupid damn office suite. The ribbon didn't make me more productive, didn't do anything but be different for the sake of being different. I had work to do, not get a boner over the interface.
I've been using word processors since the 80s and I like the ribbon. Much easier to find stuff than the old menu system with sub menus and trying to remember what some rarely used feature is called rather than just looking for a picture of the result.
The other great thing about the ribbon is that for a lot of stuff if guy just hover over it then it gets temporarily applied so you can preview the charge.
And if the Ribbon works well for you, then you should have that option.
But for most of us, it truly sucks. Why on earth the likely most bloated software program on earth couldn't provide an interface that most of it's users liked is one of those great mysteries. Apparently lowly AO has managed to do this.
I share your fears. When it comes to user-interface, change is almost always bad. The new interface may be easier to use for newcomers, but the folks, who've used the program before, will need to climb the learning-curve again.
I've gone to the site to check it out, and it looks like they have learned something that Microsoft didn't. There are a number of choices, including what is there now. There's a more ribbons sot of layout if you want it, an choices of no sidebar or sidebar, and single row or double row toolbar.
I approve, for what that is worth. It gives people a choice, even if that choice is leep the way it was. We're all skittishe about Microsoft's sand in the vaseline approach - me too. But this appears to have been done right.
Rewriting the laws of physics is roughly as accurate as...
Not in this case. Our current laws of physics say that this is an impossible device IF it operates as claimed and is not due to some effect they have not accounted for (my money is on the latter). Hence this is one of those times when a rewrite really would be required. This device appears to violate some of the most fundamental symmetries of nature changes like that are huge...but need phenomenal evidence to support them which is so far very much lacking.
the Good Doctor White declares this is Zero point energy doing the work. So I would suggest that the EM engine be powered by a fine Cold Fusion reactor.
Yeah, harnessing ZPE would be quite a trick. It would mean that we can extract energy from the quantum vacuum. It would also mean that QV is not indestructible, that we are warping space-time. White says the scaling frm 100 watts that gave 50 microNewtons will give us 6 Newtons at 10 KW and 1300 Newtons at 100 Kw. That would make for a wicked graph. And this thing kicks ass in simulation. Then again, many things do.
Regardless, the idea has to be researched, competition and stuff, you know. It's pretty cheap to do the experiments. And hey, if we have found a way to harvest ZPE, we've pretty much solved all of our energy problems.
I won't even hold my breath.
5.2 million dollars sounds like a lot, would be curious to see how the price would go down over time...
I'd be interested to see how it performs against piezoelectric roads, which have a far lower price point: http://large.stanford.edu/cour... Also, unless the location is always sunny, some days it may barely generate any power at all? So depending on what performs better, it seems to me that a piezoelectric road would generate far more electricity on a busy street.
Yeah sure. I'll bet this experiment is about 99 percent testing the road surface instead of getting maximum bang for the buck out of the solar power. Also, since its powering street lamps, I suspect that there might be a battery or two in the loop as well, since the lights will be on during the night, when the sun isn't in the right place.
Now between us chachalacas, I doubt that solar roadways will be all that great for a long time. But I also remember in 1977 that Solar power from Crystalline silicon was . 76 per watt, and in 2015, it was .30 per watt. So I won't discount roadway solar yet. Let them do the experiments.
Can someone tell us what the benefit of these solar "roadways" is that isn't apparent and justifies the absurd expenditure vs. installation on roofs and open fields? I am truly at a loss to explain why this technology continues to be ramrodded into deployment.
An experiment.
Not too many years ago, some folks were saying the same thing aout any solar installations.
I'm big on solar, and I doubt this particular experiment wll work out that well. But it won't work out at all if no one tries it.
I suspect that you don't actually like solar for some reason or other, because you appear to have the attitude that this ramrodded Research in solar Must Be Stopped!
Any other promising research that you want stopped?
No, the journo isn's "making stuff up". Such an engine would violate CoM (and CoE too if you set it up right) because there's no reaction mass. If there is reaction mass then all they invented is a very inefficient thruster of which we already have vastly better version and, er, not to put too finer point on it, you could point to the mass and say "ooh there it is".
I suspect that if this thing were ever proven to work, that it won't violate any laws, because the reaction mass is coming from the outside - what hits the engine.
But the whole thing smells like cold fusion, and as you point out, it's a rubbish engine even if it does actually work.
I would say that perpetual motion machines are kind of scary.
That's been figured out a long time ago. Go to YouTube They have hundreds of those things.
Also how to heat your house with two tiny candles and a clay flowerpot.
If it works how some scientists think it works, that would indeed rewrite the laws of physics as we know them -- and this is scary
Why is it scary? The physical models we have now are good enough for all of the machines that we've built (indeed, many of them are fine with models a few centuries old). Stuff isn't going to break as a result of this, but stuff that we'd previously thought was impossible now might turn out not to be and physicists have a lot more work to do to create models that explain them. That's a pretty exciting, but not very scary.
"Rewriting the laws of physics" is one of those buzzphrases that is used in schlock journalism, Ancient Aliens type shows and some religious folks with an oddball agenda to grind.
Rewriting the laws of physics is roughly as accurate as the same people calling a huge shift in something as a quantum leap, when in fact a quantum "leap" is incredibly small.
Should be interesting when we figure out what the placeholders are, though.
I haven't googled it, but I've always wondered why physicists are so certain that dark matter is a thing
Dark matter is a placeholder. It isn't necessarily dark, nor matter, or even a thing. Its more of "We're not certain exactly why some aspect of the universe isn't what we think it should be.
So you could declare everything wrong, and go back to the caves, or put in a placeholder so you can do further research and eventually figure out what the placeholder "dark matter" is.
Schrodinger's immigrant: Simultaneously takes your job and is too lazy to work.
I've seen this posted several times before.
I've seen several people who hold both opinions simultaneously about all immigrants. That is the point, the silliness of some people, not whatever you think you are engaging me in some intellectual discourse about.
Because in the end, it can become a joke about your lack of a humor gland as well.
You do realize that BOTH could be going on by different illegal immigrants? If you're going to make a smug comment... better to not be one that makes you look like you have cognitive level of a gold fish.
And you have the sense of humor of a chapped ass. If you cannot get a simultaneous joke relating Schrodinger's cat, and two of the most popular memes about immigrants, then you are in the wrong place.
Funny how the alt right pepe's and the left wing Social Justice Warriors are so damn identical.
Make Black Lung common again!
Just think of all the inspiring stories we'll get from rescuing miners from collapsed mines. Could be a new reality show every week.
Are you Melania Trump? You just plagiarized Yoda!
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda
Well, at least we'll be listening to Michelle Obama's speeches over again for the next 4 years, or until he gets tired of her.