Firstly, you have a misconception: residential grid-tied systems are not intended to be backup systems. When it is most needed is in the afternoon, on a hot, sunny day, so that it can offset the electricity used by my, or my neighbours' AC systems.
When I am finished, my system will be completely disconnected form the grid. Part of why I'm putting one in is that the grid isn't terribly reliable around here any more.
So why on earth would I put in a system that cuts me off as soon as grid power fails?
Nothing fails.
Exactly. That was my point in asking the dumb question. But we have enough outages around here that it would be silly to install anything that goes away with it. And I'm not doing this for money, I'm doing it for reliability. Now when we have an outage, the house is disconnected from the grid, and the generator is kicked in. That is specifically what I want, phasing in a backup system before completel disconnect, only with solar instead of petrofuel.
What kind of Shingles do you use in the US that you have to replace them so often?
Replacing roofs in Germany is a rather rare activity. I doubt it happens more often than every 50 years.
We have different grades of shingles. The tradional/typical style for houses built say in the last 60 years is a fiberglass mat impregnated with tar, with tiny rocks of some desired color impressed into them. I think it is right up there in suckage with drywall. What kills mine is the low pitch on my roof. Debris lands and stays on it. Doing a little bit of damage each time, it's hammered by the sun during the hottest parts of the day. With that low pitch I have to get up and blow leaves and all the other crap that lands on it. Over a remarkably short time the little colored rocks in itwash off, and it starts curling.
There are a few houses nearby that have mansard roofs which last a lot longer I've seen some with shingles that are over 50 years old, and if you use cedar shakes, they are going to last the life of the house.
OTOH, I proposed this as a design project in college and am the same age as Musk. It's good to ask these questions. Years of scientific training taught me to be skeptical.
I'm as skeptical as they come. I just find simple problems that already have solutions to be a tad dreary.
Who knows - perhaps I over-reacted, and sinned egregiously to th comment.
But after a while, it all begins to sound like people deciding that EV's are a non-starter because how you gonna charge them? - and yet Alaska has electrical outlets at parking meters in towns to keep petrofueled cars engine blocks warmed. Or that the batteries in the Tesla are incapable of handing cold weather, and will run their power down more quickly - all the while ignoring all of the gyrations needed to go through to keep petrofueld vehicles in shape at those same temperatures and that they suck up a lot more fuel in the winter because the wintermix fuel contains butanol which has a higher vapor pressure but lower energy content per liter, and they blame the combined drop 100 percent on ethanol. Or that solar cells self distruct the moment their warranty goes out, or that every single part of a windmill farm must be replaced every 20 years.
A healthy sketicism toward utter bullshit is very healthy.
But hey! I could be wrong about all of the slash dotters sounding like they miss the horse and buggy days.
Though if you make the mistake of going on Facebook, you'll find so much evidence of open hate that it will leave you wondering about whether large swaths of the human race aren't deserving of a major extinction event.
I stopped wondering about that a long, long time ago - we do.
Sexual preference is more of a private thing, people can't tell you are straight or gay just by looking at you unless you advertise the fact. Therefore it tends not to be something that is discriminated against in hiring, although obviously where there is overt homophobia it's a concern.
It was a crime at one time in the USA, and is still a capital offense in some countries.
Religious reference is just that, a preference, and thus generally not protected in the same way as genetic factors. Society does allow some consideration for religion, mostly for historical reasons, but only to the point where it doesn't have a major impact on anyone else. Again, it's only of interest re diversity if there is a detectable problem, so if you have evidence of one you should post it.
At this time, perhaps. I grew up in a town that was ruled by the religious, with blue laws of no stores open on Sunday, absolutely no evolution or anything that spoke to an old earth - Science classes were weird, and no doubt. Legally require Sex education was 1 day of "If you have sex you will get VD and die."
I have always had a big issue with Diversity dogma's "We must embrace all cultures." Sorry, I am not going to embrace cultures that are mentally in the stone age, and treat women like chattel. and people who have the temerity to believe in some other Sky Fairy as people that need killed.
Yeah, honestly I've never heard anything remotely like that in real life. I guess we've had different experiences.
Perhaps you are priveliged to not have been raised in a family with Fundamentalist Christians. Count your blessings.
What I see as a problem with the idea of treating every single person as having an opinion that is equally valid is like thinking that Jerry Sandusky is as entitled to molest children as I am to think that just maybe sort kinda, that's an ultimate asshole thing to do. If I saw the guy, Id call him an asshole, and not have any liberal all things are equal angst about it.
I don't have time for racist assholes, people who believe that the worldis flat, or that if a woman commits adultery, she should be put into a pit up to her neck and stoned to death.
Do you in any way shape or form consider that as deserving equal treament with peopel who believe that all people are equal, that science shows the earth isn't flat, or that maybe adultry isn't a crime at all, much less one that demands the village get together and murder someone?
Simply being homsexual used to be a imprisonable crime. A capital offense in some countries. Are you saying that a person who still thinks that way should receive equal consideration, that maybe they should come into schools and tell the kids that?
If you do, I'll be happy to judge you as an asshole. Because you would be. Sorry, no negotiations on those matters any more.
As well, there are the incalculables. Access to the electricity. We have a lot of power outages in my area. And with the whacked weather, we are sometimes out for a while - one time almost a week. Your own power source can make life a lot nicer. It was nice to have lights and furnace that week. Note I wasn't using solar that week, just another power source.
Most, if not all grid-tied solar systems require that the grid is actually working. So if you get a power outage, your solar panels won't help you.
I have wondered if you could get the solar inverter to start producing electricity by disconnecting from the grid and connecting a generator (or even a large UPS) to the house wiring.
I have no intention of tying to the grid by the time I'm finished.
Seems odd however tht the device is designed to fail at the time it is needed most. What exactly fails that stops the power? I have a shutoff system for my emergency generator.
Well I'd be wary of "new" home construction technology too - especially for critical components such as a roof. In my case our new custom home was plumbed using fancy Kitec potable water piping. Guess what, it got recalled because the fittings and pipes tended to burst. Now I'm spending nearly $20k to repipe the entire home. It has to be done otherwise we'll have no buyers when we put the home up for sale. Oh I'll get some of that money back from a class action lawsuit, but probably only pennies on the dollar.
I had plastic tubing as well on an earlier home. I'm not certain what your brand's downfall was, but mine had a metal ferrule on it to hold the fastener, that on the hot water side would dig into the tubing a tiny little bit every time the temperature on the hot water pipes thermally cycled. After maybe 10 years, it owrked it's way into the piping and instant leak. After a lot of damage, I got pissed and installed copper.
And I think the payoff for me was a couple dollars. Lawyers did okay on it - they made millions.
Is that what your boyfriend says after he pulls out and the santorum starts leaking from your anus?
There is a certain amusement when a person with some severe psychosexual projections makes a fool of themselves.
That would be you.
Anyhow, you completely failed at getting the reference. Thanks for playing, and remember not too many people care about your secret desires, so its better to get them out in the open. People who repress their proclivities tend to end up going a mild form of insane, but sometimes worse.
I think the intention is the replace the shingles and have your roof made out of solar panels.
I've had this same idea for a long time. There's no benefit of asphalt shingles other than the relatively low cost.
I hate those damn things. We have a low pitched roof and shingles don't last long on them. So it's like every 10 years and new ones. As well, if they aren't laid right, heaven help you. Some asshat replaced them before we bought the place, and had a small place, about an inch square where they didn't cover. Right on a gutter We got a lot of wood rot right there. That was fun to fix.
I wanted to go metal last time we replaced them, but my better half thought metal "looked cheap" However now that we are looking at our third replacement, and she's changed her mind. But these solarpanels? Very interesting indeed.
If you could replace your roof with a solar panel system that #1 protected your home and #2 provided a significant amount of power generation I wonder what the total cost of ownership would be. At current electricity rates, I'll pay about $20,000 over the next 20 years to the electric company. I would also pay $15,000-$20,000 every 20-30 years to get new shingles.
Make certain to do your own calculations, and not rely on people who have a vested interest in you using some other method. I bought a new super high efficiency gas furnace, replacing my oil furnace, 4 years ago - it's already paid for itself. Oil people said it might be 15 years.Same with insulation. I'm spending per year what some friends pay per month in energy.
As well, there are the incalculables. Access to the electricity. We have a lot of power outages in my area. And with the whacked weather, we are sometimes out for a while - one time almost a week. Your own power source can make life a lot nicer. It was nice to have lights and furnace that week. Note I wasn't using solar that week, just another power source.
Here in upstate NY, winters often mean that I need to get out our roof rake to pull snow off our roof. If I don't, ice dams form and then runoff from melting snow gets under our roof shingles and can get into our house. My questions for SolarCity would be: Would these solar shingles hold up to having a roof rake scraped across them? (It would be useless if I had to replace shingles every year due to roof raking damage.) Also, how would they handle snow melt getting under the shingles? Presumably, there will be wiring there. Would moisture under the shingles cause issues?
And there you have it. Immediately upon any new like this, some slashdotter comes on and tries to derail the idea with their personal situation.
My guess is that if you have feet of snow on your roof, these are not for you.
Environments differ, and your knowledge of your mother's basement has little application to a battlefield in Afghanistan or anywhere else with rugged and inhospitable terrain.
That's odd, my mom used to tell me my room looked like a war zone.
You got me thinking, given they don't just blow up, that we should consider the cost of having to dismantle and remove them as there service life comes to an end.
I suspect no one has taken that into consideration.
If I were to hazard a guess, it will end up being a "George Washington's original Axe - with three new heads and four new handles" sort of thing.
The output of wind turbines has been constantly going up. The towers probably are essentially permanent - perhaps the blades may need replacement. over time.
But for the most part, if we repair or replace as parts wear, and do regular maintenance, I would surmise they would last a long time. Certainly longer than the 20 years quoted by so many. I'm guessing that unless the main stalk gets fatigue cracked by the pushing of the turbine, 50 plus years is not out of th question
Another thought. How much of the cost of a wind turbine farm is buying the land, cutting the roads, and pouring the bases? Even a total replacement of the arial part of the structure will probably cost less than starting over again.
No the "cure" I am talking about is dissolving the inclusion bodies and allowing the cells to function normally again.
Lets says you have a condition that for whatever reason is forming these bodies in your cells at a certain rate and as you age your cells get worse at running correctly so at 60 your cells are damaged enough you are diagnosed with alzheimers. We could give you the treatment and completely restore the cells to full functioning.
To be certain, by the time any of the effects show up, the damage is long done. Any plausible fix/repair for Alzheimers would require very early intervention. As in early 30's http://www.medpagetoday.com/ne... , or perhaps even childhood:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/al...
The problem is you still have the condition and will still make more of these inclusion bodies but the process is very slow. At 80 you would probably need another treatment to restore full function and another at 100 etc. That is why these are not permanent cures but there is also no reason not to just use it again.
I can see from your post that you are sort of confusing some of the telltale clues and assuming that removing the aluminum containing plaques will restore a person's mental facilities. This is probably a false lead for many. It is the sort of thing that has caused many people to attempt to avoid aluminum and alumina - one of the most common elements and minerals on earth, so good luck with that. Because of studies and easy database searches, and out desire to blame ourselves for our frailty. As well, too much zinc supposedly causes Alzheimer's. Then again, too little zinc supposedly causes Alzheimer's.
But as with the overwhelmingly largest factor influencing our longevity in the first place, my money is on genetics. And any "cure" for Alzheimer's will have to be tackled through genetic manipulation. Some people are going to get it, some aren't. My father and I discussed finances within 12 hours of his death from COPD. My Mother in law thought my wife was her mother for 10 years.
Most of the stuff I am aware of is trying to restore full functionality. That is why restoring the brain is so important since it is a major reason to end up in a nursing home.
I'm pretty curious about a treatment that can restore full function in a symptomatic Alzheimer's patient. As noted, the neurodegeneration has been going on for a good while before the overt symptoms appear.
Think of how your children would feel if they caught you doing that sort of sh*t, reading their diaries, installing spyware to track them, etc.
That's considered responsible and good parenting in 2016.
Not in most advanced countries.
I'm not disagreeing with you. I was being extremely facetious. Because parents who for the last 20 years or more, have attmpted to shield their children from any and all adversity in their lives, have damn near destroyed their kids, producing healthy beautiful adults with no emotional maturity. These children, who never got an unstructured moment not supervised by their parents or some other adult, have remained children long after normal offspring would be raising families of their own. I feel so badly for these adult 13 year olds, they have lost over a decade of their lives to be emotionally stunted. Lest any millenials thing this is an attack against them, it isn't. It is however just about the ultimate insult against your mommy and daddy, who screwed you up.
What next - turn into a stalker because you think your spouse or your kid is screwing around? Even if you find out it's the case, the only rational response is the one I already gave above - sit down and discuss it with them - which you should have done before becoming another Inspecteur Clouseau type.
Too late. As you see by the other responses to your post, the abusers think that you are the one with a problem. they are already stalking their children, that is one of the selling points of services like Xfinity's home survelliance service, where they show mommy sitting at work, and sooooo relieved that the children have made it home, and she can see them come into th house. I fully expect this neurosis to continue through some of these emotionly stunted adult children's lives. Certainly mommy and daddy will end up ignoring their work as the soon feel that have to check on the children 100 percent of the time - you know - just in case a thug comes in to do whatever they fear a thug might do. It's the next addiction, similar to people breaking into a cold sweat when their smartphone shows no bars.
Sad really. Now watch this.I'm gonna make the parents shit their pants.....
My son and his buds played street hockey as children, on an actual road, with roller blades!!!!!! When a car would come down the street someone would yell car, and they'd gather the nets and move them off to the side. Ohhh, the huge manatee!
And while my wife or I kept a very discreet eye on them. we didn't interfere at all. The kids learned how to interact with each other. Then as he hit Jr High, we relaxed a bit, mostly after the puberty wackiness. Then by the time he hit high school we really started to relax the reins. We had all the proper interactions regarding drugs and sex - as in avoid that shit, and for god's sake don't go boinking without some precautions. Played Ice hockey to give an outlet for aggression. Never spied on him. Luck? part of it. But he could make adult decisions by the time he was 20.
And it worked a hellava lot better than a lot of his friends who are now in therapy or drugged for depression. Meanwhile I do predict lifelong surveillance of other people's children. Sad, that.
So, I'm an adult, I borrow your phone to make a phone call or for another purpose - guess what - you do NOT have the legal right to monitor my communications. And you most certainly don't have the right to monitor the communications of whoever I'm talking to.
I sense your vague disapproval... But consider, how "unnatural" it is for humans to live beyond 40 — which the already existing improvements in medicine, diet, work, government are giving us.
Certainly. There is some plausible argument for some evolutionary advantage of grandparents in helping their offspring to raise their grandchildren more successfully. But that's just a hypothesis.
Why can't future improvements extend the lifespan further?
Maybe. but as a point of clarification, we have raised the average lifespan. We have not lengthened the maximum lifespan. A long time ago, there were the few who reached ages pretty much the same as are some times reached now. And that is a real limit. For all of the interest in geriatrics, we might have more people reach 100 with artificial means, but we don't have any people living to 150.
If one can have a new heart or kidney implanted already, why not the entire body some time in the (near) future?
I wouldn't be surprised if we can replace our own organs via donations, strip everything but the forming structure, and implant stem cells that grow around the form. Why not? I dunno. We certainly would have to place some pretty draconian limits on reproduction. If a birth rate almost even exists at the same time that the only way people die is by accident or war - it will be bad.
Considering the fear the CDC has for daring to suggest that women consider waiting until a Zika vaccine or the possibilities of an epidemic go away to have children, I am certain that in such a society, the biological urge to reproduce might have to be genetically eradicated. Unless we want to keep piling up people until we are living in 4 by 6 foot cubicles and eating algae.
We have a galaxy to populate — and not just one. Can't do that, if a person's education takes a comparable amount of time as the period during which it can actually be used productively...
You know, you say that now, and you may be serious... but when you speak to people who are in their advanced years many of them report that they would give anything for another year or two.
I am 56, when I was in my late teens/early 20's I used to refer to this age as 'almost dead'. Today I do not feel 'almost dead'.
Maybe when you are 77, you'll feel differently? Maybe not, I guess it depends, this is a HIGHLY PERSONAL DECISION and I would hate for one person to be empowered to make it for everyone ELSE.
I never grant anything as impossible. But my thoughts on lifespan evolved in a different direction. They have gone form a live forever outlook while young, to a "Okay, I've lived a productive life, anytime will do." outlook as I aged. I can't think of any reason that I would revert back to earlier outlook. If I croaked today, I wouldn't have to worry about my chores tomorrow. Ultimate Moon shadow outlook.
I have no problem with a person wanting to be hooked to machinery ala Terry Schaivo, to eke out the last possible second of bodily life if they thought that wa their ultimate goal. Of course, they should be required to afford that. For me that would be the ultimate nightmare.
No thanks - Nope, nope, nope. My family is already under orders that if I were to become demented, there will be no intervention other than pain killers
To each his own... I, for one, am hoping to some day be able to have my personality "run" inside a computer. And if that computer is some day given a body — mechanical, biological, or hybrid — well, so much the better!
Of course. The desire to somehow be alive forever is the 21st century version of religion, the electronic version of "the immortal soul"
There are actual "cures" being tested right now that are showing amazing progress. They are not true cures since they are not permanent since
You know, if the "cures" gave you another 20 years as a a 20 or 30 year old, that might be something. But you'll be a physically failing person in a nursing home, often confined to bed or a wheelchair. Fine life, the penultimate goal. It isn't like Alzheimers is the single point of failure for the aging.
Perhaps spending an extra 15 years in advanced care is an acceptable thing to you. I'd much prefer to be dead. And I still haven't changed my mind.
And although I hadn't noted it before in this thread, the present paradigm in end of life health care is a fine (and completely coincidental?) emulation of a pecuiniary extraction scheme. I'd sooner give my estate to my children than to the nursing home. YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Firstly, you have a misconception: residential grid-tied systems are not intended to be backup systems. When it is most needed is in the afternoon, on a hot, sunny day, so that it can offset the electricity used by my, or my neighbours' AC systems.
When I am finished, my system will be completely disconnected form the grid. Part of why I'm putting one in is that the grid isn't terribly reliable around here any more.
So why on earth would I put in a system that cuts me off as soon as grid power fails?
Nothing fails.
Exactly. That was my point in asking the dumb question. But we have enough outages around here that it would be silly to install anything that goes away with it. And I'm not doing this for money, I'm doing it for reliability. Now when we have an outage, the house is disconnected from the grid, and the generator is kicked in. That is specifically what I want, phasing in a backup system before completel disconnect, only with solar instead of petrofuel.
What kind of Shingles do you use in the US that you have to replace them so often?
Replacing roofs in Germany is a rather rare activity. I doubt it happens more often than every 50 years.
We have different grades of shingles. The tradional/typical style for houses built say in the last 60 years is a fiberglass mat impregnated with tar, with tiny rocks of some desired color impressed into them. I think it is right up there in suckage with drywall. What kills mine is the low pitch on my roof. Debris lands and stays on it. Doing a little bit of damage each time, it's hammered by the sun during the hottest parts of the day. With that low pitch I have to get up and blow leaves and all the other crap that lands on it. Over a remarkably short time the little colored rocks in itwash off, and it starts curling.
There are a few houses nearby that have mansard roofs which last a lot longer I've seen some with shingles that are over 50 years old, and if you use cedar shakes, they are going to last the life of the house.
I have Old farte syndrome.
OTOH, I proposed this as a design project in college and am the same age as Musk. It's good to ask these questions. Years of scientific training taught me to be skeptical.
I'm as skeptical as they come. I just find simple problems that already have solutions to be a tad dreary.
Who knows - perhaps I over-reacted, and sinned egregiously to th comment.
But after a while, it all begins to sound like people deciding that EV's are a non-starter because how you gonna charge them? - and yet Alaska has electrical outlets at parking meters in towns to keep petrofueled cars engine blocks warmed. Or that the batteries in the Tesla are incapable of handing cold weather, and will run their power down more quickly - all the while ignoring all of the gyrations needed to go through to keep petrofueld vehicles in shape at those same temperatures and that they suck up a lot more fuel in the winter because the wintermix fuel contains butanol which has a higher vapor pressure but lower energy content per liter, and they blame the combined drop 100 percent on ethanol. Or that solar cells self distruct the moment their warranty goes out, or that every single part of a windmill farm must be replaced every 20 years.
A healthy sketicism toward utter bullshit is very healthy.
But hey! I could be wrong about all of the slash dotters sounding like they miss the horse and buggy days.
Though if you make the mistake of going on Facebook, you'll find so much evidence of open hate that it will leave you wondering about whether large swaths of the human race aren't deserving of a major extinction event.
I stopped wondering about that a long, long time ago - we do.
Sexual preference is more of a private thing, people can't tell you are straight or gay just by looking at you unless you advertise the fact. Therefore it tends not to be something that is discriminated against in hiring, although obviously where there is overt homophobia it's a concern.
It was a crime at one time in the USA, and is still a capital offense in some countries.
Religious reference is just that, a preference, and thus generally not protected in the same way as genetic factors. Society does allow some consideration for religion, mostly for historical reasons, but only to the point where it doesn't have a major impact on anyone else. Again, it's only of interest re diversity if there is a detectable problem, so if you have evidence of one you should post it.
At this time, perhaps. I grew up in a town that was ruled by the religious, with blue laws of no stores open on Sunday, absolutely no evolution or anything that spoke to an old earth - Science classes were weird, and no doubt. Legally require Sex education was 1 day of "If you have sex you will get VD and die."
I have always had a big issue with Diversity dogma's "We must embrace all cultures." Sorry, I am not going to embrace cultures that are mentally in the stone age, and treat women like chattel. and people who have the temerity to believe in some other Sky Fairy as people that need killed.
Nope, nope, nope!
Yeah, honestly I've never heard anything remotely like that in real life. I guess we've had different experiences.
Perhaps you are priveliged to not have been raised in a family with Fundamentalist Christians. Count your blessings.
What I see as a problem with the idea of treating every single person as having an opinion that is equally valid is like thinking that Jerry Sandusky is as entitled to molest children as I am to think that just maybe sort kinda, that's an ultimate asshole thing to do. If I saw the guy, Id call him an asshole, and not have any liberal all things are equal angst about it.
I don't have time for racist assholes, people who believe that the worldis flat, or that if a woman commits adultery, she should be put into a pit up to her neck and stoned to death. Do you in any way shape or form consider that as deserving equal treament with peopel who believe that all people are equal, that science shows the earth isn't flat, or that maybe adultry isn't a crime at all, much less one that demands the village get together and murder someone?
Simply being homsexual used to be a imprisonable crime. A capital offense in some countries. Are you saying that a person who still thinks that way should receive equal consideration, that maybe they should come into schools and tell the kids that?
If you do, I'll be happy to judge you as an asshole. Because you would be. Sorry, no negotiations on those matters any more.
Topo Gigio!
Oy, I'm old. :(
TaDAH!!!! You win. I was just a kid at the time, but I remember old Topo.
Most, if not all grid-tied solar systems require that the grid is actually working. So if you get a power outage, your solar panels won't help you.
I have wondered if you could get the solar inverter to start producing electricity by disconnecting from the grid and connecting a generator (or even a large UPS) to the house wiring.
I have no intention of tying to the grid by the time I'm finished.
Seems odd however tht the device is designed to fail at the time it is needed most. What exactly fails that stops the power? I have a shutoff system for my emergency generator.
Well I'd be wary of "new" home construction technology too - especially for critical components such as a roof. In my case our new custom home was plumbed using fancy Kitec potable water piping. Guess what, it got recalled because the fittings and pipes tended to burst. Now I'm spending nearly $20k to repipe the entire home. It has to be done otherwise we'll have no buyers when we put the home up for sale. Oh I'll get some of that money back from a class action lawsuit, but probably only pennies on the dollar.
I had plastic tubing as well on an earlier home. I'm not certain what your brand's downfall was, but mine had a metal ferrule on it to hold the fastener, that on the hot water side would dig into the tubing a tiny little bit every time the temperature on the hot water pipes thermally cycled. After maybe 10 years, it owrked it's way into the piping and instant leak. After a lot of damage, I got pissed and installed copper.
And I think the payoff for me was a couple dollars. Lawyers did okay on it - they made millions.
Is that what your boyfriend says after he pulls out and the santorum starts leaking from your anus?
There is a certain amusement when a person with some severe psychosexual projections makes a fool of themselves.
That would be you.
Anyhow, you completely failed at getting the reference. Thanks for playing, and remember not too many people care about your secret desires, so its better to get them out in the open. People who repress their proclivities tend to end up going a mild form of insane, but sometimes worse.
Thanks for playing though.
Why smoke and mirrors? Care to explain...
Old farte syndrome. Hates changes, and them kids keep walkin' on his lawn.
I think the intention is the replace the shingles and have your roof made out of solar panels. I've had this same idea for a long time. There's no benefit of asphalt shingles other than the relatively low cost.
I hate those damn things. We have a low pitched roof and shingles don't last long on them. So it's like every 10 years and new ones. As well, if they aren't laid right, heaven help you. Some asshat replaced them before we bought the place, and had a small place, about an inch square where they didn't cover. Right on a gutter We got a lot of wood rot right there. That was fun to fix.
I wanted to go metal last time we replaced them, but my better half thought metal "looked cheap" However now that we are looking at our third replacement, and she's changed her mind. But these solarpanels? Very interesting indeed.
If you could replace your roof with a solar panel system that #1 protected your home and #2 provided a significant amount of power generation I wonder what the total cost of ownership would be. At current electricity rates, I'll pay about $20,000 over the next 20 years to the electric company. I would also pay $15,000-$20,000 every 20-30 years to get new shingles.
Make certain to do your own calculations, and not rely on people who have a vested interest in you using some other method. I bought a new super high efficiency gas furnace, replacing my oil furnace, 4 years ago - it's already paid for itself. Oil people said it might be 15 years.Same with insulation. I'm spending per year what some friends pay per month in energy.
As well, there are the incalculables. Access to the electricity. We have a lot of power outages in my area. And with the whacked weather, we are sometimes out for a while - one time almost a week. Your own power source can make life a lot nicer. It was nice to have lights and furnace that week. Note I wasn't using solar that week, just another power source.
Here in upstate NY, winters often mean that I need to get out our roof rake to pull snow off our roof. If I don't, ice dams form and then runoff from melting snow gets under our roof shingles and can get into our house. My questions for SolarCity would be: Would these solar shingles hold up to having a roof rake scraped across them? (It would be useless if I had to replace shingles every year due to roof raking damage.) Also, how would they handle snow melt getting under the shingles? Presumably, there will be wiring there. Would moisture under the shingles cause issues?
And there you have it. Immediately upon any new like this, some slashdotter comes on and tries to derail the idea with their personal situation.
My guess is that if you have feet of snow on your roof, these are not for you.
Environments differ, and your knowledge of your mother's basement has little application to a battlefield in Afghanistan or anywhere else with rugged and inhospitable terrain.
That's odd, my mom used to tell me my room looked like a war zone.
Eddie? Keees me goodnight!
Let's see who gets that reference....
You got me thinking, given they don't just blow up, that we should consider the cost of having to dismantle and remove them as there service life comes to an end.
I suspect no one has taken that into consideration.
If I were to hazard a guess, it will end up being a "George Washington's original Axe - with three new heads and four new handles" sort of thing.
The output of wind turbines has been constantly going up. The towers probably are essentially permanent - perhaps the blades may need replacement. over time.
But for the most part, if we repair or replace as parts wear, and do regular maintenance, I would surmise they would last a long time. Certainly longer than the 20 years quoted by so many. I'm guessing that unless the main stalk gets fatigue cracked by the pushing of the turbine, 50 plus years is not out of th question
Another thought. How much of the cost of a wind turbine farm is buying the land, cutting the roads, and pouring the bases? Even a total replacement of the arial part of the structure will probably cost less than starting over again.
Stop hiring males, only hire white women, and a token Asian woman to fetch coffee. You'll see the complaints stop immediately.
No the "cure" I am talking about is dissolving the inclusion bodies and allowing the cells to function normally again.
Lets says you have a condition that for whatever reason is forming these bodies in your cells at a certain rate and as you age your cells get worse at running correctly so at 60 your cells are damaged enough you are diagnosed with alzheimers. We could give you the treatment and completely restore the cells to full functioning.
To be certain, by the time any of the effects show up, the damage is long done. Any plausible fix/repair for Alzheimers would require very early intervention. As in early 30's http://www.medpagetoday.com/ne... , or perhaps even childhood: http://www.wsj.com/articles/al...
The problem is you still have the condition and will still make more of these inclusion bodies but the process is very slow. At 80 you would probably need another treatment to restore full function and another at 100 etc. That is why these are not permanent cures but there is also no reason not to just use it again.
I can see from your post that you are sort of confusing some of the telltale clues and assuming that removing the aluminum containing plaques will restore a person's mental facilities. This is probably a false lead for many. It is the sort of thing that has caused many people to attempt to avoid aluminum and alumina - one of the most common elements and minerals on earth, so good luck with that. Because of studies and easy database searches, and out desire to blame ourselves for our frailty. As well, too much zinc supposedly causes Alzheimer's. Then again, too little zinc supposedly causes Alzheimer's.
But as with the overwhelmingly largest factor influencing our longevity in the first place, my money is on genetics. And any "cure" for Alzheimer's will have to be tackled through genetic manipulation. Some people are going to get it, some aren't. My father and I discussed finances within 12 hours of his death from COPD. My Mother in law thought my wife was her mother for 10 years.
Most of the stuff I am aware of is trying to restore full functionality. That is why restoring the brain is so important since it is a major reason to end up in a nursing home.
I'm pretty curious about a treatment that can restore full function in a symptomatic Alzheimer's patient. As noted, the neurodegeneration has been going on for a good while before the overt symptoms appear.
Think of how your children would feel if they caught you doing that sort of sh*t, reading their diaries, installing spyware to track them, etc.
That's considered responsible and good parenting in 2016.
Not in most advanced countries.
I'm not disagreeing with you. I was being extremely facetious. Because parents who for the last 20 years or more, have attmpted to shield their children from any and all adversity in their lives, have damn near destroyed their kids, producing healthy beautiful adults with no emotional maturity. These children, who never got an unstructured moment not supervised by their parents or some other adult, have remained children long after normal offspring would be raising families of their own. I feel so badly for these adult 13 year olds, they have lost over a decade of their lives to be emotionally stunted. Lest any millenials thing this is an attack against them, it isn't. It is however just about the ultimate insult against your mommy and daddy, who screwed you up.
What next - turn into a stalker because you think your spouse or your kid is screwing around? Even if you find out it's the case, the only rational response is the one I already gave above - sit down and discuss it with them - which you should have done before becoming another Inspecteur Clouseau type.
Too late. As you see by the other responses to your post, the abusers think that you are the one with a problem. they are already stalking their children, that is one of the selling points of services like Xfinity's home survelliance service, where they show mommy sitting at work, and sooooo relieved that the children have made it home, and she can see them come into th house. I fully expect this neurosis to continue through some of these emotionly stunted adult children's lives. Certainly mommy and daddy will end up ignoring their work as the soon feel that have to check on the children 100 percent of the time - you know - just in case a thug comes in to do whatever they fear a thug might do. It's the next addiction, similar to people breaking into a cold sweat when their smartphone shows no bars.
Sad really. Now watch this.I'm gonna make the parents shit their pants.....
My son and his buds played street hockey as children, on an actual road, with roller blades!!!!!! When a car would come down the street someone would yell car, and they'd gather the nets and move them off to the side. Ohhh, the huge manatee!
And while my wife or I kept a very discreet eye on them. we didn't interfere at all. The kids learned how to interact with each other. Then as he hit Jr High, we relaxed a bit, mostly after the puberty wackiness. Then by the time he hit high school we really started to relax the reins. We had all the proper interactions regarding drugs and sex - as in avoid that shit, and for god's sake don't go boinking without some precautions. Played Ice hockey to give an outlet for aggression. Never spied on him. Luck? part of it. But he could make adult decisions by the time he was 20.
And it worked a hellava lot better than a lot of his friends who are now in therapy or drugged for depression. Meanwhile I do predict lifelong surveillance of other people's children. Sad, that.
So, I'm an adult, I borrow your phone to make a phone call or for another purpose - guess what - you do NOT have the legal right to monitor my communications. And you most certainly don't have the right to monitor the communications of whoever I'm talking to.
Which is why of course, no one borrows my phone.
Think of how your children would feel if they caught you doing that sort of sh*t, reading their diaries, installing spyware to track them, etc.
That's considered responsible and good parenting in 2016.
I sense your vague disapproval... But consider, how "unnatural" it is for humans to live beyond 40 — which the already existing improvements in medicine, diet, work, government are giving us.
Certainly. There is some plausible argument for some evolutionary advantage of grandparents in helping their offspring to raise their grandchildren more successfully. But that's just a hypothesis.
Why can't future improvements extend the lifespan further?
Maybe. but as a point of clarification, we have raised the average lifespan. We have not lengthened the maximum lifespan. A long time ago, there were the few who reached ages pretty much the same as are some times reached now. And that is a real limit. For all of the interest in geriatrics, we might have more people reach 100 with artificial means, but we don't have any people living to 150.
If one can have a new heart or kidney implanted already, why not the entire body some time in the (near) future?
I wouldn't be surprised if we can replace our own organs via donations, strip everything but the forming structure, and implant stem cells that grow around the form. Why not? I dunno. We certainly would have to place some pretty draconian limits on reproduction. If a birth rate almost even exists at the same time that the only way people die is by accident or war - it will be bad.
Considering the fear the CDC has for daring to suggest that women consider waiting until a Zika vaccine or the possibilities of an epidemic go away to have children, I am certain that in such a society, the biological urge to reproduce might have to be genetically eradicated. Unless we want to keep piling up people until we are living in 4 by 6 foot cubicles and eating algae.
We have a galaxy to populate — and not just one. Can't do that, if a person's education takes a comparable amount of time as the period during which it can actually be used productively...
Time dilation?
You know, you say that now, and you may be serious... but when you speak to people who are in their advanced years many of them report that they would give anything for another year or two.
I am 56, when I was in my late teens/early 20's I used to refer to this age as 'almost dead'. Today I do not feel 'almost dead'.
Maybe when you are 77, you'll feel differently? Maybe not, I guess it depends, this is a HIGHLY PERSONAL DECISION and I would hate for one person to be empowered to make it for everyone ELSE.
I never grant anything as impossible. But my thoughts on lifespan evolved in a different direction. They have gone form a live forever outlook while young, to a "Okay, I've lived a productive life, anytime will do." outlook as I aged. I can't think of any reason that I would revert back to earlier outlook. If I croaked today, I wouldn't have to worry about my chores tomorrow. Ultimate Moon shadow outlook.
I have no problem with a person wanting to be hooked to machinery ala Terry Schaivo, to eke out the last possible second of bodily life if they thought that wa their ultimate goal. Of course, they should be required to afford that. For me that would be the ultimate nightmare.
To each his own... I, for one, am hoping to some day be able to have my personality "run" inside a computer. And if that computer is some day given a body — mechanical, biological, or hybrid — well, so much the better!
Of course. The desire to somehow be alive forever is the 21st century version of religion, the electronic version of "the immortal soul"
There are actual "cures" being tested right now that are showing amazing progress. They are not true cures since they are not permanent since
You know, if the "cures" gave you another 20 years as a a 20 or 30 year old, that might be something. But you'll be a physically failing person in a nursing home, often confined to bed or a wheelchair. Fine life, the penultimate goal. It isn't like Alzheimers is the single point of failure for the aging.
Perhaps spending an extra 15 years in advanced care is an acceptable thing to you. I'd much prefer to be dead. And I still haven't changed my mind.
And although I hadn't noted it before in this thread, the present paradigm in end of life health care is a fine (and completely coincidental?) emulation of a pecuiniary extraction scheme. I'd sooner give my estate to my children than to the nursing home. YMMV.