Have you even seen an outdoor concert with a massive lighting array that can't compete with the sun?
There is definitely plenty of power to be gotten from solar. The problem has been that solar panels are 15-18% efficient, and those that do not follow the sun lose 1/3 to oblique sun angles.
However solar thermal generators that follow the sun with parabolic mirrors can produce upwards of 60% efficiency, which means the power requirements of the typical power-frugal home can be provided by a rooftop generator with a 6' diameter mirror, pumping out a steady 1500W whenever the sun is out.
Add another for each of your electric cars, and we stop burning coal and gas. That represents 73% of greenhouse gas emissions.
I can't foresee MS making anything that cheap that goes into a car.
Doesn't matter, the price will be built into the new car price. Most people would rather have GPS on their dash than a standalone unit hanging off their windshield by a suction cup with a wire dangling down to the cigarette lighter, which they can no longer use. The same will apply to every convenience technology to come.
My TomTom always placed me about 150yds east of my actual location. Whenever I'd be on a north-south road is would tell me to turn at every crossroad to get back onto the road I was already on. Satellite location downloads and firmware upgrades didn't help. I took it back.
"And here's the 2-2 pitch, oooh boy, Johnson's been decapitated by a fallen solar panel, drat the luck. Leiter steps in in relief. Brought to you in ultra-low def by Comcast."
Just as we're making some progress with the atmosphere, the N-Prize comes along to encourage any idiot with 1k quid to fire an unguided projectile into the same part of space where multi-billion-dollar satellites are passing by at relative speeds of over 20,000 mph.
If a major satellite exploded and much of the shrapnel remained in orbit, in time it would collide with another major satellite, creating more shrapnel, before you know it satellites become unfeasible, and we step back several decades in a few hundred fields of science and communications.
Satellites from their inception have taken damage from microscopic "space dust", and the term "space pollution" was coined, with the dire potential consequences of making near outer space unusable, not to mention the constant falling debris.
If you like the Apple approach to computers, then you should support and defend it, otherwise it will fail
If you like the linux and open source approach to computing, then you must support and defend it, or it will never fulfill the demand.
If you like the Windows approach to computers, then you must support Apple, linux, and open source developers because otherwise Microsoft will have nothing to copy.
Providing free secure communication to absolutely everyone with the requisite equipment cannot happen without accommodating the governments of those being offered the service.
That means the US and UK must be able to tap the line looking for terrorists, and unfortunately other countries must be able to tap the line looking for dissidents, etc.
I never expected Skype to be any more secure than a cellular phone anyway. That fact that the software protocols allow for fully secure communication doesn't guarantee anything.
Last I checked, there wasn't a right to 100% secure long-distance communications in the bill of rights, and every country's rights to privacy are superseded by any of dozens of security laws throughout the world, not the least of those is the US Patriot Act.
And because Skype's parent company is eBay, odds are all Skype's handshaking connections take place on US soil, which gives the US government access to all Skype conversations under the Patriot Act. There is no way the NSA would pass up that opportunity, nor would it have eluded their watchful eyes. eBay wouldn't refuse to comply because it's less profitable.
So another protocol is added to Echelon's list. Big surprise. Big deal.
Actually if they're trying to determine if high testosterone levels and Asperger's are linked, they should simply compare Aspergen's body hair amount do non-Aspergen. That will have cultural variances too, but the result should be pretty consistent within the cultures themselves.
I expect most folks here haven't heard of Asperger's syndrome or at least don't know much about it.
The three common tell-tale characteristics are:
- a "circumscribed area of interest", meaning you don't care about much except one field of interest
- abnormal body language
- uncomfortable with eye contact
Sound familiar to anyone? IT departments are full of Asperger's "suffers", although it has its advantages, like exceptional long-term attention focus.
- in-car vending machines, gaming systems, "car-theater", and advertising, ALL of poor quality
- video surveillance to reduce vandalism
- poor supply of vehicles during peak demand
- lower accidents overall, but some caused by faulty AI
- robot buses and transport trucks
- the end of truck drivers' careers
- soon nobody will know how to drive
- any fault in the AI or mechanics of the vehicle results in potentially being stranded
Very interesting to ponder. I don't mind the alcoholism bit, beat drunk drivers any day!
The harder case for Hasbro is the copyright claim -- games have "thin" copyrights. In general, the only elements that are protected are (a) the text of the instructions and (b) the graphical elements. So, if Scrabulous didn't copy the Scrabble instructions and didn't copy the graphical elements, they should be fine.
I think they did, and I expect either those will be changed, or Hasbro will be successful in shutting them down.
But here's the kicker: the game makers are citizens and residents of India, while the legal jurisdiction is the US. They can just sit back and let the money roll in until the tap gets turned off without any fear of losing anything. From the original article:
...the defendants could simply ignore it if they [have] no U.S. assets to seize, and aren't worried about Indian courts enforcing a default judgment.
Software is a series of words that instruct a computer to perform specific functions. Copyright is all that's necessary to protect the intellectual property of software developers.
And I don't mean copy protection of the specific code, obviously there are many ways for software to achieve the desired effect. It's the effect that should be subject to copyright, which is what leans software developers towards the patent office.
However, if you translate a poem to french, which would entail significantly changing several phrases to maintain a rhyming scheme, the original author still has copyright protection.
L'auteur n'en apprendra jamais probablement*, but the software developer probably will learn of competitive products that violate copyright.
Teachers, why leave your dirty chicken-hawk fantasies to your imagination when you can wank off to a live feed of that cute sophomore getting undressed in the comfort of your own home!
That only skips the outgoing message - "Sorry I couldn't come to the phone" etc. It does not skip the phone ringing or prevent the person from answering. You still run the terrible risk of two-way communication of someone you're calling!!
I would actually not recommend solar panels like the OP used, but rather look into solar-thermal generators.
Solar panels are only 15-18% efficient, and stationary ones only achieve peak output at high noon, so you need to cover most of your roof with them.
There are solar-thermal plans with a collector less than 6' in diameter (looks like a satellite dish) that follows the sun for peak output whenever the sun is out. They're more like 60% efficient, replacing 12x the area in solar panels. One 6' generator should put out 1500W, enough to power the typical household, and more can be added to power electric cars for example.
If everyone had one for their home and replaced their cars with electric cars and matching generators, greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 73%. If they were ever to be mass produced, the retail price should settle under $1000, even lower if they were subsidized. That is the most realistic solution to global warming I've seen.
Baby-boomers are not only the first generation to become dependent on cars for transportation at an early age, but also the first generation to have access to fast cars at an early age. WWII produced more than just the baby boom, it produced a generation with an unprecedented advancement in engineering capability as a result of training either from the military directly or from support efforts.
Let's look at some of the influences on baby boomers as they grew up:
- NASCAR was founded in 1947, right on the heels of WWII
- car design and marketing focused on performance during the 1950's moreso than ever before
- this leads to unprecedented technical advancements in cars, i.e. fuel injection, turbo-charging, supercharging, hemispherical combustion chambers, all of which were developed for military applications, and the market understood and demanded the benefits of advanced technology more than ever before
- the US became the world leader in gross national product during the 1950's, which led to unprecedented car production and sales, which led to unprecedented access to cars by younger drivers
There are 75 million baby boomers on US roads today, all of whom turned 16 shortly after muscle cars became the primary focus of the production and marketing of cars. You cannot apply today's elderly driver model to the elderly drivers of the next decade. Today's drivers over 65 did not drag race as kids or idolize James Dean. Tomorrow's did.
The only corporations that would possibly be taking this into consideration are insurance companies, who are responsible for billions in liability and survive by predicting driver behavior. Are any car manufacturers consulting them on the matter?
And let's not ignore the notion of turning an elderly person's car windshield into what must seem like a Star Trek helm console to them. I'm immediately reminded of an age-old proverb about teaching old dogs new tricks.
There's this... guy I met once... (yeah, that'll do) who would use pirated audio plug-ins to test them for performance and system stability, and he would purchase them before using them on any profitable project.
In some cases the legit copy was less stable than the pirated one (usually the other way around though), and in those cases he still uses the pirated copy and keeps the legit hard copy around for proof of purchase.
And getting caught using pirated software in professional circles is a lot more perilous to reputation than cracked games.
Believe it or not, judges can and do take into consideration issues like peer pressures and social inequities during sentencing.
Keep in mind, the same sentence would probably been imposed from a credible eye-witness account of the partying. That could be used as an argument against using info/media posted to social networking sites since whoever took the picture could testify instead, but also take into account how much court time and inconvenience to witnesses is saved.
The bottom line is that social networking is no different from being social in RL when it comes to the admissibility of incriminating evidence. Deal with it, or get busted and then deal with it.
Better yet just don't commit crimes, and quit complaining on the behalf of those that do. What if the accident victim was your mother?
Slashdot Mirror
solar probably can't deliver the wattage.
Have you even seen an outdoor concert with a massive lighting array that can't compete with the sun?
There is definitely plenty of power to be gotten from solar. The problem has been that solar panels are 15-18% efficient, and those that do not follow the sun lose 1/3 to oblique sun angles.
However solar thermal generators that follow the sun with parabolic mirrors can produce upwards of 60% efficiency, which means the power requirements of the typical power-frugal home can be provided by a rooftop generator with a 6' diameter mirror, pumping out a steady 1500W whenever the sun is out.
Add another for each of your electric cars, and we stop burning coal and gas. That represents 73% of greenhouse gas emissions.
I can't foresee MS making anything that cheap that goes into a car.
Doesn't matter, the price will be built into the new car price. Most people would rather have GPS on their dash than a standalone unit hanging off their windshield by a suction cup with a wire dangling down to the cigarette lighter, which they can no longer use. The same will apply to every convenience technology to come.
My TomTom always placed me about 150yds east of my actual location. Whenever I'd be on a north-south road is would tell me to turn at every crossroad to get back onto the road I was already on. Satellite location downloads and firmware upgrades didn't help. I took it back.
To say Al Gore actually claimed he invented the internet is to say the Beatles actually claimed they were bigger than Jesus.
"And here's the 2-2 pitch, oooh boy, Johnson's been decapitated by a fallen solar panel, drat the luck. Leiter steps in in relief. Brought to you in ultra-low def by Comcast."
Just as we're making some progress with the atmosphere, the N-Prize comes along to encourage any idiot with 1k quid to fire an unguided projectile into the same part of space where multi-billion-dollar satellites are passing by at relative speeds of over 20,000 mph.
If a major satellite exploded and much of the shrapnel remained in orbit, in time it would collide with another major satellite, creating more shrapnel, before you know it satellites become unfeasible, and we step back several decades in a few hundred fields of science and communications.
Satellites from their inception have taken damage from microscopic "space dust", and the term "space pollution" was coined, with the dire potential consequences of making near outer space unusable, not to mention the constant falling debris.
If you like the Apple approach to computers, then you should support and defend it, otherwise it will fail
If you like the linux and open source approach to computing, then you must support and defend it, or it will never fulfill the demand.
If you like the Windows approach to computers, then you must support Apple, linux, and open source developers because otherwise Microsoft will have nothing to copy.
Providing free secure communication to absolutely everyone with the requisite equipment cannot happen without accommodating the governments of those being offered the service.
That means the US and UK must be able to tap the line looking for terrorists, and unfortunately other countries must be able to tap the line looking for dissidents, etc.
I never expected Skype to be any more secure than a cellular phone anyway. That fact that the software protocols allow for fully secure communication doesn't guarantee anything.
Last I checked, there wasn't a right to 100% secure long-distance communications in the bill of rights, and every country's rights to privacy are superseded by any of dozens of security laws throughout the world, not the least of those is the US Patriot Act.
And because Skype's parent company is eBay, odds are all Skype's handshaking connections take place on US soil, which gives the US government access to all Skype conversations under the Patriot Act. There is no way the NSA would pass up that opportunity, nor would it have eluded their watchful eyes. eBay wouldn't refuse to comply because it's less profitable.
So another protocol is added to Echelon's list. Big surprise. Big deal.
Actually if they're trying to determine if high testosterone levels and Asperger's are linked, they should simply compare Aspergen's body hair amount do non-Aspergen. That will have cultural variances too, but the result should be pretty consistent within the cultures themselves.
I expect most folks here haven't heard of Asperger's syndrome or at least don't know much about it.
The three common tell-tale characteristics are:
- a "circumscribed area of interest", meaning you don't care about much except one field of interest
- abnormal body language
- uncomfortable with eye contact
Sound familiar to anyone? IT departments are full of Asperger's "suffers", although it has its advantages, like exceptional long-term attention focus.
- in-car vending machines, gaming systems, "car-theater", and advertising, ALL of poor quality
- video surveillance to reduce vandalism
- poor supply of vehicles during peak demand
- lower accidents overall, but some caused by faulty AI
- robot buses and transport trucks
- the end of truck drivers' careers
- soon nobody will know how to drive
- any fault in the AI or mechanics of the vehicle results in potentially being stranded
Very interesting to ponder. I don't mind the alcoholism bit, beat drunk drivers any day!
I thought it played more like Boggle.
They should change the name to "Boggulous" until Hasbro sues them for that.
(they own the Boggle trademark too)
Then change it back to Scrabulous...
The harder case for Hasbro is the copyright claim -- games have "thin" copyrights. In general, the only elements that are protected are (a) the text of the instructions and (b) the graphical elements. So, if Scrabulous didn't copy the Scrabble instructions and didn't copy the graphical elements, they should be fine.
I think they did, and I expect either those will be changed, or Hasbro will be successful in shutting them down.
But here's the kicker: the game makers are citizens and residents of India, while the legal jurisdiction is the US. They can just sit back and let the money roll in until the tap gets turned off without any fear of losing anything. From the original article:
...the defendants could simply ignore it if they [have] no U.S. assets to seize, and aren't worried about Indian courts enforcing a default judgment.
Software is a series of words that instruct a computer to perform specific functions. Copyright is all that's necessary to protect the intellectual property of software developers.
And I don't mean copy protection of the specific code, obviously there are many ways for software to achieve the desired effect. It's the effect that should be subject to copyright, which is what leans software developers towards the patent office.
However, if you translate a poem to french, which would entail significantly changing several phrases to maintain a rhyming scheme, the original author still has copyright protection.
L'auteur n'en apprendra jamais probablement*, but the software developer probably will learn of competitive products that violate copyright.
* The author would probably never learn about it
Teachers, why leave your dirty chicken-hawk fantasies to your imagination when you can wank off to a live feed of that cute sophomore getting undressed in the comfort of your own home!
The police are asking everyone to forward all their spam to bgates@microsoft.com for analysis.
NASA is so going to use the history-eraser button on this troublemaker.
..with a SOLAR-THERMAL GENERATOR. It should be a requirement to own a plug-in car!
People choose to buy big SUV's in a climate crisis.
They are also going to choose to charge their electric car whenever they feel like it.
The post above says their number is busy, probably from a few million auto-dialers advertising every possible means of maintaining an erection...
That only skips the outgoing message - "Sorry I couldn't come to the phone" etc. It does not skip the phone ringing or prevent the person from answering. You still run the terrible risk of two-way communication of someone you're calling!!
I would actually not recommend solar panels like the OP used, but rather look into solar-thermal generators.
Solar panels are only 15-18% efficient, and stationary ones only achieve peak output at high noon, so you need to cover most of your roof with them.
There are solar-thermal plans with a collector less than 6' in diameter (looks like a satellite dish) that follows the sun for peak output whenever the sun is out. They're more like 60% efficient, replacing 12x the area in solar panels. One 6' generator should put out 1500W, enough to power the typical household, and more can be added to power electric cars for example.
If everyone had one for their home and replaced their cars with electric cars and matching generators, greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 73%. If they were ever to be mass produced, the retail price should settle under $1000, even lower if they were subsidized. That is the most realistic solution to global warming I've seen.
Baby-boomers are not only the first generation to become dependent on cars for transportation at an early age, but also the first generation to have access to fast cars at an early age. WWII produced more than just the baby boom, it produced a generation with an unprecedented advancement in engineering capability as a result of training either from the military directly or from support efforts.
Let's look at some of the influences on baby boomers as they grew up:
- NASCAR was founded in 1947, right on the heels of WWII
- car design and marketing focused on performance during the 1950's moreso than ever before
- this leads to unprecedented technical advancements in cars, i.e. fuel injection, turbo-charging, supercharging, hemispherical combustion chambers, all of which were developed for military applications, and the market understood and demanded the benefits of advanced technology more than ever before
- the US became the world leader in gross national product during the 1950's, which led to unprecedented car production and sales, which led to unprecedented access to cars by younger drivers
There are 75 million baby boomers on US roads today, all of whom turned 16 shortly after muscle cars became the primary focus of the production and marketing of cars. You cannot apply today's elderly driver model to the elderly drivers of the next decade. Today's drivers over 65 did not drag race as kids or idolize James Dean. Tomorrow's did.
The only corporations that would possibly be taking this into consideration are insurance companies, who are responsible for billions in liability and survive by predicting driver behavior. Are any car manufacturers consulting them on the matter?
And let's not ignore the notion of turning an elderly person's car windshield into what must seem like a Star Trek helm console to them. I'm immediately reminded of an age-old proverb about teaching old dogs new tricks.
It might be a fitting omen that James Dean died in a car accident.
There's this... guy I met once... (yeah, that'll do) who would use pirated audio plug-ins to test them for performance and system stability, and he would purchase them before using them on any profitable project.
In some cases the legit copy was less stable than the pirated one (usually the other way around though), and in those cases he still uses the pirated copy and keeps the legit hard copy around for proof of purchase.
And getting caught using pirated software in professional circles is a lot more perilous to reputation than cracked games.
There are pictures in the link in the OP
Believe it or not, judges can and do take into consideration issues like peer pressures and social inequities during sentencing.
Keep in mind, the same sentence would probably been imposed from a credible eye-witness account of the partying. That could be used as an argument against using info/media posted to social networking sites since whoever took the picture could testify instead, but also take into account how much court time and inconvenience to witnesses is saved.
The bottom line is that social networking is no different from being social in RL when it comes to the admissibility of incriminating evidence. Deal with it, or get busted and then deal with it.
Better yet just don't commit crimes, and quit complaining on the behalf of those that do. What if the accident victim was your mother?