I'm tired of having other Americans throw me under the bus. I can't choose how the rest of the world sees me, but I certainly am not going to allow another American to perpetuate the nonsense of the ugly American.
Oh, please.
I always think the same thing when I arrive at the airport waiting area for a flight back to the U.S. after an extended trip abroad. Something along the lines of "Who are these people? They're fat. They're loud. They're rude. They complain constantly. They have accents like constipated ducks... Oh, right: they're Americans."
Personally, I have no interest whatsoever in buying a Fire tablet, but I love my Paperwhite. TFA only makes sense if the market segments for tablets and e-readers overlap substantially. Maybe they do, but it's not necessarily so.
It's really, really good that somebody is stepping up and providing funding to maintain what have become critical Open Source infrastructures.
At the same time, it's totally disingenuous to imply that recent security issues are somehow caused by the fact that they are Open Source. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that, had the same services been proprietary, they would have had fewer bugs affecting security. In fact, the only effect of having critical services closed source would very likely have been that the security issues would have gone undiscovered for even longer. Making the critical security infrastructure for the internet closed source would be insane.
Open Source is working exactly as intended here: critical security issues were identified (ok, way too late, agreed), and fixed. Now the people who rely on those infrastructures are realizing (also way too late) that it is in their interest to provide funding to maintain them. This is how it's supposed to work.
It’s a self-reinforcing cycle. As more renewables are installed, coal and natural gas plants are used less. As coal and gas are used less, the cost of using them to generate electricity goes up. As the cost of coal and gas power rises, more renewables will be installed. "
All true. But there's an upper bound to the capacity factor for wind and solar that has nothing to do with economics, and everything to do with physics, which was the point of the post you are responding to: you are going to need something capable of providing base load in addition to wind and solar. That will be either from fossil fuels, or something else like hydro or nuclear.
The relation between the increase of the capacity factor of the wind and the decrease of the capacity factor of the natural gaz is the main point of the article.
The capacity factor of a load following coal plant in Germany is also only 40% or less (hint: it is only running between 6:00 and 21:00)
Same for a french load following nuclear plant, as France has a higher base load than Germany their load following plants are perhaps at 60% CF.
As long as you don't knwo what a CF actually expresses it is pretty pointless to use it in arguments.
In the U.S., coal-fired power plants operate at around 60% capacity factor, and nuclear plants at nearly 90% (Source.) The capacity factor of the coal plants you mention in Germany is because they are load-following plants: they turn them off half the time, because they don't need them. The capacity factor for wind and solar is low because of source intermittency: the wind doesn't always blow, and the sun only shines during the daytime. You can't use something to follow load if it is physically incapable of producing energy.
As the wind capacity factor increase make the natural gaz capacity factor decrease, then there should cross in the future. Actually the natural gaz is at 62% and wind at 37%, so the cross could be somewhere around 50% capacity factor.
Even if you make the (rather dubious) assumption that capacity factor for wind and solar will increase at a linear rate indefinitely, what makes you think the capacity factor for natural gas is declining? According the U.S. Energy Information Agency, it isn't.
Furthermore, the capacity factor for natural gas is relatively low precisely because you can turn on a natural gas turbine any time you want, so they are used to compensate for demand peaks, and left off the rest of the time. You can't do that with wind and solar: the low capacity factor isn't because you leave them off most of the time, it's because of intermittency in the source. Which has to be compensated for by something else.
Where I'm all for using solar where the sun shines and wind where it's blowing, we all need to realize that these two power sources will NEVER replace our current generation capacity and we will need fossil fuels well into the future. Wind and Solar suffer from not being available at irregular times and batteries are not a viable solution for the problem on the industrial scales necessary.
Well, it's not quite as bad as all that. The wind tends to blow more at night, so the intermittencies of wind and solar tend to offset each other.
wind's capacity factor has risen from 32% to 37%. Even more interns of percentage gains, solar's capacity factor has risen from 16 to 20% in that same time frame.
Which is still pretty low, and is why you need to couple expansion of wind and solar with a non-carbon-generating power source with a high capacity factor, such as hydroelectric or nuclear. And nuclear is a lot safer and more environmentally friendly than hydro.
You must understand that the GPL does for share your definition of freedom. Being able to further restrict the ones you pass the software on to is not freedom, it's tyranny.
Here's my vote for Slashdot to include a new mod category: "-1 uses the word 'tyranny'".
Yes, it's well known that most anti-gun statistics (such as this one) throw suicides and accidents in for effect.
"For effect"? Suicides and accidents are by far the largest cause of death by firearms, so concentrating only on homicides is utterly misleading. And in the U.S., death rate from firearms huge.
As depicted in the upcoming Matt Damon movie, "The Martian," Mark Watney (Damon) is thrown into an unexpected, life-threatening situation, requiring him to use his general skill set to survive on the barren landscape until he's rescued.
Yeah, but Star Trek suggests that a team of highly skilled specialists working together is the way to go.
Then again, maybe we shouldn't be basing mission planning on a bunch of cheezy fucking sci-fi movies. Just a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me get this straight: you think that mass shootings happen because we went off the gold standard?
I'm tired of having other Americans throw me under the bus. I can't choose how the rest of the world sees me, but I certainly am not going to allow another American to perpetuate the nonsense of the ugly American.
Oh, please.
I always think the same thing when I arrive at the airport waiting area for a flight back to the U.S. after an extended trip abroad. Something along the lines of "Who are these people? They're fat. They're loud. They're rude. They complain constantly. They have accents like constipated ducks ... Oh, right: they're Americans."
Really? How about Hans Reiser while we're at it?
She lost me when she mangled the Ghandi quote: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Protip to tech CEOs: Don't compare yourself to Ghandi. You sound like an ass.
Personally, I have no interest whatsoever in buying a Fire tablet, but I love my Paperwhite. TFA only makes sense if the market segments for tablets and e-readers overlap substantially. Maybe they do, but it's not necessarily so.
Uh, no, it doesn't. You just drop a few of these in the parking lot outside a company, and wait for people to pick them up and stick them in their PC.
And then fire their asses for being enough of a dumbfuck to use a USB stick they found in a parking lot.
It's not sceince if you never do any experiments.
Tell that to an astronomer.
you can't re-run the depression six hundred times
Keep voting for Republicans, and you can!
It's really, really good that somebody is stepping up and providing funding to maintain what have become critical Open Source infrastructures.
At the same time, it's totally disingenuous to imply that recent security issues are somehow caused by the fact that they are Open Source. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that, had the same services been proprietary, they would have had fewer bugs affecting security. In fact, the only effect of having critical services closed source would very likely have been that the security issues would have gone undiscovered for even longer. Making the critical security infrastructure for the internet closed source would be insane.
Open Source is working exactly as intended here: critical security issues were identified (ok, way too late, agreed), and fixed. Now the people who rely on those infrastructures are realizing (also way too late) that it is in their interest to provide funding to maintain them. This is how it's supposed to work.
Your are quite offtopic. ...
Reread my parent and my post.
No need to write some no brainers
Um, I wrote the parent to your post. How can I possibly be offtopic when you're replying to me?
Fucking surreal.
It’s a self-reinforcing cycle. As more renewables are installed, coal and natural gas plants are used less. As coal and gas are used less, the cost of using them to generate electricity goes up. As the cost of coal and gas power rises, more renewables will be installed. "
All true. But there's an upper bound to the capacity factor for wind and solar that has nothing to do with economics, and everything to do with physics, which was the point of the post you are responding to: you are going to need something capable of providing base load in addition to wind and solar. That will be either from fossil fuels, or something else like hydro or nuclear.
Sheesh.
The relation between the increase of the capacity factor of the wind and the decrease of the capacity factor of the natural gaz is the main point of the article.
OK .... Then what the fuck are you talking about?
The capacity factor of a load following coal plant in Germany is also only 40% or less (hint: it is only running between 6:00 and 21:00)
Same for a french load following nuclear plant, as France has a higher base load than Germany their load following plants are perhaps at 60% CF.
As long as you don't knwo what a CF actually expresses it is pretty pointless to use it in arguments.
In the U.S., coal-fired power plants operate at around 60% capacity factor, and nuclear plants at nearly 90% (Source.) The capacity factor of the coal plants you mention in Germany is because they are load-following plants: they turn them off half the time, because they don't need them. The capacity factor for wind and solar is low because of source intermittency: the wind doesn't always blow, and the sun only shines during the daytime. You can't use something to follow load if it is physically incapable of producing energy.
As the wind capacity factor increase make the natural gaz capacity factor decrease, then there should cross in the future. Actually the natural gaz is at 62% and wind at 37%, so the cross could be somewhere around 50% capacity factor.
Even if you make the (rather dubious) assumption that capacity factor for wind and solar will increase at a linear rate indefinitely, what makes you think the capacity factor for natural gas is declining? According the U.S. Energy Information Agency, it isn't.
Furthermore, the capacity factor for natural gas is relatively low precisely because you can turn on a natural gas turbine any time you want, so they are used to compensate for demand peaks, and left off the rest of the time. You can't do that with wind and solar: the low capacity factor isn't because you leave them off most of the time, it's because of intermittency in the source. Which has to be compensated for by something else.
Where I'm all for using solar where the sun shines and wind where it's blowing, we all need to realize that these two power sources will NEVER replace our current generation capacity and we will need fossil fuels well into the future. Wind and Solar suffer from not being available at irregular times and batteries are not a viable solution for the problem on the industrial scales necessary.
Well, it's not quite as bad as all that. The wind tends to blow more at night, so the intermittencies of wind and solar tend to offset each other.
wind's capacity factor has risen from 32% to 37%. Even more interns of percentage gains, solar's capacity factor has risen from 16 to 20% in that same time frame.
Which is still pretty low, and is why you need to couple expansion of wind and solar with a non-carbon-generating power source with a high capacity factor, such as hydroelectric or nuclear. And nuclear is a lot safer and more environmentally friendly than hydro.
She tried some attention grabbing drama, got all SJWy, was briefly shot down, butthurt feelings etc.
Wow. Really? You think calling somebody a "dumb cunt" is acceptable behavior?
Dude, you must be really fun at a party.
You must understand that the GPL does for share your definition of freedom. Being able to further restrict the ones you pass the software on to is not freedom, it's tyranny.
Here's my vote for Slashdot to include a new mod category: "-1 uses the word 'tyranny'".
300 million guns in civilian hands and gun deaths have steadily dropping for the past 20 years or so.
Homicides have been dropping, along with an across-the-board decrease in crimes of all types. Gun deaths have been going up.
Yes, it's well known that most anti-gun statistics (such as this one) throw suicides and accidents in for effect.
"For effect"? Suicides and accidents are by far the largest cause of death by firearms, so concentrating only on homicides is utterly misleading. And in the U.S., death rate from firearms huge.
Gun violence is down across the board.
Yeah, but deaths due to firearms have been steadily rising. Gun deaths declined quite rapidly starting in 1994, just coincidentally when the U.S. assault weapons ban was passed, sand they have been increasing steadily since it was repealed in 2004.
You know, facts and all that.
As depicted in the upcoming Matt Damon movie, "The Martian," Mark Watney (Damon) is thrown into an unexpected, life-threatening situation, requiring him to use his general skill set to survive on the barren landscape until he's rescued.
Yeah, but Star Trek suggests that a team of highly skilled specialists working together is the way to go.
Then again, maybe we shouldn't be basing mission planning on a bunch of cheezy fucking sci-fi movies. Just a thought.
Everything about this article suggests some raving idiot sitting in the dark lamenting how the world won't adhere to his bullshit beliefs.
Which probably means he has a low user ID number on /.
Racist gene sequencing software.