First of all, thanks for being kind in your answer, it's worth the read and it's not a flame like some other answers to my topic.
It's also considerably easier to insulate against cold than it is against heat.
But wait a minute, isn't it the same problem ? When you need to cool the place you need to prevent cold air to go out. When you need heating you need to prevent cold air to go in, right ? I hardly see the difference. I'm ok that it's harder to cool than to heat but are you sure it's a so big difference ?
Look at that. Do you think the difference between heating and cooling does explain that ?
The US has to provide power to roughly 5x the number of people on roughly 20x the amount of land.
Yup, but there are some big spaces uninhabited like in Texas for instance. I'm looking for statistics about percentage of people living in cities because I think France has much more small villages isolated than US. I'll try to find that kind of statistics and post it.
Take a look at Russia, the Ukraine, China, India, or any other large, geographically diverse country. How much of it is wired?
Unlike USA, those countries can't really afford it...
France doesn't have to deal with a lot of the issues that the US does. Like ants that will happily chew through electrical insulation (fire ants in the SE US; between that and clay soil it makes burying cable extremely expensive)? No permafrost either. Tornados? Hurricanes? Nope.
I didn't know about the ants. I've read a book where the author explains that ants rule the world... BTW, we have some strong thunderstorm in France and some flooding too but our electricity grid uses redundant connections much more than the American power grid so it's rare that we have a problem.
But we have some of the cheapest power in the world, and the cost of power is a baseline for everything else in the economy. It's one of the key reasons that we have such a strong economy, and have had one since the advent of industrialization.
I agree on this but what's the point to have cheap power if it fails ? I mean I think you will have more and more problems in the future if you don't upgrade your power grid.
Where the hell were you yesterday when fort lauderdale almost blew away!? or the past month when it rained EVERY DAY, and 1/2 of the storms were thunder storms.
If that's what you call a thunderstorm then so yes we have things like that in France. Where are you in Fort Lauderdale ? Nice to meet a/. reader not far from me.
and as for the grid in america, you ppl across the pond are forgetting how many ppl this grid services and the shear massive size of it. we're talking an area with 50-60 million or more people easy and one of the most complex grids on the planet.
The French electric grid serves 60 millions people in France. But of course I agree on the 'distance' thing. But hey the system is shitty even in the cities here...
Sure france, EU in general might have better phones, power, etc but thats only because your very late players in the game. electricity was discovered here and phones invented here so our grids tends to be the oldest by quite a margain. your countries aren't much more than our states are, so it's much easier to manage something cut off from your neighboors except in defined meeting places. our power goes everywhere in all directions to anyone who will buy it, further complicating an extremely complicated thing. I think this is a total unfair comparison.
I have to disagree again (I'm not doing that on purpose sorry). The french system was built very soon in the century and we just gave a lot of money to maintain it so it's up to date. Since at least 5 years the American powergrid suffer funding cuts.
Just for electricty: here. Do you want the numbers for the oil consumption too ? Because it's damn WORSE.
Neither do we. Mine does 22, and my wife's car does 35. I can't think of any SUV that gets 10 MPG, except maybe a Hummer but those are exceedingly rare. Next lie.
The Dodge Durango v8 of one of my colleague isn't doing more than 10 mpg. A typical European car do more than 40 mpg.
Could that be because the government takes more, and the average Frenchman works ~35 hours per week?
Absolutely our government takes a lot and we work less. That's the reason I'm in Florida: money, do you think I'm here because I like the country ? If so you are wrong and I'm not alone.
So stop wasting energy; buy energy efficient appliances, add more insulation, read by candlelight
I'm renting the place where I live and here the government doesn't help you financially when you want to make your home more energy efficient. In France it does.
Somehow I think that $60 difference (and probably more) is hidden in higher taxes. So what brings you to this American hellhole, zeux?
I never denied it. Once again, why do you think I'm here ?
You attacked me first without giving real arguments...
You know what happens to people when americans get angry at them, don't you?
Unfortunately... yes. But you know you can still change the way you react to critics...
you excercise their freedom of speech (largely made possible by America)
Yes, freedom of speech. Comes from OUR revolution back in 1789, you know ? we call that human rights. Go say to the Dixie Chicks about freedom of speech in America. They will explain to you why after saying that the war in Irak was a bad idea they didn't have the right to go in Florida anymore... And it's only ONE exmaple.
Yes, and your temperatures between Florida and France are so similar. How much did you run fans, AC, and other cooling technologies in Florida as compared to France? Heck, how many people died in France this summer -- a summer which had highs several degrees lower than those in Florida (much less Arizonia or New Mexico)?
One A/C system where I live but no heating devices. In France I had no A/C but a heating device. Quite the same.
As for outages -- exactly how many thunderstorms did you have in Florida as compared to France?
Since I arrived 6 months ago: none in Florida.
There's things to envy about the US grid as well.
I disagree, it's old, expensive, deficient... Tell me what to envy to such a system in such an advanced country ? Many places in America still don't have any access to the powergrid. Ok the country is VERY BIG, but hey do you REALLY think it's normal ?
Take 10 minutes and click on the link in my signature, many important Americans citizens have been interviewed in this article. Quite interesting and so damn true...
The average citizen in France doesn't waste energy like the average American. We do not drive SUV that can't do better than 10 mpg per gallon...
And the average citizen in France doesn't have as much money as the average American citizen.
I also would like to add that here in Florida I spend more than 100$/month on electricity bill with many outages whereas in France I used to spend less than 40$/month with a MUCH better service. Efficiency ?
I think it's because your system depends on private companies.
For the power plants you can still switch to nuclear, you don't need to re-wire it all to go from oil to nuclear.
And I also think that it would cost a lot to get a brand new system but I also think that you would save a lot of money because this 14th of August thing did cost A LOT, the bills would be less expensive (due to nuclear) and you would then be less dependant on oil which is the source of all your recents problems...
I think it's really hard to perform that kind of investigation and looking at the results I think they did a good job making the results widely available. Anyway, it's still unacceptable that such things happens in the most powerful country in the world.
Flame me if you want but France is known to have one of the best electrical system in the world. The government owns it and some laws do protect the costumer. It allows France to export a lot of power to other European countries thus making a lot of money from it and playing a big role in Europ energy.
I think France made good choices for power: - nuclear (or nuculear whatever). Much cheaper and cleaner than oil. France is very strong on nuclear technology and do export its knowledge to other countries. To date we didn't have any major incident and I think it's pretty secure as long as enough money is spent. - public service. There is a law in France stating that every citizen, wherever he lives, as the right to have access to electricity for free. Of course we pay bills but if you live in the country the government MUST bring you access to electricity even if you live far from everything. It's a law so sometimes it's not really followed but most of the time the government sticks to it.
When I arrived in the USA I was shocked by the poor quality of your electric system. Many outages, expensive bills and thousand of wires in the sky ! I think that it's a very advanced country with an outdated power system. I've seen on the TV recently that many companies as starting to produce their own power. I really think it's pretty bad since the installations needed are dangerous, potentially explosive and very expensive.
What happened on August the 14th also suggests that a country really depends on its energy distribution system and that it could be, in the near future, target for terrorists.
When I was younger (12 to 15 years ago) we had great cartoons on TV in France.
They were really interesting and informative. For instance we had a cartoon called 'Les mysterieuses cites d'or' (something like 'The mysterious gold cities'). It was a story in about 30 episodes that took place in South America in the 16th or 17th century.
Through this cartoon I learned lots of things on Incas and other cultures. It was really cool and after each episode they put a very short film with real facts explaining something that appeared in the cartoon just before (a culture fact, etc).
Nowadays cartoons seems to use more and more slang and violence. I think that's a pity...
What kind of cartoons did you have in USA 20 years ago ?
Subsequently, Kasparov created a positional advantage on the human side with
a very strong finger pointed at the reset button to which Fritz didn't have an answer.
Actually, that would be the ultimate proof of winning for Fritz.
Yes, of course they do that too, because there are many possibilities for each turn.
But the human do that much faster and much better and still he doesn't have to think about hundred of thousand moves like the computer chess player do.
...with people saying that if the computer wins over the human it means that "That's it, here we are, computers are more intelligent than man".
Computer chess games deal with statistics and historics of previous games to decide how they will move their next turn. Usually they analyze hundreds of thousand of differents moves, even dumb ones !
When a human player take a look at the chess board, he rejects the vast majority of the possible moves and concentrate only on very few of them.
I would call that efficiency and if computers where as efficient as human, they would win easily without requiring huge processing power.
Slashdot Mirror
Today people from all over the world are saying that the second biggest threat to world's peace, after Israel, is the USA.
Of course everybody is wrong and you are right because god is telling you that you are right.
Actually, "right to sell" is not "right to speak".
But wait a minute, isn't it the same problem ? When you need to cool the place you need to prevent cold air to go out. When you need heating you need to prevent cold air to go in, right ? I hardly see the difference. I'm ok that it's harder to cool than to heat but are you sure it's a so big difference ?
Look at that. Do you think the difference between heating and cooling does explain that ?
Yup, but there are some big spaces uninhabited like in Texas for instance. I'm looking for statistics about percentage of people living in cities because I think France has much more small villages isolated than US. I'll try to find that kind of statistics and post it.
Unlike USA, those countries can't really afford it...
I didn't know about the ants. I've read a book where the author explains that ants rule the world... BTW, we have some strong thunderstorm in France and some flooding too but our electricity grid uses redundant connections much more than the American power grid so it's rare that we have a problem.
I agree on this but what's the point to have cheap power if it fails ? I mean I think you will have more and more problems in the future if you don't upgrade your power grid.
Thanks
Your president use the words "evil" and "good" with alarming ease. BTW, I did use 'absolutely' and 'true'.
He did that because Hitler was becoming more and more dangerous for American citizens with its v1 and v2 missiles and his increasing power.
If that's what you call a thunderstorm then so yes we have things like that in France. Where are you in Fort Lauderdale ? Nice to meet a
The French electric grid serves 60 millions people in France. But of course I agree on the 'distance' thing. But hey the system is shitty even in the cities here...
I have to disagree again (I'm not doing that on purpose sorry). The french system was built very soon in the century and we just gave a lot of money to maintain it so it's up to date. Since at least 5 years the American powergrid suffer funding cuts.
Just for electricty: here. Do you want the numbers for the oil consumption too ? Because it's damn WORSE.
The Dodge Durango v8 of one of my colleague isn't doing more than 10 mpg. A typical European car do more than 40 mpg.
Absolutely our government takes a lot and we work less. That's the reason I'm in Florida: money, do you think I'm here because I like the country ? If so you are wrong and I'm not alone.
I'm renting the place where I live and here the government doesn't help you financially when you want to make your home more energy efficient. In France it does.
I never denied it. Once again, why do you think I'm here ?
But absolutely true.
You did start to use it.
lol :)
Sorry for the mispell of 'customer'.
You attacked me first without giving real arguments...
Unfortunately... yes. But you know you can still change the way you react to critics...
Yes, freedom of speech. Comes from OUR revolution back in 1789, you know ? we call that human rights. Go say to the Dixie Chicks about freedom of speech in America. They will explain to you why after saying that the war in Irak was a bad idea they didn't have the right to go in Florida anymore... And it's only ONE exmaple.
One A/C system where I live but no heating devices. In France I had no A/C but a heating device. Quite the same.
Since I arrived 6 months ago: none in Florida.
I disagree, it's old, expensive, deficient... Tell me what to envy to such a system in such an advanced country ? Many places in America still don't have any access to the powergrid. Ok the country is VERY BIG, but hey do you REALLY think it's normal ?
Show me where I lied in the above post...
Why are you so angry, because it's the truth ?
Take 10 minutes and click on the link in my signature, many important Americans citizens have been interviewed in this article. Quite interesting and so damn true...
Osirak reactor was built in the seventies. I also can look at history and ask you who let Saddam in control of Irak in the nineties ?
In the seventies nobody looked at Saddam saying he was a threat.
The average citizen in France doesn't waste energy like the average American. We do not drive SUV that can't do better than 10 mpg per gallon...
And the average citizen in France doesn't have as much money as the average American citizen.
I also would like to add that here in Florida I spend more than 100$/month on electricity bill with many outages whereas in France I used to spend less than 40$/month with a MUCH better service. Efficiency ?
Hum... where do you get this information from ? From the same source that told you that Irak was full of WMD ?
Gimme a break and stop saying things that you didn't verify.
I get that many outages in Florida, I live near the beach in Hallandale, North Miami. We also have many troubles with the water supplies.
I think it's because your system depends on private companies.
For the power plants you can still switch to nuclear, you don't need to re-wire it all to go from oil to nuclear.
And I also think that it would cost a lot to get a brand new system but I also think that you would save a lot of money because this 14th of August thing did cost A LOT, the bills would be less expensive (due to nuclear) and you would then be less dependant on oil which is the source of all your recents problems...
I think it's really hard to perform that kind of investigation and looking at the results I think they did a good job making the results widely available. Anyway, it's still unacceptable that such things happens in the most powerful country in the world.
Flame me if you want but France is known to have one of the best electrical system in the world. The government owns it and some laws do protect the costumer. It allows France to export a lot of power to other European countries thus making a lot of money from it and playing a big role in Europ energy.
I think France made good choices for power:
- nuclear (or nuculear whatever). Much cheaper and cleaner than oil. France is very strong on nuclear technology and do export its knowledge to other countries. To date we didn't have any major incident and I think it's pretty secure as long as enough money is spent.
- public service. There is a law in France stating that every citizen, wherever he lives, as the right to have access to electricity for free. Of course we pay bills but if you live in the country the government MUST bring you access to electricity even if you live far from everything. It's a law so sometimes it's not really followed but most of the time the government sticks to it.
When I arrived in the USA I was shocked by the poor quality of your electric system. Many outages, expensive bills and thousand of wires in the sky ! I think that it's a very advanced country with an outdated power system. I've seen on the TV recently that many companies as starting to produce their own power. I really think it's pretty bad since the installations needed are dangerous, potentially explosive and very expensive.
What happened on August the 14th also suggests that a country really depends on its energy distribution system and that it could be, in the near future, target for terrorists.
I think that China choose Linux not because of Windows source code but because Windows is the product of an American company.
But maybe I'm wrong.
When I was younger (12 to 15 years ago) we had great cartoons on TV in France.
They were really interesting and informative. For instance we had a cartoon called 'Les mysterieuses cites d'or' (something like 'The mysterious gold cities'). It was a story in about 30 episodes that took place in South America in the 16th or 17th century.
Through this cartoon I learned lots of things on Incas and other cultures. It was really cool and after each episode they put a very short film with real facts explaining something that appeared in the cartoon just before (a culture fact, etc).
Nowadays cartoons seems to use more and more slang and violence. I think that's a pity...
What kind of cartoons did you have in USA 20 years ago ?
I can understand the fear people have for this kind of test. It's not unrisky at all.
Actually, that would be the ultimate proof of winning for Fritz.
Yes that's exactly what I mean, but you wouldn't believe how many people do actually believe that 'stupid thing'.
Yes, of course they do that too, because there are many possibilities for each turn.
But the human do that much faster and much better and still he doesn't have to think about hundred of thousand moves like the computer chess player do.
...with people saying that if the computer wins over the human it means that "That's it, here we are, computers are more intelligent than man".
Computer chess games deal with statistics and historics of previous games to decide how they will move their next turn. Usually they analyze hundreds of thousand of differents moves, even dumb ones !
When a human player take a look at the chess board, he rejects the vast majority of the possible moves and concentrate only on very few of them.
I would call that efficiency and if computers where as efficient as human, they would win easily without requiring huge processing power.
if one stick can connect to another and exchange data directly ?
I don't think so because we would have no way to control what happens, but I can foresee here many applications...
I wonder if we could use it as an identification device.
You wlak to your door, it connects to the key, check you ID an open itself. Same for cars and so on.
Also you could use it to exchange your contact information (phone number, address, etc) to someone who has another stick.