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User: jklovanc

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  1. Re:I hope it happens. on Colorado Town Considers Drone-Hunting Licenses · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I guess they never should have given billy clubs to police because they could be used to beat an innocent person. I guess they should never have allowed police forces to use helicopters or aircraft because they could be used to spy one innocent people. Any technology can be abused. Does that mean the government is not allowed to use technology?

  2. Re:I hope it happens. on Colorado Town Considers Drone-Hunting Licenses · · Score: 1

    to the point that no one believes anything they say about their own motives or operations.

    Yet another baseless generalization to support a position. Have you done a poll to back up this claim? I personally believe the government some of the time.

  3. Training on TSA Orders Searches of Valet Parked Car At Airport · · Score: 2

    The searches are concerned with bombs. Any adult would be suspicious about a bunch of sticks with the explosive has-mat logo on it or a bunch of drums with wires running out of them. I bet the valets are told to contact security if they find something suspicious. It does not take training to do that. Is it perfect? No. Might it be helpful? Yes. Might it help stave of the claim that the TSA failed to use every available asset to protect airport security? Definitely. I can just see the headline;

    TSA fails again to secure airports as massive bomb explodes in valet parking.

  4. Informed? on TSA Orders Searches of Valet Parked Car At Airport · · Score: 2

    “I was furious. They never mentioned it to me when I booked the valet or when I picked up the car or when I dropped it off.”

    Most people don't read signs. It worked at a festival and that had a camping area. There was a rule that no glass was allowed in the camping area as it was an athletic field. Many times when I told people to put away the glass they replied that no one told them glass was not allowed. This was even though the following had been done to inform them;
    1. It was in the release they signed.
    2. It was in 4 in high letters within 5 feet of the venue entrance.
    3. It was in 4 in high letters within 2 feet of the camping entrance
    4. It was in 1 inch high letters on a 2'x4' placard, that displayed all the rules, next to the camping entrance
    The sign was probably up there but she just didn't read it. This "they didn't tell me" excuse is more indication of the lack of personal responsibility. Inform yourself, read signs, look things up, stop making excuses.

  5. Re:Outrageous on TSA Orders Searches of Valet Parked Car At Airport · · Score: 1

    Pretty soon the TSA will be expanding their highway searches from commercial trucks to every passenger car.

    Unless you are clairvoyant you have no idea what they will do. Like every slippery slope argument this one is invalid.

  6. Re:Why do the carriers collect this data? on DOJ: We Don't Need a Warrant To Track You · · Score: 1

    Sorry but records are held in simple files. I guess you have never worked with multiple complex databases.

  7. Re:Peaks on Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To Its Poorest Citizens · · Score: 1

    So what happens when there is a large storm covering most of Europe that would overspend most windmills and greatly reduce the output of solar plants?

    If many people who produce their own power who pays for the spinning reserve?

    Yes, solar and wind are predictable. What happens when they are predicted to be low? If one is using all the spinning reserve the system becomes fragile.

    Those processes that can deal with a 30 minute cut. Can they deal with a cut for a few hours or maybe a day? I don't think so.

  8. Low res on ACLU Study Says Police Cameras Create Database of Our Movements · · Score: 2

    The ACLU says the scanners are assembling a "single, high-resolution image of our lives."

    The resolution of the image is how often a license plate is scanned and the location stored. It is not a high resolution scan for the following reasons;
    1. Not all police cars are scanning all the time.
    2. Not all police cars have license plate scanners.
    3. License plates are not visible/decipherable by the scanner all the time.
    At best a license plate will be scanned a couple of times a day. That is not a very hi resolution image of a life.

  9. Re:Something wrong with this picture! on Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To Its Poorest Citizens · · Score: 1

    Agreed, there are a few billion people who still live in the 19th century. There are a few billion more who live in the 20th and 21st century. They are not going to go back to the 19th century by giving up most of their electrical devices. Are you willing never to use you computer again?

  10. Re:Focus on German Drone Darts Off and Hits Transport Plane On Ground · · Score: 1

    The flaw in your logic is the assumption that when they make drone aircraft large enough to carry enough munitions to level a 6-block bomb they will use it to take out one house. Just because they can does not mean they will. They can send a cruise missile right now that could take out the house and surrounding buildings but they do not do that as it is too much collateral damage. A couple of Hellfires on the other hand cause a lot less damage.

  11. Re:Something wrong with this picture! on Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To Its Poorest Citizens · · Score: 1

    The equation changes if you start with a home with no electricity. I assume heating/cooking is done with wood, maybe alcohol and bottles of natural gas,

    All of which produce Greenhouse gasses at high levels. There is already a problem in the North East of the US with so many people using wood fired heating. The soot and other pollutant levels are becoming a concern. Do you know why London was so foggy in the 19th century? Because the water vapor condensed on all the soot in the air. You seem to be proposing that we all go back to no TV, refrigeration, computers, bright lights, washing machines, driers, etc. Few people are willing to go back to the 19th century to live.

  12. Re:Peaks on Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To Its Poorest Citizens · · Score: 1

    I don't think they're ignoring that fact. Furthermore, there are similar limits on how far power can be sent by high voltage lines using traditional means.

    The transmission lines for HVAC have a much lower distance limit than HVDC. In every green power plan I have seen the "solution" to the issue of the variability of wond and solar power always is "It's always windy and/or sunny somewhere. We just move the power". There are limits to how far one can move electricity.

    As such, daytime wholesale electricity market prices are generally in the order of 4 c/kWh compared to prices more than 20 c/kWh at residential and commercial end user level.

    That is a cost analysis for using PVs to replace daytime grid power. It shows that on an individual level it may be cost effective. The telling detail is that the house that is powered by the PV's during the day will still be hooked up to the grid at night. It is not an overall system analysis of what would happen if many houses only used grid electricity when their PV's were not working and how that would effect grid electricity prices. It is quite possible that the fixed costs to cover grid and standby power plants would cause the cost of grid power could skyrocket. Any gains made by lower daytime costs could be wiped out by much higher night time/ bad weather costs. Another factor that slants the story is that it is done in a very sunny country. PV's work better in sunny areas. A better analysis would be one where grid power was not available. I believe there would be a very different conclusion.
    By concentrating on daytime rates they show that they are not taking the whole picture into account. PV's work great on sunny summer days. They don't work so well in winter or stormy days and they don't work at all at night. PV's still need conventional plants to back them up when they are not working efficiently or at all. Sure one could have battery storage but it takes a lot of batteries to get one through a two day winter storm. The report does not take storage costs into account.

  13. Re:Peaks on Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To Its Poorest Citizens · · Score: 1

    This page shows how the WWF thinks it will happen. The problem is that the only mention of electric grid technology is the following statement

    including a massive increase in capacity for generating wind, solar and geothermal power, plus all the new power lines and cables to transmit electricity over long distances.

    They completely ignore that fact that there are limits on how far power can be sent. HVDC lines do help but one needs pretty big ones if most of the solar and wind powered generators in Norther Europe are down due to a long storm. I believe there should be much more research into storage technologies so we can store a few days power to get us through bad days.

    I could not find a simulation on that page.

    The fallacy that green electricity pundits state is that green power is zero emission. They forget that there are conventional plants burning at standby power just in case the green energy generators can not meet demand. Less greenhouse gasses are emitted but not zero greenhouse gasses. I laugh at the "But I am using wind generated power". That just means that instead of you and someone else using 50/50 wind and conventional power the other person is using 100% conventional power. It makes people feel good but has no impact.

  14. Peaks on Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To Its Poorest Citizens · · Score: 1

    In Germany, peak production of electricity by solar has hit 50% at times.

    This is an issue with people who tout solar as the solution to our power needs. The fact that at some point 50% of the electricity was produces by solar is great. The more important point is how much can be relied upon to be there when needed? Sure, on a sunny summer day one gets lots of solar power. One gets a lot less than that when in the middle of storm. There is no way to turn up solar when one needs it. That's where conventional plants come in. These plants do not turn on instantly and need to be kept in standby mode. So while the solar panels are supplying the energy there are conventional plants still spewing greenhouse gasses just in case they are needed.

    The output of solar power needs to be looked at at it's lowest day because conventional power needs to make up the difference.

  15. Re:Something wrong with this picture! on Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To Its Poorest Citizens · · Score: 1

    This exists in Australia, and it is very common indeed to see PVs on house roofs (in Melbourne at least). Originally, there was a feed-in subsidy so you got paid very handsomely for the energy you fed into the grid (~3x the price of purchasing electricity from the grid).

    So who pays for the building and maintenance of the grid? Who pays for the power plants that supply you at night or during storms? Certainly not the peopl with PVs as they make a profit.

  16. Re:Something wrong with this picture! on Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To Its Poorest Citizens · · Score: 1

    solar energy installation is incredibly cheap.... like pennies.

    Are you kidding me? An installation big enough to run a house would cost thousands of dollars in panels, wiring, mounting hardware, battery storage, etc. Show me where you can find 1000 watts of solar panels for under a dollar.

    Another issue is that some houses are not oriented well to collect sunlight. For example, a house with a single slopes roof that slopes toward the north would be an inefficient place to put solar panels.

  17. Re:Why do the carriers collect this data? on DOJ: We Don't Need a Warrant To Track You · · Score: 1

    Unless you had a GPS enabled phone with GPS on or are in contact with at least three cell towers in the right spatial distribution they can not accurately locate you.

  18. Re:Why do the carriers collect this data? on DOJ: We Don't Need a Warrant To Track You · · Score: 1

    Having been a cellular customer support person is is very useful when dealing with disputed roaming charges. It is much harder to deny a call when there is proof one is roaming. It also works both ways as there are certain areas that have known roaming issues and it is much easier to justify a credit if there is proof of the location.

    Another reason is that the location information has to be stored somewhere before it is forwarded to the 911 system. As for storing it too long, that would require a process to wipe information after a certain time. Those processes probably don't exist yet.

  19. Re:Focus on German Drone Darts Off and Hits Transport Plane On Ground · · Score: 0

    What are the civilians supposed to do? Tell the targeted persons to fuck off?

    Yes, and vote in a government that does not allow terrorist in their territory. The civilians are allowing the terrorist to try to use them as human shields. The US is not allowing that to happen. It is up to the civilians to take things into their own hands and democratically kick out the terrorists.

  20. Re:Focus on German Drone Darts Off and Hits Transport Plane On Ground · · Score: 1

    You are justifying that the government level your entire neighbourhood (including you, and not deserving people including children) because someone 3 blocks away could know someone that is a suspect?

    Excellent hyperbole and very far from the facts. A drone does not have enough firepower to level 6 block by six block area,

    Most of the casualties were in the same building as the location of the terrorist. Drone strike are not based on "somebody knowing somebody that is a suspect". There must be some evidence that the suspect is at the location. My message is to the terrorists is "If you don't want you family and friends to be in danger then don't go near them".

    Without drone strikes there is no reasonable way to get at terrorists in lawless areas. The tribal areas of Pakistan are lawless. Sending in hundreds of marines is not a viable option.

  21. Re:Wrong problem on New Thermocell Could Turn 'Waste Heat' Into Electricity · · Score: 1

    You are not proposing zero growth; you are proposing decreasing the population by 82% to levels below those that occurred 40 years ago.

    It is is a biological imperative to procreate. Technology had allowed us to live longer and we need to come up with solutions to deal with it. An 83% drop in polulation levels is not going to happen.

  22. Re:TAANSTAFL! on New Thermocell Could Turn 'Waste Heat' Into Electricity · · Score: 1

    So what you are saying is that if there is no air flowing over my vehicle radiator, it will overheat? Hint, I sat in my jeep the other evening for an hour, idling with the A/C on. It sat there with no foced air fan on, and it definitely didn't overheat. It maintained a cool enough temperature via free convection.

    In another anecdote, the temperature sensitive switch that controlled the electric radiator fan on a friend's vehicle malfunction and the vehicle overheated. He fixed it by bypassing the fan so it was on all the time and the vehicle no longer overheated. I doubt very much that your Jeep does not have a radiator fan; Either an electric one controlled by e temperature switch or one run constantly by a belt.

    Face it, if flowing air takes away the heat, then still air will also. Just not as well because it's pulled out just about as much heat as it can handle. It doesn't change properties just because it is moving. Just that once the heat transfers to the air, new air needs to tak it's place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_convection [wikipedia.org]

    Here is where you have misconstrued what I am saying, I am not saying there will be no heat exchange. I am saying thet there will not be enough heat exchange to keep the difference between the hot side and the cold side enough to produce electricity. Do you see the difference?

  23. Re:Wrong problem on New Thermocell Could Turn 'Waste Heat' Into Electricity · · Score: 1

    Why didn't you "volunteer"?

  24. Re:Plea bargaining on Former Student Gets Year In Prison For College President Election Fraud · · Score: 1

    Every charge does not deserve a jury trial. Obviously guilty people should plead guilty and be given reasonable sentences. Even you admit that a year was reasonable. This case is definitely not a poster child for proprietorial misconduct.

    No doubt they would have tried to send him to prison for a decade or more if he decided to exercise his rights.

    There may be no doubt in your mind but you have no proof to that effect.

  25. Re:Plea bargaining on Former Student Gets Year In Prison For College President Election Fraud · · Score: 1

    - A chance to lose in court = up to 10-20 years.

    FTFY

    There is another option
    -A chance to lose in court = Jury still imposing 1-2 years.
    These long sentences are generally maximums run consecutively. Juries can decide to impose lesser sentences, in some cases a suspended sentence, and they can run concurrently. So that 10 years for 10 counts of a one year offense could turn out to be a suspended sentence, 1 year (10 one year terms run concurrently) or ten years (10 one year sentences run consecutively, The prosecutor does not decide that the jury does.