The world's first floating windfarm has taken to the seas in a sign that a technology once confined to research and development drawing boards is finally ready to unlock expanses of ocean for generating renewable power...It is also notable because the developer is not a renewable energy firm but Norway's Statoil, which is looking to diversify away from carbon-based fuels.
So Obamacare is bad because we should just trust the free market, but if/when going off grid becomes a financially savvy thing to do, then we should no longer trust the free market and should be forced to buy energy from our designated provider?
Yeah, yeah, "but solar isn't free market because subsidies" -- well sorry, but everything is subsidized. Fossil fuels are subsidized. Bad health habits are (arguably) subsidized.
Probiotics are safe and appear to exert some beneficial effects in GI-related illnesses. The use of probiotics in non-GI illnesses is not sufficiently supported by current data.
Or a little more googling and you'll find plenty ofpeer-reviewed articles saying they have a small beneficial effect (*for certain diseases/ailments*), with some studies recommending caution for various groups.
No, they don't appear to be as medically useful as their "anti" counterparts, and they don't appear to cure cancer (though they can be good -- and bad! -- for cancer patients), but they are hardly in the same category as a beauty product.
And
Call us when you have gone through peer review by scientists who weren't hoping for a positive result before they even started.
Seriously? a) That's why we have a peer review process in the first place, and b) do you honestly think we don't care one way or the other which way a study turns out? Obviously, it's our job to report the facts, but do you really think a scientist starts an experiment without, at some level, hoping for a remarkable result? There's no problem with personal bias, so long as it's just that -- *personal*, not professional.
I'm a vegetarian, but *certainly not* because meat tastes bad. There are many people who share a similar view.
Since this is/., an analogy might be an open source enthusiast who uses OpenOffice/Abiword/GNOME Office/KDE's Words/etc. -- why not just use Microsoft Word, given that (to some extent) the open source solutions are just clones? If the only reason you don't use Word is because you don't like Word, then...well, yeah, you should probably stick to vim or emacs. But if the reason you don't use Word is something else (doesn't run on your platform, has some [perceived moral or financial] cost associated with it, etc.), then a clone is a pretty good choice.
I've found it pretty useful to download wikipedia dumps when I'm on vacation without internet access. Last time I downloaded the text-only, it weighed in at about 14GB I think, but including images it gets north of 60GB. A 64GB phone ain't gonna fit that, and a 64GB microSD card is probably way cheaper than the cost to upgrade to 128GB.
I recently installed this for getting files off of my phone. I ssh'd into my phone and rsync'd back to my computer, worked like a charm. Nexus 6P, not rooted.
We have a similar situation now: it's looking like the whole world will be six feet deep in proverbial horse shit (AGW/climate change/whatever phrase you like) if we don't adopt the proverbial car (new power generation techniques).
Extrapolations 80 years into the future often look ridiculous because of some fundamental shift (in technology, policy, etc.). Visions of the future before the transistor (or active matrix/LCD-based screens, or CCDs, or...) was invented are often pretty laughable, but that's because these devices had a *huge* role to play in shaping technology. These sorts of climate predictions will more than likely look laughably silly in hindsight, but I suspect that's because we'll violate the assumptions of the extrapolations -- we'll be doing something differently by then (and of course, these models are probably very sensitive to initial conditions).
Loss through scattering and absorption at atmospheric particles is very low under good weather conditions and assumed here to be less than 2 dB. Turbulence induced beam spread and scintillation result in a small loss of about 1 dB.
b) 99.9% is, AFAIK, the loss you would get with ~100 km of fiber, not the 100s/1000s/etc. of km for satellite (99.9% loss = 1/1000 = -30dB = 100km*-0.3dB/km). They seem to lose quite a bit (north of 60dB) but this seems mostly due to apertureing.
Seems that, once you have the infrastructure and clients, you might as well try to compete with the big ISPs. Of course this would have huge net neutrality implications (clearly Dropbox would like to prioritize their service over everyone else).
...I think most people here on/. agree that fast internet access *is* vital infrastructure. We may disagree on how best to pay for this, of course, but it's essential.
Right, but for relatively short-term things (exponential-"ish"), it can be useful. Moore's law says that at some point in the future CPUs will have more transistors than electrons in the observable universe, but it's still useful.
You're right of course that something else (sigmoid -- logistic, erf, etc.?) might make more sense.
So all of these projects did/are doing "absolutely nothing for the environment"? (We've given them a few bucks related to the Paris Agreement.)
You're of course free to call it "politically-motivated bullshit," but when literally all but handful (two? three?) of countries *in the world* have signed it, the agreement -- for better or worse -- just doesn't seem that political to me...
Specifically which part? Do you dispute the current numbers (energy sources through today), the model(s) used for extrapolating, or...?
With non-renewable resources, on the one hand we have increasing technological ability, while on the other hand the difficulty for extraction goes up with time as the low-hanging fruit is preferentially depleted (there are of course special cases). Contrast this to renewable sources, where the former is true -- increasing technology drives prices down -- but the latter isn't really applicable (barring a scenario where we cover every inch of the globe with solar panels, which would produce way more power than we currently consume).
And "nighttime solar" is already a thing (though they don't call it that). This plant generated electricity for 36 days straight, 24 hours/day.
All forms of energy have problems, it's just a matter of which problems you prioritize. Storage is an engineering (=money) problem, coal an environmental problem, etc.
There are also some cool designs using molten salt. This plant "...has achieved continuous production, operating 24 hours per day for 36 consecutive days, a result which no other solar plant has attained so far." Pretty neat! And one advantage of molten salt (and perhaps flow batteries, too?) is that unlike, say, lithium ion, the energy can't really come out all at once explosively -- you'd get essentially a lava flow rather than an explosion, AFAIK.
Digital electronics are certainly doable without ICs (ENIAC, ABC, etc.), though of course you're right that it wasn't doable/practical in a small footprint.
There's not a whole lot fundamentally different between an IC, a discrete circuit with active silicon elements, and a discrete circuit with vacuum tubes. Sure, the size, power consumption, bandwidth, etc. can be phenomenally different, but digital is not inherent to ICs.
But that's just saying "illegal things are illegal," it's not really a statement about property tax.
Furthermore, the government does not, AFAIK, just bust into your home and inspect it. I'm pretty sure you could wire your home with clothes hangers at 10kV and no one would find out, so long as you don't burn down your house.
Second, OP was essentially saying, "regulation ruins things," and I provided a counter-example which, although specific to certain types of devices, maybe -- just maybe -- applies to other devices, too.
Do you think there's something magical about refrigeration systems that makes them the one thing in the universe that behaves backwards to the "regulation ruins things" concept?
They can call it a tax all they want, but it's rent. The dynamic is exactly the same.
No, it's not -- there are things in common, but it is not "exactly the same."
If I rent a house, take a sledgehammer to the wall and call my landlord, there will be consequences. If I own a house and do the same, the relevant tax authority likely won't care.
The money from rent goes to the owner. If the owner wants to invest it, spend it on blackjack, or light it on fire, that's really none of your concern. Tax money goes to the state, and it *is* your concern -- and the concern of every citizen -- what it gets spent on. If enough people aren't happy with how it's spent, then something will change (slowly, perhaps, but budgets do change depending on who's in office).
Slashdot Mirror
The world's first floating windfarm has taken to the seas in a sign that a technology once confined to research and development drawing boards is finally ready to unlock expanses of ocean for generating renewable power...It is also notable because the developer is not a renewable energy firm but Norway's Statoil, which is looking to diversify away from carbon-based fuels.
I'm guessing you're not a big fan of data caps from your ISP/cell provider ;)
So Obamacare is bad because we should just trust the free market, but if/when going off grid becomes a financially savvy thing to do, then we should no longer trust the free market and should be forced to buy energy from our designated provider?
Yeah, yeah, "but solar isn't free market because subsidies" -- well sorry, but everything is subsidized. Fossil fuels are subsidized. Bad health habits are (arguably) subsidized.
You're not doing any favours for the notion of probiotics having more scientific credibility than Revlon's latest innovation.
Linked in TFA, and then there's a trivial web search:
Probiotics are safe and appear to exert some beneficial effects in GI-related illnesses. The use of probiotics in non-GI illnesses is not sufficiently supported by current data.
Or a little more googling and you'll find plenty of peer-reviewed articles saying they have a small beneficial effect (*for certain diseases/ailments*), with some studies recommending caution for various groups.
No, they don't appear to be as medically useful as their "anti" counterparts, and they don't appear to cure cancer (though they can be good -- and bad! -- for cancer patients), but they are hardly in the same category as a beauty product.
And
Call us when you have gone through peer review by scientists who weren't hoping for a positive result before they even started.
Seriously? a) That's why we have a peer review process in the first place, and b) do you honestly think we don't care one way or the other which way a study turns out? Obviously, it's our job to report the facts, but do you really think a scientist starts an experiment without, at some level, hoping for a remarkable result? There's no problem with personal bias, so long as it's just that -- *personal*, not professional.
Tangentially related, Windows 3.1 was supported until *after* the 9/11 attacks.
For some reason that sort of freaks me out (semi-relevant XKCD).
I'm a vegetarian, but *certainly not* because meat tastes bad. There are many people who share a similar view.
/., an analogy might be an open source enthusiast who uses OpenOffice/Abiword/GNOME Office/KDE's Words/etc. -- why not just use Microsoft Word, given that (to some extent) the open source solutions are just clones? If the only reason you don't use Word is because you don't like Word, then...well, yeah, you should probably stick to vim or emacs. But if the reason you don't use Word is something else (doesn't run on your platform, has some [perceived moral or financial] cost associated with it, etc.), then a clone is a pretty good choice.
Since this is
Well for an entire class of cars you generally are required to remove one hand from time to time...
I've found it pretty useful to download wikipedia dumps when I'm on vacation without internet access. Last time I downloaded the text-only, it weighed in at about 14GB I think, but including images it gets north of 60GB. A 64GB phone ain't gonna fit that, and a 64GB microSD card is probably way cheaper than the cost to upgrade to 128GB.
I recently installed this for getting files off of my phone. I ssh'd into my phone and rsync'd back to my computer, worked like a charm. Nexus 6P, not rooted.
Exactly -- and then the car came along.
We have a similar situation now: it's looking like the whole world will be six feet deep in proverbial horse shit (AGW/climate change/whatever phrase you like) if we don't adopt the proverbial car (new power generation techniques).
Extrapolations 80 years into the future often look ridiculous because of some fundamental shift (in technology, policy, etc.). Visions of the future before the transistor (or active matrix/LCD-based screens, or CCDs, or...) was invented are often pretty laughable, but that's because these devices had a *huge* role to play in shaping technology. These sorts of climate predictions will more than likely look laughably silly in hindsight, but I suspect that's because we'll violate the assumptions of the extrapolations -- we'll be doing something differently by then (and of course, these models are probably very sensitive to initial conditions).
Loss through scattering and absorption at atmospheric particles is very low under good weather conditions and assumed here to be less than 2 dB. Turbulence induced beam spread and scintillation result in a small loss of about 1 dB.
b) 99.9% is, AFAIK, the loss you would get with ~100 km of fiber, not the 100s/1000s/etc. of km for satellite (99.9% loss = 1/1000 = -30dB = 100km*-0.3dB/km). They seem to lose quite a bit (north of 60dB) but this seems mostly due to apertureing.
Seems that, once you have the infrastructure and clients, you might as well try to compete with the big ISPs. Of course this would have huge net neutrality implications (clearly Dropbox would like to prioritize their service over everyone else).
...I think most people here on /. agree that fast internet access *is* vital infrastructure. We may disagree on how best to pay for this, of course, but it's essential.
Right, but for relatively short-term things (exponential-"ish"), it can be useful. Moore's law says that at some point in the future CPUs will have more transistors than electrons in the observable universe, but it's still useful.
You're right of course that something else (sigmoid -- logistic, erf, etc.?) might make more sense.
So all of these projects did/are doing "absolutely nothing for the environment"? (We've given them a few bucks related to the Paris Agreement.)
You're of course free to call it "politically-motivated bullshit," but when literally all but handful (two? three?) of countries *in the world* have signed it, the agreement -- for better or worse -- just doesn't seem that political to me...
Specifically which part? Do you dispute the current numbers (energy sources through today), the model(s) used for extrapolating, or...?
With non-renewable resources, on the one hand we have increasing technological ability, while on the other hand the difficulty for extraction goes up with time as the low-hanging fruit is preferentially depleted (there are of course special cases). Contrast this to renewable sources, where the former is true -- increasing technology drives prices down -- but the latter isn't really applicable (barring a scenario where we cover every inch of the globe with solar panels, which would produce way more power than we currently consume).
What do you mean by low %? Spain produced a plurality of their electricity with wind in the first few months of 2015 at >23%. For the year it looks like that number was >19%.
We don't need any "Climate Accords." This will happen natural.
...except that basically every country in the world has signed the Paris Agreement, so it's not like this happened without climate accords. That is not to say that the climate accords had any effect -- good or bad -- but it's disingenuous to ignore them.
...by drawing a straightish line on a graph.
Yes, it would be somewhat moronic to draw a straightish line on this graph. Something exponential-ish (or logistic, or...) would be much more sensible.
And "nighttime solar" is already a thing (though they don't call it that). This plant generated electricity for 36 days straight, 24 hours/day.
All forms of energy have problems, it's just a matter of which problems you prioritize. Storage is an engineering (=money) problem, coal an environmental problem, etc.
There are also some cool designs using molten salt. This plant "...has achieved continuous production, operating 24 hours per day for 36 consecutive days, a result which no other solar plant has attained so far." Pretty neat! And one advantage of molten salt (and perhaps flow batteries, too?) is that unlike, say, lithium ion, the energy can't really come out all at once explosively -- you'd get essentially a lava flow rather than an explosion, AFAIK.
I think throttling this might make more of a difference...
Digital electronics are certainly doable without ICs (ENIAC, ABC, etc.), though of course you're right that it wasn't doable/practical in a small footprint.
There's not a whole lot fundamentally different between an IC, a discrete circuit with active silicon elements, and a discrete circuit with vacuum tubes. Sure, the size, power consumption, bandwidth, etc. can be phenomenally different, but digital is not inherent to ICs.
But that's just saying "illegal things are illegal," it's not really a statement about property tax.
Furthermore, the government does not, AFAIK, just bust into your home and inspect it. I'm pretty sure you could wire your home with clothes hangers at 10kV and no one would find out, so long as you don't burn down your house.
First off, compressors *are* used in refrigeration systems.
Second, OP was essentially saying, "regulation ruins things," and I provided a counter-example which, although specific to certain types of devices, maybe -- just maybe -- applies to other devices, too.
Do you think there's something magical about refrigeration systems that makes them the one thing in the universe that behaves backwards to the "regulation ruins things" concept?
They can call it a tax all they want, but it's rent. The dynamic is exactly the same.
No, it's not -- there are things in common, but it is not "exactly the same."
If I rent a house, take a sledgehammer to the wall and call my landlord, there will be consequences. If I own a house and do the same, the relevant tax authority likely won't care.
The money from rent goes to the owner. If the owner wants to invest it, spend it on blackjack, or light it on fire, that's really none of your concern. Tax money goes to the state, and it *is* your concern -- and the concern of every citizen -- what it gets spent on. If enough people aren't happy with how it's spent, then something will change (slowly, perhaps, but budgets do change depending on who's in office).