The U.S. didn't lack long term plans for space in the 60's but an economic wake-up call in 1973 rendered most of them financially unreachable.
The only thing that hurt the space program was a lack of political will to support it. Despite what many believe even at the height of the Apollo program during the 1960s the space program had plenty of detractors. There was never at any time a lack of available funds if we had cared to devote them to the space program. Our "fearless" leaders decided they wanted to prioritize other things but at no time was the actual ability of the US government to fund NASA in question. Funding dropped around 1973 to roughly current levels as the Apollo program was shut down. Adjusting for inflation NASA's budget today is roughly identical to the budget it had in 1973. Funding for NASA's budget as a percent of the federal budget was already being cut long before 1973 to roughly the amount.
Since the US has obviously taken a backseat on space exploration it is good another nation is willing to step up.
Care to back that assertion up with any actual data? The US has more active deep space probes than anyone. The US has more orbital launches than anyone else and that is despite temporarily lacking human rated launch vehicles. Heck, SpaceX alone has more orbital launches than every country except for China and Russia. US Astronauts logged more EVA time in 2016 than astronauts from all other countries combined. The US has the most active spaceport in the world (Cape Canaveral).
While I'd agree that the US isn't doing as much as it could in space, the US space program isn't second to anyone at the moment by most objective measures.
No you didn't. Apple is a software company that happens to understand the value of good interfaces, good hardware design, and well built products. Software with a well thought out interface is still software. The value and defining characteristics of a company is what they make themselves. Apple cannot be a hardware company because they don't make any hardware themselves. It's all outsourced. That wasn't what was valuable about what they do. Apple kept two functions in house. Software and product design. What they really sell is software via a well designed piece of hardware that they contracted someone else to make.
did you forget it requires an adapter to connect an iphone?
No it does not. You can use an adapter if you need to but it is not required.
unless you've real work to do. the future is swell until i need to transfer files to a dead server in the datacenter at 4 AM.
We can all contrive made up situations where having the wrong ports is a theoretical problem. Has this actually happened to you in real life? If not then I'm not sure what you are complaining about.
Jobs and now Tim Cook are just "queer eye for the queer guy" marketers with no unique features in their devices whatsoever.
You mean except for all the software which you cannot get from anyone but Apple.
This is what people don't seem to get about Apple. Apple is a software company. Don't take my word for it because Steve Jobs is the one that said it. Software is what makes their products different. Apple's hardware is barely different from their competition aside from some fit and finish details. People buy Apple gear and pay a premium for it because of their software. It's why they are so profitable and why their margins strongly resemble those of Microsoft rather than Dell. What makes Apple kind of unique as a software company is that they will not sell you the software as a standalone product in most cases. They only sell it with a (usually good quality) piece of hardware optimized to use their software.
Welcome to the world of appointed judges who legislate from the bench, Great Britain. Fun times - you'll just love it.
Exactly what was "legislated from the bench"? The court ruled that they have to follow the existing laws of the land. Nothing more, nothing less. The referendum was legally non-binding as there were no laws in place to make it binding prior to the referendum taking place. As such parliament would under any circumstances be required to pass appropriate legislation to make the referendum binding. This is NOT "legislating from the bench". It is just ruling on existing laws. No new laws or even novel interpretations of laws were utilized.
If the people's voice is just "advisory" then you've already failed the democracy test.
The people's voice is almost always advisory. The UK isn't a democracy except in a somewhat useless generic sense. It is a Constitutional Monarchy. Similarly the USA is not a democracy either. It is a republic. These are not trivial or pedantic distinctions. The law making bodies and governments are generally under no legal obligation to make laws in accordance with the will of the majority of the citizens.
That said, lawmakers and rulers ignore the voice of the people at their peril. Vox Populi, Vox Dei and all that.
And for good reason - I somehow doubt there's much appeal to a phone that comes with an integrated selfie stick for secure gripping.
Evidently you haven't seen a lot of teenagers on vacation. Many of them may as well have welded their selfie stick to their phones. Vanity is a powerful force...
Seriously though there are plenty of ways of securely gripping a phone that do not require a bezel in the design. Some of them are actually even attractive to look at. I would also argue that the utility of a wide bezel is somewhat overrated as a means to safely grip the device.
Um, so what? Seriously so frigging what? The original intent of a lot of things aren't what they're used for today.
The "so what" is that it IS a drawback in a multitude of ways. If you want to call it a feature it really is a form of misfeature. It makes the phone larger and more cumbersome, wastes space, costs money, is ugly, and it isn't even the primary purpose of a bezel. Furthermore it's not necessarily the best way to solve the actual problem of gripping the phone securely since there are other ways to solve that problem.
It appears that other people do want the bezel or you wouldn't have needed to post this.
No they want to be able to comfortably grip the phone without triggering the touch screen. Using the bezel for this is merely one way to accomplish the goal and perhaps not even the best way.
It's not a fscking TV, it's a phone, and a bezel is a feature, not a drawback.
It's not a feature - it's a design compromise. The original purpose of a bezel has nothing to do with gripping a device. Bezels exist to hold the face of the device in place. The fact that it can help in some cases with gripping the phone securely without accidentally triggering the touch screen is a side benefit that has been actively exploited. Nobody actually wants the bezel but it turned out to have some utility due to other design decisions. It's perfectly possible to make a phone with basically zero bezel which still can be gripped securely - it would just look different than what we are used to.
A team of engineers and materials scientists at Vanderbilt University have discovered how to make high-performance batteries using scraps of metal from the junkyard and common household chemicals. The researchers believe their innovation could provide the large amounts of economical electrical storage required by the grid to handle alternative energy sources and may ultimately allow homeowners to build their own batteries and disconnect entirely from the grid.
There is an important word missing there. That word is "economical". Academic researchers tend to forget this word. If they cannot make an economical high performance battery then it is a meaningless exercise. There are lots of valuable materials in scrap yards. The reason we don't typically go to scrap yards to source materials as a first choice is because doing that is expensive compared to alternative supply streams (mining, etc). There are lots of activities that are technically feasible but economically not viable.
Apparently you are naive too. Just because you have nothing to hide does not mean you have nothing to fear. It is VERY easy for a lawyer or law enforcement to make even innocent sounding statements into something incriminating. Your honesty may not be any protection and in fact might serve as "evidence" to hang you with.
This is only a problem if you're a dishonest scumbag.
You REALLY need to watch this video about why you should never talk to the police.
I hardly think that any of this will happen after the election this year. The country is going to have big problems internally and externally no matter who wins.
Every country has big problems all the time. That's always been true and always will be true. The difficulty of the problems is merely a matter of degree. Our current problems are no where near the worst our country has faced and certainly aren't anything close to an existential crisis like the Civil War or WWII or the Great Depression.
As much as I think the space program is a "must have". There's no way it survives for very long after this election.
Why? Because you don't like the candidates? NASA and our space program aren't going anywhere. They might not grow very fast but it isn't in any danger of going away either. There is WAY too much economic utility for that to happen.
OK, I admire the guy's vision and ambition as much as anybody, but this place is turning into a Musk fanboi site...
When you rack up list of achievements even close to as impressive as what Elon Musk has accomplished then we can admire you instead. Objectively he's accomplished some seriously astonishing stuff. He's getting a lot of attention because he's doing genuinely interesting things that actually matter. He's actually doing stuff that most of the people here (myself included) just talk about as wishful thinking. If you can find someone doing more interesting and/or impressive stuff then I'll be more than happy to talk about them instead.
First obvious drawback: solar cells are only useful on south-facing slopes, meaning non-matching tiles on the north-facing slope of the roof
Solar cells are optimal on south facing slopes (in the Northern hemisphere) but they are not entirely without utility facing other directions. Just because they aren't getting the maximum amount of power possible doesn't mean they will get no power or that they cannot be economically viable.
Of course, I want a wedge shaped house where the entire roof is a north-facing slope, so that the southern exposure shines light through high windows then reflects down off the ceiling.
Speak for yourself. There are several more variables for me in how I want my house constructed.
In other words, solar ceiling tiles are only good in the situation where you have no other space to put them in -- but then, most new suburban lots are like that.
Not everyone thinks devoting a field or a rooftop to traditional ugly solar panels is a good idea or necessary. And frankly I think it is idiotic to not use the rooftops for something more than keeping the rain out if we can. I have said for many years that it makes no sense that we have vast square miles of rooftops around the globe which are underutilized. If the roof tiles generate power adequate to the needs of the home and with reasonable efficiency for an economically viable price, why would it matter they aren't optimized to the nth degree? Sure more efficient is better but it's not the only or even the most important concern once you reach an economically viable level of efficiency.
It's great for the roofing businesses, but for glass roofs, likely not so good.
I think you might be misunderstanding what "glass" means here. Glass can be a very tough material and we're not talking about the fragile stuff most people think of when they hear the word glass. Any place where PV panels can safely be installed would probably work just fine for these roof tiles. Some will get destroyed just like any other roofing material but if Tesla/Solarcity wants to remain in the business then they probably have gone to the trouble to make them pretty darn durable.
Basically while it makes sense to wait and see how they perform, I wouldn't get too worked up over the mere fact that they are constructed of glass. That actually could be a point in their favor from a durability standpoint compared with some of the alternatives.
I saw the announcement, and sure, the roofing tiles LOOKED nice, but there was absolutely no mention of their efficiency, or how they would connect to each other.
Engineers tend to get a little too concerned about efficiency. It matters and more efficient is better but it's not the most important thing here once a critical threshold has been reached. Efficiency has to be good enough to make it economical but it's not actually critical to maximize efficiency. Perfect is the enemy of good in this case.
The issue I'm actually curious about is how the things will deal with lightning strikes...
While the solar tile didn't shatter into shards like the other tiles did, I bet the underlying pv cell was no longer operational after that. Then you would have to either manually bypass it in the circuit, or replace it. Either way, if you're climbing up on the roof to do that, you might just as well replace it.
I can't imagine you'd have to climb on the roof to disable a single tile. That would be idiotic design. The system would have to be smart enough to deal with disabled or misbehaving tiles without any action on the part of the user. Yes you'd eventually have to climb up to replace it but the important thing is that it remain intact and keep water out of the house until you have a chance to do that.
The people in the crowd clapped, and I just shook my head, because that would actually REDUCE the amount of sunlight it can be exposed to.
That's correct but as long as it meets the power needs of the user it's a second order consideration. As long as it generates enough power to cover the typical usage of the home with adequate economy it doesn't matter so much if they sacrifice some efficiency for aesthetics.
And frankly aesthetics matter. Just like with cars, it if is ugly it isn't going to sell well even if the performance is great. Nobody wants an ugly home or an ugly car. To their credit this is one thing that Tesla has understood in their bones from day one. Products have to look good to get people to buy them. And most rooftop solar panel installations to date look like fecal matter quite frankly. Classic solar panels are UGLY and to some degree redundant. (a roof on top of a roof is not a good plan) A good looking roof tile that is also a solar cell is an idea that is due.
There were many promising use cases for this functionality, which now have gone into the shitter.
There wasn't a single valid use case for third parties being able to monitor your battery through a general purpose web browser. It just gives another way for advertisers to try to keep tabs on you without your permission. There is nothing useful about this "feature" to me as an end user and as such it should go away.
A website could serve up fewer video intensive ads if it detected a low battery status, for example, or even pop up an alert window and offer to sell the user a new battery
I have an easier solution. I just block the ads and then there is no problem with them draining my battery. Here's a clue - anything that increases the ability of advertisers to track me is a Bad Thing. Here's another clue. Advertisers don't give a shit about saving your battery. You are nothing more than $$$ to be harvested to them. The notion that advertisers would altruistically do things to save your battery life is unbelievably naive.
It could go ahead and save the user's status or input if it thought that the battery was about to die.
This can be done without worrying about the state of the battery and in fact doing so is often a good idea. Being able to monitor my battery improves nothing.
That's like saying it makes no sense to say that by assembling semiconductors into a transistor they can be made to conduct electricity. By your logic if they conduct electricity under any circumstances they must be conductors.
It's nothing like that at all because the very term semiconductor clarifies the matter. Semiconductors DO conduct electricity. Just relatively poorly compared with traditional conductors and better than insulators. We've figured out some clever ways to control and selectively enhance their conductivity under certain conditions much like we have found ways to create superconductivity under certain conditions. The taxonomy here is well understood and defined. We don't call things "conductors in non-conducting materials" because that statement is self contradicting and challenging to parse. As an example the title could have read "Method found to induce superconductivity in new materials" and then you clarify in the article header how it actually works.
The material is not superconducting any time other than during phase transition.
I'm not a chemist so I would defer to someone who is but...
As I understand it you are correct but that doesn't make the title make any more sense. Either the material can superconduct or it cannot. All other superconducting materials can only superconduct under specific conditions as well so that's nothing new. The fact that it can only do it during certain phases or phase transitions doesn't change what the material is made of, just how it is structured. Just because something is not entirely solid or not entirely liquid for example doesn't change what it is. To use a stupid simple example H2O is still H2O regardless whether it is ice or liquid water. It only changes to something else when the constituent molecule separate. Perhaps I'm missing something?
It's doubtful whether we could maintain such a lack of state indefinitely.
Would seem to be difficult I agree.
That pretty much makes it not a superconducting material.
Not sure I agree with this. It just is a superconducting material under very specific conditions.
As you say it's hard to know if there is any utility in this finding but it's interesting all the same.
If it can be used as a superconductor then by definition it is a superconducting material. Just because we didn't know how to do it in a particular material previously is irrelevant.
Cards that get input into the electronic device so I can try to use that in place of the card? Well, it's better than writing a check, but is otherwise completely unappealing.
So you are saying you haven't tried it. I have and you should give it an honest try. At the risk of sounding like a fanboi, ApplePay is easily the most convenient means of paying I've used and I now use it whenever I can. Easier and faster than cash and WAY better than swiping a CC. No (dirty) change, no signature required (usually), more secure than a plain CC, I don't have to give my ID to the store clerk, and I don't need a wallet. It works smoothly and quickly. I'm not always a fan of Apple's products but they hit the mark with ApplePay.
Now I'm NOT bashing cash. Cash is super useful sometimes and I think it's a vital financial tool, especially in certain circumstances like emergencies. But Apple and Google's smartphone payment systems are excellent and underutilized. I think Tim Cook targeting cash is missing the mark. What he should be targeting is replacing the need for a wallet. I sometimes need cash but I could happily do without having to carry a wallet 99% of the time. There is no reason my smartphone couldn't also serve as my wallet, insurance cards, credit card, driver's license, library card, etc. We could still have plastic cards and cash for when we need them but why do I need to carry them with me all the time? Makes no sense.
Anyone who still uses checks is just an idiot who is unwilling to grow up and join the 21st century. Why checks are still a thing absolutely baffles me.
The convenience vs. using a credit/cash card which doesn't depend on batteries, which is both smaller and lighter than a phone, is accepted in many more places than a vendor unique RFID payment "solution," and comes with long established and legally enforced protections against abuse?
A strawman argument. First off the fact that smartphone payments require batteries to work is pretty much a non-problem except in some rare emergency circumstances. We all carry smartphones and they work fine. And in those rare circumstances you can still use cash. Second, if you are using a smartphone for payment you actually are using a credit card with all those same legal protections. Third, the smartphone system is (so far) MORE secure than either cash or direct use of credit cards. Fourth, since I'm likely going to be carrying my smartphone anyway why would it matter which is lighter? Fifth, my wallet is just as awkward and actually less useful to carry as my smartphone. I've used ApplePay and frankly I MUCH prefer it when available to paying with cash 99% of the time. I would happily get rid of my wallet if the functionality could be integrated into my smartphone. I can't say the same in reverse.
There are good reasons to want to carry cash but you didn't enumerate many of them and your arguments against smartphone payment systems are just nonsense. Good reasons to carry cash? Accepted almost anywhere, doesn't require power, largely anonymous, untraceable, accessible to everyone regardless of credit. Bad parts about cash? Requires a wallet, clumsy to handle especially in large quantities, anonymous, insecure, hard to track spending, untraceable, dirty. You'll note that some of those things are both good and bad features. It has all the good and bad features of any bearer instrument.
Or simply carrying cash, which takes almost no space, weighs next to nothing, and is accepted everywhere?
Umm, what? Cash takes up a substantial amounts of space especially if you carry any significant value of it and it requires you to carry a wallet to keep it in. My wallet takes up roughly the amount of physical space as my cell phone. I would be delighted to get rid of my wallet in favor of using a smartphone most of the time.
Slashdot Mirror
The U.S. didn't lack long term plans for space in the 60's but an economic wake-up call in 1973 rendered most of them financially unreachable.
The only thing that hurt the space program was a lack of political will to support it. Despite what many believe even at the height of the Apollo program during the 1960s the space program had plenty of detractors. There was never at any time a lack of available funds if we had cared to devote them to the space program. Our "fearless" leaders decided they wanted to prioritize other things but at no time was the actual ability of the US government to fund NASA in question. Funding dropped around 1973 to roughly current levels as the Apollo program was shut down. Adjusting for inflation NASA's budget today is roughly identical to the budget it had in 1973. Funding for NASA's budget as a percent of the federal budget was already being cut long before 1973 to roughly the amount.
Since the US has obviously taken a backseat on space exploration it is good another nation is willing to step up.
Care to back that assertion up with any actual data? The US has more active deep space probes than anyone. The US has more orbital launches than anyone else and that is despite temporarily lacking human rated launch vehicles. Heck, SpaceX alone has more orbital launches than every country except for China and Russia. US Astronauts logged more EVA time in 2016 than astronauts from all other countries combined. The US has the most active spaceport in the world (Cape Canaveral).
While I'd agree that the US isn't doing as much as it could in space, the US space program isn't second to anyone at the moment by most objective measures.
Fixed the subject line for you.
No you didn't. Apple is a software company that happens to understand the value of good interfaces, good hardware design, and well built products. Software with a well thought out interface is still software. The value and defining characteristics of a company is what they make themselves. Apple cannot be a hardware company because they don't make any hardware themselves. It's all outsourced. That wasn't what was valuable about what they do. Apple kept two functions in house. Software and product design. What they really sell is software via a well designed piece of hardware that they contracted someone else to make.
I'm surprised that Belkin or someone else hasn't made a C-to-MagSafe adapter for MacBook owners.
You mean like this one?
did you forget it requires an adapter to connect an iphone?
No it does not. You can use an adapter if you need to but it is not required.
unless you've real work to do. the future is swell until i need to transfer files to a dead server in the datacenter at 4 AM.
We can all contrive made up situations where having the wrong ports is a theoretical problem. Has this actually happened to you in real life? If not then I'm not sure what you are complaining about.
Jobs and now Tim Cook are just "queer eye for the queer guy" marketers with no unique features in their devices whatsoever.
You mean except for all the software which you cannot get from anyone but Apple.
This is what people don't seem to get about Apple. Apple is a software company. Don't take my word for it because Steve Jobs is the one that said it. Software is what makes their products different. Apple's hardware is barely different from their competition aside from some fit and finish details. People buy Apple gear and pay a premium for it because of their software. It's why they are so profitable and why their margins strongly resemble those of Microsoft rather than Dell. What makes Apple kind of unique as a software company is that they will not sell you the software as a standalone product in most cases. They only sell it with a (usually good quality) piece of hardware optimized to use their software.
Welcome to the world of appointed judges who legislate from the bench, Great Britain. Fun times - you'll just love it.
Exactly what was "legislated from the bench"? The court ruled that they have to follow the existing laws of the land. Nothing more, nothing less. The referendum was legally non-binding as there were no laws in place to make it binding prior to the referendum taking place. As such parliament would under any circumstances be required to pass appropriate legislation to make the referendum binding. This is NOT "legislating from the bench". It is just ruling on existing laws. No new laws or even novel interpretations of laws were utilized.
If the people's voice is just "advisory" then you've already failed the democracy test.
The people's voice is almost always advisory. The UK isn't a democracy except in a somewhat useless generic sense. It is a Constitutional Monarchy. Similarly the USA is not a democracy either. It is a republic. These are not trivial or pedantic distinctions. The law making bodies and governments are generally under no legal obligation to make laws in accordance with the will of the majority of the citizens.
That said, lawmakers and rulers ignore the voice of the people at their peril. Vox Populi, Vox Dei and all that.
And for good reason - I somehow doubt there's much appeal to a phone that comes with an integrated selfie stick for secure gripping.
Evidently you haven't seen a lot of teenagers on vacation. Many of them may as well have welded their selfie stick to their phones. Vanity is a powerful force...
Seriously though there are plenty of ways of securely gripping a phone that do not require a bezel in the design. Some of them are actually even attractive to look at. I would also argue that the utility of a wide bezel is somewhat overrated as a means to safely grip the device.
Um, so what? Seriously so frigging what? The original intent of a lot of things aren't what they're used for today.
The "so what" is that it IS a drawback in a multitude of ways. If you want to call it a feature it really is a form of misfeature. It makes the phone larger and more cumbersome, wastes space, costs money, is ugly, and it isn't even the primary purpose of a bezel. Furthermore it's not necessarily the best way to solve the actual problem of gripping the phone securely since there are other ways to solve that problem.
It appears that other people do want the bezel or you wouldn't have needed to post this.
No they want to be able to comfortably grip the phone without triggering the touch screen. Using the bezel for this is merely one way to accomplish the goal and perhaps not even the best way.
It's not a fscking TV, it's a phone, and a bezel is a feature, not a drawback.
It's not a feature - it's a design compromise. The original purpose of a bezel has nothing to do with gripping a device. Bezels exist to hold the face of the device in place. The fact that it can help in some cases with gripping the phone securely without accidentally triggering the touch screen is a side benefit that has been actively exploited. Nobody actually wants the bezel but it turned out to have some utility due to other design decisions. It's perfectly possible to make a phone with basically zero bezel which still can be gripped securely - it would just look different than what we are used to.
A team of engineers and materials scientists at Vanderbilt University have discovered how to make high-performance batteries using scraps of metal from the junkyard and common household chemicals. The researchers believe their innovation could provide the large amounts of economical electrical storage required by the grid to handle alternative energy sources and may ultimately allow homeowners to build their own batteries and disconnect entirely from the grid.
There is an important word missing there. That word is "economical". Academic researchers tend to forget this word. If they cannot make an economical high performance battery then it is a meaningless exercise. There are lots of valuable materials in scrap yards. The reason we don't typically go to scrap yards to source materials as a first choice is because doing that is expensive compared to alternative supply streams (mining, etc). There are lots of activities that are technically feasible but economically not viable.
I'm honest, so it doesn't matter.
Apparently you are naive too. Just because you have nothing to hide does not mean you have nothing to fear. It is VERY easy for a lawyer or law enforcement to make even innocent sounding statements into something incriminating. Your honesty may not be any protection and in fact might serve as "evidence" to hang you with.
This is only a problem if you're a dishonest scumbag.
You REALLY need to watch this video about why you should never talk to the police.
I hardly think that any of this will happen after the election this year. The country is going to have big problems internally and externally no matter who wins.
Every country has big problems all the time. That's always been true and always will be true. The difficulty of the problems is merely a matter of degree. Our current problems are no where near the worst our country has faced and certainly aren't anything close to an existential crisis like the Civil War or WWII or the Great Depression.
As much as I think the space program is a "must have". There's no way it survives for very long after this election.
Why? Because you don't like the candidates? NASA and our space program aren't going anywhere. They might not grow very fast but it isn't in any danger of going away either. There is WAY too much economic utility for that to happen.
OK, I admire the guy's vision and ambition as much as anybody, but this place is turning into a Musk fanboi site...
When you rack up list of achievements even close to as impressive as what Elon Musk has accomplished then we can admire you instead. Objectively he's accomplished some seriously astonishing stuff. He's getting a lot of attention because he's doing genuinely interesting things that actually matter. He's actually doing stuff that most of the people here (myself included) just talk about as wishful thinking. If you can find someone doing more interesting and/or impressive stuff then I'll be more than happy to talk about them instead.
First obvious drawback: solar cells are only useful on south-facing slopes, meaning non-matching tiles on the north-facing slope of the roof
Solar cells are optimal on south facing slopes (in the Northern hemisphere) but they are not entirely without utility facing other directions. Just because they aren't getting the maximum amount of power possible doesn't mean they will get no power or that they cannot be economically viable.
Of course, I want a wedge shaped house where the entire roof is a north-facing slope, so that the southern exposure shines light through high windows then reflects down off the ceiling.
Speak for yourself. There are several more variables for me in how I want my house constructed.
In other words, solar ceiling tiles are only good in the situation where you have no other space to put them in -- but then, most new suburban lots are like that.
Not everyone thinks devoting a field or a rooftop to traditional ugly solar panels is a good idea or necessary. And frankly I think it is idiotic to not use the rooftops for something more than keeping the rain out if we can. I have said for many years that it makes no sense that we have vast square miles of rooftops around the globe which are underutilized. If the roof tiles generate power adequate to the needs of the home and with reasonable efficiency for an economically viable price, why would it matter they aren't optimized to the nth degree? Sure more efficient is better but it's not the only or even the most important concern once you reach an economically viable level of efficiency.
It's great for the roofing businesses, but for glass roofs, likely not so good.
I think you might be misunderstanding what "glass" means here. Glass can be a very tough material and we're not talking about the fragile stuff most people think of when they hear the word glass. Any place where PV panels can safely be installed would probably work just fine for these roof tiles. Some will get destroyed just like any other roofing material but if Tesla/Solarcity wants to remain in the business then they probably have gone to the trouble to make them pretty darn durable.
Basically while it makes sense to wait and see how they perform, I wouldn't get too worked up over the mere fact that they are constructed of glass. That actually could be a point in their favor from a durability standpoint compared with some of the alternatives.
I saw the announcement, and sure, the roofing tiles LOOKED nice, but there was absolutely no mention of their efficiency, or how they would connect to each other.
Engineers tend to get a little too concerned about efficiency. It matters and more efficient is better but it's not the most important thing here once a critical threshold has been reached. Efficiency has to be good enough to make it economical but it's not actually critical to maximize efficiency. Perfect is the enemy of good in this case.
The issue I'm actually curious about is how the things will deal with lightning strikes...
While the solar tile didn't shatter into shards like the other tiles did, I bet the underlying pv cell was no longer operational after that. Then you would have to either manually bypass it in the circuit, or replace it. Either way, if you're climbing up on the roof to do that, you might just as well replace it.
I can't imagine you'd have to climb on the roof to disable a single tile. That would be idiotic design. The system would have to be smart enough to deal with disabled or misbehaving tiles without any action on the part of the user. Yes you'd eventually have to climb up to replace it but the important thing is that it remain intact and keep water out of the house until you have a chance to do that.
The people in the crowd clapped, and I just shook my head, because that would actually REDUCE the amount of sunlight it can be exposed to.
That's correct but as long as it meets the power needs of the user it's a second order consideration. As long as it generates enough power to cover the typical usage of the home with adequate economy it doesn't matter so much if they sacrifice some efficiency for aesthetics.
And frankly aesthetics matter. Just like with cars, it if is ugly it isn't going to sell well even if the performance is great. Nobody wants an ugly home or an ugly car. To their credit this is one thing that Tesla has understood in their bones from day one. Products have to look good to get people to buy them. And most rooftop solar panel installations to date look like fecal matter quite frankly. Classic solar panels are UGLY and to some degree redundant. (a roof on top of a roof is not a good plan) A good looking roof tile that is also a solar cell is an idea that is due.
There were many promising use cases for this functionality, which now have gone into the shitter.
There wasn't a single valid use case for third parties being able to monitor your battery through a general purpose web browser. It just gives another way for advertisers to try to keep tabs on you without your permission. There is nothing useful about this "feature" to me as an end user and as such it should go away.
A website could serve up fewer video intensive ads if it detected a low battery status, for example, or even pop up an alert window and offer to sell the user a new battery
I have an easier solution. I just block the ads and then there is no problem with them draining my battery. Here's a clue - anything that increases the ability of advertisers to track me is a Bad Thing. Here's another clue. Advertisers don't give a shit about saving your battery. You are nothing more than $$$ to be harvested to them. The notion that advertisers would altruistically do things to save your battery life is unbelievably naive.
It could go ahead and save the user's status or input if it thought that the battery was about to die.
This can be done without worrying about the state of the battery and in fact doing so is often a good idea. Being able to monitor my battery improves nothing.
That's like saying it makes no sense to say that by assembling semiconductors into a transistor they can be made to conduct electricity. By your logic if they conduct electricity under any circumstances they must be conductors.
It's nothing like that at all because the very term semiconductor clarifies the matter. Semiconductors DO conduct electricity. Just relatively poorly compared with traditional conductors and better than insulators. We've figured out some clever ways to control and selectively enhance their conductivity under certain conditions much like we have found ways to create superconductivity under certain conditions. The taxonomy here is well understood and defined. We don't call things "conductors in non-conducting materials" because that statement is self contradicting and challenging to parse. As an example the title could have read "Method found to induce superconductivity in new materials" and then you clarify in the article header how it actually works.
This is not how humans use language.
It is when they want to actually be understood.
The material is not superconducting any time other than during phase transition.
I'm not a chemist so I would defer to someone who is but...
As I understand it you are correct but that doesn't make the title make any more sense. Either the material can superconduct or it cannot. All other superconducting materials can only superconduct under specific conditions as well so that's nothing new. The fact that it can only do it during certain phases or phase transitions doesn't change what the material is made of, just how it is structured. Just because something is not entirely solid or not entirely liquid for example doesn't change what it is. To use a stupid simple example H2O is still H2O regardless whether it is ice or liquid water. It only changes to something else when the constituent molecule separate. Perhaps I'm missing something?
It's doubtful whether we could maintain such a lack of state indefinitely.
Would seem to be difficult I agree.
That pretty much makes it not a superconducting material.
Not sure I agree with this. It just is a superconducting material under very specific conditions.
As you say it's hard to know if there is any utility in this finding but it's interesting all the same.
If it can be used as a superconductor then by definition it is a superconducting material. Just because we didn't know how to do it in a particular material previously is irrelevant.
Cards that get input into the electronic device so I can try to use that in place of the card? Well, it's better than writing a check, but is otherwise completely unappealing.
So you are saying you haven't tried it. I have and you should give it an honest try. At the risk of sounding like a fanboi, ApplePay is easily the most convenient means of paying I've used and I now use it whenever I can. Easier and faster than cash and WAY better than swiping a CC. No (dirty) change, no signature required (usually), more secure than a plain CC, I don't have to give my ID to the store clerk, and I don't need a wallet. It works smoothly and quickly. I'm not always a fan of Apple's products but they hit the mark with ApplePay.
Now I'm NOT bashing cash. Cash is super useful sometimes and I think it's a vital financial tool, especially in certain circumstances like emergencies. But Apple and Google's smartphone payment systems are excellent and underutilized. I think Tim Cook targeting cash is missing the mark. What he should be targeting is replacing the need for a wallet. I sometimes need cash but I could happily do without having to carry a wallet 99% of the time. There is no reason my smartphone couldn't also serve as my wallet, insurance cards, credit card, driver's license, library card, etc. We could still have plastic cards and cash for when we need them but why do I need to carry them with me all the time? Makes no sense.
Anyone who still uses checks is just an idiot who is unwilling to grow up and join the 21st century. Why checks are still a thing absolutely baffles me.
Cash is amazingly INconvenient.
Fixed that for you you. I hate dealing with and carrying cash. It's a huge pain in the ass 99% of the time.
The convenience vs. using a credit/cash card which doesn't depend on batteries, which is both smaller and lighter than a phone, is accepted in many more places than a vendor unique RFID payment "solution," and comes with long established and legally enforced protections against abuse?
A strawman argument. First off the fact that smartphone payments require batteries to work is pretty much a non-problem except in some rare emergency circumstances. We all carry smartphones and they work fine. And in those rare circumstances you can still use cash. Second, if you are using a smartphone for payment you actually are using a credit card with all those same legal protections. Third, the smartphone system is (so far) MORE secure than either cash or direct use of credit cards. Fourth, since I'm likely going to be carrying my smartphone anyway why would it matter which is lighter? Fifth, my wallet is just as awkward and actually less useful to carry as my smartphone. I've used ApplePay and frankly I MUCH prefer it when available to paying with cash 99% of the time. I would happily get rid of my wallet if the functionality could be integrated into my smartphone. I can't say the same in reverse.
There are good reasons to want to carry cash but you didn't enumerate many of them and your arguments against smartphone payment systems are just nonsense. Good reasons to carry cash? Accepted almost anywhere, doesn't require power, largely anonymous, untraceable, accessible to everyone regardless of credit. Bad parts about cash? Requires a wallet, clumsy to handle especially in large quantities, anonymous, insecure, hard to track spending, untraceable, dirty. You'll note that some of those things are both good and bad features. It has all the good and bad features of any bearer instrument.
Or simply carrying cash, which takes almost no space, weighs next to nothing, and is accepted everywhere?
Umm, what? Cash takes up a substantial amounts of space especially if you carry any significant value of it and it requires you to carry a wallet to keep it in. My wallet takes up roughly the amount of physical space as my cell phone. I would be delighted to get rid of my wallet in favor of using a smartphone most of the time.