When outages cost you millions of dollars per minute, you're willing to spend the money on having a well-tested walled garden
google might beg to differ
This isn't appropriate for every business case, but there are definitely those who need that level of reliability.
reliability is best achieved with redundancy... you can spend big bucks on something that is supposed to be reliable, but reliability of any component is only based on past performance and is by no means guaranteed
i've heard of all sorts of renewable and green power generation tech, but look at the requirement for base load power stations... base load coal power stations in the latrobe valley produce nearly 6500 MW total
how many of these geothermal thingys would we need to build to make up that kind of capacity as well as account for future projected demand?
while i agree with you in principle, the reality is coal is cheap and plentiful and (in australia at least) will remain so for a long time; latrobe valley in victoria (home to 4 large coal fired power stations and 1 smaller) is apparently the world's largest deposit of brown coal.
and the alternatives really aren't that environmentally friendly anyway; those who argue that nuclear is 'clean' should try living next to a nuclear waste facility, and everything else (solar, wind, hydro, etc) just doesn't produce consistently enough to be considered for base load supply.
Gas may prove to be an alternative (especially in Victoria) but the long term prospects aren't so good (smaller gas reserves are being depleted much more quickly) and the infrastructure investments are possibly as much as would be required for new coal fired plant (not only do you have to build the power stations, but you also have to build storage facilities and large pipelines pretty much to the source in Bass Strait).
Unless Australia goes the nuclear route (it probably will eventually, especially since we also have some of the largest uranium reserves) we will be stuck with coal, and gas for peak supply stations. Using gas to generate thousands of megawatts of base load electricity will deplete reserves much more quickly than with current demand, and more rapid depletion will put pressure on gas supplies for other uses (eg residential heating along gas trunk lines). Currently there is enough demand for gas even without base load electricity generation from it.
If I had to choose between coal, gas and nuclear, I would go with coal for maybe another 50 years or so (requiring more stations to be built) with peak supply from gas (as is currently) with eventual transition of base load supply to nuclear, with nuclear plants being located close (but not too close) to uranium mines in SA and NT with transmission lines from there to other states. Hopefully in 50 years nuclear will have progressed and matured from use in other countries lacking sufficient coal reserves to allow Australia to make the transition with less risk of meltdowns and with better waste storage solutions.
Actually if Australia were to pursue thorium reactors, I would say screw coal and gas and go with that. Thorium could be the solution to the problems of current nuclear technology and apparently the waste problem is much less. The problem with thorium is that there is a huge nuclear lobby that marginalizes new tech that threatens the status quo since there has been huge vested interest in uranium reactors since mid last century.
By spooling tractor feed paper between two printers in a loop, and by stopping and starting simultaneous paper-feed jobs, he can create a cybernetic feedback between the two printers that results in a series of quickly occurring "error - paper jam" messages that (due to two taped-down "reset" buttons) are quickly translated from the wide bandwidth analog physical matrix into kajamabits of digital codes
i would be really careful doing that... the system may become self-aware
not sure if i'm right, but i tend to think of any gpu-based application as having to construct data like pixels on a screen or image (since that's what gpu's are primarily designed to handle)
a cpu treats each pixel separately, whereas a gpu can process multiple pixels simultaneously
problem comes about if you try to feed data into a gpu that isn't like pixels
is the programming difficulties in trying to trick the gpu into thinking it's processing pixels even though it may be processing bitcoin algorithms etc?
you're probably right, but if you're investing in $10k specialist applications, a couple of hundred dollars extra for a full OS license that's transferable across hardware doesn't seem that far fetched
as much as therac-25 deaths were caused by software errors, the root cause was lack of hardware protections used previously
it would be kinda like leaving the old six pack pressure and vacuum gauges (alt, dg, ah, asi, vsi, turn/bank) out of aircraft with computer controlled fly by wire and gps... the last thing you want at 30,000 ft is for your flight computer to have a brain fart with no backups (i know they will eventually remove them... god help us all when that day comes)
Slashdot Mirror
still a good way to save on hvac expenses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsMdN7HMuA
i, for one, welcome our new mechatronic overlords!!!
they took our yerbs!!!!!
who'd ever need more than 640k of memory
nobody should need more than 640k of memory
unfortunately god invented microsoft
once I've built up my VMWare or HyperV infrastructure to run the Windows side
you're doing it wrong
When outages cost you millions of dollars per minute, you're willing to spend the money on having a well-tested walled garden
google might beg to differ
This isn't appropriate for every business case, but there are definitely those who need that level of reliability.
reliability is best achieved with redundancy... you can spend big bucks on something that is supposed to be reliable, but reliability of any component is only based on past performance and is by no means guaranteed
i'm old
i've heard of all sorts of renewable and green power generation tech, but look at the requirement for base load power stations... base load coal power stations in the latrobe valley produce nearly 6500 MW total
how many of these geothermal thingys would we need to build to make up that kind of capacity as well as account for future projected demand?
in terms of any sort of economy china is doing better than the united states
the US doesn't really have a real economy... it just borrows and spends other people's money and keeps piling on the debt
while i agree with you in principle, the reality is coal is cheap and plentiful and (in australia at least) will remain so for a long time; latrobe valley in victoria (home to 4 large coal fired power stations and 1 smaller) is apparently the world's largest deposit of brown coal.
and the alternatives really aren't that environmentally friendly anyway; those who argue that nuclear is 'clean' should try living next to a nuclear waste facility, and everything else (solar, wind, hydro, etc) just doesn't produce consistently enough to be considered for base load supply.
Gas may prove to be an alternative (especially in Victoria) but the long term prospects aren't so good (smaller gas reserves are being depleted much more quickly) and the infrastructure investments are possibly as much as would be required for new coal fired plant (not only do you have to build the power stations, but you also have to build storage facilities and large pipelines pretty much to the source in Bass Strait).
Unless Australia goes the nuclear route (it probably will eventually, especially since we also have some of the largest uranium reserves) we will be stuck with coal, and gas for peak supply stations. Using gas to generate thousands of megawatts of base load electricity will deplete reserves much more quickly than with current demand, and more rapid depletion will put pressure on gas supplies for other uses (eg residential heating along gas trunk lines). Currently there is enough demand for gas even without base load electricity generation from it.
If I had to choose between coal, gas and nuclear, I would go with coal for maybe another 50 years or so (requiring more stations to be built) with peak supply from gas (as is currently) with eventual transition of base load supply to nuclear, with nuclear plants being located close (but not too close) to uranium mines in SA and NT with transmission lines from there to other states. Hopefully in 50 years nuclear will have progressed and matured from use in other countries lacking sufficient coal reserves to allow Australia to make the transition with less risk of meltdowns and with better waste storage solutions.
Actually if Australia were to pursue thorium reactors, I would say screw coal and gas and go with that. Thorium could be the solution to the problems of current nuclear technology and apparently the waste problem is much less. The problem with thorium is that there is a huge nuclear lobby that marginalizes new tech that threatens the status quo since there has been huge vested interest in uranium reactors since mid last century.
they probably figured it was an abandoned piece of floating space junk
hell no they should keep bloody buying it mate
someone's gotta pay for our future swimming pools to be dug
actually per capita china is still doing pretty well
in 2008, china produced 5.3 tonnes per capita of CO2, whereas the US produced 18.5 tonnes per capita
if the US is telling china that it needs to clean up its act, it would definitely be a case of pot calling the kettle black
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
"when you're hanging on by your fingernails you can't go waving your arms around" - virgil brigman
as chewbacca once said, "rawwwaawwarhh"
i dunno what made you think the op was being sarcastic, but your username kinda gives it away
trees are obviously in violation... who will represent them in court?
apple should sue the person who invented the wheel
who's protecting slashdot from this garbage?
does it blend?
does the shark have a laser?
By spooling tractor feed paper between two printers in a loop, and by stopping and starting simultaneous paper-feed jobs, he can create a cybernetic feedback between the two printers that results in a series of quickly occurring "error - paper jam" messages that (due to two taped-down "reset" buttons) are quickly translated from the wide bandwidth analog physical matrix into kajamabits of digital codes
i would be really careful doing that... the system may become self-aware
not sure if i'm right, but i tend to think of any gpu-based application as having to construct data like pixels on a screen or image (since that's what gpu's are primarily designed to handle)
a cpu treats each pixel separately, whereas a gpu can process multiple pixels simultaneously
problem comes about if you try to feed data into a gpu that isn't like pixels
is the programming difficulties in trying to trick the gpu into thinking it's processing pixels even though it may be processing bitcoin algorithms etc?
there's no such thing as free government
you're probably right, but if you're investing in $10k specialist applications, a couple of hundred dollars extra for a full OS license that's transferable across hardware doesn't seem that far fetched
as much as therac-25 deaths were caused by software errors, the root cause was lack of hardware protections used previously
it would be kinda like leaving the old six pack pressure and vacuum gauges (alt, dg, ah, asi, vsi, turn/bank) out of aircraft with computer controlled fly by wire and gps... the last thing you want at 30,000 ft is for your flight computer to have a brain fart with no backups (i know they will eventually remove them... god help us all when that day comes)