Unlike YouTube, which was paid for with their overvalued, overhyped stock (and therefore, 1.6bn of 'shirt buttons' rather than real money), they are actually going to have to pay for this installation with real money.
A modern solar cell is typically guaranteed by the manufacturer for *25 years* - the warranty is that the cell will produce *at least* 85% of rated power at that age. If you have the space, there's no reason why you can't keep the same solar array for 50 years. There's no moving parts and they are electrically simple and robust, and made out of chemically stable parts, and protected from the elements with a sheet of glass.
Solar panels last a very long time. They are guaranteed in the main for 25 years to still be able to produce something like 90% of peak rated power. It's likely that the real lifetime of a solar cell is on the order of 50 years (it all depends on how much space you have). They have no moving parts, and are usually protected by a sheet of glass (and we know that glass lasts a long time - there are plenty of old houses with perfectly good window glass that's a century old).
However, with an array of panels that are passively laid down on a roof (and not actively tilted to face the Sun), you'll only make peak power at mid day (assuming the panels are set up to point directly at the sun at mid day). Two hours off mid day either side and you'll probably be only making around 60% of peak power, depending on the weather.
Space is far harsher - you aren't shielded from UV and much of the electromagentic radiation the sun kicks out.
A big solar array isn't really any more complex than a small one - the actual cells are just the same. You just need more cells and more wiring (and the more watts you make, the more fancy switch gear you need - but you're going to need fancy switch gear for an office that uses that sort of power regardless of what the source is). The cells themselves will be protected by a sheet of glass. We know glass can last in Earth's atmosphere for hundreds of years.
The most efficient mass produced panel is a monocrystalline silicon solar panel.
I have one - it's about 80 watts peak, and approximately 1 meter by 0.5 meters in size - so 0.5m^2 = 80 watts peak. 1,600,000 watts / 80 = 20,000 20,000 x 0.5 = 10,000
So they need 10,000 square meters of solar panels, give or take.
The thing they aren't telling you is this - it'll only generate this power bang on mid day on a clear, cloudless, hazeless sunny day. My experience with my solar panel is that once you're two hours off mid day either side, the panels only produce about 50-60% of peak power. A hazy day (say, 7 miles visibility) reduces output to around 60% at mid day. A layer of cirrus cloud (with still sharp shadows being cast on the ground) reduces output to 40%. A bright overcast day and you're lucky to even make 10%. A dull day and you may only make 1%.
The energy payback on a monocrystalline panel is around 6 years. It's a long standing myth that a solar panel takes more energy to make than it generates.
In money terms - probably with the price of Californian electricity - probably 10 to 20 years (depending on how much the solar panels cost, presuming they are monocrystalline PV panels). It depends on how much of a bulk discount Google will have got for buying the number of panels they did.
In terms of energy, it takes about 6 years for a typical monocrystalline panel to make as much energy as it took to make the panel.
Most panels are guaranteed for 25 years, but should last a good bit longer, although they tend to lose efficiency as they age. They should still put out at least 80% of rated power at 25 years old.
I hope you're just being ironic - but the GPL has no "viral" clauses - it is not viral in any sense. That was just Microsoft FUD that people have fallen for. The GPL basically states in these clauses that Microsoft called viral - if you make a derived work from the GPLd code, it must also be licensed under the GPL or compatible license. It doesn't say anything like "your copyright must be signed over to the FSF" or anything like that. You, as the writer of the derivative code, are the copyright holder of that code. However, as a condition for using someone else's copyrighted work which they have allowed you to use via the GPL, you must license your derived code under a compatible license.
SCO is claiming something else. They are claiming that pre-existing (i.e. before any agreement between IBM and SCO) code, such as the JFS code which originated in OS/2 becomes derivative of SCO's intellectual property as soon as it touches another OS such as AIX.
To be honest, although most MBAs might be successful at gaining money, they are often not particularly successful in terms of being contented. There's not much point in being rich if the result is stress and unhappiness.
I was in the same situation for a while (I ended up staying in the US rather longer, so in the end got a pukka SSN because I had to pay US taxes).
However, not all banks are equal. The credit union at work absolutely refused to give me an account because they said they got fined if they gave accounts to people and didn't take their SSN. Bank of America, on the other hand, told me that was bullshit and had no problem in opening an account for me. All they wanted was a letter from my employer saying that I was indeed employed by them.
As for checks - I never used them except to pay bills. I got a Visa debit card off my bank _straight off the bat_. They didn't want an SSN for that either.
You don't need fertilizers etc. Making ethanol from corn is a stupid way of ethanol - that's why the US government is funding research into this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol
You can use farm waste, weeds, any cellulose source. Plenty of plants grow vigorously without fertilizer.
We still have a lot of work to do for solar to be really usable, and even then, it's unlikely to be usable for transportation - which is what peak oil will really affect the most.
I installed a photovoltaic solar panel as an experiment this summer. It's an 80 watt peak unit, monocrystalline (which is the most efficient type of solar cell that's readily available on the market). Ignoring cost issues, what I have observed so far:
* The panel will only make 80 watts when the sun is absolutely perpendicular to the panel and there is no atmospheric haze. * Even two hours off mid day either side, and output is cut by a massive 50%. * A layer of thin cirrus (when shadows are still being cast) is enough to reduce output to 25% of rated power at mid day. * On a bright but cloudy day, the panel makes around 6 watts - less that 10% of rated power.
Of course it goes without saying, you get nothing from it at night. In northern Europe, to power a typical house, you would need something like 15 times your average power consumption's worth in solar panels to take into account dull days, night time etc. The average consumption of a typical house is only a couple of hundred watts - and you'd need around 3kW worth of solar panels to be sure of always having enough power. Solar panels will need to be around 10% of their current cost for this to be even remotely viable cost wise. Monocrystalline panels really won't get much cheaper - it's going to take a whole new technology that's yet to be discovered to get a price reduction on this scale.
Forget cars - in a typical family car, when you floor the accelerator, the engine is generating enough power to run an entire suburb's lighting. A 100hp engine at full chat is making 75kW of power. That engine idling is probably still making about 1kW. The feeble amount of power you get from even a very large array of solar panels just won't cut it for transportation.
Wind is a lot more viable, certainly in northern Europe (the time we need most electricity also happens to be the time when it's almost constantly windy in many places). A mix of solar and wind is even better. However, solar has to get much, much better - to the extent of technology we've not yet invented - to be viable for mass usage.
But, presumably, since the signal once decoded contains RGB, not instructions on how to tune the laser - all they have is RGB to work with unless the TV standard is modified to allow for something better than RGB. The only way they know what colour to make the pixel is from an RGB input anyway - so they are stuck with the limitations of RGB.
> The innocent man is not being deliberately put to death by society, but is rather mistakenly put to death by society.
It doesn't matter if it's mistaken or not - it's still deliberate and still premeditated. It's not like a car accident where nobody is actually going out to kill another person (after all, it's an accident!) - it's a deliberate, premeditated act of killing, mistaken or not. Car accidents are not the sign of a barbaric society. A society that deliberately puts people to death is, on the other hand, morally reprehensible and repugnant, and cannot be considered civilized.
The difference between car accidents, faulty aircraft designs and the like - is that the responsible parties are NEVER looking to go out and kill people. Indeed, they are generally trying to come up with something that reduces the risk of killing someone.
Capital punishment, on the other hand, is designed to kill people - not avoid it. The innocent man on death row is being deliberately put to death by society.
The death penalty is not only morally repugnant and totally unnecessary, it is the mark of an uncivilized country.
They didn't actually purchase it with $1.65bn of money though - it was a stock transaction. So Google used its massively overvalued stock to buy a massively overvalued YouTube - so all in all, it sort of nicely cancels itself out:-)
Because it's not possible. The only way to get that kind of explosive force in a deliverable package is a nuclear weapon, and you can't design a radiation-less nuclear weapon because it's against the laws of physics.
In the case of North Korea, nuclear winter isn't even a concern. The Soviets and United States EACH tested in excess over 1000 nuclear weapons in atmospheric tests. A limited nuclear attack on North Korea wouldn't cause much of a problem, worldwide (the political fall out would be another matter). Air burst thermonuclear weapons are relatively clean for the amount of power they punch.
Nuclear weapons aren't useless - they ensure you won't get attacked because the consequences of any retaliation are pretty fucking terrible. That's why it's called a nuclear deterrent - because it's there to deter other nations from attacking in the first place. The real problem is when the irrational or those with nothing to lose get hold of them - and North Korea is in both categories.
You know - there's a minimum age at which you can be President of the USA. I think this isn't quite right as set now.
I think there should be a maximum age.
I think the ages at which you are allowed to be President should be only between 30 and 40. That way, you will probably live to face the consequences of your decisions. Presidents in their 70s can do anything they want because they are unlikely to live long enough to face the consequences. Even Dubya is too old to ever face the consequences.
Sigh. The old ice age canard. That was whipped up by the popular media and NEVER had any scientific credence behind it.
We know that CO2 helps the earth retain solar energy - it is absolutely indisputable. It is also absolutely indisputable that increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere retains more heat energy. And we've also observed a significant increase in CO2 over the last 50 years. Get your head out of the sand - perhaps you're denying CO2 traps energy despite the concrete scientific evidence because you drive an SUV and are trying to salve your conscience by making exuses that you think there is actually a serious scientific debate that carbon dioxide is not a 'greenhouse gas'.
It is as incontrovertable as night follows day that a higher CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere means more energy retained. It's like putting a lid on a pot of water on a gas stove - things will warm up faster.
If only people were asking 'where do we put all the waste from fossil fuel burning'. We just let it off right into the atmosphere where it does FAR more damage than nuclear waste, which can be contained in a very small well controlled area. Nuclear waste is a miniscule problem compared to the fossil fuel waste problem we're quite happy to ignore.
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Unlike YouTube, which was paid for with their overvalued, overhyped stock (and therefore, 1.6bn of 'shirt buttons' rather than real money), they are actually going to have to pay for this installation with real money.
A modern solar cell is typically guaranteed by the manufacturer for *25 years* - the warranty is that the cell will produce *at least* 85% of rated power at that age. If you have the space, there's no reason why you can't keep the same solar array for 50 years. There's no moving parts and they are electrically simple and robust, and made out of chemically stable parts, and protected from the elements with a sheet of glass.
Solar panels last a very long time. They are guaranteed in the main for 25 years to still be able to produce something like 90% of peak rated power. It's likely that the real lifetime of a solar cell is on the order of 50 years (it all depends on how much space you have). They have no moving parts, and are usually protected by a sheet of glass (and we know that glass lasts a long time - there are plenty of old houses with perfectly good window glass that's a century old).
However, with an array of panels that are passively laid down on a roof (and not actively tilted to face the Sun), you'll only make peak power at mid day (assuming the panels are set up to point directly at the sun at mid day). Two hours off mid day either side and you'll probably be only making around 60% of peak power, depending on the weather.
Space is far harsher - you aren't shielded from UV and much of the electromagentic radiation the sun kicks out.
A big solar array isn't really any more complex than a small one - the actual cells are just the same. You just need more cells and more wiring (and the more watts you make, the more fancy switch gear you need - but you're going to need fancy switch gear for an office that uses that sort of power regardless of what the source is). The cells themselves will be protected by a sheet of glass. We know glass can last in Earth's atmosphere for hundreds of years.
The most efficient mass produced panel is a monocrystalline silicon solar panel.
I have one - it's about 80 watts peak, and approximately 1 meter by 0.5 meters in size - so 0.5m^2 = 80 watts peak.
1,600,000 watts / 80 = 20,000
20,000 x 0.5 = 10,000
So they need 10,000 square meters of solar panels, give or take.
The thing they aren't telling you is this - it'll only generate this power bang on mid day on a clear, cloudless, hazeless sunny day. My experience with my solar panel is that once you're two hours off mid day either side, the panels only produce about 50-60% of peak power. A hazy day (say, 7 miles visibility) reduces output to around 60% at mid day. A layer of cirrus cloud (with still sharp shadows being cast on the ground) reduces output to 40%. A bright overcast day and you're lucky to even make 10%. A dull day and you may only make 1%.
The energy payback on a monocrystalline panel is around 6 years. It's a long standing myth that a solar panel takes more energy to make than it generates.
In money terms - probably with the price of Californian electricity - probably 10 to 20 years (depending on how much the solar panels cost, presuming they are monocrystalline PV panels). It depends on how much of a bulk discount Google will have got for buying the number of panels they did.
In terms of energy, it takes about 6 years for a typical monocrystalline panel to make as much energy as it took to make the panel.
Most panels are guaranteed for 25 years, but should last a good bit longer, although they tend to lose efficiency as they age. They should still put out at least 80% of rated power at 25 years old.
Ireland will be united as one just in time to be subsumed into the United States of Europe.
That whooshing sound you just heard was the joke passing around 37 feet above your head.
Here, we still use the old GPO-style phone booths by and large.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_telephone_box
Although this is the Isle of Man rather than the United Kingdom (probably because it's not the UK, we've kept them).
I hope you're just being ironic - but the GPL has no "viral" clauses - it is not viral in any sense. That was just Microsoft FUD that people have fallen for. The GPL basically states in these clauses that Microsoft called viral - if you make a derived work from the GPLd code, it must also be licensed under the GPL or compatible license. It doesn't say anything like "your copyright must be signed over to the FSF" or anything like that. You, as the writer of the derivative code, are the copyright holder of that code. However, as a condition for using someone else's copyrighted work which they have allowed you to use via the GPL, you must license your derived code under a compatible license.
SCO is claiming something else. They are claiming that pre-existing (i.e. before any agreement between IBM and SCO) code, such as the JFS code which originated in OS/2 becomes derivative of SCO's intellectual property as soon as it touches another OS such as AIX.
It also depends how you define success.
To be honest, although most MBAs might be successful at gaining money, they are often not particularly successful in terms of being contented. There's not much point in being rich if the result is stress and unhappiness.
I was in the same situation for a while (I ended up staying in the US rather longer, so in the end got a pukka SSN because I had to pay US taxes).
However, not all banks are equal. The credit union at work absolutely refused to give me an account because they said they got fined if they gave accounts to people and didn't take their SSN. Bank of America, on the other hand, told me that was bullshit and had no problem in opening an account for me. All they wanted was a letter from my employer saying that I was indeed employed by them.
As for checks - I never used them except to pay bills. I got a Visa debit card off my bank _straight off the bat_. They didn't want an SSN for that either.
I dunno - Automator in Mac OS X Tiger?
Sorry - had to be a smart ass (to me, a GUI is merely a way of having several terminal windows open simultaneously and run a web browser).
You don't need fertilizers etc. Making ethanol from corn is a stupid way of ethanol - that's why the US government is funding research into this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol
You can use farm waste, weeds, any cellulose source. Plenty of plants grow vigorously without fertilizer.
We still have a lot of work to do for solar to be really usable, and even then, it's unlikely to be usable for transportation - which is what peak oil will really affect the most.
I installed a photovoltaic solar panel as an experiment this summer. It's an 80 watt peak unit, monocrystalline (which is the most efficient type of solar cell that's readily available on the market). Ignoring cost issues, what I have observed so far:
* The panel will only make 80 watts when the sun is absolutely perpendicular to the panel and there is no atmospheric haze.
* Even two hours off mid day either side, and output is cut by a massive 50%.
* A layer of thin cirrus (when shadows are still being cast) is enough to reduce output to 25% of rated power at mid day.
* On a bright but cloudy day, the panel makes around 6 watts - less that 10% of rated power.
Of course it goes without saying, you get nothing from it at night.
In northern Europe, to power a typical house, you would need something like 15 times your average power consumption's worth in solar panels to take into account dull days, night time etc. The average consumption of a typical house is only a couple of hundred watts - and you'd need around 3kW worth of solar panels to be sure of always having enough power. Solar panels will need to be around 10% of their current cost for this to be even remotely viable cost wise. Monocrystalline panels really won't get much cheaper - it's going to take a whole new technology that's yet to be discovered to get a price reduction on this scale.
Forget cars - in a typical family car, when you floor the accelerator, the engine is generating enough power to run an entire suburb's lighting. A 100hp engine at full chat is making 75kW of power. That engine idling is probably still making about 1kW. The feeble amount of power you get from even a very large array of solar panels just won't cut it for transportation.
Wind is a lot more viable, certainly in northern Europe (the time we need most electricity also happens to be the time when it's almost constantly windy in many places). A mix of solar and wind is even better. However, solar has to get much, much better - to the extent of technology we've not yet invented - to be viable for mass usage.
But, presumably, since the signal once decoded contains RGB, not instructions on how to tune the laser - all they have is RGB to work with unless the TV standard is modified to allow for something better than RGB. The only way they know what colour to make the pixel is from an RGB input anyway - so they are stuck with the limitations of RGB.
> The innocent man is not being deliberately put to death by society, but is rather mistakenly put to death by society.
It doesn't matter if it's mistaken or not - it's still deliberate and still premeditated. It's not like a car accident where nobody is actually going out to kill another person (after all, it's an accident!) - it's a deliberate, premeditated act of killing, mistaken or not. Car accidents are not the sign of a barbaric society. A society that deliberately puts people to death is, on the other hand, morally reprehensible and repugnant, and cannot be considered civilized.
The difference between car accidents, faulty aircraft designs and the like - is that the responsible parties are NEVER looking to go out and kill people. Indeed, they are generally trying to come up with something that reduces the risk of killing someone.
Capital punishment, on the other hand, is designed to kill people - not avoid it. The innocent man on death row is being deliberately put to death by society.
The death penalty is not only morally repugnant and totally unnecessary, it is the mark of an uncivilized country.
They didn't actually purchase it with $1.65bn of money though - it was a stock transaction. So Google used its massively overvalued stock to buy a massively overvalued YouTube - so all in all, it sort of nicely cancels itself out :-)
And how do they sneak these 48 subs (or one sub) past the US Navy?
Because it's not possible. The only way to get that kind of explosive force in a deliverable package is a nuclear weapon, and you can't design a radiation-less nuclear weapon because it's against the laws of physics.
In the case of North Korea, nuclear winter isn't even a concern. The Soviets and United States EACH tested in excess over 1000 nuclear weapons in atmospheric tests. A limited nuclear attack on North Korea wouldn't cause much of a problem, worldwide (the political fall out would be another matter). Air burst thermonuclear weapons are relatively clean for the amount of power they punch.
Nuclear weapons aren't useless - they ensure you won't get attacked because the consequences of any retaliation are pretty fucking terrible. That's why it's called a nuclear deterrent - because it's there to deter other nations from attacking in the first place. The real problem is when the irrational or those with nothing to lose get hold of them - and North Korea is in both categories.
You know - there's a minimum age at which you can be President of the USA. I think this isn't quite right as set now.
I think there should be a maximum age.
I think the ages at which you are allowed to be President should be only between 30 and 40. That way, you will probably live to face the consequences of your decisions. Presidents in their 70s can do anything they want because they are unlikely to live long enough to face the consequences. Even Dubya is too old to ever face the consequences.
Sigh. The old ice age canard. That was whipped up by the popular media and NEVER had any scientific credence behind it.
We know that CO2 helps the earth retain solar energy - it is absolutely indisputable. It is also absolutely indisputable that increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere retains more heat energy. And we've also observed a significant increase in CO2 over the last 50 years. Get your head out of the sand - perhaps you're denying CO2 traps energy despite the concrete scientific evidence because you drive an SUV and are trying to salve your conscience by making exuses that you think there is actually a serious scientific debate that carbon dioxide is not a 'greenhouse gas'.
It is as incontrovertable as night follows day that a higher CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere means more energy retained. It's like putting a lid on a pot of water on a gas stove - things will warm up faster.
If only people were asking 'where do we put all the waste from fossil fuel burning'. We just let it off right into the atmosphere where it does FAR more damage than nuclear waste, which can be contained in a very small well controlled area. Nuclear waste is a miniscule problem compared to the fossil fuel waste problem we're quite happy to ignore.