Not debunked. Solved. Early wind turbines were small and very fast. Too fast for birds.
While the newer ones turn at a much lower RPM, they are so much bigger that speed at the tips of each blade are easily moving in excess of 100 kph.
Math: Say 100m diameter turbine, takes 5 sec to turn once. circumference = PI*d = 314m which means the tip has to travel 314m/5sec or 62.8m/s = 226 km/hr. I just made up the 5 sec, I don't really know the standard RPM would be exactly.
Even so, the new monster turbines are so big they are pretty hard to miss. (har har)
But none the less the problem is still very much debunked vs. popular ideas on the matter.
Another big problem with the first big farms in California is that they put them in the middle of a mountain pass well known as a thoroughfare for migratory birds. So particularly bad placement. Of course some birds will fly into anything you stick up into the air. The idea is to understand how many will, and how to minimize the strikes.
Critically offshore winds tend to be much more steady than winds on land, where topography, trees, and buildings combine to create turbulence and resulting gusts. At sea the winds have nothing to slow them down meaning higher output, and nothing to make them subject to sudden gusts meaning less wear and tear on the gears (a squall or frontal gust mainly has a single onset and slow relaxation) and more predictable output.
* Being able to go deeper means further offshore, which means less people on land looking for an easy pay off due to bogus eyesore / property value complaints.
* In a massive storm these ones lean over, spilling away the force of the wind and reducing exposed surface area as cos(tilt).
* The bird cuisinart effect is largely debunked. Many more are killed flying into windows (home or glass box buildings), stationary bridges and radio towers, and hit by cars while attending to roadkill. Many studies out there to back this up. "Homepower magazine" does a nice job of collecting peer reviewed studies (they had a great writeup on it, but I can't find that now). Also need to balance against the more dilute effect of wildlife killed by a coal plant's SO2 etc emissions. Granted most studies are not looking at sea birds.
Any laptop with a real serial port will be treated like gold and gladly put to good use at any research lab as a data logging tool connecting to some oddball piece of scientific equipment. Computers age much faster than instruments, and so often the interface software needs some old out of date OS and hardware to run. Try giving a call to the research focused department of your choice at your local university- and try and talk to the lab folk doing research, not the IT support who deal with student & email issues.
Because legally you have not entered the country until you pass through customs. Up until that point you are in international waters, so to speak.
If you're not here, you're not under the jurisdiction of our laws.
Incorrect. You are in after passing immigration.
And the US Constitution does not magically turn off for the government's activities if you are still in limbo land. They are still bound by it, both legally and morally.
The subconscious is generally a very wise and powerful tool, use it. (aka listen to your gut, follow your bliss,...) The program there sounds more rewarding too. Plus you'll get laid more at the liberal arts college.
I have also been told that Dolby doesn't license its technology on an exclusive basis.
Around 15 years ago I remember hearing something about the Dolby company which stuck in my mind. It seems they had a corporate policy of not following up on patent lawsuits. They prefered to put that litigation money towards R&D instead, thus staying the market leader by being two steps ahead of any copy cats. That struck me as pretty friggin cool.
Times may have changed after the late 90s IT bubble and the current IP grab frenzy, but I hope they still have that policy.
> Why "must" it stop? Why are whales any more important than pigs or > cows or chickens?
killing wild stock has effects on the greater ecosystem. killing farm stock does not, in a primary sense. Plus with farm stock you've taken action to replace the portion of the population that you slaughter.
> As long as they don't mess with endangered species, which they > don't, I don't see the problem.
This year they planned on taking Humpbacks, which are still recovering from being critically endangered. They backed off after pressure from the US and Australian govenments.
This year they have said that they will take 50 fin whales, of an estimated 5000 in the southern ocean. That's 1% of the population THIS YEAR, or in human terms, all of the USA and Europe THIS YEAR.
The minkes are not endangered, but they are cuter than cows or pigs, and arguably chickens.
> With your attitude they (PETA?) will be coming for your burger and > wings soon.
probably what has been lost in translation here is that a female whale is called a "cow". While I haven't RTFA, I expect this has nothing to do with bovines and a lot to do with OMG journalism.
Having said that Japan must stop whaling; the rest of the world's govenments must step in and stop the insult to "science" this loophole exploits; stop the IWC 3rd world country votes-for-cash bribery; and the rest of the world's people should boycot her until she does. It's complete and udder bullshit that this $1M industry is allowed to continue (yes, that's "1 Million" with an "M", it hardly even covers the fuel costs to get the whaling fleet into the southern ocean whale sanctuary hunting grounds (yes, that's "sanctuary" with an "i" for illegal breach)).
It's in my cultural heritige to throw rocks at the heads of Englishmen. Well, times change, and we must move on.
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
"citing 'the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting.'"
The administration is here referring to the chilling effect in a literal sense. i.e. being the slowing of the greenhouse effect that could occur if the current regime was held to account. But they don't have it quite right- it would be a slowing of the heating rate, not an absolute drop in temperature.
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
If you have a problem with The Mathworks or Wolfram's license terms, I suggest you take it up with them BEFORE buying their product and agreeing to their terms. else take it up with the person at your university taking care of the purchasing decisions. It is really not their fault if you buy their product under known terms.
-- Happy user of Octave at home & in the field where the ML license server won't reach. Lots of kids buy the student ML edition, it is fully functional, not tied to a network server, and no longer array size limited these days.
Solar isn't clean, that's for sure. The 3 solar-panel investors we speak with have told us of the ecological burdens of producing solar panels. We're still moving to solar (and to geothermal A/C and heat) for our primary residence to lower the long-term cost of energy, but we know that we're likely causing as much damage to the environment elsewhere to bring our cost-reductions home, over the long run.
Consumer grade PV is laregly made from recycled Si which wasn't up to snuff for the computer chip industry. The damage was already done by initial manufacture, making a PV panel out of it is saving that from being wasted.
The nasty non-environmentally friendly PV are the gallium-arsenide panels which are only used by NASA and the like who need a higher efficiency rate and don't mind the cost.
We have a few greenie friends who really think they're saving the environment, but the more I research it, the more it seems that there is nothing you can truly do to reduce your carbon footprint, even if it seems logical. There are too many parameters to wade through to calculate what a certain mode of transportation or energy generation costs.
That certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Most of the world's environmental woes are due to popular attitude, not to any technological or population issues.
Prime example: Imagine the world today with a President Bush vs. a President Gore or President Kerry.
Both parties may share some of the same social diseases, and the fringe reactionary kooks of both parties are still reactionary kooks, but A==B? No way.
> How long to sails normally last under heavy usage?
to completely pull numbers out of thin air, from my experience with sailmaking I would expect:
* first few voyages, while fine tuning deployment & control software:
burst a few kites per trip
* until cut is right and the kite flutters:
tatter itself in 20-40 days use
* long term get the design right so just sun + wear and tear damage:
6-24 months life per kite?
* it could take 5-10 years to perfect the kite design, by which time the material science will have changed enough to redefine the problem (see the ongoing windsurfer sail design (r)evolutions over the last 20+ years. it just doesn't slow down)
* the kite is probably easily replaceable as sea by the underpaid Filipino and Russian crew and would cost $10-50k.
* the control unit and deck hardware would the the expensive bits. for the first 5 years while they refine the design I would expect the deck fittings to only last 6-24 months before needing some sort of repair- the forces are huge and the slightest abrasion will chew itself through thick 316 stainless steel in no time.
I always assumed it's something about the look on my face
quoth The Monster (227884).
(nothing personal, but you have to admit that it's funny on about the +2 mod level, give or take the uncertainty in mod points introduced by mentioning mod points)
Aside- That was perhaps the most reasonable reply I have ever gotten to a/. post, and it happened on a religious thread none the less.
I think it silly to enter into a debate on which license is the best, I fully agree that authors having a full quiver of licenses to choose from is a good thing as different situations and personalties will warrant the need for a different license.
(The "future" clause absolutely seals the deal, making the GPL completely and totally unacceptable, and is completely contrary to the spirit of the FSF, not to mention being wide open to abuse)
I think you misread it. There is no binding "future" clause in the license. Term 9 of the GPLv2 states: "9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."
It is explicitly up to the author to state the license (thus version) used in their statement of copyright. If the author states "GPL version 2" then it is v2 and only v2. If they say ">=v2" then you, as the user, have the option to use "any future version" of GPL from the FSF. The FSF states that the reason they ask for >= is to avoid zombie code in case there is some legal bug found in the GPLv2 one day rendering it invalid, and the author has since disappeared.
If you have ceded your copyright onto the FSF (as they ask), well then it's their choice. But if you say "GPL version 2" and you retained the copyright, then it is that and that only.
RMS is an idealist, whilst the people behind the CC organization are pragmatists.
I'll concede that both sorts of people are necessary, although I certainly know which one I'd put my money behind.
Me too. Years of observation has shown (time and again) that all those wacky things RMS warns about generally come true a year or two later. An idealist with a good sense of how human nature and "the market" works is a powerful powerful thing. Not all idealists are sitting in the meadow chasing dandelions.
Alternatively you might pigeon-hole him as a very in-touch cynic. In that sense consider RMS's fanaticism of protecting Freedoms from the point of view of never underestimating the creativity and number of sleazy people out there ready to make to quick buck and rip you off if they can.
Slashdot Mirror
education like this, which got us to the moon in the first place?
http://web.mit.edu/fluids/www/Shapiro/ncfmf.html
Yay cheap, safe, and politics-free robotic planetary science. All the awe none of the wasted billions.
And so another monument to inefficiency. It's the American Way and what will guide our economy for the rest of the century.
Or if you prefer: Vegas sure as hell wasn't built on customers winning.
While the newer ones turn at a much lower RPM, they are so much bigger that speed at the tips of each blade are easily moving in excess of 100 kph.
Math: Say 100m diameter turbine, takes 5 sec to turn once. circumference = PI*d = 314m which means the tip has to travel 314m/5sec or 62.8m/s = 226 km/hr. I just made up the 5 sec, I don't really know the standard RPM would be exactly.
Even so, the new monster turbines are so big they are pretty hard to miss. (har har)
But none the less the problem is still very much debunked vs. popular ideas on the matter.
Another big problem with the first big farms in California is that they put them in the middle of a mountain pass well known as a thoroughfare for migratory birds. So particularly bad placement. Of course some birds will fly into anything you stick up into the air. The idea is to understand how many will, and how to minimize the strikes.
Critically offshore winds tend to be much more steady than winds on land, where topography, trees, and buildings combine to create turbulence and resulting gusts. At sea the winds have nothing to slow them down meaning higher output, and nothing to make them subject to sudden gusts meaning less wear and tear on the gears (a squall or frontal gust mainly has a single onset and slow relaxation) and more predictable output.
* Being able to go deeper means further offshore, which means less people on land looking for an easy pay off due to bogus eyesore / property value complaints.
* In a massive storm these ones lean over, spilling away the force of the wind and reducing exposed surface area as cos(tilt).
* The bird cuisinart effect is largely debunked. Many more are killed flying into windows (home or glass box buildings), stationary bridges and radio towers, and hit by cars while attending to roadkill. Many studies out there to back this up. "Homepower magazine" does a nice job of collecting peer reviewed studies (they had a great writeup on it, but I can't find that now). Also need to balance against the more dilute effect of wildlife killed by a coal plant's SO2 etc emissions. Granted most studies are not looking at sea birds.
Any laptop with a real serial port will be treated like gold and gladly put to good use at any research lab as a data logging tool connecting to some oddball piece of scientific equipment. Computers age much faster than instruments, and so often the interface software needs some old out of date OS and hardware to run. Try giving a call to the research focused department of your choice at your local university- and try and talk to the lab folk doing research, not the IT support who deal with student & email issues.
Incorrect. You are in after passing immigration.
And the US Constitution does not magically turn off for the government's activities if you are still in limbo land. They are still bound by it, both legally and morally.
Then that is your answer.
The subconscious is generally a very wise and powerful tool, use it. (aka listen to your gut, follow your bliss,
Plus you'll get laid more at the liberal arts college.
Around 15 years ago I remember hearing something about the Dolby company which stuck in my mind. It seems they had a corporate policy of not following up on patent lawsuits. They prefered to put that litigation money towards R&D instead, thus staying the market leader by being two steps ahead of any copy cats. That struck me as pretty friggin cool.
Times may have changed after the late 90s IT bubble and the current IP grab frenzy, but I hope they still have that policy.
> Why "must" it stop? Why are whales any more important than pigs or
> cows or chickens?
killing wild stock has effects on the greater ecosystem. killing farm stock does not, in a primary sense. Plus with farm stock you've taken action to replace the portion of the population that you slaughter.
> As long as they don't mess with endangered species, which they
> don't, I don't see the problem.
This year they planned on taking Humpbacks, which are still recovering from being critically endangered. They backed off after pressure from the US and Australian govenments.
This year they have said that they will take 50 fin whales, of an estimated 5000 in the southern ocean. That's 1% of the population THIS YEAR, or in human terms, all of the USA and Europe THIS YEAR.
The minkes are not endangered, but they are cuter than cows or pigs, and arguably chickens.
> With your attitude they (PETA?) will be coming for your burger and
> wings soon.
fallacies of logic: Slippery slope + Non sequitur
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html
> everything in moderation
I love animals too, they're delicious.
probably what has been lost in translation here is that a female whale is called a "cow". While I haven't RTFA, I expect this has nothing to do with bovines and a lot to do with OMG journalism.
Having said that Japan must stop whaling; the rest of the world's govenments must step in and stop the insult to "science" this loophole exploits; stop the IWC 3rd world country votes-for-cash bribery; and the rest of the world's people should boycot her until she does. It's complete and udder bullshit that this $1M industry is allowed to continue (yes, that's "1 Million" with an "M", it hardly even covers the fuel costs to get the whaling fleet into the southern ocean whale sanctuary hunting grounds (yes, that's "sanctuary" with an "i" for illegal breach)).
It's in my cultural heritige to throw rocks at the heads of Englishmen. Well, times change, and we must move on.
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
[repost]
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
[repost]
I see the summary includes a plug for FedEx. Odd. /.?
Product placement on
Tip: It's not mail fraud if you use FedEx.
The administration is here referring to the chilling effect in a literal sense. i.e. being the slowing of the greenhouse effect that could occur if the current regime was held to account. But they don't have it quite right- it would be a slowing of the heating rate, not an absolute drop in temperature.
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
[repost]
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
Matlab from the terminal:
...
...)
local$ ssh -X solaris_server
solaris$ matlab -nosplash -nojvm
Welcome to Matlab v.
>>
The plot windows etc will still be rendered, but you do away with slowly pushing the entire GUI over the network.
If you don't open plot windows and things, you don't even need an X-server.
Connect with Putty or Cygwin from MS Windows, Terminal from OSX.
X11 forwarding on Mac: try 'ssh -Y solaris_server'
(... after installing X11 from the OSX install DVD
Mathematica replacement: http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
If you have a problem with The Mathworks or Wolfram's license terms, I suggest you take it up with them BEFORE buying their product and agreeing to their terms. else take it up with the person at your university taking care of the purchasing decisions. It is really not their fault if you buy their product under known terms.
-- Happy user of Octave at home & in the field where the ML license server won't reach. Lots of kids buy the student ML edition, it is fully functional, not tied to a network server, and no longer array size limited these days.
Consumer grade PV is laregly made from recycled Si which wasn't up to snuff for the computer chip industry. The damage was already done by initial manufacture, making a PV panel out of it is saving that from being wasted.
The nasty non-environmentally friendly PV are the gallium-arsenide panels which are only used by NASA and the like who need a higher efficiency rate and don't mind the cost.
That certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Most of the world's environmental woes are due to popular attitude, not to any technological or population issues.
Yeah right both parties are the same thing.
Prime example: Imagine the world today with a President Bush vs. a President Gore or President Kerry.
Both parties may share some of the same social diseases, and the fringe reactionary kooks of both parties are still reactionary kooks, but A==B? No way.
> How long to sails normally last under heavy usage?
to completely pull numbers out of thin air, from my experience with sailmaking I would expect:
* first few voyages, while fine tuning deployment & control software:
burst a few kites per trip
* until cut is right and the kite flutters:
tatter itself in 20-40 days use
* long term get the design right so just sun + wear and tear damage:
6-24 months life per kite?
* it could take 5-10 years to perfect the kite design, by which time the material science will have changed enough to redefine the problem (see the ongoing windsurfer sail design (r)evolutions over the last 20+ years. it just doesn't slow down)
* the kite is probably easily replaceable as sea by the underpaid Filipino and Russian crew and would cost $10-50k.
* the control unit and deck hardware would the the expensive bits. for the first 5 years while they refine the design I would expect the deck fittings to only last 6-24 months before needing some sort of repair- the forces are huge and the slightest abrasion will chew itself through thick 316 stainless steel in no time.
quoth The Monster (227884).
(nothing personal, but you have to admit that it's funny on about the +2 mod level, give or take the uncertainty in mod points introduced by mentioning mod points)
I think it silly to enter into a debate on which license is the best, I fully agree that authors having a full quiver of licenses to choose from is a good thing as different situations and personalties will warrant the need for a different license.
I think you misread it. There is no binding "future" clause in the license.
Term 9 of the GPLv2 states:
"9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation."
It is explicitly up to the author to state the license (thus version) used in their statement of copyright. If the author states "GPL version 2" then it is v2 and only v2. If they say ">=v2" then you, as the user, have the option to use "any future version" of GPL from the FSF. The FSF states that the reason they ask for >= is to avoid zombie code in case there is some legal bug found in the GPLv2 one day rendering it invalid, and the author has since disappeared.
If you have ceded your copyright onto the FSF (as they ask), well then it's their choice. But if you say "GPL version 2" and you retained the copyright, then it is that and that only.
Me too. Years of observation has shown (time and again) that all those wacky things RMS warns about generally come true a year or two later. An idealist with a good sense of how human nature and "the market" works is a powerful powerful thing. Not all idealists are sitting in the meadow chasing dandelions.
Alternatively you might pigeon-hole him as a very in-touch cynic. In that sense consider RMS's fanaticism of protecting Freedoms from the point of view of never underestimating the creativity and number of sleazy people out there ready to make to quick buck and rip you off if they can.
Florida
If a vote is won or lost by one vote, it is every voter who cast a vote for or against who cast the deciding vote.
Regardless if they went against their party.
We do not act alone.