One key element of the Judge's (very well written) opinion is that Second Life holds itself out as granting something akin to a traditional property right in the virtual world that it has created. Blizzard's policy, in contrast, has always been that it owns the virtual "property" and grants you a license to play with it.
In other words, Second Life offers to let you buy a portion of its sandbox, while Blizzard merely lets you play in it. In one case, you can take your toys and go home since you own the toys, in the other, you cannot.
The California Independent System Operator runs the California interstate transmission grid. Here are some links discribing their peak power demand for 2006:
If you really want to see peak load for California (and other regions of the country have similar OASIS sites), go to http://oasis.caiso.com/ click on "System Load" on the top bar, check "System Load", and put whatever 30 day period you wish to see. (I did June 1, 2006 - June 30, 2006).
The results for highest hourly peak:
June 1: 2 pm June 2: 4 pm June 3: 5 pm June 4: 5 pm June 5: 4 pm June 6: 4 pm Etc.
You can do this for any day you like.
As you can see, peak demand is usually right between 4 and 5 pm. Don't get me wrong, demand is still high at 6 pm or 7 pm, but that's not "peak". Different systems in geographic areas do behave slightly differently -- but most behave exactly as I specified. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.
If solar is less expensive than the available clean conventional sources then this might make sense. Otherwise, why bother? It's only in situations where you're already near existing daytime conventional capacity and the deployment of solar is much faster/cheaper in the short term than deployment of another clean conventional source that it might make sense. But if solar is expensive and/or time-consuming to deploy (relative to deploying another clean conventional source) then it simply doesn't make sense to use it even if it's only for dealing with peak load.
Forgive me, but you are completely wrong about this. Peak periods are exactly when things like solar really "shine." There are a couple thing you must understand about the interstate electricity grid:
First, is that it is over-designed on purpose. Most major utilities have operating reserves of power generation of between 12 - 18 % of the day's anticipated peak demand. On any given day, the system operator will have tens or hundreds of generation sources that it never dispatches (e.g., uses to produce power), but that are there "just in case." This means that utilities have multiple dispatch solutions in order to meet load (load being a measure of people who want to use electricity).
The second key principle is that utilities select their generation resoures based on a "least-cost dispatch" basis. While in practice, this gets incredibly complicated (and also includes environmental factors), the utility will pick the least expensive generators that can produce enough power to adequately supply the day's demand. In practical terms, this means that the utility will dispatch the dirtiest and most expensive to operate (on an incremental cost basis) generating facilities last.
The third principle is an outgrowth of the first two. On peak demand days (think middle of summer, air conditioners running at full blast, etc.), the number of dispatch options available to the utility decreases further and further as it commits an ever-increasingly greater share of its total generating capacity to meet demand. This means that your nastiest, dirtiest, foulest, most expensive generating facilities are dispatched on such days.
Imagine this scenario. You are Utility X. You have the following five generating facilities at your disposal:
1000 MW nuke.
500 MW cheaper, clean(er) coal.
500 MW slightly less cheap dirty coal.
100 MW incredibly expensive natural gas.
20 MW aging oil burner that spews out more toxics that Paris Hilton on a breathalyzer AND costs more than the GDP of small nations to operate.
Total installed capacity (a fancy term for the total amount of generation): 2110 MW.
Now imagine that hellishly hot day. Demand immediately soars to 1500 MW -- and it's not even 11 am yet. You commit your nuke and your clean coal facility. Now it's 2 pm and demand hits 2000 MW. Throw in the dirty coal. Four pm rolls around and demand hits 2040 MW. Thow in that expensive natural gas peaker! (Don't worry -- the rate payers will just end up eating the extra -- your investors are safe.)
Now it's 4:47 in the afternoon. The peak of the peak. You're at 2099 and still rising.... You are getting ready to commit the oil burner at a cost of several millions of dollars and countless hazy days. Do you need it?
Well, maybe not. If you were a smart utility executive, you invested in Demand Response and paid some of your customers to go off-grid on days like this. Additionally, you've been incouraging customers to install solar panels that are all furiously generating power right as it's needed most.
This is the moment where solar pays for itself. By reducing the peak demand by only a smidge, you reduce energy bills substantially. Solar is also one of the few alternative/clean sources of energy that peaks along with demand. Wind, for example, tends to blow off-peak. (This is even more true when you facto
There are a lot of problems with the premises of your questions. But a couple of the easy ones:
1) Efficiency and measures of "suns": As others have explained better than me, this basically means that they are using mirrors to "collect" the sun power and focus it.
3) Temperature: Solar cells tend to work better in colder weather, as you have less heat transfer loss. It just so happens that many (but not all) places with lots of sunlight happen to be hot -- but cold weather is actually a bonus factor. Generally, your efficiency losses resulting from hot weather are roughly equal to the reduction in power you get from being in a less sunny place, all other factors being equal.
4) Monetary cost: Solar is expensive. No question. But isn't it worth it?
5) Storage: Unlikely to be an issue. Aside from specialized case (read: nutcakes living off the grid or places where power isn't essential), solar is a peaking power resource that's used in conjunction with conventional generation technologies. At night? Pull your power from the grid. During the day? Send power back onto the grid (a.k.a. net metering). Much more efficient than trying to generate the power and store it.
Further, the suggestion is definitely that this would be used in utility-scale applications, given the concentration of sun you need to have. So again, batteries are not really an issue, as any power sent out onto the grid is instanteously (or pretty damn close to it) consumed by a thousand hair dryers all running at once.
This is why I bought my Prius in January of 2002. It wasn't about economics. It wasn't about reducing emissions (directly). It wasn't about the amazing cool factor of having a half-electric car.
It is about the future.
It is about creating a market for green projects.
It is about putting my money on the table to create this market.
It is about making a statement to the world that green works.
Why is this a bad thing? Sounds like an wonderful vacation to me.
Option A:
Work at the office for 10 hours, leave work, go home, go about your normal life for 6 hours, sleep. Rinse, repeat.
Option B:
Work in County X for ten hours, leave work, go explore exotic city for 6 hours, sleep. Rinse, repeat.
Which would you rather have? Sure, pure vacation > working vacation. But it's just as clear to me that working vacation > staying home. And remember, he is not on vacation! He's simply remotely telecommuting and presumably, accruing vacation time, getting paid, etc. I don't understand exactly how the logistics of this works (power, communications, etc.), but it sounds like a lovely life style to me.
It's hard to take off for weeks or months at a time and still maintain a decent paying job. He's managed to compromise, and as a result is seeing and living and working in places that I, with my desk-bound job and three weeks of vacation a year will never see.
Work pays me for a normal workday 5 days a week, and reasonable emergencies and after-hours work considering I'm salaried. I don't see employers offering unlimited paid time off so people can meet the demands of life, I fail to see why they should expect me to take unlimited uncompensated time away from my life to meet the demands of work. See, that's the thing. A Blackberry is not for you. For many of us, our work pays us for a 5 to 7 day-a-week job. Rationale Blackberry usage is for people who are compensated in a manner that makes it clear that their lives are not entirely their own. For people not on salary, for whom getting paid is a function of hours worked, Blackberrys are the greatest thing since the telephone.
Let's be clear the subset of employees we are talking about. Because a one-size-fits-all approach makes no sense.
I find my BB very freeing. I have had many leisurely morning cups of coffees on my way to work, secure in the knowledge that nobody is looking for me and that no emergencies have arisen. Same on weekends.
My *job* chains me sometimes. The Blackberry simply puts me on a (much) longer leash. My options are either wait by the computer for an email, or go about my day with my Blackberry by my side. I can tell you which I prefer.
Now, before a thousand people feel the need to point it out, I recognize that there is a problem with my job here. But as a corporate attorney, it's a problem I volunteered for. I knew when I took this job that I was going to be dealing with people who need (or at least think they need) answers yesterday. However, they pay me well for the usage of my time and at least, so far, I'm happy with the trade off.
But the Blackberry? Best extension cord ever.
Distribution is only one problem -- patent protection is another. I believe you are mixing up issues surrounding distribution of drugs that are already in the public domain (which are huge, but surmountable), with the cost issues surrounding cutting-edge drugs (which are harder to deal with).
Once a drug is researched, developed, and tested, the actual cost of production is quite low. An independent company, if allowed to do so, could reproduce the drug and sell it for pennies a pill and still make money. But of course, this isn't how things work. The developer of the drug has 14 years to (1) recoup its R&D and testing costs, (2) make a profit, and (3) pay for the cost of production/marketing/distribution.
So for 14+ years -- between the time the drug is patented and the time generic manufacturers get hold of it -- the drug company is guaranteed by law the exclusive right to make the drug just so that it can make its money. This makes sense as a method to incent the company to develop the drug. However it ignores the human toll that the 14 years of delay will take on parts of the world to whom the drug will be completely unaffordable.
By stepping in at Day 1, the government would compensate the company for its R&D costs and provide the investors their profits. This removes the largest component of the drug's cost. Instead of a customer paying for R&D, testing, and profit, in each pill he or she buys, the customer would instead pay only the cost of production and distribution.
The current situation in South Africa is quite instructive. Factories in South Africa can make retroviral AIDs drugs for a tiny fraction of the cost it takes to buy the drugs from the American/European companies that control the patents. Under intense pressure from the West, South Africa ended up stopping its generic production of the drugs, and now instead purchases them from the patent holders (at a substantial discount). Both sides got a good deal -- company gets tax write-offs for charitable contributions, protects its intellectual property, and gets a PR boost; while the country of South Africa avoids international sanctions and trade wars, while still getting the drugs it needed.
If there is ever a cure for AIDs, I think that cure should be "purchased" by the people of the world and placed into the public domain. (Not, mind you, purchased by the government with the intent to maintain the patent protection. Literally, placed into the public domain. No "licensing" requirement at all. From anyone.) It's just too important. Once the drug is in the public domain, the marketplace again takes over and could be manufactured anywhere in the world by any company (or country) that wishes to get into the business. It would be, essentially, a truly free market for AIDs drugs all over the world without the artificial restrictions patent protection imposes.
Is there still going to be a need for private/governmental charity? Sure. But then the charitable efforts could be focused on the billion people who can't afford generic drugs versus the 6 billion who can't afford patented drugs.
I think you have a fundamental misconception about how eminent domain works.
The mega-corporation that discovers the cure for cancer is going to do an analysis and determine that in the first year, they are going to make $x, in year two, they are going to make $y, and so on until the patent expires.
The government would look at the total value of the patent, adjust it for the time value of the money, and pay out a whopping big check.
The whole concept of seizing something by eminent domain is that the company recieve FAIR compensation. This is in no way "government seizure" that is going to deprive the company of its money.
Suppose your company had a brilliant invention. They think that they can make a total of $100 billion in the first 14 years of production. Would you object if the company were instead given a check up front for $100 billion minus the time value of the money? Hell no!
I am not proposing to "disincent" private industry in any way. I am talking about taking a bold step that would pay the company its money, while at the same time ensuring that the world would have an adequate supply of the drug.
I have always hoped that should a real cure for AIDs be developed that the United States government would sieze the intellectual property and put it into the public domain.
Of course, any siezure of property has to be (1) in the public interest, and (2) fairly compensated. I know I'd happily support a politician who advocated such an action, regardless of how much money it might cost.
The other interesting scenario would be an ultra-rich executive or even a company who wanted to secure their place in history. Could a private individual purchase the rights to such a thing? Would a company think the forgone profits were worth the enormous PR boost? Wishful thinking perhaps.
What's the alternative? Have the same pharmacuitical industry complex distribute the drug? I mean we have drugs that cure malaria and all sorts of other things, and we still can't/won't get it to the people who need it. I'm not a naive bleeding heart -- I know the distribution and other problems in Africa (in particular), but we have to at least try, right?
So far this morning I've listened to CNN and NPR, read the Washington Post and the Times of London and the BBC online.
By far the most informative site has been Slashdot -- whether from eyewitnesses posting their accounts or simply aggregating news from sources world wide. And the analysis in several of the posts has been at least as good as any of the major sources.
I was just in London a few months ago -- I think I visited every Tube station mentioned. Just know that our thoughts are most definitely with you.
Well, I don't really see them as having many choices. They are on-again off-again at war with India. Afghanistan can't keep its lights on, never mind provide internet connections.
Iran? China? Wow. Who other sets of political issues.
(See pretty map here.)
Not to mention that a large part of Pakistan's borders are extremely inhospitable mountain regions. The Arabian Sea actually makes sense.
One of my favorite Star Trek books, called The Kobayashi Maru, involved several of the main characters re-telling stories of their academy days. It is really a compelling little book and extremely well written.
Several of the stories focus on the Kobayashi Maru doomsday scenario that's referenced in one of the Star Trek movies, but several deal with other aspects of a Star Fleet Academy education.
If Shatner had this type of material in in mind then the project might actually be worth while. Anyway, it's a great read for any Star Trek fan -- the author really captures each character's own nuances.
Just remember, it can't be any worse than the first (and for me, last) episode of Enterprise.
Unlike most people on Slashdot who play lawyer, I'm a lawyer who plays programmer. Please -- any help would be greatly appreciated! (And rewarded with free stuff, of course:) My email is greenie20902 at yahoo.com. Thanks!
Perhaps, but honestly, my thought was AOL doesn't want to be held liable when someone intercepts the IM I wrote to Bill Gates in 1980 suggesting he create a new GUI to be called "Windows".
By explicitly stating that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy (to borrow some criminal law language), you can't turn around and sue AOL when, in fact, it turns out that IMs are completely not secure.
The ToS specifies the rights that AOL has. Storing your IMs is not a right specified in the ToS. Therefore, AOL doesn't have the right to retain your IMs.
The longer version:
If the company does not specify it has the right to do something (i.e., the contract is "silent" on the issue), the company generally cannot do that thing. Contracts are read this way to better protect the consumer. And it also just makes sense. If the company could do anything except what was specifically prohibited, then the consumer would have no rights except those explicitly guaranteed by the contract, which, coincidently, was written by the company. Traditional contract law does not allow this. Here, where AOL does not reserve their right to retain info, they may not do it.
In fact, there are two doctrines of contract law that apply to this type of situation.
The first is that "the inclusion of one is the exclusion of all others." By listing specific things it can do, AOL is essentially saying it cannot do anything it does not list. So by specifying that it could keep "posts" and other specific types of information, the contract would be read as prohibiting it from keeping other types of information (IMs, in this case) not specifically discussed.
The second is the doctrine of "contra preferentem" which literally means "against the party who proffers or puts forward a thing" and is defined as "used in connection with the construction of written documents to the effect that an ambiguous provision is construed most strongly against the person who selected the language." (Black's Law Dictionary). So where AOL puts forward contract language (and the parties are of unequal bargaining power), the contract will construed against AOL.
Both the doctrines work quite nicely together, as you can see. Maybe this really is one of those things that a lawyer is just going to read differently -- but reading the ToS it seemed pretty clear to me that IMs were not one of the things that AOL gave itself the right to collect.
So, let me get this straight. A bunch of non-lawyer geeks (i.e., Slashdot's editors) read through a Term of Service agreement and misread and misunderstood what it said. They then take this faulty information and disseminate it wide and far. And it's still AOL's fault.
What am I missing? The TOS looked pretty damn clear to me. Slashdot owes AOL an apology and a correction.
I'm just glad AOL is a scummy and well-capitalized company. This kind of shoddy reporting could utterly destroy a smaller entity's reputation and put them out of business. On the basis of bad reporting. Amazing.
A $40 copy of WoW is one thing. A $50,000 license is another. But the laws governing transfer of ownership are the same. Copyright law does not differentiate between a cheap game and a high end bit of server software. So this is an important principal, even though the amount of money involved in piddling -- please recognize this before flaming the guy about how "it's only a game" and the rest of that crap.
The right to transfer ownership of the tangible expression of a copyrighted work is fundamental to our system of intellectual property ownership:
the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord.
17 U.S.C. sec. 109 (2000).
I don't quote this provision to suggest that Blizzard is breaking the law, simply that the right to alienate (essentially a fancy legal term for "sell") your copy of a copyrighted work is enshrined in United States law (and in fact, is generally recognized throughout the world).
So what is Blizzard doing here? It is denying the initial purchaser of the game the right to sell his or her copy (who am I kidding? His) copy of the game in the open marketplace. The initial purchaser of the game agreed to Blizzard's End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) when he first started playing. (Of course, the legal enforceability of these EULAs is somewhat murky -- different states have different laws, although UCITA is the most common attempt to make EULAs enforceable.) Blizzard's argument is that it and its customer entered into an enforceable contract. Both sides gave consideration and both sides agreed to perform certain actions and to give the other side certain rights in exchange for either money or a service provided.
Now Blizzard (at least according to the poster) is attempting to renege on its side of the bargain, while still (presumably) insisting that the purchaser abide by all terms and conditions.
A couple of additional thoughts:
First, don't argue with front-line customer service. Get in touch with Blizzard corporate headquarters or other supervisory personnel. Recognize that, while you are probably correct, it's likely an issue of first impression under the new WoW system and as a pioneer, you're likely to get a slow response.
Second, make sure that the initial owner of the game took the proper steps to terminate his account before he sold it to you.
Third, recognize that Blizzard is perfectly correct to be suspicious of someone claiming that, simply because you have the key, it should terminate an existing account. Respect their view on this because it's a world of hurt for them if they wrongly start terminating accounts. I can easily foresee them asking someone five times "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PERMANENTLY DELETE THIS ACCOUNT? ARE YOUR SURE YOU'RE SURE?" and then getting a complaint the next day that their account isn't working. They really are in a no-win situation.
Fourth, while yes, I am a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer. Nothing in this post should be construed as providing legal advice.
Finally, Blizzard needs to get on the ball and recognize when they are wrong. This sounds like a cluck-up. (But then again, first line support people aren't supposed to be interpreting legal documents.) I'm guessing this is more a matter of getting this issue in front of someone with the authority to make it right.
Potentially the most interesting post is this whole thread and all you have to say is that "It really blows."????
A little elucidation please! Do you mean the info isn't any good?? Have mercy on the space-loving but science-challenged masses! (In other words, your funders are curious WTF you're talking about.)
I got tired of paying $20 a month for a phone I rarely used + $50 a month for a cell phone I use constantly.
So I got rid of the land line. Just cancelled it. But, I have a fairly large apartment. I usually don't carry my cell around with me when I'm at home and I often miss calls (especially since I'm always leaving my cell on vibrate).
For someone with only 1 cell line, a product like this is great.
Except I'm really not. I'm a lawyer with the government. Beadstore.com is just a small family run business and I help out when I can. We're not getting rich of off our website. We don't have the time or money to put into get rich quick schemes hoping that maybe one might work. (But if anyone wants to trade web help for legal advice in Maryland, let me know;)
So I know enough HTML to design my own page, but mostly use Dreamweaver. We use a commercial shopping cart host (netstores.com) which is fairly decent. I used to pick up the occasional book on programming, but honestly, I don't really have the time or interest in teaching myself the technical details of how to do what we'd need to do.
A large portion of our advertising budget goes to Google and its Adwords program. Wow. It's a great program. But it's very expensive for a small business like ours. The increase in sales when we use it is noticeable. So is the drain on our bank account.
So ads from companies like SEO -- promising "free" high ranking searches -- is alluring. But it's a scam.
I know it's a scam.
Right?
It's a scam isn't it?
Well, honestly, I don't know for sure.
There is so much crap out there that it is impossible for someone like me to determine what is real and what is fake. Intelligent people manage to represent themselves in court all the time. But I guarantee that they are missing things that I as an attorney would see. It's a fact. It's not lack of intelligence, but lack of specialized knowledge.
That's me. I'm representing myself on the internet, competing against others who have real technical knowledge that I simply lack. So hire someone, right?
I'd be happy to.
Finding honest advice on page ranking techniques is extremely difficult. It's all spam. Or it's talking technical bull-hockey that I don't understand. Or (and this is almost always true) it seems to advocate ethically questionable techniques. Or being recommended and touted by a self-interested party. And usually, these offers are spammed anyway. Which gets us back to the first issue....
I have no doubt that the Truth is out there somewhere on the internet. Real people somewhere must be providing this service at a reasonable price. But I'll be damned if I have the time to ferret out the fakers from the legitimate enterprises.
So rather than hear about some self-aggrandizing company touting their dubious claims, I'd much rather hear from others in/. audience about where the reputable people are hiding and how to find them.
When he wanted to register a firm called Pinstorm Online last year, the Registrar of Companies "refused to grant me the name because the government officials out there did not comprehend the word 'online,'" Murthy said. "I had to change the name to Pinstorm Technologies. And, in my detailed application in which I described my company, I had to change the word 'internet' to 'computer network' because the officials did not think (the) internet was a credible medium for business. They told me that."
What's so strange about this? I hear the same thing from investers all the time!
I wish that official had been managing my stock portfolio in 2001....
From, ahem, personal experience, I can attest that a normal Prius' maximum speed (on a relatively flat highway) is about 104 miles per hour. This was with the accelerator floored and the car given time enough time to accelerate to its maximum speed.
Now I've only done this once, but it was fun. And I routinely drive in the 75 - 90 mph range.
So the fact that they have somehow coaxed an extra 1/3 power out of the same drive train is exciting news (even if they did strip things down on the weight side.) Listen, every record was originally set by one contestant. I'm guessing this "record" is gonna get smashed faster than watermelon at a Gallagher concert.
And now here's a quick plug -- my Prius is awesome. I love it. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Acceleration isn't sports car quality, but it's better than the perfectly acceptable 1994 Mercury Sable I drove previously, which had better pick up than the beat up old hand-me-down minivan I drove prior to the Sable. I drive on the vicious highways and streets of Washington, DC and I have never had a problem with my Prius.
Hang with me for a little while, this may seem disjointed -- but the parent posting actually has far more to teach us about Wikipedia and the nature of internet research than the actual article does. So here are a few observations that might bring my response to this post into context:
A couple days ago I got into a long debate with a PhD candidate/teaching assistant about how to teach an introductory college course on sourcing and reliance on internet materials in an introductory research course. Having taught something similar, I was surprised when she suggested that there is little (perhaps even nothing?) on the internet that can be reliably cited to. Or, to give her more credit (the actual argument was far more nuanced... or at least it seemed so after a couple of beers), her point is that there is always a more authoritative source available than the internet. And since students should be required to cite the most authoritative source they can find, it is extremely rare that the internet copy of a source should be cited to. Citing to the internet, in her opinion, is a crutch for citing to "real" paper publications (or even proprietary internet databases, CD-ROM compilations, etc.)
So while I clicked on the article more out of amusement value then anything else, the parent poster provides an awesome example of the strengths and weaknesses of both arguments. Coming into this thread, I'd heard of the "Children's Crusade" before, but it was just a historical tidbit that I'd picked up somewhere and really knew nothing about.
I was intrigued by the parent post's rather categorical dismissal of two of the three explanations -- and not know what those explanations were -- I clicked through and read the article.
The first paragraph of the article states that "Several conflicting accounts of this event exist, and the facts of the situation continue to be a subject of debate among historians."
Okay. So from the very beginning we know we are dealing with an "event" where the facts are not entirely clear. But scanning the rest of the article, it seems clear that whatever happened happened in the early 13th century.
The first two versions are then laid out. It's a real tear jerker -- young children coming together in a spontaneous uprising to fight the forces of evil -- who then meet a gruesome end. (Sound familiar?.) And it's this version of the story that this painter was thinking about when he put ink-to-canvas or what Kurt Vonnegut was thinking when he subtitled Slaughterhouse-Five "Or, the Children's Crusade, a Duty-Dance with Death", or why the term was incorporated into the title of the classic submarine movie Das Boot or why the incomparable Neil Gainman used it as a title for one of his comics.
History is not just comprised of facts. Myths and legands sometimes have a far greater impact on our physche than do Cold Hard Facts. This is a perfect example. This significance of the Children's Crusade is not whether it actually ever happened. The historical "fact" is an interesting academic question that makes for a fun historical sluething exercise.
So, back to the article. After depicting the historically and culturally significant version of the Children's Crusade, the article goes on to say "Some historians speculate that the entire crusade is fiction, as there is no real evidence that any such event occurred, in the 13th or in any other century. Research done in the early 1980s indicates that the Children's Crusade began as a misinterpretation of a 1212 religious movement among the landless poor...
Slashdot Mirror
One key element of the Judge's (very well written) opinion is that Second Life holds itself out as granting something akin to a traditional property right in the virtual world that it has created. Blizzard's policy, in contrast, has always been that it owns the virtual "property" and grants you a license to play with it.
In other words, Second Life offers to let you buy a portion of its sandbox, while Blizzard merely lets you play in it. In one case, you can take your toys and go home since you own the toys, in the other, you cannot.
Again, I beg to differ.
The California Independent System Operator runs the California interstate transmission grid. Here are some links discribing their peak power demand for 2006:
http://www.caiso.com/183d/183d9c065bc30.pdf and http://www.fypower.org/pdf/CAISO_72506pm.pdf
(both describing peak demand estimated at 4 pm)
If you really want to see peak load for California (and other regions of the country have similar OASIS sites), go to http://oasis.caiso.com/ click on "System Load" on the top bar, check "System Load", and put whatever 30 day period you wish to see. (I did June 1, 2006 - June 30, 2006).
The results for highest hourly peak:
June 1: 2 pm
June 2: 4 pm
June 3: 5 pm
June 4: 5 pm
June 5: 4 pm
June 6: 4 pm
Etc.
You can do this for any day you like.
As you can see, peak demand is usually right between 4 and 5 pm. Don't get me wrong, demand is still high at 6 pm or 7 pm, but that's not "peak". Different systems in geographic areas do behave slightly differently -- but most behave exactly as I specified. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.
If solar is less expensive than the available clean conventional sources then this might make sense. Otherwise, why bother? It's only in situations where you're already near existing daytime conventional capacity and the deployment of solar is much faster/cheaper in the short term than deployment of another clean conventional source that it might make sense. But if solar is expensive and/or time-consuming to deploy (relative to deploying another clean conventional source) then it simply doesn't make sense to use it even if it's only for dealing with peak load.
Forgive me, but you are completely wrong about this. Peak periods are exactly when things like solar really "shine." There are a couple thing you must understand about the interstate electricity grid:
First, is that it is over-designed on purpose. Most major utilities have operating reserves of power generation of between 12 - 18 % of the day's anticipated peak demand. On any given day, the system operator will have tens or hundreds of generation sources that it never dispatches (e.g., uses to produce power), but that are there "just in case." This means that utilities have multiple dispatch solutions in order to meet load (load being a measure of people who want to use electricity).
The second key principle is that utilities select their generation resoures based on a "least-cost dispatch" basis. While in practice, this gets incredibly complicated (and also includes environmental factors), the utility will pick the least expensive generators that can produce enough power to adequately supply the day's demand. In practical terms, this means that the utility will dispatch the dirtiest and most expensive to operate (on an incremental cost basis) generating facilities last.
The third principle is an outgrowth of the first two. On peak demand days (think middle of summer, air conditioners running at full blast, etc.), the number of dispatch options available to the utility decreases further and further as it commits an ever-increasingly greater share of its total generating capacity to meet demand. This means that your nastiest, dirtiest, foulest, most expensive generating facilities are dispatched on such days.
Imagine this scenario. You are Utility X. You have the following five generating facilities at your disposal:
1000 MW nuke.
500 MW cheaper, clean(er) coal.
500 MW slightly less cheap dirty coal.
100 MW incredibly expensive natural gas.
20 MW aging oil burner that spews out more toxics that Paris Hilton on a breathalyzer AND costs more than the GDP of small nations to operate.
Total installed capacity (a fancy term for the total amount of generation): 2110 MW.
Now imagine that hellishly hot day. Demand immediately soars to 1500 MW -- and it's not even 11 am yet. You commit your nuke and your clean coal facility. Now it's 2 pm and demand hits 2000 MW. Throw in the dirty coal. Four pm rolls around and demand hits 2040 MW. Thow in that expensive natural gas peaker! (Don't worry -- the rate payers will just end up eating the extra -- your investors are safe.)
Now it's 4:47 in the afternoon. The peak of the peak. You're at 2099 and still rising.... You are getting ready to commit the oil burner at a cost of several millions of dollars and countless hazy days. Do you need it?
Well, maybe not. If you were a smart utility executive, you invested in Demand Response and paid some of your customers to go off-grid on days like this. Additionally, you've been incouraging customers to install solar panels that are all furiously generating power right as it's needed most.
This is the moment where solar pays for itself. By reducing the peak demand by only a smidge, you reduce energy bills substantially. Solar is also one of the few alternative/clean sources of energy that peaks along with demand. Wind, for example, tends to blow off-peak. (This is even more true when you facto
There are a lot of problems with the premises of your questions. But a couple of the easy ones:
1) Efficiency and measures of "suns": As others have explained better than me, this basically means that they are using mirrors to "collect" the sun power and focus it.
3) Temperature: Solar cells tend to work better in colder weather, as you have less heat transfer loss. It just so happens that many (but not all) places with lots of sunlight happen to be hot -- but cold weather is actually a bonus factor. Generally, your efficiency losses resulting from hot weather are roughly equal to the reduction in power you get from being in a less sunny place, all other factors being equal.
4) Monetary cost: Solar is expensive. No question. But isn't it worth it?
5) Storage: Unlikely to be an issue. Aside from specialized case (read: nutcakes living off the grid or places where power isn't essential), solar is a peaking power resource that's used in conjunction with conventional generation technologies. At night? Pull your power from the grid. During the day? Send power back onto the grid (a.k.a. net metering). Much more efficient than trying to generate the power and store it.
Further, the suggestion is definitely that this would be used in utility-scale applications, given the concentration of sun you need to have. So again, batteries are not really an issue, as any power sent out onto the grid is instanteously (or pretty damn close to it) consumed by a thousand hair dryers all running at once.
This is why I bought my Prius in January of 2002. It wasn't about economics. It wasn't about reducing emissions (directly). It wasn't about the amazing cool factor of having a half-electric car.
It is about the future.
It is about creating a market for green projects.
It is about putting my money on the table to create this market.
It is about making a statement to the world that green works.
It is also about girls finding it totally hot.
Why is this a bad thing? Sounds like an wonderful vacation to me.
Option A:
Work at the office for 10 hours, leave work, go home, go about your normal life for 6 hours, sleep. Rinse, repeat.
Option B:
Work in County X for ten hours, leave work, go explore exotic city for 6 hours, sleep. Rinse, repeat.
Which would you rather have? Sure, pure vacation > working vacation. But it's just as clear to me that working vacation > staying home. And remember, he is not on vacation! He's simply remotely telecommuting and presumably, accruing vacation time, getting paid, etc. I don't understand exactly how the logistics of this works (power, communications, etc.), but it sounds like a lovely life style to me.
It's hard to take off for weeks or months at a time and still maintain a decent paying job. He's managed to compromise, and as a result is seeing and living and working in places that I, with my desk-bound job and three weeks of vacation a year will never see.
I find my BB very freeing. I have had many leisurely morning cups of coffees on my way to work, secure in the knowledge that nobody is looking for me and that no emergencies have arisen. Same on weekends. My *job* chains me sometimes. The Blackberry simply puts me on a (much) longer leash. My options are either wait by the computer for an email, or go about my day with my Blackberry by my side. I can tell you which I prefer. Now, before a thousand people feel the need to point it out, I recognize that there is a problem with my job here. But as a corporate attorney, it's a problem I volunteered for. I knew when I took this job that I was going to be dealing with people who need (or at least think they need) answers yesterday. However, they pay me well for the usage of my time and at least, so far, I'm happy with the trade off. But the Blackberry? Best extension cord ever.
Distribution is only one problem -- patent protection is another. I believe you are mixing up issues surrounding distribution of drugs that are already in the public domain (which are huge, but surmountable), with the cost issues surrounding cutting-edge drugs (which are harder to deal with).
Once a drug is researched, developed, and tested, the actual cost of production is quite low. An independent company, if allowed to do so, could reproduce the drug and sell it for pennies a pill and still make money. But of course, this isn't how things work. The developer of the drug has 14 years to (1) recoup its R&D and testing costs, (2) make a profit, and (3) pay for the cost of production/marketing/distribution.
So for 14+ years -- between the time the drug is patented and the time generic manufacturers get hold of it -- the drug company is guaranteed by law the exclusive right to make the drug just so that it can make its money. This makes sense as a method to incent the company to develop the drug. However it ignores the human toll that the 14 years of delay will take on parts of the world to whom the drug will be completely unaffordable.
By stepping in at Day 1, the government would compensate the company for its R&D costs and provide the investors their profits. This removes the largest component of the drug's cost. Instead of a customer paying for R&D, testing, and profit, in each pill he or she buys, the customer would instead pay only the cost of production and distribution.
The current situation in South Africa is quite instructive. Factories in South Africa can make retroviral AIDs drugs for a tiny fraction of the cost it takes to buy the drugs from the American/European companies that control the patents. Under intense pressure from the West, South Africa ended up stopping its generic production of the drugs, and now instead purchases them from the patent holders (at a substantial discount). Both sides got a good deal -- company gets tax write-offs for charitable contributions, protects its intellectual property, and gets a PR boost; while the country of South Africa avoids international sanctions and trade wars, while still getting the drugs it needed.
If there is ever a cure for AIDs, I think that cure should be "purchased" by the people of the world and placed into the public domain. (Not, mind you, purchased by the government with the intent to maintain the patent protection. Literally, placed into the public domain. No "licensing" requirement at all. From anyone.) It's just too important. Once the drug is in the public domain, the marketplace again takes over and could be manufactured anywhere in the world by any company (or country) that wishes to get into the business. It would be, essentially, a truly free market for AIDs drugs all over the world without the artificial restrictions patent protection imposes.
Is there still going to be a need for private/governmental charity? Sure. But then the charitable efforts could be focused on the billion people who can't afford generic drugs versus the 6 billion who can't afford patented drugs.
I think you have a fundamental misconception about how eminent domain works. The mega-corporation that discovers the cure for cancer is going to do an analysis and determine that in the first year, they are going to make $x, in year two, they are going to make $y, and so on until the patent expires.
The government would look at the total value of the patent, adjust it for the time value of the money, and pay out a whopping big check.
The whole concept of seizing something by eminent domain is that the company recieve FAIR compensation. This is in no way "government seizure" that is going to deprive the company of its money.
Suppose your company had a brilliant invention. They think that they can make a total of $100 billion in the first 14 years of production. Would you object if the company were instead given a check up front for $100 billion minus the time value of the money? Hell no!
I am not proposing to "disincent" private industry in any way. I am talking about taking a bold step that would pay the company its money, while at the same time ensuring that the world would have an adequate supply of the drug.
I have always hoped that should a real cure for AIDs be developed that the United States government would sieze the intellectual property and put it into the public domain.
Of course, any siezure of property has to be (1) in the public interest, and (2) fairly compensated. I know I'd happily support a politician who advocated such an action, regardless of how much money it might cost.
The other interesting scenario would be an ultra-rich executive or even a company who wanted to secure their place in history. Could a private individual purchase the rights to such a thing? Would a company think the forgone profits were worth the enormous PR boost? Wishful thinking perhaps.
What's the alternative? Have the same pharmacuitical industry complex distribute the drug? I mean we have drugs that cure malaria and all sorts of other things, and we still can't/won't get it to the people who need it. I'm not a naive bleeding heart -- I know the distribution and other problems in Africa (in particular), but we have to at least try, right?
So far this morning I've listened to CNN and NPR, read the Washington Post and the Times of London and the BBC online.
By far the most informative site has been Slashdot -- whether from eyewitnesses posting their accounts or simply aggregating news from sources world wide. And the analysis in several of the posts has been at least as good as any of the major sources.
I was just in London a few months ago -- I think I visited every Tube station mentioned. Just know that our thoughts are most definitely with you.
Well, I don't really see them as having many choices. They are on-again off-again at war with India. Afghanistan can't keep its lights on, never mind provide internet connections.
Iran? China? Wow. Who other sets of political issues. (See pretty map here.)
Not to mention that a large part of Pakistan's borders are extremely inhospitable mountain regions. The Arabian Sea actually makes sense.
One of my favorite Star Trek books, called The Kobayashi Maru, involved several of the main characters re-telling stories of their academy days. It is really a compelling little book and extremely well written.
Several of the stories focus on the Kobayashi Maru doomsday scenario that's referenced in one of the Star Trek movies, but several deal with other aspects of a Star Fleet Academy education.
If Shatner had this type of material in in mind then the project might actually be worth while. Anyway, it's a great read for any Star Trek fan -- the author really captures each character's own nuances.
Just remember, it can't be any worse than the first (and for me, last) episode of Enterprise.
Hey thanks :)
:) My email is greenie20902 at yahoo.com. Thanks!
Unlike most people on Slashdot who play lawyer, I'm a lawyer who plays programmer. Please -- any help would be greatly appreciated! (And rewarded with free stuff, of course
Perhaps, but honestly, my thought was AOL doesn't want to be held liable when someone intercepts the IM I wrote to Bill Gates in 1980 suggesting he create a new GUI to be called "Windows".
By explicitly stating that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy (to borrow some criminal law language), you can't turn around and sue AOL when, in fact, it turns out that IMs are completely not secure.
The short version:
The ToS specifies the rights that AOL has. Storing your IMs is not a right specified in the ToS. Therefore, AOL doesn't have the right to retain your IMs.
The longer version:
If the company does not specify it has the right to do something (i.e., the contract is "silent" on the issue), the company generally cannot do that thing. Contracts are read this way to better protect the consumer. And it also just makes sense. If the company could do anything except what was specifically prohibited, then the consumer would have no rights except those explicitly guaranteed by the contract, which, coincidently, was written by the company. Traditional contract law does not allow this. Here, where AOL does not reserve their right to retain info, they may not do it.
In fact, there are two doctrines of contract law that apply to this type of situation.
The first is that "the inclusion of one is the exclusion of all others." By listing specific things it can do, AOL is essentially saying it cannot do anything it does not list. So by specifying that it could keep "posts" and other specific types of information, the contract would be read as prohibiting it from keeping other types of information (IMs, in this case) not specifically discussed.
The second is the doctrine of "contra preferentem" which literally means "against the party who proffers or puts forward a thing" and is defined as "used in connection with the construction of written documents to the effect that an ambiguous provision is construed most strongly against the person who selected the language." (Black's Law Dictionary). So where AOL puts forward contract language (and the parties are of unequal bargaining power), the contract will construed against AOL.
Both the doctrines work quite nicely together, as you can see. Maybe this really is one of those things that a lawyer is just going to read differently -- but reading the ToS it seemed pretty clear to me that IMs were not one of the things that AOL gave itself the right to collect.
Um....
So, let me get this straight. A bunch of non-lawyer geeks (i.e., Slashdot's editors) read through a Term of Service agreement and misread and misunderstood what it said. They then take this faulty information and disseminate it wide and far. And it's still AOL's fault.
What am I missing? The TOS looked pretty damn clear to me. Slashdot owes AOL an apology and a correction.
I'm just glad AOL is a scummy and well-capitalized company. This kind of shoddy reporting could utterly destroy a smaller entity's reputation and put them out of business. On the basis of bad reporting. Amazing.
The right to transfer ownership of the tangible expression of a copyrighted work is fundamental to our system of intellectual property ownership: 17 U.S.C. sec. 109 (2000). I don't quote this provision to suggest that Blizzard is breaking the law, simply that the right to alienate (essentially a fancy legal term for "sell") your copy of a copyrighted work is enshrined in United States law (and in fact, is generally recognized throughout the world).
So what is Blizzard doing here? It is denying the initial purchaser of the game the right to sell his or her copy (who am I kidding? His) copy of the game in the open marketplace. The initial purchaser of the game agreed to Blizzard's End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) when he first started playing. (Of course, the legal enforceability of these EULAs is somewhat murky -- different states have different laws, although UCITA is the most common attempt to make EULAs enforceable.) Blizzard's argument is that it and its customer entered into an enforceable contract. Both sides gave consideration and both sides agreed to perform certain actions and to give the other side certain rights in exchange for either money or a service provided.
Now Blizzard (at least according to the poster) is attempting to renege on its side of the bargain, while still (presumably) insisting that the purchaser abide by all terms and conditions.
A couple of additional thoughts:
First, don't argue with front-line customer service. Get in touch with Blizzard corporate headquarters or other supervisory personnel. Recognize that, while you are probably correct, it's likely an issue of first impression under the new WoW system and as a pioneer, you're likely to get a slow response.
Second, make sure that the initial owner of the game took the proper steps to terminate his account before he sold it to you.
Third, recognize that Blizzard is perfectly correct to be suspicious of someone claiming that, simply because you have the key, it should terminate an existing account. Respect their view on this because it's a world of hurt for them if they wrongly start terminating accounts. I can easily foresee them asking someone five times "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PERMANENTLY DELETE THIS ACCOUNT? ARE YOUR SURE YOU'RE SURE?" and then getting a complaint the next day that their account isn't working. They really are in a no-win situation.
Fourth, while yes, I am a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer. Nothing in this post should be construed as providing legal advice.
Finally, Blizzard needs to get on the ball and recognize when they are wrong. This sounds like a cluck-up. (But then again, first line support people aren't supposed to be interpreting legal documents.) I'm guessing this is more a matter of getting this issue in front of someone with the authority to make it right.
What? Come on!
Potentially the most interesting post is this whole thread and all you have to say is that "It really blows."????
A little elucidation please! Do you mean the info isn't any good?? Have mercy on the space-loving but science-challenged masses! (In other words, your funders are curious WTF you're talking about.)
That's fine if you have a land line.
I got tired of paying $20 a month for a phone I rarely used + $50 a month for a cell phone I use constantly.
So I got rid of the land line. Just cancelled it. But, I have a fairly large apartment. I usually don't carry my cell around with me when I'm at home and I often miss calls (especially since I'm always leaving my cell on vibrate).
For someone with only 1 cell line, a product like this is great.
I am the webmaster for a small business (http://www.beadstore.com).
;)
/. audience about where the reputable people are hiding and how to find them.
Except I'm really not. I'm a lawyer with the government. Beadstore.com is just a small family run business and I help out when I can. We're not getting rich of off our website. We don't have the time or money to put into get rich quick schemes hoping that maybe one might work. (But if anyone wants to trade web help for legal advice in Maryland, let me know
So I know enough HTML to design my own page, but mostly use Dreamweaver. We use a commercial shopping cart host (netstores.com) which is fairly decent. I used to pick up the occasional book on programming, but honestly, I don't really have the time or interest in teaching myself the technical details of how to do what we'd need to do.
A large portion of our advertising budget goes to Google and its Adwords program. Wow. It's a great program. But it's very expensive for a small business like ours. The increase in sales when we use it is noticeable. So is the drain on our bank account.
So ads from companies like SEO -- promising "free" high ranking searches -- is alluring. But it's a scam.
I know it's a scam.
Right?
It's a scam isn't it?
Well, honestly, I don't know for sure.
There is so much crap out there that it is impossible for someone like me to determine what is real and what is fake. Intelligent people manage to represent themselves in court all the time. But I guarantee that they are missing things that I as an attorney would see. It's a fact. It's not lack of intelligence, but lack of specialized knowledge.
That's me. I'm representing myself on the internet, competing against others who have real technical knowledge that I simply lack. So hire someone, right?
I'd be happy to.
Finding honest advice on page ranking techniques is extremely difficult. It's all spam. Or it's talking technical bull-hockey that I don't understand. Or (and this is almost always true) it seems to advocate ethically questionable techniques. Or being recommended and touted by a self-interested party. And usually, these offers are spammed anyway. Which gets us back to the first issue....
I have no doubt that the Truth is out there somewhere on the internet. Real people somewhere must be providing this service at a reasonable price. But I'll be damned if I have the time to ferret out the fakers from the legitimate enterprises.
So rather than hear about some self-aggrandizing company touting their dubious claims, I'd much rather hear from others in
What's so strange about this? I hear the same thing from investers all the time!
I wish that official had been managing my stock portfolio in 2001....
It was all in the interest of Science.
From, ahem, personal experience, I can attest that a normal Prius' maximum speed (on a relatively flat highway) is about 104 miles per hour. This was with the accelerator floored and the car given time enough time to accelerate to its maximum speed.
Now I've only done this once, but it was fun. And I routinely drive in the 75 - 90 mph range.
So the fact that they have somehow coaxed an extra 1/3 power out of the same drive train is exciting news (even if they did strip things down on the weight side.) Listen, every record was originally set by one contestant. I'm guessing this "record" is gonna get smashed faster than watermelon at a Gallagher concert.
And now here's a quick plug -- my Prius is awesome. I love it. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Acceleration isn't sports car quality, but it's better than the perfectly acceptable 1994 Mercury Sable I drove previously, which had better pick up than the beat up old hand-me-down minivan I drove prior to the Sable. I drive on the vicious highways and streets of Washington, DC and I have never had a problem with my Prius.
Hang with me for a little while, this may seem disjointed -- but the parent posting actually has far more to teach us about Wikipedia and the nature of internet research than the actual article does. So here are a few observations that might bring my response to this post into context:
A couple days ago I got into a long debate with a PhD candidate/teaching assistant about how to teach an introductory college course on sourcing and reliance on internet materials in an introductory research course. Having taught something similar, I was surprised when she suggested that there is little (perhaps even nothing?) on the internet that can be reliably cited to. Or, to give her more credit (the actual argument was far more nuanced... or at least it seemed so after a couple of beers), her point is that there is always a more authoritative source available than the internet. And since students should be required to cite the most authoritative source they can find, it is extremely rare that the internet copy of a source should be cited to. Citing to the internet, in her opinion, is a crutch for citing to "real" paper publications (or even proprietary internet databases, CD-ROM compilations, etc.)
So while I clicked on the article more out of amusement value then anything else, the parent poster provides an awesome example of the strengths and weaknesses of both arguments. Coming into this thread, I'd heard of the "Children's Crusade" before, but it was just a historical tidbit that I'd picked up somewhere and really knew nothing about.
I was intrigued by the parent post's rather categorical dismissal of two of the three explanations -- and not know what those explanations were -- I clicked through and read the article.
The first paragraph of the article states that "Several conflicting accounts of this event exist, and the facts of the situation continue to be a subject of debate among historians."
Okay. So from the very beginning we know we are dealing with an "event" where the facts are not entirely clear. But scanning the rest of the article, it seems clear that whatever happened happened in the early 13th century.
The first two versions are then laid out. It's a real tear jerker -- young children coming together in a spontaneous uprising to fight the forces of evil -- who then meet a gruesome end. (Sound familiar?.) And it's this version of the story that this painter was thinking about when he put ink-to-canvas or what Kurt Vonnegut was thinking when he subtitled Slaughterhouse-Five "Or, the Children's Crusade, a Duty-Dance with Death", or why the term was incorporated into the title of the classic submarine movie Das Boot or why the incomparable Neil Gainman used it as a title for one of his comics.
History is not just comprised of facts. Myths and legands sometimes have a far greater impact on our physche than do Cold Hard Facts. This is a perfect example. This significance of the Children's Crusade is not whether it actually ever happened. The historical "fact" is an interesting academic question that makes for a fun historical sluething exercise.
So, back to the article. After depicting the historically and culturally significant version of the Children's Crusade, the article goes on to say "Some historians speculate that the entire crusade is fiction, as there is no real evidence that any such event occurred, in the 13th or in any other century. Research done in the early 1980s indicates that the Children's Crusade began as a misinterpretation of a 1212 religious movement among the landless poor...