The nice thing about solar thermal is that if it were ever desired, the operating hours and/or output can easily be extended by quickly adding a cheap natural gas burner as a heat supplement. If the turbines become a limiting factor, they are relatively quick to add also (compared to other parts of a power plant).
Ivanpah was deliberately sited near a natural gas pipeline for this reason.
The CFL spiral tube has to be shaped by hand and is very labor intensive. The glass of an incandescent light bulb can be machine molded. Thus, cheap labor is a bigger advantage in the manufacture of CFLs than incandescent light bulbs.
Based on this patent, it looks like they write, read back an analog signal, and then use any deviation from expectations to compute a compensation factor for a second write which is the actual data write. In other words, the first write is used to calibrate the data writes. I assume this calibration is done rarely or the write bandwidth would be 1/3 of a non-calibrating system.
Variations due to process (the cell is smaller or larger than intended) only need to be calibrated once. Variations due to environment such as temperature or supply voltage require more frequent calibration but should hurt bandwidth too much. I assume the MSP determines when calibration is required.
The patent:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0103358.html
Although the vagueness of the marketing material made me skeptical, the patent shows they have a significant contribution and this technology does have value.
So you mean those GPSes cars that just plug into lighter sockets are magic?
The parent probably meant "A-GPS" which supposedly gets a lock much faster than non-assisted GPS.
Also, a smartphone with AGPS is more convenient than hauling two devices around (and the dedicated GPS may have lousy battery life) when you're walking or taking public transit.
The motherboard is probably very similar to this one:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/Image/server_productimage_ga-9ivdt_big.gif
The SATA connectors are in the bottom right of the gigabyte photo and the upper left of the google photo, under the left disk.
The SATA cable from the right disk heads straight for the motherboard connector. The SATA cable from the left disk makes a U-turn before going to the motherboard connector.
"4320 hours of daytime per year" is not a good figure to use, as solar panels only reach their rated output during full sun. As a rule of thumb, most reasonable sites (like Arizona) can be considered to receive the equivalent of 5 hours of full sun per day. I would suggest 1825 hours/year of full rated output.
Solar panels don't/can't produce power 24 hours a day.
You also left out the cost of the inverters and a lot of other stuff like who cleans the snow off the panels.
Outside of stunts like recharging the battery from the wall and claiming this improves the gas mileage, what is the advantage of a hybrid over a normal internal combustion engine? If you don't introduce external electrical energy, the electric battery and motor are only a storage device. All the energy is ultimately derived from gasoline. So how does the electic motor improve the energy efficiency of the internal combustion engine?
One of the main real benefits of hybrid cars in freeway driving is that they have reduced throttle losses.
Honda has designed an engine which cleverly reduces throttle losses in a much less expensive way. http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=37 6015http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Valve-timing_20_22t hrottle_22
Hollywood makes a living by manipulating people's feelings and emotions. They make a very good living at it so you'd have trouble competing with their dollars but more important, you will find it very difficult to compete with their propaganda resources.
They might make TV spots with famous actors or actresses about how property rights made this country great.
Or they might start casting nefarious hackers and pirates as bad guys in TV series or movies.
I'm sure there's many other ways they can "persuade" public opinion on this subject in very effective ways.
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A varying supply without storage is not good for a varying load unless the variations match. In the case of wind, usually not.
I'm impressed that he makes his own rocket motors (along with all the other stuff).
The nice thing about solar thermal is that if it were ever desired, the operating hours and/or output can easily be extended by quickly adding a cheap natural gas burner as a heat supplement. If the turbines become a limiting factor, they are relatively quick to add also (compared to other parts of a power plant). Ivanpah was deliberately sited near a natural gas pipeline for this reason.
The CFL spiral tube has to be shaped by hand and is very labor intensive. The glass of an incandescent light bulb can be machine molded. Thus, cheap labor is a bigger advantage in the manufacture of CFLs than incandescent light bulbs.
should hurt bandwidth too much ->
should not hurt bandwidth too much
Based on this patent, it looks like they write, read back an analog signal, and then use any deviation from expectations to compute a compensation factor for a second write which is the actual data write. In other words, the first write is used to calibrate the data writes. I assume this calibration is done rarely or the write bandwidth would be 1/3 of a non-calibrating system.
Variations due to process (the cell is smaller or larger than intended) only need to be calibrated once. Variations due to environment such as temperature or supply voltage require more frequent calibration but should hurt bandwidth too much. I assume the MSP determines when calibration is required.
The patent:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0103358.html
Although the vagueness of the marketing material made me skeptical, the patent shows they have a significant contribution and this technology does have value.
So you mean those GPSes cars that just plug into lighter sockets are magic?
The parent probably meant "A-GPS" which supposedly gets a lock much faster than non-assisted GPS.
Also, a smartphone with AGPS is more convenient than hauling two devices around (and the dedicated GPS may have lousy battery life) when you're walking or taking public transit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS
The motherboard is probably very similar to this one: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/Image/server_productimage_ga-9ivdt_big.gif The SATA connectors are in the bottom right of the gigabyte photo and the upper left of the google photo, under the left disk. The SATA cable from the right disk heads straight for the motherboard connector. The SATA cable from the left disk makes a U-turn before going to the motherboard connector.
"4320 hours of daytime per year" is not a good figure to use, as solar panels only reach their rated output during full sun. As a rule of thumb, most reasonable sites (like Arizona) can be considered to receive the equivalent of 5 hours of full sun per day. I would suggest 1825 hours/year of full rated output.
So your cost is about $5.10 per watt.
Solar panels don't/can't produce power 24 hours a day. You also left out the cost of the inverters and a lot of other stuff like who cleans the snow off the panels.
Outside of stunts like recharging the battery from the wall and claiming this improves the gas mileage, what is the advantage of a hybrid over a normal internal combustion engine? If you don't introduce external electrical energy, the electric battery and motor are only a storage device. All the energy is ultimately derived from gasoline. So how does the electic motor improve the energy efficiency of the internal combustion engine?7 6015
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Valve-timing_20_22t hrottle_22
One of the main real benefits of hybrid cars in freeway driving is that they have reduced throttle losses.
Honda has designed an engine which cleverly reduces throttle losses in a much less expensive way.
http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=3
I wonder what speed gigabit Ethernet really runs at.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/111/living/Burne d_+.shtml
Could you point me to some references (URL) of "musicians who oppose the RIAA on Napster"?
Hollywood makes a living by manipulating people's feelings and emotions. They make a very good living at it so you'd have trouble competing with their dollars but more important, you will find it very difficult to compete with their propaganda resources. They might make TV spots with famous actors or actresses about how property rights made this country great. Or they might start casting nefarious hackers and pirates as bad guys in TV series or movies. I'm sure there's many other ways they can "persuade" public opinion on this subject in very effective ways.