Actually, there is a already a lot of solar power being generated in the Mojave and elsewhere in California. In fact, more solar power in California than any other state or country.
This is due to state regulations which both subsidise and mandate solar power. The 'free market' isn't doing the whole job by itself but it is doing nicely with a little help from the state.
I don't understand why people think they got a good deal on a phone for only $99 when they can't do some simple math to see that the phone plus the 24 month plan will cost them $2400 (including taxes, fees, random charges, etc.).
In California it is illegal to do this... you should check with your state consumer protection organization. You should be able to demand that you get a bill for your individual usage.
Good to see that you understand that the cost of power and most manufactured goods involve creating pollution and that pollution is not included in the cost.
Why is it that I only see this argument when people are trying to discredit 'green power' and never when they talk about how cheap coal and nuclear power are to produce?
I'm sure that you understand that once you have built a solar panel or windmill, it produces electricity without pollution but with coal and nuclear they keep producing pollution forever. So... I am happy to include the cost of all externalities in calculating the cost of power... solar and wind both come out far ahead. (If you have any references that try to prove the opposite, I'd love to seem them.)
Actually, Slashdot's comment system is run using a quantum plugin that actually implements these loop current effects. Most computers run this just fine but you, being a physics Ph.D. student have skewed the system since it can sense that you are starting to understand how it works. It cannot tolerate this encroachment so it is trying to throw you off track by distracting you.
Do not be discouraged. Look on this as a challenge. Keep clicking randomly and this will confuse it enough for it to start working again.
The power used to build a windmill has a cost and this cost is reflected in the price of the windmill (plus wages, profit, etc.) so it is easy to calculate whether or not the windmill pays back the energy cost. If the windmill pays back its cost in the revenue from the power it generates then it is indeed generating more power than was used to build it.
First I heard about hybrid cars was Mother Earth News which published plans for converting a small car to hybrid power in the 70s. (Yes, I am an old hippie.)
Good rant but I 'fixed' it to include some more culpable criminals:
If you see an economy as an organism you'll see that that economy/that organism suffers from some of the same ailments as a live organism. As soon as the organism gets successful there will be parasites which try to hop along for the ride, taking from the organism without giving back. The world economy is quite successful in most part, which has lead to the rise of a whole host of parasitic species. Some of them are easily recognized as they are the common class of corporate criminal, from bankers to insurance companies to wall street financiers. Others are not as easily recognized because they have both adapted to the host as well as changed the host to make themselves be unrecognisable. In the latter class is where you'll find those lawyers, the bonus-grabbing old boy network, the self-serving politicians who support the monopoly capitalists and other leeches.
In an organism you can act in several ways to combat a parasite infestation. You can try to kill the parasites, help the organism's immune system to recognize them and thus indirectly kill them or you can try to make the organism a less hospitable host to the parasite.
It is clear that the first option is not a choice in a civilized society. The second and third choices would be usable though: point out the parasites to society and change society to be less hospitable to them. As the parasite infestation is very deep and wide, especially in those organs of society which are responsible for directing the immune system (politics and law) this will be a hard task. Hard, but not impossible. Not all organs are infested, find out which have yet held the parasites at bay and use those to eradicate them from the rest. That is easier said than done but is seems the only way to clear out the mess without killing the organism, the civilized society which we want to live in.
Running random executables downloaded from the Internet IS the issue. In Linux, you can prevent that from happening and at the same time allow people to run 'authorized' executables.
Noooo... you can (and should) lock Linux down to keep users from running anything you don't specifically install and authorize.
Here is one way to lock down Linux.
You can prevent users from running executable programs even in their own user directory and then whitelist the programs that they are authorized to run.
Whitelist is actually fairly easy. Use the same approach that Ubuntu and many other distros use. Create a group for a particular program or group of programs, set the group of the executable to that and then add users to that group if you want them to be able to access it. This is how access to sudo, printers and a whole host of other things are done on Ubuntu (and other distros).
You're right. I forgot how brain damaged the Windows security model is...
In Linux, of course, you would need admin privilege to run an executable which is one reason Linux doesn't get viruses. But in Windows, anyone can download and execute anything... dumb.
So I guess I should rephrase that as "So what happened to the IT administrator who installed Windows computers in a situation where patient privacy and security could be compromised?"
In Switzerland it's standard procedure to take everything when you move out of an apartment... curtains, blinds, light fixtures, bulbs. I found this a bit odd but they are very frugal here.
Don't know what your problem is but I replaced all the bulbs in my house with Ikea CFLs and not one has failed in three years. They all are 'instant on' and have a nice color temperature.
I did say that I had no problems getting sound and WiFi to work on initial install or on updates on all of my installations. That means that it has just always worked (for me) out of the box without any CLI magic.
As far as forums... I can find lots of Windows forums where people are having problems with sound and WiFi (and much else) so this anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much.
A clueless user will be clueless on Windows or on Linux. However, if you give either one a box with the OS and software installed, they will be able to use both without having to use the Control Panel or CLI.
The advantage of Linux is that they won't get infested with malware and that is a big plus.
Yes, sorry it does look like I was confused. My first references pointed to some papers that talked about a 96 to 99 % electric generation efficiency in the abstract but the full paper was not available due to being locked up by some publisher... they must have been measuring some other efficiency.
Further research points to the 40% figure as being more typical with up to 60% in some experimental new technology.
As you point out, still much better than a gasoline or diesel engine... so coal electricity from the grid has a lower carbon impact than gasoline.
Why is this being tagged "climate change" with people yammering about global warming? This is a previously unexpected form of energy transfer but would have been occuring since...oh...our planet had a magnetosphere and there is not a single mention in the article concerning climate change or global warming.
I agree that there is no link to climate change but that doesn't stop all of the conspiracy theorist trolls. Without the link to climate change, we could only talk about this new science that was discovered and that would be boring. Now we get to waste our time reading the standard climate conspiracy rants.
Funny, my anecdotal experience (probably as worthless as yours) has been that I have never had a problem with sound on any of my Linux installs or updates. For that matter, I haven't had a problem with WiFi either. It has always just worked.
Then again, I have 35 years of IT experience which unfortunately includes much pain with Windows systems. The Windows pain has changed over the years from problems installing and finding drivers to now dealing with infestations of malware (and still drivers for Vista/7).
I don't do daily corporate IT any more but I did happen to sit in our our corporate IT problem meeting last week (large multinational organization) and the entire time was spent on the problems of dealing with Windows malware which has severely compromised security and stability. (We are an exclusive Windows shop except for a few renegades such as me who use Linux on their corporate Dells to avoid malware... one trip to Africa and your Windows box will be compromised.)
Linux is a great desktop. Solid, stable, free of malware and I have lots of free software to do everything I need (the usual corporate stuff plus graphics and video).
I think you must have pulled your estimate of electric power plan efficiency from some dark place. All of the sources I found point to greater than 90% efficiency (with another 5% lost to transmission). Electric generation is much more efficient than gasoline or diesel engines.
Slashdot Mirror
This is due to state regulations which both subsidise and mandate solar power. The 'free market' isn't doing the whole job by itself but it is doing nicely with a little help from the state.
I guess you're screwed either way.
Dude, you just got screwed!
In California it is illegal to do this... you should check with your state consumer protection organization. You should be able to demand that you get a bill for your individual usage.
Why is it that I only see this argument when people are trying to discredit 'green power' and never when they talk about how cheap coal and nuclear power are to produce?
I'm sure that you understand that once you have built a solar panel or windmill, it produces electricity without pollution but with coal and nuclear they keep producing pollution forever. So... I am happy to include the cost of all externalities in calculating the cost of power... solar and wind both come out far ahead. (If you have any references that try to prove the opposite, I'd love to seem them.)
Do not be discouraged. Look on this as a challenge. Keep clicking randomly and this will confuse it enough for it to start working again.
The power used to build a windmill has a cost and this cost is reflected in the price of the windmill (plus wages, profit, etc.) so it is easy to calculate whether or not the windmill pays back the energy cost. If the windmill pays back its cost in the revenue from the power it generates then it is indeed generating more power than was used to build it.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1979-07-01/Electric-Car-Conversion.aspx
Don't worry about it... someone else already has patented it... you need to pay up or they will disconnect your DNA.
It's called Dia... nice Visio clone runs on Windows and Linux.
http://live.gnome.org/Dia
You can do all of these things in a browser in Linux and your browser and OS are not subject to malware.
Running random executables downloaded from the Internet IS the issue. In Linux, you can prevent that from happening and at the same time allow people to run 'authorized' executables.
Here is one way to lock down Linux.
You can prevent users from running executable programs even in their own user directory and then whitelist the programs that they are authorized to run.
Whitelist is actually fairly easy. Use the same approach that Ubuntu and many other distros use. Create a group for a particular program or group of programs, set the group of the executable to that and then add users to that group if you want them to be able to access it. This is how access to sudo, printers and a whole host of other things are done on Ubuntu (and other distros).
In Linux, of course, you would need admin privilege to run an executable which is one reason Linux doesn't get viruses. But in Windows, anyone can download and execute anything... dumb.
So I guess I should rephrase that as "So what happened to the IT administrator who installed Windows computers in a situation where patient privacy and security could be compromised?"
So what's happening to the IT administrator who stupidly installed a Windows computer with an open admin account that allowed the woman to run an exe?
In Switzerland it's standard procedure to take everything when you move out of an apartment... curtains, blinds, light fixtures, bulbs. I found this a bit odd but they are very frugal here.
Don't know what your problem is but I replaced all the bulbs in my house with Ikea CFLs and not one has failed in three years. They all are 'instant on' and have a nice color temperature.
As far as forums... I can find lots of Windows forums where people are having problems with sound and WiFi (and much else) so this anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much.
A clueless user will be clueless on Windows or on Linux. However, if you give either one a box with the OS and software installed, they will be able to use both without having to use the Control Panel or CLI.
The advantage of Linux is that they won't get infested with malware and that is a big plus.
Further research points to the 40% figure as being more typical with up to 60% in some experimental new technology.
As you point out, still much better than a gasoline or diesel engine... so coal electricity from the grid has a lower carbon impact than gasoline.
I agree that there is no link to climate change but that doesn't stop all of the conspiracy theorist trolls. Without the link to climate change, we could only talk about this new science that was discovered and that would be boring. Now we get to waste our time reading the standard climate conspiracy rants.
Then again, I have 35 years of IT experience which unfortunately includes much pain with Windows systems. The Windows pain has changed over the years from problems installing and finding drivers to now dealing with infestations of malware (and still drivers for Vista/7).
I don't do daily corporate IT any more but I did happen to sit in our our corporate IT problem meeting last week (large multinational organization) and the entire time was spent on the problems of dealing with Windows malware which has severely compromised security and stability. (We are an exclusive Windows shop except for a few renegades such as me who use Linux on their corporate Dells to avoid malware... one trip to Africa and your Windows box will be compromised.)
Linux is a great desktop. Solid, stable, free of malware and I have lots of free software to do everything I need (the usual corporate stuff plus graphics and video).
I think you must have pulled your estimate of electric power plan efficiency from some dark place. All of the sources I found point to greater than 90% efficiency (with another 5% lost to transmission). Electric generation is much more efficient than gasoline or diesel engines.
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
The best way to find stolen electronic gadgets is on eBay... they all show up there sooner or later.