The fine print on this announcement is that the patents are not really free. You have to apply and be accepted to the program (serious contenders need not apply?) and the royalty-free license period only goes to 2020. This is just enough time to develop and start producing something and then you can get hit with big royalty payments. This is sucker bait.
Globalism hasn't worked out so well for the U.S. Corporations have transferred a lot of skilled manufacturing jobs to low wage countries with fewer pollution controls and then ship finished goods back to the U.S. (creating more pollution). The result has been that the well paying manufacturing jobs have disappeared and everybody is working at Walmart for minimum wage selling cheap shit from China. Globalization increases pollution and lowers living standards in developed countries. In low wage countries, they have more pollution. Wealthy people just buy more cheap shit, creating more pollution. The only comparative advantage corporations exploit is their ability to drive down wages and not pay for their pollution.
Why do you want to go to London? Really, a lot of air travel is unnecessary... even a lot of "necessary" air travel is unnecessary. If the price were higher to pay for the negative externalities of air travel, there would be a lot less unnecessary air travel. If you have an economy built on pollution (i.e. Hawaii), maybe you need to think different. OTOH, Elon Musk thinks electric airplanes are possible. They would have the potential to reduce pollution.
If you think that the medical industry exists only to make money, then the drug companies are rational. All of your anger at the government is really anger at companies who have corrupted government. In the US, government works for corporations and rich people and has been completely corrupted (some people call this fascism). The government created patents to help companies, not people. Get rid of patents... problem solved... no more evil drug companies.
If you actually read the first page, you would have seen that it is available as either a "cloud" version or as your own home server (without the "cloud" bits).
The generic versions do not go on sale until July. The evil drug company wants to discontinue the older soon to be generic version and force everyone to switch over to the new expensive patented version before July, thus leaving the generic manufacturers with no market. Step 3. Profit!!
Most hydrogen comes from natural gas (with lousy conversion efficiency. If you get your hydrogen from electricity, it has even worse efficiency. It uses about four times the electricity to make hydrogen and then convert it back to electricity in your "fool cell" vehicle as just putting the electricity in your vehicle and bypassing the whole hydrogen part. Plus, electricity is everywhere, literally everywhere. Anyone can just plug in at home and work, etc. With hydrogen, you have only ten places to refuel in California... not going very far.
Looks like they are using hand me down software from the US from the 1960s written in a language called Jovial. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... "Prof Thomas said the NAS system was written using a now defunct computer language called Jovial, meaning Nats has to train programmers in Jovial just to maintain the antiquated software."
"If four members of Seal team 6 decide to save a few bucks, risking the chance that the driver is going to attack the four of them, then they should have that choice." "Even those four members of Seal team 6 are exposed for the taximan to give them the "tourist sightseeing" which makes a 20 buck trip into a 200 one."
----- This is what usually happens to me when I take a "well-regulated" taxi (in many cities in many parts of the world... I can follow the route on Google maps and calculate just how badly I am being screwed.)
The complete paragraph is: "But a 2011 audit of the project’s proposed construction budget stalled three times when, according to the independent Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), NEON’s accounting proved so poor that the review could not be completed. Eventually, DCAA issued an adverse ruling, concluding that nearly 36% of NEON’s budget proposal was questionable or undocumented."
They had poor accounting. They have not been given a chance to explain or improve their accounting. This is a lot different than fraud. My cognitive bias is against the Republican climate deniers. If the worst thing they can come up with is coffee and t-shirts, this is just theater.
Hey... you insensitive clod... One of the first computers I built (actually the 3rd) was a hand wire-wrapped 1802. Cutting edge CMOS for it's day. Back then, it was anything but "awful". Get off my lawn!
This is just the usual Republican FUD trying to kill something that might give us some actual numbers about climate change. Among the bombshells: - $11,000 for coffee for a $433 Million project... OMG! - $3,000 for t-shirts... oh, the corruption! what is the world coming to???
Really... is this the best they can come up with???
After the hearing, DCAA director Bales said she was not impressed by the scale of the alleged misconduct. “In the contract world, we do a lot of reports that disallow this kind of thing. So, you know, people do it,” she said. “But then we identify it.”
Also significant was that the project managers were not invited to the hearing, thus insuring that this would be a true kangaroo court.
Right now renewables are a small part of the market but they are growing exponentially. The utilities can see the writing on the wall. They can either adapt or die. The electric utilities need to change their mindset. They should be grid management companies, not electricity generators.
You are right that electric cars (and solar electricity) are a big market opportunity for electric companies since they could charge more for managing the grid. However, this would require a change in their thinking and business model and you have to remember that these companies are fat, lethargic entrenched monopolies who just want to collect money and do not want to have to think too hard or change anything so their first reaction is to try to ignore and obstruct any change. They are afraid of change. It's just like the taxi companies and Uber or the music business and mp3s. So yes, they are awful, evil power monopolies and they are afraid... I like the smell of disruption in the morning.
I know it's a big mental strain, but you could try reading TFA and if you did you would find these quotes: “Electric vehicles can be the best thing to ever happen to our industry or the worst thing to ever happen to our industry,” said James Avery, a senior vice president at San Diego Gas & Electric."
Last year, Pinnacle West Capital Corp.’s Arizona Public Service raised the ire of its customers and the solar industry by tacking on a monthly fee of about $5 for residents with solar systems. Adding fixed connection charges or additional fees to such customers may cause more of them to defect, said Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute.
“The mortal threat that ever cheaper on-site renewables pose” comes from systems that include storage, said Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Snowmass, Colorado-based energy consultant. “That is an unregulated product you can buy at Home Depot that leaves the old business model with no place to hide.”
My daughter is a teacher and her school just rolled out Chromebooks for all high school students. Google has a lot of nice education applications which allows her to administer her class, check assignments and assign work on the Chromebook. Check out: https://www.google.com/chrome/...
CO2 is a pollutant and is the primary driver of climate change. The EPA would like to reduce CO2 emissions. Burning more fuel would increase CO2 emissions which is not the goal of the EPA. Not sure where you got the idea that reducing pollution from cars increases CO2.
Austin, Texas is the most liberal city in Texas. You would think they would have a liberal, progressive representative but not true. The Texas Republicans have split Austin's votes as part of six different districts (some of which stretch for 50 miles). The result is that Austin has six Republican representatives, none of which represent the views of Austin. Austin is the largest city in the US without a congressional district anchor.
Nuclear power is pretty safe but not perfect. Coal is terrible. I think they both should be decommissioned as quickly as possible. The problem is that "pretty safe" is not good enough. Nuclear power has had two serious accidents, rendering two regions uninhabitable for the the foreseeable future. I don't think it's reasonable to have "accidents" regularly which destroy entire regions. It's only a matter of time until the next accident. Nuclear costs much more than renewables, takes longer to build, and regularly destroys regions. Renewables are cheaper, faster to build and don't have the toxic side effects of coal and nuclear. Much better investment.
Slashdot Mirror
The fine print on this announcement is that the patents are not really free. You have to apply and be accepted to the program (serious contenders need not apply?) and the royalty-free license period only goes to 2020. This is just enough time to develop and start producing something and then you can get hit with big royalty payments.
This is sucker bait.
Owncloud.org
White folks abuse drugs at higher rates than black folks but some for some odd reason don't get sent to jail very often.
Globalism hasn't worked out so well for the U.S. Corporations have transferred a lot of skilled manufacturing jobs to low wage countries with fewer pollution controls and then ship finished goods back to the U.S. (creating more pollution). The result has been that the well paying manufacturing jobs have disappeared and everybody is working at Walmart for minimum wage selling cheap shit from China.
Globalization increases pollution and lowers living standards in developed countries. In low wage countries, they have more pollution. Wealthy people just buy more cheap shit, creating more pollution.
The only comparative advantage corporations exploit is their ability to drive down wages and not pay for their pollution.
Why do you want to go to London?
Really, a lot of air travel is unnecessary... even a lot of "necessary" air travel is unnecessary.
If the price were higher to pay for the negative externalities of air travel, there would be a lot less unnecessary air travel.
If you have an economy built on pollution (i.e. Hawaii), maybe you need to think different.
OTOH, Elon Musk thinks electric airplanes are possible. They would have the potential to reduce pollution.
So on Linux, this malware can install itself without asking for a password?
If you think that the medical industry exists only to make money, then the drug companies are rational.
All of your anger at the government is really anger at companies who have corrupted government. In the US, government works for corporations and rich people and has been completely corrupted (some people call this fascism).
The government created patents to help companies, not people.
Get rid of patents... problem solved... no more evil drug companies.
If you actually read the first page, you would have seen that it is available as either a "cloud" version or as your own home server (without the "cloud" bits).
The generic versions do not go on sale until July. The evil drug company wants to discontinue the older soon to be generic version and force everyone to switch over to the new expensive patented version before July, thus leaving the generic manufacturers with no market.
Step 3. Profit!!
Most hydrogen comes from natural gas (with lousy conversion efficiency. If you get your hydrogen from electricity, it has even worse efficiency. It uses about four times the electricity to make hydrogen and then convert it back to electricity in your "fool cell" vehicle as just putting the electricity in your vehicle and bypassing the whole hydrogen part.
Plus, electricity is everywhere, literally everywhere. Anyone can just plug in at home and work, etc. With hydrogen, you have only ten places to refuel in California... not going very far.
Looks like they are using hand me down software from the US from the 1960s written in a language called Jovial.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
"Prof Thomas said the NAS system was written using a now defunct computer language called Jovial, meaning Nats has to train programmers in Jovial just to maintain the antiquated software."
"If four members of Seal team 6 decide to save a few bucks, risking the chance that the driver is going to attack the four of them, then they should have that choice."
"Even those four members of Seal team 6 are exposed for the taximan to give them the "tourist sightseeing" which makes a 20 buck trip into a 200 one."
-----
This is what usually happens to me when I take a "well-regulated" taxi (in many cities in many parts of the world... I can follow the route on Google maps and calculate just how badly I am being screwed.)
The complete paragraph is:
"But a 2011 audit of the project’s proposed construction budget stalled three times when, according to the independent Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), NEON’s accounting proved so poor that the review could not be completed. Eventually, DCAA issued an adverse ruling, concluding that nearly 36% of NEON’s budget proposal was questionable or undocumented."
They had poor accounting. They have not been given a chance to explain or improve their accounting. This is a lot different than fraud. My cognitive bias is against the Republican climate deniers. If the worst thing they can come up with is coffee and t-shirts, this is just theater.
Hey... you insensitive clod...
One of the first computers I built (actually the 3rd) was a hand wire-wrapped 1802. Cutting edge CMOS for it's day.
Back then, it was anything but "awful".
Get off my lawn!
This is just the usual Republican FUD trying to kill something that might give us some actual numbers about climate change.
Among the bombshells:
- $11,000 for coffee for a $433 Million project... OMG!
- $3,000 for t-shirts... oh, the corruption! what is the world coming to???
Really... is this the best they can come up with???
After the hearing, DCAA director Bales said she was not impressed by the scale of the alleged misconduct. “In the contract world, we do a lot of reports that disallow this kind of thing. So, you know, people do it,” she said. “But then we identify it.”
Also significant was that the project managers were not invited to the hearing, thus insuring that this would be a true kangaroo court.
Right now renewables are a small part of the market but they are growing exponentially. The utilities can see the writing on the wall. They can either adapt or die.
The electric utilities need to change their mindset. They should be grid management companies, not electricity generators.
You are right that electric cars (and solar electricity) are a big market opportunity for electric companies since they could charge more for managing the grid.
However, this would require a change in their thinking and business model and you have to remember that these companies are fat, lethargic entrenched monopolies who just want to collect money and do not want to have to think too hard or change anything so their first reaction is to try to ignore and obstruct any change. They are afraid of change. It's just like the taxi companies and Uber or the music business and mp3s.
So yes, they are awful, evil power monopolies and they are afraid... I like the smell of disruption in the morning.
I know it's a big mental strain, but you could try reading TFA and if you did you would find these quotes:
“Electric vehicles can be the best thing to ever happen to our industry or the worst thing to ever happen to our industry,” said James Avery, a senior vice president at San Diego Gas & Electric."
Last year, Pinnacle West Capital Corp.’s Arizona Public Service raised the ire of its customers and the solar industry by tacking on a monthly fee of about $5 for residents with solar systems. Adding fixed connection charges or additional fees to such customers may cause more of them to defect, said Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute.
“The mortal threat that ever cheaper on-site renewables pose” comes from systems that include storage, said Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Snowmass, Colorado-based energy consultant. “That is an unregulated product you can buy at Home Depot that leaves the old business model with no place to hide.”
It's not just US citizens. If you RTFA you'll see that it's everybody, everywhere.
My daughter is a teacher and her school just rolled out Chromebooks for all high school students. Google has a lot of nice education applications which allows her to administer her class, check assignments and assign work on the Chromebook.
Check out:
https://www.google.com/chrome/...
CO2 is a pollutant and is the primary driver of climate change.
The EPA would like to reduce CO2 emissions. Burning more fuel would increase CO2 emissions which is not the goal of the EPA. Not sure where you got the idea that reducing pollution from cars increases CO2.
Here are a few references on the high cost of nuclear power:
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
Each of these articles has multiple links to additional references.
For France, electricity is not cheap ($0.19 kwh) compared to the US ($0.12 kwh).
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
... Except for all that CO2
Austin, Texas is the most liberal city in Texas. You would think they would have a liberal, progressive representative but not true.
The Texas Republicans have split Austin's votes as part of six different districts (some of which stretch for 50 miles). The result is that Austin has six Republican representatives, none of which represent the views of Austin. Austin is the largest city in the US without a congressional district anchor.
Nuclear power is pretty safe but not perfect. Coal is terrible. I think they both should be decommissioned as quickly as possible.
The problem is that "pretty safe" is not good enough. Nuclear power has had two serious accidents, rendering two regions uninhabitable for the the foreseeable future. I don't think it's reasonable to have "accidents" regularly which destroy entire regions. It's only a matter of time until the next accident.
Nuclear costs much more than renewables, takes longer to build, and regularly destroys regions. Renewables are cheaper, faster to build and don't have the toxic side effects of coal and nuclear. Much better investment.