They're currently looking at 1.5 Billion, but oh well.
That's the claimed cost, but in practice there've always been cost overruns, and between 1.8 and 3.5 billion is normal. I was generous in splitting the difference.
As far as the cost of solar power, the answer is that we simply don't know yet. The costs for the thermal designs you're quoting come from pilot plants with levelized costs amortised over 25 years.
Extremely low operating costs mean that plants with a lower construction cost (which you'd expect as experience is gained from building the pilot plants) and/or greater working lifetimes (again, likely given the low impact nature of the generation process) will be much more cost-effective than the pilot plants.
As well, the direct solar power options are getting cheaper too. Pairing efficient photovoltaics with a flow battery could mean a large proportion of a household's energy requirements could be produced in situ, saving infrastructure and transmission costs.
There are other options too - in many parts of the world where thermal gradients are steep, Hot Dry Rock reactors can be built which are again have very low operating costs.
I'm not saying there is no place for nuclear power at all, but today's oversized, monolithic generators are high cost, high risk ventures, and rely on yet another scarce resource to function. Do we really want uranium wars like the oil ones we're dealing with now?
All of those you've listed are reasonable potential contributors, with the exception of ethanol (except in rare circumstances). The criticisms you've made are generally at the puerile end of the scale, so I won't address them directly.
Other good sources currently underused include HDR, tidal and alternative nuclear technologies (ie, pebble-bed reactors).
The key is to go for multiple smaller scale decentralised sources. Going big means failing big if we don't get it right first time.
But in combination with electric cars, the CO2 problem is solved.
Sadly, no.
Nuclear power, at least the way we can do it now, is way to expensive and resource-intensive to do much to reduce CO2.
Big, highly centralised power stations are expensive to construct (about 2 billion/reactor), expensive to maintain (average $126 million per reactor per year), have long construction lead times (10-12 years) and are expensive in fuel, particularly when waste disposal costs are factored in.
Mining and concentrating uranium is an energy intensive process, currently diesel fuel is used in most mines and adds about 30% of the amount of CO2 that coal power would have added. Expanding production of existing mines and bringing new mines on line for what is a relatively scarce mineral is not easy either.
When you consider that to keep up with projected demand, more than 2,000 new nuclear plants would need to be built in the next two decades, you'll begin to understand how inappropriate a technology it is to reduce CO2 production.
In fully economically deregulated environments, nuclear power simply can't compete with other clean technologies. It may be suitable for a limited set of circumstances, but it's not a final answer that deserves trillions of dollars of commitment. We need to keep looking.
Firefox is already slower and more bloated than Mozilla ever was
The first Firefox ever released, version 0.8, was a very light 6MB download. I remember all the excitement about this "fast, lean new browser" .
Today, after five years of continuous bloat, Firefox 2.0.0.9 requires a bandwidth-busting 6MB download before you can install it to your groaning hard drive.
The companies' logic is that programmer cost a lot.
The programmers cost Microsoft a lot.
The hardware costs their customers a lot.
The logic is that it's better for millions of computer users to be out of pocket by a few hundreds each, than it is for Microsoft to be out of pocket for a few hundred million.
When you're a monopoly, you can make products that suit you, not your customers.
I imagine Wal-Mart isn't making on these $200 Linux things.
Retail component prices:
VIA pc2500 ATX Mainboard & 1.5GHz C7-D CPU Bundle $65
5-Bay 20+4-Pin mATX Case w/250-Watt PS (Beige) $14.99
80gb Seagate hd $49
512 DDRII ram $24
Logitech NASCAR Keyboard and Optical Wheel Mouse $7.99
Samsung 52x32x52 CDRW & 16x DVD-ROM IDE Drive $21.99
That makes a total component retail cost of $182.97 if you built one yourself. I'd estimate then that Walmart would get them wholesale for about $160, which would give $40/unit to play with for shop costs/profits
Then perhaps you'd like to address the issues he raises instead.
I've listed them below for your convenience.
These are typical Walmart customers who have zero loyalty to either Microsoft or Linux.
No CD is required for AOL. It is easy for an ISP to be platform-agnostic.
DSL and Cable are platform-agnostic, but dial-up users can purchase a modem for less than the cost of a Windows license, let alone Office, antivirus, spyware removers etc.
Nobody will return a $200 computer because it doesn't have Office installed on it. OpenOffice does the job nicely, and M$ Office is never installed free on budget Windows computers. Moreover, M$'s ever changing, secret file formats are an expensive ass pain.
It won't take long before anyone with a clue realises ponying up $400 in monopoly rent every couple of years for a document writer is pointless when there's another option for half the price and better longevity.
msconfig is a diagnostic tool for disabling programs which are loaded at boot time. It has nothing to do with autoloading CDs.
There is no built-in autostart ui. If you're scared of the registry, you can download TweakUI, but you'll still need to disable autostart on a drive-by-drive basis.
This one is already being discussed on the bug forum - I got the link from Asa's blog.
It's not a problem specific to Firefox, but it's been great ammunition for the astroturfers because simpler, less capable browsers like IE will suffer less. That's why they keep harping on it.
Second, there is no sign of any "memory gobbling bug" that I can see
There is, sort of.
Stuart Parmenter has found memory fragmentation happening which makes it look like FF is consuming lots of RAM.
Basically, because FF loads many components, including Javascript, strings, sqlite, CSS parsing, HTML parsing, etc, the RAM between each used block may be unavailable as contiguous memory even if FF isn't using it. The problem is showing up mainly on Windows because the 2.6 and above kernels have built-in RAM defragging, but it could catch a Linux user if an app requests more RAM before the kernel can make it available..
Slashdot Mirror
This thread blows.
Why the abuse?
Did he overcharge you?
That's the claimed cost, but in practice there've always been cost overruns, and between 1.8 and 3.5 billion is normal. I was generous in splitting the difference.
As far as the cost of solar power, the answer is that we simply don't know yet. The costs for the thermal designs you're quoting come from pilot plants with levelized costs amortised over 25 years. Extremely low operating costs mean that plants with a lower construction cost (which you'd expect as experience is gained from building the pilot plants) and/or greater working lifetimes (again, likely given the low impact nature of the generation process) will be much more cost-effective than the pilot plants.
As well, the direct solar power options are getting cheaper too. Pairing efficient photovoltaics with a flow battery could mean a large proportion of a household's energy requirements could be produced in situ, saving infrastructure and transmission costs.
There are other options too - in many parts of the world where thermal gradients are steep, Hot Dry Rock reactors can be built which are again have very low operating costs.
I'm not saying there is no place for nuclear power at all, but today's oversized, monolithic generators are high cost, high risk ventures, and rely on yet another scarce resource to function. Do we really want uranium wars like the oil ones we're dealing with now?
Let's spread the load around a little.
I'll supply the lemon juice if you provide the tartare...
All of those you've listed are reasonable potential contributors, with the exception of ethanol (except in rare circumstances). The criticisms you've made are generally at the puerile end of the scale, so I won't address them directly.
Other good sources currently underused include HDR, tidal and alternative nuclear technologies (ie, pebble-bed reactors).
The key is to go for multiple smaller scale decentralised sources. Going big means failing big if we don't get it right first time.
Sadly, no.
Nuclear power, at least the way we can do it now, is way to expensive and resource-intensive to do much to reduce CO2.
Big, highly centralised power stations are expensive to construct (about 2 billion/reactor), expensive to maintain (average $126 million per reactor per year), have long construction lead times (10-12 years) and are expensive in fuel, particularly when waste disposal costs are factored in.
Mining and concentrating uranium is an energy intensive process, currently diesel fuel is used in most mines and adds about 30% of the amount of CO2 that coal power would have added. Expanding production of existing mines and bringing new mines on line for what is a relatively scarce mineral is not easy either.
When you consider that to keep up with projected demand, more than 2,000 new nuclear plants would need to be built in the next two decades, you'll begin to understand how inappropriate a technology it is to reduce CO2 production.
In fully economically deregulated environments, nuclear power simply can't compete with other clean technologies. It may be suitable for a limited set of circumstances, but it's not a final answer that deserves trillions of dollars of commitment. We need to keep looking.
The first Firefox ever released, version 0.8, was a very light 6MB download. I remember all the excitement about this "fast, lean new browser" .
Today, after five years of continuous bloat, Firefox 2.0.0.9 requires a bandwidth-busting 6MB download before you can install it to your groaning hard drive.
Cut the astroturf already, ok?
Talk about understatement!
That's like saying Cray's XT4 is not exactly pocketable...
At close to 90% profit margins for Microsoft's OS and Office divisions, I don't think you can make that claim with a straight face.
I'm willing to take the magnetron out of my microwave if you want to experiment?
Then little boxes made of copper would soon be illegal, and only criminals would have little boxes made of copper.
Of course, the criminals would disguise them.
They'd make a blue one and a yellow one
And one made out of ticky-tacky
And they'd all look just the same.
Maybe.
Hospital staff always enjoy a good laugh, if they're not too busy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intestinal_bacteria
Too late in my office as well, judging by the incredibly high methane levels in the lunch room.
The programmers cost Microsoft a lot.
The hardware costs their customers a lot.
The logic is that it's better for millions of computer users to be out of pocket by a few hundreds each, than it is for Microsoft to be out of pocket for a few hundred million.
When you're a monopoly, you can make products that suit you, not your customers.
Pretty clear who the troll is.
Retail component prices:
- VIA pc2500 ATX Mainboard & 1.5GHz C7-D CPU Bundle $65
- 5-Bay 20+4-Pin mATX Case w/250-Watt PS (Beige) $14.99
- 80gb Seagate hd $49
- 512 DDRII ram $24
- Logitech NASCAR Keyboard and Optical Wheel Mouse $7.99
- Samsung 52x32x52 CDRW & 16x DVD-ROM IDE Drive $21.99
That makes a total component retail cost of $182.97 if you built one yourself. I'd estimate then that Walmart would get them wholesale for about $160, which would give $40/unit to play with for shop costs/profitsThen perhaps you'd like to address the issues he raises instead.
I've listed them below for your convenience.
- These are typical Walmart customers who have zero loyalty to either Microsoft or Linux.
- No CD is required for AOL. It is easy for an ISP to be platform-agnostic.
- DSL and Cable are platform-agnostic, but dial-up users can purchase a modem for less than the cost of a Windows license, let alone Office, antivirus, spyware removers etc.
- Nobody will return a $200 computer because it doesn't have Office installed on it. OpenOffice does the job nicely, and M$ Office is never installed free on budget Windows computers. Moreover, M$'s ever changing, secret file formats are an expensive ass pain.
- It won't take long before anyone with a clue realises ponying up $400 in monopoly rent every couple of years for a document writer is pointless when there's another option for half the price and better longevity.
I'm looking forward to your reasoned response...It's only the newest buzzword if you think Neuromancer is the newest cyberpunk novel.
That won't work.
msconfig is a diagnostic tool for disabling programs which are loaded at boot time. It has nothing to do with autoloading CDs.
There is no built-in autostart ui. If you're scared of the registry, you can download TweakUI, but you'll still need to disable autostart on a drive-by-drive basis.
This one is already being discussed on the bug forum - I got the link from Asa's blog.
It's not a problem specific to Firefox, but it's been great ammunition for the astroturfers because simpler, less capable browsers like IE will suffer less. That's why they keep harping on it.
Of course, it only makes sense when you understand "Anonymous Coward" is a pseudonym for Congressman.
Already been done.
There is, sort of.
Stuart Parmenter has found memory fragmentation happening which makes it look like FF is consuming lots of RAM.
Basically, because FF loads many components, including Javascript, strings, sqlite, CSS parsing, HTML parsing, etc, the RAM between each used block may be unavailable as contiguous memory even if FF isn't using it. The problem is showing up mainly on Windows because the 2.6 and above kernels have built-in RAM defragging, but it could catch a Linux user if an app requests more RAM before the kernel can make it available..
Understandable.
They've distilled the usability of Bob and the stability of ME into Vista....
Only if you disabled NTLDR as well....