1) That arable land is used for growing biofuel crops instead of food crops. There are many biofuel crops that will grow on land unsuitable for food crops.
and
2) That all arable land is used for growing food. The US has so much food growing capacity we actually pay farmers to NOT grow anything, since the abundant supply would ruin the value of the crops.
I'm sure there are other glaring holes in your argument but that's what immediately comes to mind. =Smidge=
I've known about the Eye-fi card for awhile. It strikes me as an interesting trinket but, as you said, not the most groundbreaking tech ever.
What interests me, especially with this recent development, is a potential use in something other than a camera. Cameras are not the only devices that use SD cards for storage, after all. With this script, though, it may be a simple way to hard-hack a wireless connection into some homebrew embedded device.
I'm still not clear if it can download data TO the card instead of just uploading to an external source... that would make it a lot more useful. =Smidge=
You'll have to at least specify where you live, since that will indicated how much you pay in electricity (per kWh) and what type of climate might justify your AC bill.
For example: I don't have AC since the climate in my area is mild enough to get by without it (Though summers can get pretty hot, it's survivable without).
Electricity costs me about $0.17 per kWh. It's tough to put an exact price on it because the utility company loves to obfuscate things with delivery fees and shit, but I think it's close enough to do meaningful comparisons.
Gasoline is currently about $2.00 per gallon in my area, plus or minus a few cents depending on exactly where you go.
1 gallon of gasoline = 125,000 BTU = 36.6 kWh, which will cost me $6.22 at my estimated rate.
But! Upwards of 80% of the energy from gasoline goes to waste, whereas the overall waste of an electrical system would be around 20% plug-to-asphalt (less with regenerative braking and other stuff).
So I get only 25,000 BTU of useful energy out of every gallon of gasoline, which is only 7.3 kWh ($1.24). If I waste 20% of the electricity I'll need a bit more to start with: 9.1 kWh ($1.55).
So! All things considered, it's currently cheaper for me to go with electricity than gasoline as an energy source. The only real limits are: 1) Range, and 2) Initial cost of the vehicle. =Smidge=
Well somebody has to pay the reporter's salary and expenses. While you're not likely to see them on the TV or hear them on the radio anymore, real journalists do exist and it is an actual skill people make a career out of.
Internet advertising is practically worthless. We learned this from the dotcom bust.
So unless you're okay with "manufactured celebrity/political controversy" or "trite blogging on the latest who-gives-a-shit gadget" being the only news available, they need a viable business model that generates money.
The alternative is to nationalize the media like they did with the BBC. I'm not entirely sure if that's good or bad, since the BBC is pretty good overall but the thought of government controlled media scares the shit out of me. =Smidge=
240 watt-hours, not 240 watts. (Unless you only want to operate for a single hour!) For comparison, 240WH is roughly the energy in a dozen alkaline "D" cell batteries. If the probe is to operate 24 hours* on that power, that's only ten watts on average.
I think I understand what you're saying (not really) but that analogy seems a little weird to me.
Instead of "what is the probability of getting 3 heads" isn't the question more like "what it the probability of getting at least one head?"
If there is a range you expect to find something, NOT finding it within a portion of that range does not seem to lower the probability of finding it as much as your analogy implies. But IANAP. =Smidge=
The great thing about scientific theory - real scientific theory - is that is has predictive capabilities. Theory predicts that the Higgs exists. If the theory is correct, they feel that their experiment has a 50% to 96% chance of finding it.
And if they don't find it, it would actually be a bigger deal than if they do. It means something was off either in the experiment or the theory, and that means it's back to square one! =Smidge=
Incandescant dimmers are not simply variable resistors. Look up Ohm's Law for why this won't work.
Um, okay. "The current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage and inversely proportional to the resistance across the two points. I = V/R"
So you have a voltage, which is essentially fixed (say, 120V). You double the resistance, which halves the current. That effectively halves the power delivered to the bulb, so it dims. What's the problem here?
It wasn't that long ago that rheostats (variable resistors) were used in dimmer circuits from domestic to industrial to theatrical applications.
Incandescent dimmers used to be simply variable resistors. Modern units are far more efficient and safe, but that doesn't mean you can't use simple resistance to dim an incandescent bulb. =Smidge=
The tragic optimist in me wants to say that Obama doesn't want to open that particular can of worms until he and his staff have had a chance to really examine what's involved.
That's an admittedly optimistic view, though. I'm still worried how it will actually pan out. =Smidge=
A third party host - YouTube - is allowed to keep tracking cookies. The federal regulation on tracking cookies applies only to federal websites, so that's not really a problem.
People seem suspicious that only YouTube was granted this exemption, but... are there any other third-party hosts that have things embedded in the whitehouse.gov website? If not, I still don't understand the problem here. YouTube is doing the tracking, not the feds. If the concern is over the ability of the feds to get that tracking data, then there are so many other ways they could do that it's not even worth getting butthurt over.
Sounds like this guy is just picking a nit. =Smidge=
Laser links have been used in the past for communications. The problem is signal attenuation - air isn't 100% transparent to begin with, much less anything floating in it (dust, water vapor, etc). Plus temperature gradients in the air cause localized changes in the refractive index, which can bend and distort the beam (why the stars twinkle, etc). Fiber optics work because they create a stable path for the photons to travel.
Radio waves have much less difficulty penetrating fog, smoke, and indeed many other non-metallic obstacles.
The reason open-air, visual-spectrum communications are rarely used is because it just doesn't work that great. Otherwise they could shoot a laser to and from communications satellites and get a thousand-fold boost in bandwidth. There are some short- and medium-range applications but in general microwaves remain the standard. =Smidge=
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but Tesla WAS quite bitter towards Edison even after Edison died.
Since he knew nothing of digital electronics we can't honestly say Tesla would object to them. For all his genius he was not master of all things, after all, and probably would not be that interested in digital circuitry anyway.
I still can't imagine him endorsing DC power distribution though, even if it's only in the same room. Just doesn't seem like his style. =Smidge=
But Tesla did have a pretty big axe to grind with Edison... he may not have disagreed scientifically, but I can't imagine him honestly endorsing anything Edison built, if only for personal reasons.
Ere... not sure why "Insightful" since Tesla was the one who invented the AC polyphase distribution system, and would probably not approve of using Edison's (not Franklin's?) DC distribution method.
That said, AC power made a lot more sense before the event of solid state power electronics. You can't reasonably convert DC to DC efficiently without using an AC phase via transformer, which was a major hurdle in using DC power. High frequency power supplies can do the job just fine, though. =Smidge=
You could, conceivably, install a snow-melt system on the panels. You'd need 0.02 kWh per square foot or panel to melt an inch of solid ice, obviously less for an inch of snow since it's less dense.
300 watts to clear a 3'x5' panel covered in one inch of solid ice in one hour. That's not too bad. It's only slightly more than what the panel itself should produce once it's clear, so if it takes 0.3 kWh to clear the panel in an hour and it can spend the next four hours generating, you still come out ahead.
Dunno about where you live, but around here a vehicle with a broken/tampered odometer is illegal to drive until it's been properly fixed and documented. Invalidates the registration and quite possibly makes you liable for insurance fraud (since vehicle mileage is often used by insurance companies at assess risk - drive more, more risk). Can't (legally) sell the car if the odometer repair isn't properly documented either.
So what you're saying is: you'd rather leave scientific development in the hands of private finance, where practically nothing will get done unless someone sees a very straightforward and profitable outcome to the research within a few year's time and the distribution can be effectively suppressed with copyright and patent laws.
Congratulations! You have just created the pharmaceuticals industry, which gave us a dozen meds for erectile dysfunction but no actual cures for important things like AIDS or cancer.
The alternative is to let the government fund science, and historically speaking the government is not afraid to spend money on purely theoretical and/or nonprofitable research. Even more so if the technology can be used for a military edge - and new battery tech is definitely something the military wants.
Electronic computers? Satellite communications? GPS? The Internet? Nuclear power? Jet powered aircraft? All born of government funded projects.
Of all the things government pisses away money on, science is the last thing I'd complain about. =Smidge=
Dude commits a felony and they go after him for it and that is "chilling"? Howso?
It's chilling because you have to break the law in order to even report another (arguably greater) crime, and there is absolutely no consideration for the whistleblower during his own persecution.
Where on the scale of criminal law does broad scale warrantless wiretapping fall? =Smidge=
Since the watts-per-area of sunlight is more or less fixed for a given location, it wouldn't require any more surface area in mirrors as it would surface area in photovoltaic panels or anything else.
In fact, concentrated solar is more efficient than regular PV so you'd need less area in mirrors for a given output. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
This argument assumes at least two things:
1) That arable land is used for growing biofuel crops instead of food crops. There are many biofuel crops that will grow on land unsuitable for food crops.
and
2) That all arable land is used for growing food. The US has so much food growing capacity we actually pay farmers to NOT grow anything, since the abundant supply would ruin the value of the crops.
I'm sure there are other glaring holes in your argument but that's what immediately comes to mind.
=Smidge=
I've known about the Eye-fi card for awhile. It strikes me as an interesting trinket but, as you said, not the most groundbreaking tech ever.
What interests me, especially with this recent development, is a potential use in something other than a camera. Cameras are not the only devices that use SD cards for storage, after all. With this script, though, it may be a simple way to hard-hack a wireless connection into some homebrew embedded device.
I'm still not clear if it can download data TO the card instead of just uploading to an external source... that would make it a lot more useful.
=Smidge=
You'll have to at least specify where you live, since that will indicated how much you pay in electricity (per kWh) and what type of climate might justify your AC bill.
For example: I don't have AC since the climate in my area is mild enough to get by without it (Though summers can get pretty hot, it's survivable without).
Electricity costs me about $0.17 per kWh. It's tough to put an exact price on it because the utility company loves to obfuscate things with delivery fees and shit, but I think it's close enough to do meaningful comparisons.
Gasoline is currently about $2.00 per gallon in my area, plus or minus a few cents depending on exactly where you go.
1 gallon of gasoline = 125,000 BTU = 36.6 kWh, which will cost me $6.22 at my estimated rate.
But! Upwards of 80% of the energy from gasoline goes to waste, whereas the overall waste of an electrical system would be around 20% plug-to-asphalt (less with regenerative braking and other stuff).
So I get only 25,000 BTU of useful energy out of every gallon of gasoline, which is only 7.3 kWh ($1.24). If I waste 20% of the electricity I'll need a bit more to start with: 9.1 kWh ($1.55).
So! All things considered, it's currently cheaper for me to go with electricity than gasoline as an energy source. The only real limits are: 1) Range, and 2) Initial cost of the vehicle.
=Smidge=
Well somebody has to pay the reporter's salary and expenses. While you're not likely to see them on the TV or hear them on the radio anymore, real journalists do exist and it is an actual skill people make a career out of.
Internet advertising is practically worthless. We learned this from the dotcom bust.
So unless you're okay with "manufactured celebrity/political controversy" or "trite blogging on the latest who-gives-a-shit gadget" being the only news available, they need a viable business model that generates money.
The alternative is to nationalize the media like they did with the BBC. I'm not entirely sure if that's good or bad, since the BBC is pretty good overall but the thought of government controlled media scares the shit out of me.
=Smidge=
240 watt-hours, not 240 watts. (Unless you only want to operate for a single hour!) For comparison, 240WH is roughly the energy in a dozen alkaline "D" cell batteries. If the probe is to operate 24 hours* on that power, that's only ten watts on average.
=Smidge=
(*Earth hours, of course)
I think I understand what you're saying (not really) but that analogy seems a little weird to me.
Instead of "what is the probability of getting 3 heads" isn't the question more like "what it the probability of getting at least one head?"
If there is a range you expect to find something, NOT finding it within a portion of that range does not seem to lower the probability of finding it as much as your analogy implies. But IANAP.
=Smidge=
The great thing about scientific theory - real scientific theory - is that is has predictive capabilities. Theory predicts that the Higgs exists. If the theory is correct, they feel that their experiment has a 50% to 96% chance of finding it.
And if they don't find it, it would actually be a bigger deal than if they do. It means something was off either in the experiment or the theory, and that means it's back to square one!
=Smidge=
Phase 1: Pose as college student looking to make a few bucks
Phase 2: Get to know person distributing the fliers to students
Phase 3: Stand trial for aggravated assault with no regrets.
=Smidge=
Incandescant dimmers are not simply variable resistors. Look up Ohm's Law for why this won't work.
Um, okay. "The current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage and inversely proportional to the resistance across the two points. I = V/R"
So you have a voltage, which is essentially fixed (say, 120V). You double the resistance, which halves the current. That effectively halves the power delivered to the bulb, so it dims. What's the problem here?
It wasn't that long ago that rheostats (variable resistors) were used in dimmer circuits from domestic to industrial to theatrical applications.
Incandescent dimmers used to be simply variable resistors. Modern units are far more efficient and safe, but that doesn't mean you can't use simple resistance to dim an incandescent bulb.
=Smidge=
Nono, that's the first A.
"Recording Industry Assholes of America."
=Smidge=
The tragic optimist in me wants to say that Obama doesn't want to open that particular can of worms until he and his staff have had a chance to really examine what's involved.
That's an admittedly optimistic view, though. I'm still worried how it will actually pan out.
=Smidge=
Sure, just up the current. The LEDs will be brighter for a shorter duration and it will look the same.
Not sure I like the idea of draining so much current through the uC though...
=Smidge=
A third party host - YouTube - is allowed to keep tracking cookies. The federal regulation on tracking cookies applies only to federal websites, so that's not really a problem.
People seem suspicious that only YouTube was granted this exemption, but... are there any other third-party hosts that have things embedded in the whitehouse.gov website? If not, I still don't understand the problem here. YouTube is doing the tracking, not the feds. If the concern is over the ability of the feds to get that tracking data, then there are so many other ways they could do that it's not even worth getting butthurt over.
Sounds like this guy is just picking a nit.
=Smidge=
"My peril-sensitive sunglasses trigger whenever someone tries to hack my laptop."
=Smidge=
Laser links have been used in the past for communications. The problem is signal attenuation - air isn't 100% transparent to begin with, much less anything floating in it (dust, water vapor, etc). Plus temperature gradients in the air cause localized changes in the refractive index, which can bend and distort the beam (why the stars twinkle, etc). Fiber optics work because they create a stable path for the photons to travel.
Radio waves have much less difficulty penetrating fog, smoke, and indeed many other non-metallic obstacles.
The reason open-air, visual-spectrum communications are rarely used is because it just doesn't work that great. Otherwise they could shoot a laser to and from communications satellites and get a thousand-fold boost in bandwidth. There are some short- and medium-range applications but in general microwaves remain the standard.
=Smidge=
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but Tesla WAS quite bitter towards Edison even after Edison died.
Since he knew nothing of digital electronics we can't honestly say Tesla would object to them. For all his genius he was not master of all things, after all, and probably would not be that interested in digital circuitry anyway.
I still can't imagine him endorsing DC power distribution though, even if it's only in the same room. Just doesn't seem like his style.
=Smidge=
But Tesla did have a pretty big axe to grind with Edison... he may not have disagreed scientifically, but I can't imagine him honestly endorsing anything Edison built, if only for personal reasons.
=Smidge=
Ere... not sure why "Insightful" since Tesla was the one who invented the AC polyphase distribution system, and would probably not approve of using Edison's (not Franklin's?) DC distribution method.
That said, AC power made a lot more sense before the event of solid state power electronics. You can't reasonably convert DC to DC efficiently without using an AC phase via transformer, which was a major hurdle in using DC power. High frequency power supplies can do the job just fine, though.
=Smidge=
You could, conceivably, install a snow-melt system on the panels. You'd need 0.02 kWh per square foot or panel to melt an inch of solid ice, obviously less for an inch of snow since it's less dense.
300 watts to clear a 3'x5' panel covered in one inch of solid ice in one hour. That's not too bad. It's only slightly more than what the panel itself should produce once it's clear, so if it takes 0.3 kWh to clear the panel in an hour and it can spend the next four hours generating, you still come out ahead.
The tree is another issue, though.
=Smidge=
How many Ares class rockets have been build and tested to date? I wasn't aware they actually build any yet.
=Smidge=
Dunno about where you live, but around here a vehicle with a broken/tampered odometer is illegal to drive until it's been properly fixed and documented. Invalidates the registration and quite possibly makes you liable for insurance fraud (since vehicle mileage is often used by insurance companies at assess risk - drive more, more risk). Can't (legally) sell the car if the odometer repair isn't properly documented either.
Better get that fixed.
=Smidge=
So what happens when their shovelware casino games don't run under Wine?
That's a serious question, BTW. Getting them to stop playing them is, unfortunately, not an option.
=Smidge=
So what you're saying is: you'd rather leave scientific development in the hands of private finance, where practically nothing will get done unless someone sees a very straightforward and profitable outcome to the research within a few year's time and the distribution can be effectively suppressed with copyright and patent laws.
Congratulations! You have just created the pharmaceuticals industry, which gave us a dozen meds for erectile dysfunction but no actual cures for important things like AIDS or cancer.
The alternative is to let the government fund science, and historically speaking the government is not afraid to spend money on purely theoretical and/or nonprofitable research. Even more so if the technology can be used for a military edge - and new battery tech is definitely something the military wants.
Electronic computers? Satellite communications? GPS? The Internet? Nuclear power? Jet powered aircraft? All born of government funded projects.
Of all the things government pisses away money on, science is the last thing I'd complain about.
=Smidge=
It's chilling because you have to break the law in order to even report another (arguably greater) crime, and there is absolutely no consideration for the whistleblower during his own persecution.
Where on the scale of criminal law does broad scale warrantless wiretapping fall?
=Smidge=
Since the watts-per-area of sunlight is more or less fixed for a given location, it wouldn't require any more surface area in mirrors as it would surface area in photovoltaic panels or anything else.
In fact, concentrated solar is more efficient than regular PV so you'd need less area in mirrors for a given output.
=Smidge=