The article says "The flagship product, Nanosolar SolarPly, is a 14 feet x 10 feet solar electricity module delivering 120 watts per square inch at 110V. The company is now offering solar panels at below $1 per peak watt." 120 watts per square inch ought to happily ring the bells of even a 12" screen laptop. That's 17.28kW per square foot, which admittedly sounds ludicrous, but if that's the case, I want to see their entry for the solar challenge race. A 5'x10' array (about right for a solar challenge car) should, at peak, deliver in excess of 1100hp. There's that Hope diamond sized grain of salt, given that, by implication, their 14'x10' panel should throw out more than 2.4MW at peak. Which also means that that same panel, at just under $1/peak watt is sort of expensive for the average homeowner. I want one though.
The temp and pressure issues are what I was thinking of when I said that it's a fuzzy value, these would need to be rigidly defined. I realise that tricky with pressure if you're to avoid a circular definition. Weight vs. mass is nit-picking, at least in this instance. If something weighs "a gram" in common parlance then it masses a gram.
I thought one cc of water weighs one gram. Thus one litre of water weighs one kg. Am I wrong? This would certainly satisfy the criteria of natural phenomena vs. artifact, although I suppose that definition gets a trifle fuzzy when we start talking about measurements like picograms.
And we don't really want anyone (except the US, of course!) to have nuclear weapons. I mean, they might attack another country based on spurious, trumped up charges or something. Much better to leave these things to nations who wouldn't DREAM of performing an act of aggression.
"Other countries haven't admitted it (Iraq, Saudi Arabia), but there is no reason to believe they aren't (or haven't) gone down that road"? Other than inspection teams who desperately wanted to find nuclear arms or facilities for manufacturing them (in order to justify the invasion of a country) utterly failing to do so despite basically having totally free rein within the country. And before you start bleating about how nasty and evil Saddam Hussein was, think about all the other places where crimes against humanity far more grievous than those in Iraq under Hussein (try Cambodia and Rwanda for starters, if your imagination/knowledge of world history fails you) and ask why Iraq was so much more important than those places that a huge force was sent there while NOTHING was sent anywhere else.
Still, to move back towards the original topic, if the US doesn't sort itself out soon, then they're going to miss the boat on alternative fuel tech as far as producing and exporting it goes anyway. I believe Japan is already starting to develop and build their own hydrogen infrastructure, and you can bet that in the process they're going to develop a number of useful technologies that they may or may not want to licence to US firms. Given that the primary issue being addressed here is the cost and difficulty of maintaining a refuelling infrastructure for forces in the field, that seems awfully relevant to me. Remember too, that even with regenerative braking, those batteries need to be recharged at some point. By a generator. That runs on fuel. Which needs to be transported. Along with the generator. In a transport vehicle that also need fuel etc. etc. etc. Probably still a significant net gain overall, but nothing like as good as it first appears.
And if you want to go further than that, for the first couple of applications of the brakes (or one long application) the vaccuum cannister that produces the power assistance for the brakes still has the pressure differential from when the engine was running, so brake effort in an emergency stop would have been almost indistinguishable from what it would have been had the engine still been running. Still not ideal practice, but not particularly dangerous. Chatting on the phone instead would have probably been more likely to cause a crash.
There is a degree of technophobia in a number of the more traditionally Muslim coutries. Khomeni, for one, used to go off on regular anti-tech rants. I think there's the idea that since revisionist (with regards to Islam) is bad, that has a tendency to carry over into "new is bad" generally, at least amongst those who don't care to think too carefully about this sort of thing; which is a distressingly large percentage of the population. Note that I'm not talking exclusively about Muslim culture here either. Have a look at what "concerned parent groups" have to say about computer games, that interweb thingy and wild strange rock and roll (that Marilyn Manson character is clearly a radical satanist or something). Profoundly and violently fundamentalist movements such as the Taliban would have looked on his tech tinkering with no small amount of suspicion. Again, kudos to him.
Did I or did I not point out that this wasn't MY point of view but merely A point of view? MY point was that if you want intellectual honesty, you have to be genuinely prepared to look at and understand the other person's point of view.
What I put forward was a popular viewpoint and one not entirely without merit. Given that the the US was merrily financing and encouraging the Taliban as a useful proxy to fight the Soviets in the 80s because "fanatics fight better" and because they didn't want to get their own hands dirty, is it really surprising that the Taliban felt somewhat used and bitter when the US dumped them with utterly no support after the part of the exercise that the US were interested in had finished? Whatever their faults might be, the Taliban had reason to be pissed off. Note that this doesn't mean that I condone their actions. Re-read that last sentence so that you actually absorb it before you flame me about allegedly approving of the 9/11 attacks.
Pitting the locals against someone you don't like as a proxy (Taliban in Afghanistan, Kurds in Iraq, etc) works well if you want to function as an annexing power and ensure that no one group gets too powerful, but it certainly won't make you any friends; especially if you promise some kind of support for that group and then abandon them. Again, sound familiar? I'd suggest that the US not be too complacent about counting the Kurds in Iraq as friends or even neutrals in the months and years to come.
I certainly don't like or agree with the bulk of the actions of militant Islamic groups myself. However, this doesn't mean that there isn't good reason for the discontent behind those actions, even if the actions themselves are abhorrent. Nor does it mean that any other militant faction, religious, political or otherwise is any less reprehensible. You're still righteously enraged over ~3000 deaths 2½ years ago. That's fair enough, but don't think that your country is the only one to have suffered unprovoked attacks resulting in thousands of deaths. And don't think that unilaterally invading a country on a pretext that has been shown to be utterly false (and I'll retract that statement when those stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons are found) doesn't count as the action of a militant faction. Clear and present danger my pert buttocks.
Oh, and just to bring this all back on topic, how would you and/or your government react to a game entitled "Resistance Force, Iraq!" or perhaps "Resistance Force, Grenada!" where you play as a resistance fighter using guerilla tactics against occupying US forces? It might not be banned, but enraged parent groups and conservatives would certainly lobby for that to happen. Yeah, you're so tolerant...
Your rape analogy has it's roles arse about, as far as the "lefties" are concerned. I think the idea is that it's more like the US raping the muslim states and 9/11 being analogous to the rape victim kicking the rapist in the balls. The rapist then, of course, beats the crap out of his victim for having the temerity to defend themselves.
Note that I don't necessarily agree with this view, but then I don't necessarily agree with your's either. If you want intellectual honesty, take the time to honestly try to empathise with the point of view of those with whom you DON'T agree, rather than just those with whom you DO agree.
Ok, the propellor I can overlook, obviously 1:250 scale impulse engines are a little thin on the ground. What I want to know is who they got to hand launch the original.
Chekov: Heading, Captain?
Kirk: Out there, somewhere.
Chekov: I'm sorry Captain, but station launch sergeant Richards doesn't appear to...oh wait, here he is.
Kirk: He's a, um, big boy, isn't he?
Uhuru: (wistfully) He certainly is.
...because the last thing you'd want is to hick your laptop up. I've now got disturbing mental images of an old Toshiba laptop up on blocks with a rattlecan paintjob.
Did you "clearly beat them" in the same model car? An E55 Mercedes will out accelerate a Dodge Neon with a manual box, but another Dodge Neon with an auto trans won't.
Usually for any given car the manual transmission has one or two more forward ratios than the automatic transmission version. Even current model vehicles with five speed autos are competing with six speed manuals. There's a reason why race car run manual boxes with as many gears as possible. Note that I'm referring to race cars such as rally cars that are setup to essentially run on normal roads. Drag transmission like air shifted Lencos are more different to regular auto transmissions than regular manual gearboxes, and they're usually manually shifted anyway, they just don't require clutching between gearchanges. Looking at drag cars to decide what is appropriate for a road car is ludicrous as you'd wind up trying to run things like wrinkle wall carcass slick rear tyres and ladderbar rear suspension which are extremely dangerous and in most cases illegal on public roads. Note that I'm not saying that all this equipment is mutually inclusive, but that equipment focussed on making a race car go very fast in a straight line is generally totally inconsistant with useful function in a car meant for use on public roads.
Add to this the fact that the heavier gearsets in auto transmission (big chunky planetary gearsets with integral clutches) and the hydraulic pumps to provide the hydraulic pressure (to run those integral clutches) AND the torque converter all suck horsepower to function and you're quickly running out of good reasons to run an auto for performance purposes. Computer controlled sequentials along the lines of BMW's SMG dodge a LOT of these issues, and shift faster than most if not all drivers with a full manual gearbox, but then they let you select your own gears as well.
Ok, you just broke me. I'm a sucker for historical photgraphy and I just got transported back in time a century. Absosmegginlutely amazing. Does anyone have anything else even remotely like this?
So I suppose when doctor's fees go up (hey, that's what private health insurance is for, right?) and health insurance premiums go up (damn greedy doctors) then anyone who can't find a job or is trying to study or simply has a shitty income can go fuck themselves if they EVER need medical treatment?
Some things are basic requirements in a developed society (water, food, shelter, medical treatment, electricity, probably phone, in approximately that order) some things are not (cable TV, broadband, SUVs, booze, cigarettes etc). Any government that claims to actually have the wellbeing of the population at large as a priority will ensure that neccessary things are available at a minimum reasonable level. If you want more, fine, go work for it. If you want cosmetic surgery, pay for it yourself. If, on the other hand, you're incapacitated through illness, how the hell are you supposed to pay for the medical treatment that you need to allow you to function well enough to get a job. Oh, and if you think that's a rare occurance, you're deluding yourself.
The health system here (Australia) is not what it should be, but at least it's still available to anyone that walks through the door. The idea that as a citizen of the country, one could be refused needed treatment is terrifying, and the uproar that would happen here were it proposed would be huge.
Of course, if you want to toss a century's worth of social advancement out the window then you'd deserve everything you get. That doesn't mean that everyone around you does though.
Fair enough, but then if your parents and cow-orkers and boss and neighbours and those mental giants that you see down at the local shopping centre were all running Linux, how long do you think it would be before the virus writers of the world turned their attention to Linux. Windows may have security issues, but I swear that its biggest weakness is that fact that it has a userbase that's willfully ignorant AND constitutes the vast majority of desktop users. If you were a virus coder, why would you bother writing for any other OS?
Absolutely! Which is why you certainly won't see us looking at other brutal regimes too closely in case someone actually expects us to do something about them! Crap, if we'd actually wanted to make a stand against crimes against humanity we would have had to go into shitholes like Rwanda and Cambodia and who knows where else! I mean...what?...oh riiight...sarcasm, huh? Sorry I spoke out of turn.
Or better yet, if the plant has a fine, invasive root system then it might be possible to set things up so that the plant can leech nitrogen based compounds from the mine. Now I'm certainly no explosives expert, but wouldn't this (or something similar) wind up making the mine inert?
Unfortunately, this sort of thing doesn't tend to pay very well, so those huge R&D bills don't get met. The end result is that the people who need this sort of technology most tend to get it last, particularly with regards to high yield crops. This particular effort is a magnificent exception.
The fact that Live for Speed is a driving sim means that most, if not all of the features of the game have been done before. Having said that, very nearly everything is done well, especially the actual physics engine and the online play. The most innovative thing about this game though, is the distribution model. You download the demo, which is a fairly hefty 140MB file. This starts to look smaller and smaller as you realise that first of all, the demo gives you 4 variations on the track that's included and 3 cars. You can also play it online. Then, once you're hooked and you decide to shell out the GBP12.00 you get another 5 cars and three tracks, each tracks having multiple variations like the demo track. Patches and bug fixes are regular, the developers are active in the forums, which is good, considering the huge community that's built up around the game. The money that I and many others paid for the first installment (S1) is funding the development of the second installment which I will purchase the moment it becomes available. This incremental release effectively means that the game's communtity gets a say in what gets included in the game. This is only my personal opinion, and you could question my lack of bias (I have no vested interest in the game other than as an enthusiastic player and member of the community, but I unashamedly love the game) but the quality of the game, the efficiency and novelty of the distribution method and the fact that that distribution method was dictated by the fact that the developers (all three of them) didn't want their concept diluted in any way by a publishing house, makes this game something that I would imagine more than a few Slashdotters being interested in.
Slashdot Mirror
The article says "The flagship product, Nanosolar SolarPly, is a 14 feet x 10 feet solar electricity module delivering 120 watts per square inch at 110V. The company is now offering solar panels at below $1 per peak watt." 120 watts per square inch ought to happily ring the bells of even a 12" screen laptop. That's 17.28kW per square foot, which admittedly sounds ludicrous, but if that's the case, I want to see their entry for the solar challenge race. A 5'x10' array (about right for a solar challenge car) should, at peak, deliver in excess of 1100hp. There's that Hope diamond sized grain of salt, given that, by implication, their 14'x10' panel should throw out more than 2.4MW at peak. Which also means that that same panel, at just under $1/peak watt is sort of expensive for the average homeowner. I want one though.
The temp and pressure issues are what I was thinking of when I said that it's a fuzzy value, these would need to be rigidly defined. I realise that tricky with pressure if you're to avoid a circular definition. Weight vs. mass is nit-picking, at least in this instance. If something weighs "a gram" in common parlance then it masses a gram.
I thought one cc of water weighs one gram. Thus one litre of water weighs one kg. Am I wrong? This would certainly satisfy the criteria of natural phenomena vs. artifact, although I suppose that definition gets a trifle fuzzy when we start talking about measurements like picograms.
And we don't really want anyone (except the US, of course!) to have nuclear weapons. I mean, they might attack another country based on spurious, trumped up charges or something. Much better to leave these things to nations who wouldn't DREAM of performing an act of aggression.
"Other countries haven't admitted it (Iraq, Saudi Arabia), but there is no reason to believe they aren't (or haven't) gone down that road"? Other than inspection teams who desperately wanted to find nuclear arms or facilities for manufacturing them (in order to justify the invasion of a country) utterly failing to do so despite basically having totally free rein within the country. And before you start bleating about how nasty and evil Saddam Hussein was, think about all the other places where crimes against humanity far more grievous than those in Iraq under Hussein (try Cambodia and Rwanda for starters, if your imagination/knowledge of world history fails you) and ask why Iraq was so much more important than those places that a huge force was sent there while NOTHING was sent anywhere else.
Still, to move back towards the original topic, if the US doesn't sort itself out soon, then they're going to miss the boat on alternative fuel tech as far as producing and exporting it goes anyway. I believe Japan is already starting to develop and build their own hydrogen infrastructure, and you can bet that in the process they're going to develop a number of useful technologies that they may or may not want to licence to US firms. Given that the primary issue being addressed here is the cost and difficulty of maintaining a refuelling infrastructure for forces in the field, that seems awfully relevant to me. Remember too, that even with regenerative braking, those batteries need to be recharged at some point. By a generator. That runs on fuel. Which needs to be transported. Along with the generator. In a transport vehicle that also need fuel etc. etc. etc. Probably still a significant net gain overall, but nothing like as good as it first appears.
And if you want to go further than that, for the first couple of applications of the brakes (or one long application) the vaccuum cannister that produces the power assistance for the brakes still has the pressure differential from when the engine was running, so brake effort in an emergency stop would have been almost indistinguishable from what it would have been had the engine still been running. Still not ideal practice, but not particularly dangerous. Chatting on the phone instead would have probably been more likely to cause a crash.
There is a degree of technophobia in a number of the more traditionally Muslim coutries. Khomeni, for one, used to go off on regular anti-tech rants. I think there's the idea that since revisionist (with regards to Islam) is bad, that has a tendency to carry over into "new is bad" generally, at least amongst those who don't care to think too carefully about this sort of thing; which is a distressingly large percentage of the population. Note that I'm not talking exclusively about Muslim culture here either. Have a look at what "concerned parent groups" have to say about computer games, that interweb thingy and wild strange rock and roll (that Marilyn Manson character is clearly a radical satanist or something). Profoundly and violently fundamentalist movements such as the Taliban would have looked on his tech tinkering with no small amount of suspicion. Again, kudos to him.
Did I or did I not point out that this wasn't MY point of view but merely A point of view? MY point was that if you want intellectual honesty, you have to be genuinely prepared to look at and understand the other person's point of view.
What I put forward was a popular viewpoint and one not entirely without merit. Given that the the US was merrily financing and encouraging the Taliban as a useful proxy to fight the Soviets in the 80s because "fanatics fight better" and because they didn't want to get their own hands dirty, is it really surprising that the Taliban felt somewhat used and bitter when the US dumped them with utterly no support after the part of the exercise that the US were interested in had finished? Whatever their faults might be, the Taliban had reason to be pissed off. Note that this doesn't mean that I condone their actions. Re-read that last sentence so that you actually absorb it before you flame me about allegedly approving of the 9/11 attacks.
Pitting the locals against someone you don't like as a proxy (Taliban in Afghanistan, Kurds in Iraq, etc) works well if you want to function as an annexing power and ensure that no one group gets too powerful, but it certainly won't make you any friends; especially if you promise some kind of support for that group and then abandon them. Again, sound familiar? I'd suggest that the US not be too complacent about counting the Kurds in Iraq as friends or even neutrals in the months and years to come.
I certainly don't like or agree with the bulk of the actions of militant Islamic groups myself. However, this doesn't mean that there isn't good reason for the discontent behind those actions, even if the actions themselves are abhorrent. Nor does it mean that any other militant faction, religious, political or otherwise is any less reprehensible. You're still righteously enraged over ~3000 deaths 2½ years ago. That's fair enough, but don't think that your country is the only one to have suffered unprovoked attacks resulting in thousands of deaths. And don't think that unilaterally invading a country on a pretext that has been shown to be utterly false (and I'll retract that statement when those stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons are found) doesn't count as the action of a militant faction. Clear and present danger my pert buttocks.
Oh, and just to bring this all back on topic, how would you and/or your government react to a game entitled "Resistance Force, Iraq!" or perhaps "Resistance Force, Grenada!" where you play as a resistance fighter using guerilla tactics against occupying US forces? It might not be banned, but enraged parent groups and conservatives would certainly lobby for that to happen. Yeah, you're so tolerant...
Your rape analogy has it's roles arse about, as far as the "lefties" are concerned. I think the idea is that it's more like the US raping the muslim states and 9/11 being analogous to the rape victim kicking the rapist in the balls. The rapist then, of course, beats the crap out of his victim for having the temerity to defend themselves.
Note that I don't necessarily agree with this view, but then I don't necessarily agree with your's either. If you want intellectual honesty, take the time to honestly try to empathise with the point of view of those with whom you DON'T agree, rather than just those with whom you DO agree.
Ok, the propellor I can overlook, obviously 1:250 scale impulse engines are a little thin on the ground. What I want to know is who they got to hand launch the original. Chekov: Heading, Captain? Kirk: Out there, somewhere. Chekov: I'm sorry Captain, but station launch sergeant Richards doesn't appear to...oh wait, here he is. Kirk: He's a, um, big boy, isn't he? Uhuru: (wistfully) He certainly is.
Find it best to take life one thing at a time, huh?
Actually, it's "hiccoughs" for those of us who don't need to grotesquely simplify our language to remember what we're doing...
...because the last thing you'd want is to hick your laptop up. I've now got disturbing mental images of an old Toshiba laptop up on blocks with a rattlecan paintjob.
Naughty, evil punster. You made me giggle. Most undignified.
Did you "clearly beat them" in the same model car? An E55 Mercedes will out accelerate a Dodge Neon with a manual box, but another Dodge Neon with an auto trans won't.
Usually for any given car the manual transmission has one or two more forward ratios than the automatic transmission version. Even current model vehicles with five speed autos are competing with six speed manuals. There's a reason why race car run manual boxes with as many gears as possible. Note that I'm referring to race cars such as rally cars that are setup to essentially run on normal roads. Drag transmission like air shifted Lencos are more different to regular auto transmissions than regular manual gearboxes, and they're usually manually shifted anyway, they just don't require clutching between gearchanges. Looking at drag cars to decide what is appropriate for a road car is ludicrous as you'd wind up trying to run things like wrinkle wall carcass slick rear tyres and ladderbar rear suspension which are extremely dangerous and in most cases illegal on public roads. Note that I'm not saying that all this equipment is mutually inclusive, but that equipment focussed on making a race car go very fast in a straight line is generally totally inconsistant with useful function in a car meant for use on public roads.
Add to this the fact that the heavier gearsets in auto transmission (big chunky planetary gearsets with integral clutches) and the hydraulic pumps to provide the hydraulic pressure (to run those integral clutches) AND the torque converter all suck horsepower to function and you're quickly running out of good reasons to run an auto for performance purposes. Computer controlled sequentials along the lines of BMW's SMG dodge a LOT of these issues, and shift faster than most if not all drivers with a full manual gearbox, but then they let you select your own gears as well.
Yeah, and those enormous cookie files chew up so much drive space too. I mean, they can run to over a thousand bytes!
Ok, you just broke me. I'm a sucker for historical photgraphy and I just got transported back in time a century. Absosmegginlutely amazing. Does anyone have anything else even remotely like this?
So I suppose when doctor's fees go up (hey, that's what private health insurance is for, right?) and health insurance premiums go up (damn greedy doctors) then anyone who can't find a job or is trying to study or simply has a shitty income can go fuck themselves if they EVER need medical treatment?
Some things are basic requirements in a developed society (water, food, shelter, medical treatment, electricity, probably phone, in approximately that order) some things are not (cable TV, broadband, SUVs, booze, cigarettes etc). Any government that claims to actually have the wellbeing of the population at large as a priority will ensure that neccessary things are available at a minimum reasonable level. If you want more, fine, go work for it. If you want cosmetic surgery, pay for it yourself. If, on the other hand, you're incapacitated through illness, how the hell are you supposed to pay for the medical treatment that you need to allow you to function well enough to get a job. Oh, and if you think that's a rare occurance, you're deluding yourself.
The health system here (Australia) is not what it should be, but at least it's still available to anyone that walks through the door. The idea that as a citizen of the country, one could be refused needed treatment is terrifying, and the uproar that would happen here were it proposed would be huge.
Of course, if you want to toss a century's worth of social advancement out the window then you'd deserve everything you get. That doesn't mean that everyone around you does though.
Fair enough, but then if your parents and cow-orkers and boss and neighbours and those mental giants that you see down at the local shopping centre were all running Linux, how long do you think it would be before the virus writers of the world turned their attention to Linux. Windows may have security issues, but I swear that its biggest weakness is that fact that it has a userbase that's willfully ignorant AND constitutes the vast majority of desktop users. If you were a virus coder, why would you bother writing for any other OS?
Someone mod this up as informative!
Absolutely! Which is why you certainly won't see us looking at other brutal regimes too closely in case someone actually expects us to do something about them! Crap, if we'd actually wanted to make a stand against crimes against humanity we would have had to go into shitholes like Rwanda and Cambodia and who knows where else! I mean...what?...oh riiight...sarcasm, huh? Sorry I spoke out of turn.
Or better yet, if the plant has a fine, invasive root system then it might be possible to set things up so that the plant can leech nitrogen based compounds from the mine. Now I'm certainly no explosives expert, but wouldn't this (or something similar) wind up making the mine inert?
Unfortunately, this sort of thing doesn't tend to pay very well, so those huge R&D bills don't get met. The end result is that the people who need this sort of technology most tend to get it last, particularly with regards to high yield crops. This particular effort is a magnificent exception.
And how is this not a sequel or franchise?
Fair enough, but it is based on a franchise, so it doesn't really count in this case.
The fact that Live for Speed is a driving sim means that most, if not all of the features of the game have been done before. Having said that, very nearly everything is done well, especially the actual physics engine and the online play. The most innovative thing about this game though, is the distribution model. You download the demo, which is a fairly hefty 140MB file. This starts to look smaller and smaller as you realise that first of all, the demo gives you 4 variations on the track that's included and 3 cars. You can also play it online. Then, once you're hooked and you decide to shell out the GBP12.00 you get another 5 cars and three tracks, each tracks having multiple variations like the demo track. Patches and bug fixes are regular, the developers are active in the forums, which is good, considering the huge community that's built up around the game. The money that I and many others paid for the first installment (S1) is funding the development of the second installment which I will purchase the moment it becomes available. This incremental release effectively means that the game's communtity gets a say in what gets included in the game. This is only my personal opinion, and you could question my lack of bias (I have no vested interest in the game other than as an enthusiastic player and member of the community, but I unashamedly love the game) but the quality of the game, the efficiency and novelty of the distribution method and the fact that that distribution method was dictated by the fact that the developers (all three of them) didn't want their concept diluted in any way by a publishing house, makes this game something that I would imagine more than a few Slashdotters being interested in.