You just described age discrimination. There is no proof that any of the stereotypes you listed are true, but the assumption is. When you base hiring decisions on assumptions about a class of people, you are in fact discriminating.
Even rear view cameras are still incredibly pricey add ons for most cars. I doubt much of this will be forced on us ( though with the current administration "knowing best" for how I should spend my money, who know)
The cost to provide it is just a small fraction of what they charge for it.
How is the btrfs speed compared to ext4 in your experience? Most tests I see has it slower with the explanation that it actually does more than ext4. Many of us still have magnetic drives instead of SSDs so, speed could be an issue. On the otherhand, reduced disk I/O should be a speed improvement. So, how does it perform?
Yes, older programmers will always have a harder time getting a job, just like older people in all other professions. Age discrimination isn't just an computer industry problem.
Well, I understand that the first guy to do the research might not know everything there is to know; I doubt Einstein's first draft of the Theory of Relativity was his last draft, you know? But Einstein had the sense and tact to point out from the get-go that he very well may have been wrong.
Vetting information presented simply means that the data is correctly presented. It doesn't mean that it is the whole picture. So yes, Einstein's research was vetted, even if it was further refined later (and that later research was also vetted). Publications need to take responsibility for the research they publish, at least to the extent they are verifying it.
There is another story on slashdot right now about bogus stem cell research. What is the point of having editors for your scientific journals if they aren't going to do any fact checking and just blindly publish whatever they get?
Anyway, how did all the other yellow meters get through customs??
Because Fluke's trademark specifically states "Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark" As such, it is difficult to see how Customs is turning them away for a trademark violation because of color.
Yellow Fluke multimeters have been around for a long, long time. I find it very hard to believe they "didn't know Fluke had a trademark"
It's not that they didn't know Fluke had a trademark. It is whether they new Fluke had trademarked the color yellow, which from their own trademark document, they have not. It specifically states: "Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark"
This is indeed odd. From the actual document of the trademark owned by Fluke it specifically states: Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark. Either there is some other reason the items are being refused entry or Fluke is falsely claiming a trademark infraction, at least if it is because a similar color yellow was used.
Besides, isn't it up to the courts to determine trademark violations, not customs?
The real problem isn't with shoddy research and researchers, the world has always had those. The real problem is the integrity of the journals that publish research. If they don't practice due diligence and report faulty studies, then they, the journals are at fault. The proper solution to faulty journals is to publish journals that have integrity and exercise due diligence. In a publish or perish world, not publishing shoddy research corrects the problem. What is needed is not the Stanford science police, but journals, symposiums, etc. with integrity that only allow the publishing/presentation of research that has been reviewed and vetted.
However, what we don’t want to do is discourage publication of preliminary results that MIGHT be wrong. Honest, legitimate work that gets superceded should not be subject to retraction, and a wrong theory published can often inspire others to do a better job. When a researcher can say, “That was our best hypothesis at the time, and this was the most accurately we could represent the data,” then it should stand as a legitimate publication.
The trick is to make that statement when first publishing the research, as opposed to saying it after somebody calls bullshit on apparently dubious claims.
DISCLAIMER: this paper contains preliminary research - results may not be fully vetted.
Or something to that effect.
One would hope that even if the research is preliminary that the results presented have been fully vetted.
It's one thing to point out flaws in studies and say why they are not reliable, it is a totally different thing to have the purpose of your organization to "shame others into better behaviour." Isn't it enough to discredit a study for such and such reasons? Does Stanford need to start discrediting the people, too?
You are correct, I should have said consumer grade batteries, as those used in cameras, recorders, phones, etc. Many of these do not have the protections in the battery pack, like automobile versions do and instead rely on a smart controller in the device itself for that functionality. That's probably why they don't want you checking Lithium Ion camera batteries in your luggage on a plane and instead must put them in your carry on.
Charge loss and capacity loss are separate issues. Recharge that LiIon battery that sat for a year and all is well. After a number of charge cycles, it will lose capacity. It simply will not hold as much charge as when it was new. At that point, it can either be remanufactured or re-purposed in an application that doesn't require the full capacity, such as in a datacenter where bulk and weight are less problematic than in a car. Eventually, it will become unsuitable for that as well, and then it can be re-manufactured.
LiIon batteries start loosing capacity from the moment they are manufactured. Recharging a battery that sat for a year is not the same as a new battery. The physics in how the battery works won't permit it to be.
There is no doubt that a LiIon battery can be repurposed and that is a better solution than throwing it in a land fill. However, with the estimated increase on electric vehicles, Lithium will be in high demand and there are very limited sources/reserves that can be mined. As such, it might still be a better solution, overall, to recycle the lithium in the battery to make new batteries versus repurposing them, since other technologies can be used to power datacenters, etc.
Why is recycling the batteries Nissan's problem? Recycling the lead-acid accumulator in a ICE car or the used engine oil isn't Ford's (etc.) problem or expese? Nissan doesn't own the batteries in sold cars.
Doesn't Nissan retain ownership and you lease the battery pack from them for your Leaf?
Bullshit. Reuse is the most eco-friendly type of recycling. It requires the least energy expenditure. You want them to spend more energy recycling the batteries more often, you aren't being eco-friendly. The batteries will still get recycled when they're no longer useful for this alternate purpose.
I should have said, Nissan isn't doing this to be eco-friendly as in that isn't their motivation. Economics is.
OTOH, one could argue that there is a very limited supply of Lithium and the reuse means they will need to mine more because of the demand for new batteries for new cars. That's not eco-freindly, when there are other resources for providing peak and backup power for data centers.
That's the problem with complicated problems, there just aren't simple solutions.
Actually it does not cost a lot of money to dispose properly of a li-ion battery. Unlike a lead acid battery, li-ion are non-toxic and can be dumped in a landfill. But of course since there is value in getting additional service from them, and then recycling them, why not?
That is true for consumer lithium ion batteries (like AA,etc.) The battery packs in automobiles are somewhat different, although they are still classified as lithium ion.
I'm no expert, but I don't think there's a "membrane" in Li-ion cells, just a chemical lattice that breaks down a little bit with each charge-discharge cycle. Hopefully someone who actually knows will chime in...
Anyone? Bueller?
You are correct, I should have been more specific. There isn't a membrane, there is a separator which allows the ions to pass through but keeps the anode and cathode from shorting. Once the "holes" in the separator fill in, through repeated charge/discharge, the battery looses the ability to deliver the full power because it is now less, by definition less efficient (fewer electrons can move through the separator in a given amount of time). This is one of the reasons that Li-ion batteries don't have a good shelf life. A brand new battery that has been sitting on the shelf for a year before purchase, slowly discharging, will not provide the same amount of energy as a newly manufactured one, even though the old one was never "used" (which is why it is important to check manufactured dates when purchasing them). Eventually, the separator will get to the point where so few ions can go across it that the battery will not be able to recharge or provide power. The actual electrolyte is still good the separator has gone bad.
The silliest thing about this press release is that it seems to ignore the fact that most car batteries (and certainly almost all large battery packs) are recycled and scrubbed so their components can be reused in new batteries.
That's the point. That process is expensive. If Nissan can push it on to somebody else, like the data centers who end up purchasing the battery packs, then they save a shit load of money in not having to clean the battery packs (Li-ion battery packs can't just be thrown into a landfill).
Or put the windmill/turbine at the top of the cooling towers from current reactors. Before the end of steam locomotives, the largest ones used the steam from the main cylinders, which still had a lot of energy, to work a second set of cylinders. There's no reason why the rising steam from a cooling tower couldn't turn a number of turbines producing additional electrical power,
Can someone explain why old car batteries are better suited than new ones? Is it perhaps that old car batteries just cannot produce the huge peak required to start the engine but that energy storage and extraction works fine at lower currents? And that therefore old batteries perform adequately at lower cost?
Because it costs a lot of money to dispose properly of a Li-ion battery and this way, Nissan doesn't have to bear that cost. The issue with leaving the batteries in the cars is not the energy required to start the engine/electrical motor, but the range the battery pack can sustain the engine. If new batteries get you 60 miles and old batteries get you 30 miles, your electric vehicle is less useful and/or needs recharged more often.
If anyone remains confused after the summary as I was, just to clarify they're discussing electric car battery packs. Using them to power datacenters during peak eectricity demand, and charing them back up during low electricity demand would indeed be useful. I'm quite suspicious about their degradation expectations, however. Being stationary installations well designed datacenters could often use more efficient and environmentally friendly options, like flywheels or thermal storage. There would perhaps be more demand and practical use for such battery packs as backup power during power outages, as those kind of emergency batteries will be required in any case. Hopefully it is possible to compromise between these two, for example by using 75% of the battery capacity for shifting power-demand to off-peak hours, and reserving 25% for backup power in case there's power-outage before the packs have been re-charged.
Everything you say is true, although you are forgetting a key point. The research is sponsored by Nissan who is looking at a way to monetize the old batteries. It's not in their best interest to promote other environmentally friendly options. Likewise, they can't just throw the old batteries in the landfill. Since it costs money to reclaim them legally, finding an alternative use pushes that cost on to somebody else (the spent batteries will be the data center's problem, not Nissan's).
Nissan isn't being eco-friendly here, they are just trying to minimize the financial cleanup cost associated with the technology they put in their cars. I'm sure the nuclear power industry would like to suggest low yield reactors for data centers using spent uranium, too.
Perhaps you're thinking of lead-acid batteries used in conventional ICE cars? TFA talks about using Li-ion packs from electric vehicles after they've worn down in efficiency. (The article gives the example of a 24kwh pack that only has 18kwh of capacity left, after being used for 14 years.) Even when they're worn out, such batteries are hardly "inexpensive" but they might be a good fit for peak-load smoothing in a data center or similar use. Ultimately, they'll have to be recycled, but this might be a way to get a few more years of service out of them.
On Li-ion batteries, isn't it the membrane that loses efficiency versus the actual Li-ion substrate? If so, couldn't the substrate be reclaimed from the old batteries and re-used to make new batteries for new vehicles?
Take jobs away from American high earners, give them to foreigners... so that American low earners don't feel so bad.
This country is screwed.
No, he's not saying to take jobs from high earners. H-1b visas impacted the middle and lower middle class. His view is to let the top 5% keep their wealth and make everybody else poor, thus having income equality for 95% of America.
Slashdot Mirror
You just described age discrimination. There is no proof that any of the stereotypes you listed are true, but the assumption is. When you base hiring decisions on assumptions about a class of people, you are in fact discriminating.
Even rear view cameras are still incredibly pricey add ons for most cars. I doubt much of this will be forced on us ( though with the current administration "knowing best" for how I should spend my money, who know)
The cost to provide it is just a small fraction of what they charge for it.
How is the btrfs speed compared to ext4 in your experience? Most tests I see has it slower with the explanation that it actually does more than ext4. Many of us still have magnetic drives instead of SSDs so, speed could be an issue. On the otherhand, reduced disk I/O should be a speed improvement. So, how does it perform?
Yes, older programmers will always have a harder time getting a job, just like older people in all other professions. Age discrimination isn't just an computer industry problem.
Well, I understand that the first guy to do the research might not know everything there is to know; I doubt Einstein's first draft of the Theory of Relativity was his last draft, you know? But Einstein had the sense and tact to point out from the get-go that he very well may have been wrong.
Vetting information presented simply means that the data is correctly presented. It doesn't mean that it is the whole picture. So yes, Einstein's research was vetted, even if it was further refined later (and that later research was also vetted). Publications need to take responsibility for the research they publish, at least to the extent they are verifying it.
There is another story on slashdot right now about bogus stem cell research. What is the point of having editors for your scientific journals if they aren't going to do any fact checking and just blindly publish whatever they get?
Anyway, how did all the other yellow meters get through customs??
Because Fluke's trademark specifically states "Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark" As such, it is difficult to see how Customs is turning them away for a trademark violation because of color.
Yellow Fluke multimeters have been around for a long, long time. I find it very hard to believe they "didn't know Fluke had a trademark"
It's not that they didn't know Fluke had a trademark. It is whether they new Fluke had trademarked the color yellow, which from their own trademark document, they have not. It specifically states: "Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark"
This is indeed odd. From the actual document of the trademark owned by Fluke it specifically states: Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark. Either there is some other reason the items are being refused entry or Fluke is falsely claiming a trademark infraction, at least if it is because a similar color yellow was used.
Besides, isn't it up to the courts to determine trademark violations, not customs?
The real problem isn't with shoddy research and researchers, the world has always had those. The real problem is the integrity of the journals that publish research. If they don't practice due diligence and report faulty studies, then they, the journals are at fault. The proper solution to faulty journals is to publish journals that have integrity and exercise due diligence. In a publish or perish world, not publishing shoddy research corrects the problem. What is needed is not the Stanford science police, but journals, symposiums, etc. with integrity that only allow the publishing/presentation of research that has been reviewed and vetted.
However, what we don’t want to do is discourage publication of preliminary results that MIGHT be wrong. Honest, legitimate work that gets superceded should not be subject to retraction, and a wrong theory published can often inspire others to do a better job. When a researcher can say, “That was our best hypothesis at the time, and this was the most accurately we could represent the data,” then it should stand as a legitimate publication.
The trick is to make that statement when first publishing the research, as opposed to saying it after somebody calls bullshit on apparently dubious claims.
DISCLAIMER: this paper contains preliminary research - results may not be fully vetted.
Or something to that effect.
One would hope that even if the research is preliminary that the results presented have been fully vetted.
It's one thing to point out flaws in studies and say why they are not reliable, it is a totally different thing to have the purpose of your organization to "shame others into better behaviour." Isn't it enough to discredit a study for such and such reasons? Does Stanford need to start discrediting the people, too?
You are correct, I should have said consumer grade batteries, as those used in cameras, recorders, phones, etc. Many of these do not have the protections in the battery pack, like automobile versions do and instead rely on a smart controller in the device itself for that functionality. That's probably why they don't want you checking Lithium Ion camera batteries in your luggage on a plane and instead must put them in your carry on.
Charge loss and capacity loss are separate issues. Recharge that LiIon battery that sat for a year and all is well. After a number of charge cycles, it will lose capacity. It simply will not hold as much charge as when it was new. At that point, it can either be remanufactured or re-purposed in an application that doesn't require the full capacity, such as in a datacenter where bulk and weight are less problematic than in a car. Eventually, it will become unsuitable for that as well, and then it can be re-manufactured.
LiIon batteries start loosing capacity from the moment they are manufactured. Recharging a battery that sat for a year is not the same as a new battery. The physics in how the battery works won't permit it to be.
There is no doubt that a LiIon battery can be repurposed and that is a better solution than throwing it in a land fill. However, with the estimated increase on electric vehicles, Lithium will be in high demand and there are very limited sources/reserves that can be mined. As such, it might still be a better solution, overall, to recycle the lithium in the battery to make new batteries versus repurposing them, since other technologies can be used to power datacenters, etc.
Why is recycling the batteries Nissan's problem? Recycling the lead-acid accumulator in a ICE car or the used engine oil isn't Ford's (etc.) problem or expese? Nissan doesn't own the batteries in sold cars.
Doesn't Nissan retain ownership and you lease the battery pack from them for your Leaf?
Nissan isn't being eco-friendly here,
Bullshit. Reuse is the most eco-friendly type of recycling. It requires the least energy expenditure. You want them to spend more energy recycling the batteries more often, you aren't being eco-friendly. The batteries will still get recycled when they're no longer useful for this alternate purpose.
I should have said, Nissan isn't doing this to be eco-friendly as in that isn't their motivation. Economics is.
OTOH, one could argue that there is a very limited supply of Lithium and the reuse means they will need to mine more because of the demand for new batteries for new cars. That's not eco-freindly, when there are other resources for providing peak and backup power for data centers.
That's the problem with complicated problems, there just aren't simple solutions.
Actually it does not cost a lot of money to dispose properly of a li-ion battery. Unlike a lead acid battery, li-ion are non-toxic and can be dumped in a landfill. But of course since there is value in getting additional service from them, and then recycling them, why not?
That is true for consumer lithium ion batteries (like AA,etc.) The battery packs in automobiles are somewhat different, although they are still classified as lithium ion.
I'm no expert, but I don't think there's a "membrane" in Li-ion cells, just a chemical lattice that breaks down a little bit with each charge-discharge cycle. Hopefully someone who actually knows will chime in...
Anyone? Bueller?
You are correct, I should have been more specific. There isn't a membrane, there is a separator which allows the ions to pass through but keeps the anode and cathode from shorting. Once the "holes" in the separator fill in, through repeated charge/discharge, the battery looses the ability to deliver the full power because it is now less, by definition less efficient (fewer electrons can move through the separator in a given amount of time). This is one of the reasons that Li-ion batteries don't have a good shelf life. A brand new battery that has been sitting on the shelf for a year before purchase, slowly discharging, will not provide the same amount of energy as a newly manufactured one, even though the old one was never "used" (which is why it is important to check manufactured dates when purchasing them). Eventually, the separator will get to the point where so few ions can go across it that the battery will not be able to recharge or provide power. The actual electrolyte is still good the separator has gone bad.
The silliest thing about this press release is that it seems to ignore the fact that most car batteries (and certainly almost all large battery packs) are recycled and scrubbed so their components can be reused in new batteries.
That's the point. That process is expensive. If Nissan can push it on to somebody else, like the data centers who end up purchasing the battery packs, then they save a shit load of money in not having to clean the battery packs (Li-ion battery packs can't just be thrown into a landfill).
just build nuclear, instead of useless windmills.
Or put the windmill/turbine at the top of the cooling towers from current reactors. Before the end of steam locomotives, the largest ones used the steam from the main cylinders, which still had a lot of energy, to work a second set of cylinders. There's no reason why the rising steam from a cooling tower couldn't turn a number of turbines producing additional electrical power,
Can someone explain why old car batteries are better suited than new ones? Is it perhaps that old car batteries just cannot produce the huge peak required to start the engine but that energy storage and extraction works fine at lower currents? And that therefore old batteries perform adequately at lower cost?
Because it costs a lot of money to dispose properly of a Li-ion battery and this way, Nissan doesn't have to bear that cost. The issue with leaving the batteries in the cars is not the energy required to start the engine/electrical motor, but the range the battery pack can sustain the engine. If new batteries get you 60 miles and old batteries get you 30 miles, your electric vehicle is less useful and/or needs recharged more often.
If anyone remains confused after the summary as I was, just to clarify they're discussing electric car battery packs. Using them to power datacenters during peak eectricity demand, and charing them back up during low electricity demand would indeed be useful. I'm quite suspicious about their degradation expectations, however.
Being stationary installations well designed datacenters could often use more efficient and environmentally friendly options, like flywheels or thermal storage. There would perhaps be more demand and practical use for such battery packs as backup power during power outages, as those kind of emergency batteries will be required in any case.
Hopefully it is possible to compromise between these two, for example by using 75% of the battery capacity for shifting power-demand to off-peak hours, and reserving 25% for backup power in case there's power-outage before the packs have been re-charged.
Everything you say is true, although you are forgetting a key point. The research is sponsored by Nissan who is looking at a way to monetize the old batteries. It's not in their best interest to promote other environmentally friendly options. Likewise, they can't just throw the old batteries in the landfill. Since it costs money to reclaim them legally, finding an alternative use pushes that cost on to somebody else (the spent batteries will be the data center's problem, not Nissan's).
Nissan isn't being eco-friendly here, they are just trying to minimize the financial cleanup cost associated with the technology they put in their cars. I'm sure the nuclear power industry would like to suggest low yield reactors for data centers using spent uranium, too.
Perhaps you're thinking of lead-acid batteries used in conventional ICE cars? TFA talks about using Li-ion packs from electric vehicles after they've worn down in efficiency. (The article gives the example of a 24kwh pack that only has 18kwh of capacity left, after being used for 14 years.) Even when they're worn out, such batteries are hardly "inexpensive" but they might be a good fit for peak-load smoothing in a data center or similar use. Ultimately, they'll have to be recycled, but this might be a way to get a few more years of service out of them.
On Li-ion batteries, isn't it the membrane that loses efficiency versus the actual Li-ion substrate? If so, couldn't the substrate be reclaimed from the old batteries and re-used to make new batteries for new vehicles?
Very funny, however, I think the final verse should read
Anonymous cowards,
You know you are wrong
So, don't post anonymously, just move along.
Whenever people attack the rich somehow it always gets deflected toward the upper working class and this confusion needs to stop.
That is because the 1%ers control the message.
Take jobs away from American high earners, give them to foreigners... so that American low earners don't feel so bad.
This country is screwed.
No, he's not saying to take jobs from high earners. H-1b visas impacted the middle and lower middle class. His view is to let the top 5% keep their wealth and make everybody else poor, thus having income equality for 95% of America.