That's a company store. A dealership is an "independent" third party that also takes a cut of the sale. I don't know how they rationalize requiring car manufacturers to sell through a dealer. If it continues to happen, it will become a big election issue because the model S is one of the most highly reviewed cars and they're trying to stop Texans from buying them.
A design patent covers the appearance of a product only, so it's really more like a trademark. The goal is to protect their signature look from copying. You don't have to invent new technology to get around the patents, you just have to make it look different.
What is hear on the news (CNN, the Daily Show) or from my family is the Tea Party is mostly about bringing back racism. Which is strange because it's not in their platform and I haven't heard any Tea-Partiers mention it. But it comes back down to what the person who ran this analysis said, many "don't know a single person who identifies with the tea party."
There is a practical upper limit to the efficiency of a steam engine (at around 40%) which means that no matter how big you make your thermal system, it will never be cheaper than PV. Moreover, they're still learning to make PV less expensive, while all the technology used in thermal power generation is mature.
That's not to say that thermal doesn't have it's advantages, thermal systems can store energy more cheaply and easily.
I already did. It's $0.11 per kWh with no operating costs or interest added in. Or it's about $1000 per home per year (again no operating costs or interest payments).
I'm not saying it's useless, but I am curious if there's some fundamental limitation that's caused this. If you want base load power, you'd probably want more like 12 hours of storage and it seems strange they wouldn't go for that, since they're half way there. If you're only going for intermittent power, this system is more expensive to build and operate than a photovoltaic system would be, but it makes sense if you add energy storage to the picture.
I used to work for a company that executed a lot of government contracts. Around 2008 we started looking for laboratories that were woman or minority owned because the government agency we were working for told us a minority or woman owned business needed to be included in our bid. On the other hand, we had one construction contractor that we always used because we liked working with them even though they weren't minority owned.
Up to this point we only used a huge national chain for laboratory analysis. Their service wasn't the best, but they never had difficulty meeting our requirements or timetables.
We really got burned when the first laboratory we tried over-promised on the number of samples they'd be able to analyze and ended up delaying our project. Fortunately the next minority owned lab we tried was able to deliver and we ended up using them for all our subsequent projects for this particular government agency. We also used them for other projects where the client hadn't requested a specific laboratory because they had very good service.
This is 2013. I'm not physically going to a store to buy a phone they won't have in stock anyway. I just bought it directly from Apple, for some reason there's no additional fee when I do it that way. Though I noticed that Apple will only give me $175 credit for my 4S, while Verizon said they'd give me $200, so maybe that's where the additional $30 came from. Not that it matters because I'll ebay it anyway.
Verizon wanted to charge me a $30 "upgrade" fee when I tried to upgrade to a new iPhone. They're already charging me $200 for the phone and $80/month for the service (plus a new two year contract to replace my recently lapsed one). That means I'm already going to be paying them $2,120. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal for them, what possible expense could this upgrade fee cover?
I will never understand how people break these things. Surely they realize they can't just throw them around and expect them to continue functioning. Do they just forget they have them in their hand and drop them? If you have this problem, do you also break a lot of bowls and plates and glasses? How do people go through life if they can't keep one of these devices in one piece?
But do you see how absurd that is? They're acting like the government is what makes these national parks work. Like they'll "shut down" without the government. And in order to enforce the "shut down" the must actually employ rangers to keep people out. If it were a real shut down, the rangers would be sent home and the national parks would actually be open for anyone to go into.
It's not there to protect society in general, it's there to protect society from government abuse. Without it, the government has the authority to write laws criminalizing silence.
Suppose the government has passed a law banning the sale, possession, and consumption of a generally harmless substance. But you, even though you are not a criminal by any reasonable definition of the word, have decided to consume that substance for your own reasons. Now a police officer asks you if you have ever consumed that substance. You are on the hook, you can either admit to your crime (and go to jail for consuming the substance) or you can deny your crime (and risk going to jail for making a false statement to the police as well as consuming the substance if they prove your guilt) or you can remain silent (and go to jail for refusing to testify against yourself, and for consuming the substance if they prove your guilt).
This basically puts the government in an un-resistable power position. All they have to do is make enough unreasonable laws of the kind I've described and they can pick anyone out of the general public and have them imprisoned for simply trying to fight the charges. Lying to the police is risky business, and only hardened criminals can do it successfully because they'd learned to do it through multiple interactions with law enforcement (and because they are usually willing to take the risk). For the rest of us, silence is our best option, because we can then pay our attorney to speak for us. If you remove that option we will all be susceptible to government issued threats an coercion.
They don't even have to be all that low. Thousands of dollars per student would be an acceptable expense for a public school system if it meant students could graduate several years earlier than they otherwise would. It makes even more sense when you consider an individuals whole life, since the students who would normally slip through the cracks and end up in jail or on welfare would have a better shot at being accepted into society.
I take it from your response that you must be an expert in building rockets. So tell me, how many rockets do you need to build every year to achieve economies of scale?
Economies of scale kick in when you are able to keep your staff fully occupied and you tools continually in use. That will happen at different productive outputs depending on what you're building and how you are building it. You can't just say "Economies of scale don't kick in all that much when your annual production is that tiny." It's not that simple.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why it does.
That's a company store. A dealership is an "independent" third party that also takes a cut of the sale. I don't know how they rationalize requiring car manufacturers to sell through a dealer. If it continues to happen, it will become a big election issue because the model S is one of the most highly reviewed cars and they're trying to stop Texans from buying them.
A design patent covers the appearance of a product only, so it's really more like a trademark. The goal is to protect their signature look from copying. You don't have to invent new technology to get around the patents, you just have to make it look different.
It looks like they should have waited.
You could have fooled me. Sometimes they have funny sketches from real comedians, but Jon Stewart isn't funny. Not even a little bit.
What is hear on the news (CNN, the Daily Show) or from my family is the Tea Party is mostly about bringing back racism. Which is strange because it's not in their platform and I haven't heard any Tea-Partiers mention it. But it comes back down to what the person who ran this analysis said, many "don't know a single person who identifies with the tea party."
Actually, the employee's motivation is likely the same as well. And the destination seems to getting more similar every day.
There is a practical upper limit to the efficiency of a steam engine (at around 40%) which means that no matter how big you make your thermal system, it will never be cheaper than PV. Moreover, they're still learning to make PV less expensive, while all the technology used in thermal power generation is mature.
That's not to say that thermal doesn't have it's advantages, thermal systems can store energy more cheaply and easily.
I already did. It's $0.11 per kWh with no operating costs or interest added in. Or it's about $1000 per home per year (again no operating costs or interest payments).
I'm not saying it's useless, but I am curious if there's some fundamental limitation that's caused this. If you want base load power, you'd probably want more like 12 hours of storage and it seems strange they wouldn't go for that, since they're half way there. If you're only going for intermittent power, this system is more expensive to build and operate than a photovoltaic system would be, but it makes sense if you add energy storage to the picture.
Nighttime lasts longer than that.
What? Why not?!
I used to work for a company that executed a lot of government contracts. Around 2008 we started looking for laboratories that were woman or minority owned because the government agency we were working for told us a minority or woman owned business needed to be included in our bid. On the other hand, we had one construction contractor that we always used because we liked working with them even though they weren't minority owned.
Up to this point we only used a huge national chain for laboratory analysis. Their service wasn't the best, but they never had difficulty meeting our requirements or timetables.
We really got burned when the first laboratory we tried over-promised on the number of samples they'd be able to analyze and ended up delaying our project. Fortunately the next minority owned lab we tried was able to deliver and we ended up using them for all our subsequent projects for this particular government agency. We also used them for other projects where the client hadn't requested a specific laboratory because they had very good service.
It seems like as long as there's anonymity, it's going to be possible to rig it.
Maybe I should explain that I live 70 miles from the nearest Verizon store, and that the iPhone 5S I want is not likely to be in stock at the moment.
This is 2013. I'm not physically going to a store to buy a phone they won't have in stock anyway. I just bought it directly from Apple, for some reason there's no additional fee when I do it that way. Though I noticed that Apple will only give me $175 credit for my 4S, while Verizon said they'd give me $200, so maybe that's where the additional $30 came from. Not that it matters because I'll ebay it anyway.
Verizon wanted to charge me a $30 "upgrade" fee when I tried to upgrade to a new iPhone. They're already charging me $200 for the phone and $80/month for the service (plus a new two year contract to replace my recently lapsed one). That means I'm already going to be paying them $2,120. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal for them, what possible expense could this upgrade fee cover?
I will never understand how people break these things. Surely they realize they can't just throw them around and expect them to continue functioning. Do they just forget they have them in their hand and drop them? If you have this problem, do you also break a lot of bowls and plates and glasses? How do people go through life if they can't keep one of these devices in one piece?
But do you see how absurd that is? They're acting like the government is what makes these national parks work. Like they'll "shut down" without the government. And in order to enforce the "shut down" the must actually employ rangers to keep people out. If it were a real shut down, the rangers would be sent home and the national parks would actually be open for anyone to go into.
On-screen keyboards will finally get tactile feedback.
It's not there to protect society in general, it's there to protect society from government abuse. Without it, the government has the authority to write laws criminalizing silence.
Suppose the government has passed a law banning the sale, possession, and consumption of a generally harmless substance. But you, even though you are not a criminal by any reasonable definition of the word, have decided to consume that substance for your own reasons. Now a police officer asks you if you have ever consumed that substance. You are on the hook, you can either admit to your crime (and go to jail for consuming the substance) or you can deny your crime (and risk going to jail for making a false statement to the police as well as consuming the substance if they prove your guilt) or you can remain silent (and go to jail for refusing to testify against yourself, and for consuming the substance if they prove your guilt).
This basically puts the government in an un-resistable power position. All they have to do is make enough unreasonable laws of the kind I've described and they can pick anyone out of the general public and have them imprisoned for simply trying to fight the charges. Lying to the police is risky business, and only hardened criminals can do it successfully because they'd learned to do it through multiple interactions with law enforcement (and because they are usually willing to take the risk). For the rest of us, silence is our best option, because we can then pay our attorney to speak for us. If you remove that option we will all be susceptible to government issued threats an coercion.
These kinds of stories have been on /. for a long time. That's why comments of the form "this isn't news for nerds" are such a cliche.
They don't even have to be all that low. Thousands of dollars per student would be an acceptable expense for a public school system if it meant students could graduate several years earlier than they otherwise would. It makes even more sense when you consider an individuals whole life, since the students who would normally slip through the cracks and end up in jail or on welfare would have a better shot at being accepted into society.
I take it from your response that you must be an expert in building rockets. So tell me, how many rockets do you need to build every year to achieve economies of scale?
Economies of scale kick in when you are able to keep your staff fully occupied and you tools continually in use. That will happen at different productive outputs depending on what you're building and how you are building it. You can't just say "Economies of scale don't kick in all that much when your annual production is that tiny." It's not that simple.