You are quite right to point out that the grid can have big advantages.
When writing, I especially had Nepal, where "the diverse and rugged topography of the country means that full grid connection of each and every household of each and every villages is practically impossible."
Once a country goes decentralized, I don't think the economics justify adding a grid, because it is so expensive. It might be more likely to have hydrogen be used as a storage and transport medium. In any case, grids have lots of transmission losses, are capital intensive and can't be built up gradually like increased solar capacity.
That said, it does have huge advantages, so it will be interesting to see where the grid will stop- maybe somewhere in suburbia, where the density justifies the cost, or to large rural customers? Or perhaps we'll have mini-grids at a village or neighbourhood scale?
And on that same page, they do mention that PV prices can go as low as "$3.58 Watt: thin film and $3.16 Watt: crystalline." $5.85 is an average, which includes PVs that are designed for different systems. In my case, I only care about cost per watt as I will have a sufficient surface, others have to worry about squeezing the most energy out of a limited space. Different needs, different models and different prices.
The most promising route will probably be solar rooftops, where solar cells are integrated with construction materials. For new construction or re-roofing, this makes a lot of sense because you don't have to pay much more for installation. With net metering, you also wouldn't need the expensive batteries. Of course, that assumes you're on the grid; if not, connection charges can be more than going the cost of going solar, including battery array.
Solar is still expensive for now, and this has led most people that consider it to use every trick in the book to lower their energy consumption. Better lighting, appliances, windows, insulation... if it cost less money to conserve than generate, it only makes sense to spend money on efficiency. You probably do not need 564kWh/month- you should be able to reduce that by at least a third, with a payback in under 2 years.
There are other applications too where cost alone is not a huge issue. If reliability is important, being able to have your own power supply, batteries, and a net metering arrangement with the grid could be a cheaper solution than most UPS, and give you far more autonomy.
While you may not see it as rosey, it's hard to argue with the fact that sales are still growing, year over year. And I can't think of anything that could stop that in the next 20 years: it's all but inevitable.
The cost of electricity from solar cells remains higher than from wind or coal-fired power plants for grid-connected customers, but it is falling fast due to economies of scale as rising demand drives industry expansion. Solar cells currently cost around $3.50 per watt for crystalline cells, and $2 per watt for thin-film wafers, which are less efficient but can be integrated into building materials. Industry analysts note that between 1976 and 2000, each doubling of cumulative production resulted in a price drop of 20 percent. Some maintain that prices may fall even more dramatically in the future.(link)
Naturally, this is a positive feedback loop. Lower prices mean it's affordable for more niches, which means more people buy, which in turn scales larger. At this point, it's pretty much unstoppable. It is useful in too many niches, especially where customers aren't connected to a power grid.
There are now many countries that have more cell-phones than landline phones. It's likely that in 10 years, some countries will have more customers getting electricity from solar than from a central grid. Naysayers will say it's not ready... but then again, 15 years ago cell phones weren't either. What matters is not the absolute numbers, but the growth rate of the industry and the evolution of the technology.
Of course, as the market matures, more people are doing R&D to find cheaper ways to build PV systems, which is only going to accelerate this momentum.
True, that is trivial. However this might be much faster than calling a human, and would allow taxi companies to save a fair bit of money. This is also convenient if you are not fluent, or not sure exactly where you are, or how to describe it.
A properly configured system could also return a page telling you how long a taxi is expected to take to get there.
Everyone is comparing this to CueCat without saying why this won't work.
The semacode website actually provides some intriguing uses for this technology. Since it is an open standard, we could think up other uses, but there are three that they mention that make sense to me:
transit info - nextBus
A web service to call a taxicab to your present location
ticket sales from posters (e.g. concerts)
Cellphone prices are falling, and many people no longer even have a landline, so there could be a large market for this.
Also, these uses don't cost much if anything. It probably will have a few niches. Can anyone else think of good applications?
It's really about sustainability. Can we engineer our manufacturing processes and these materials to have an environmentally benign lifecycle from when they're made in the factory to when they're put in a landfill?
WHAT? These people will be able to clean up Superfund sites, but they're not going to take responsibility for their own garbage?
Never mind the environmental costs- if you don't release nano-garbage, there is no costs. Keep the stuff in the lab and manufacture, only shipping stable materials that you can then recycle.
Unless the device were screaming "I'M OVER HERE, OH YEAH, AND I'M THE WINNING COKE CAN" you aren't likely to find it even if you're in the same store as it, at the same time as it happens to be passing through.
If the device were screaming "I'M OVER HERE", you don't need to find the right 12-pack: you just buy all of them.
"Designing for 90% of browsers is our policy? Here's a question. If I answered 10% of the sales calls with "hello [companyname], could you please fuck off", how would that affect our sales?"
You had better release that as public domain, cause I intend to use that in my sales pitches!:)
I have to point this out- it is also cultural arrogance to say your country was the most powerful "in every way". Spiritually, that is highly dubious, even if your prez finishes every major speech with a God bless.
Although you fear a permanent decline in living standards, you haven't really seen an increase in the past 30 or so years. GDP had been going up, but real standards have eroded.
A lot of your busy-ness increases GDP without creating actual value. Your system allows some to pollute (destroying value for others) while keeping benefits for themselves. Whether subsidizing mining, clear-cutting, burning fossil fuels... all are subsidized. Meanwhile, hiring people is taxed.
You could be spending money on schools and healthcare, but instead you spend it looking for inexistent weapons.
IOW, you have extraordinary wealth, you're just squandering it. It's not good for you or the rest of the world for the US to be reduced to nuke-wielding third world status. The US will no longer be a hegemon, but whether it has a decent standard of living is entirely up to you folks- all you need to do is stop wasting your resources.
Absolutely. Not giving visas to grad students is an obvious impediment to keeping them in the US- and they are refused entry because of post-9/11 rules.
As for conferences/symposia, if say, Cubans are not allowed on US soil, organizers are likely to organize in a European or other non-US city. You lose a lot of direct revenue, not to mention indirect opportunities (fewer grad students able to attend, etc...).
Also, like you said, many people would just rather avoid the US entirely. Too many have been harassed at the border, including many that have been held illegally without trial. For Canadians, the case of Maher Arar is in our minds, but there are many more.
If your customs/immigration were a bit more ethical, you may not have this problem.
There already is a climate-friendly alternative, GreenFreeze. And the Europeans that have adopted this technology (despite the fact it was heavily pushed by GreenPeace) have a lot of experience making very energy-efficient appliances.
Unless they expect this to be cheaper/ more efficient, I can't understand why they would finance such research- except as publicity.
I have been using Struts for over a year now, and although I'm over the steep learning curve, I can't help but think there's something simpler.
Some have mentionned Spring, and I'd love it if anyone here could tell me how that compares to Struts, especially if they tried OpenSymphony's XWork or Webwork.
Methinks you underestimate some of those activists:)
I assure you that the arguments I put forward are quite common in that movement. There are some idiots -like in any church, social movement, corporation or government- but the people driving the opposition are keenly aware of the political and environmental risks.
The nastier problem is with using Bt. It is an approved organic method of pest-control, something you can spray on plants and disappears in a few days.
But putting it in the plant is just begging for trouble. Just like good antibiotics become ineffective due to overuse, persistent Bt is sure to create resistant bugs- and farmers lose a last line of defense against many bugs.
Not from me it won't. I was active trying to get people to pay attention to the threat of GM foods more than 5 years ago, but whole-heartedly support this technology, and have for years (this is rather old news).
Knowing many people in the "foodie" movement, and having heard organic famers describe their breeding programs, you'll find that most anti-GM activists will also support faster breeding, especially when it allows us to develop strains that are appropriate for local conditions and suitable for low-input, organic agriculture.
The anti-GM movement is not anti-science or anti-progress. It emerged out of serious concerns with corporate control of our food supply and the poor quality of the gene-splicing "science" used.
A big problem was found by Percy Schmeiser. He is one fine example of what happens when you get caught in Monsanto's lawyers cross-hairs. His crime? Monsanto's IP was in his field. No matter that they tresspassed to establish this, or that he didn't plant them, didn't want it, and viewed it as contamination of his crop... he lost his farm over this.
But the problem that made me cry foul was far more frightening than a Microsoft of agriculture wanting to control most of our food supply's IP, scary as that is. It's that you can't "undo". When you put a fish gene in a tomato, you can't take the fish gene back. If pollen escapes - if the plant is crossed with others in the field - you can't selectively remove that genetic material.
We could find a horrible allergy is introduced, a fatal toxin to some keystone critter, or a loss in yields. But once the open-pollinated strains are contaminated, how do you remove them? Go with all the commercially controlled hybrid varieties? hmm....
Contrast this to the approach described in the article. We know these genes to be quite safe, as people have been eating and growing them for a very long time. We're just accelerating breeding. It may not be 100% safe, but it's as safe as anything can be. AND we don't have to worry about corporate control of a basic resource.
When the topic of GM has come up on/. before, I have been surprised how easily, and I would say uncritically, people embrace the technology. Monsanto has the same ethics as Microsoft. They promise to end world hunger when all that matters is the bottom line.
When it tries to use proprietary chemicals to allow seeds to germinate, we should be appalled - the same way we are appalled at DRM. When they patent genes that were bred through generations of farmers work, it should be seen as Sun trying to hijack GPL code.
Anyhow, sorry for such a long post- the basic point being that no, most of us won't flip out and try to stop it if you call it gene-laundering:)
It also earned the nickname of "School of the Assasins" after training Latin American soldiers in such fields as "interrogation techniques" (torture), counterinsurgency techniques and psychological warfare.
Every year, protesters converge on the SOA and "cross the line" and get arrested, a mass protest to bring attention to this institutions horrible record. It is unlikely a surveillance blimp will deter many, but the first thought I had was that there had to be a link. The base may want to be able to identify more of those protesters that have only supporting roles and stay well behind the confrontation?
"prevent Microsoft's product release and support road map from dictating [our] upgrade timetable."
"I'm not an anti-Microsoft person, and I think Office is a good product," said Benincasa. "However, we are cautious with our IT budget, and I'd prefer to spend money that directly relates to our business, like investing in things like hardware. Office 97 does everything we want it to do, and we would stay on that suite if we could. It pains me to have to spend money for features and functions most of my end users won't even begin to need."
Your concern is that OOo is competing on 1998-2000 functionality, but this business person obviously doesn't care about anything more.
I am guessing that the features MS is adding are mainly needed to keep people updating. Focusing on features instead of actual end-user needs is not going to get us any further; if 20% of features make 80% of users happy it only makes sense that we start with those.
Slashdot Mirror
You are quite right to point out that the grid can have big advantages.
When writing, I especially had Nepal, where "the diverse and rugged topography of the country means that full grid connection of each and every household of each and every villages is practically impossible."
Once a country goes decentralized, I don't think the economics justify adding a grid, because it is so expensive. It might be more likely to have hydrogen be used as a storage and transport medium. In any case, grids have lots of transmission losses, are capital intensive and can't be built up gradually like increased solar capacity.
That said, it does have huge advantages, so it will be interesting to see where the grid will stop- maybe somewhere in suburbia, where the density justifies the cost, or to large rural customers? Or perhaps we'll have mini-grids at a village or neighbourhood scale?
It's likely then that the page you linked to from your submission will be the winner.
And on that same page, they do mention that PV prices can go as low as "$3.58 Watt: thin film and $3.16 Watt: crystalline." $5.85 is an average, which includes PVs that are designed for different systems. In my case, I only care about cost per watt as I will have a sufficient surface, others have to worry about squeezing the most energy out of a limited space. Different needs, different models and different prices.
The most promising route will probably be solar rooftops, where solar cells are integrated with construction materials. For new construction or re-roofing, this makes a lot of sense because you don't have to pay much more for installation. With net metering, you also wouldn't need the expensive batteries. Of course, that assumes you're on the grid; if not, connection charges can be more than going the cost of going solar, including battery array.
Solar is still expensive for now, and this has led most people that consider it to use every trick in the book to lower their energy consumption. Better lighting, appliances, windows, insulation... if it cost less money to conserve than generate, it only makes sense to spend money on efficiency. You probably do not need 564kWh/month- you should be able to reduce that by at least a third, with a payback in under 2 years.
There are other applications too where cost alone is not a huge issue. If reliability is important, being able to have your own power supply, batteries, and a net metering arrangement with the grid could be a cheaper solution than most UPS, and give you far more autonomy.
While you may not see it as rosey, it's hard to argue with the fact that sales are still growing, year over year. And I can't think of anything that could stop that in the next 20 years: it's all but inevitable.
Solar sales are up 30-40% every year, and have been growing at such a steady pace for a long time.
Naturally, this is a positive feedback loop. Lower prices mean it's affordable for more niches, which means more people buy, which in turn scales larger. At this point, it's pretty much unstoppable. It is useful in too many niches, especially where customers aren't connected to a power grid.
There are now many countries that have more cell-phones than landline phones. It's likely that in 10 years, some countries will have more customers getting electricity from solar than from a central grid. Naysayers will say it's not ready... but then again, 15 years ago cell phones weren't either. What matters is not the absolute numbers, but the growth rate of the industry and the evolution of the technology.
Of course, as the market matures, more people are doing R&D to find cheaper ways to build PV systems, which is only going to accelerate this momentum.
True, that is trivial. However this might be much faster than calling a human, and would allow taxi companies to save a fair bit of money. This is also convenient if you are not fluent, or not sure exactly where you are, or how to describe it.
A properly configured system could also return a page telling you how long a taxi is expected to take to get there.
The semacode website actually provides some intriguing uses for this technology. Since it is an open standard, we could think up other uses, but there are three that they mention that make sense to me:
- transit info - nextBus
- A web service to call a taxicab to your present location
- ticket sales from posters (e.g. concerts)
Cellphone prices are falling, and many people no longer even have a landline, so there could be a large market for this.Also, these uses don't cost much if anything. It probably will have a few niches. Can anyone else think of good applications?
The Google Zeitgeist now puts it at 22%.
A bit further down the page, it looks like Mozilla is slowly gaining market share. Yay
WHAT? These people will be able to clean up Superfund sites, but they're not going to take responsibility for their own garbage?
Never mind the environmental costs- if you don't release nano-garbage, there is no costs. Keep the stuff in the lab and manufacture, only shipping stable materials that you can then recycle.
If you can do that, I'll support this technology.
If the device were screaming "I'M OVER HERE", you don't need to find the right 12-pack: you just buy all of them.
I've seen some great, nifty looking sites in Flash- with not a single word indexed in the search engines.
OOPS!
But if they're not keeping logs, nobody has a clue anyway. Oh well...
Your approach- not be associated with the site- is probably the best plan of (in)action. It's no good having crap on record / in the portfolio.
Great work on the design!
Now, I have a question as far as default settings. Why is spam filtering not enabled by default?
You had better release that as public domain, cause I intend to use that in my sales pitches!
I have to point this out- it is also cultural arrogance to say your country was the most powerful "in every way". Spiritually, that is highly dubious, even if your prez finishes every major speech with a God bless.
Although you fear a permanent decline in living standards, you haven't really seen an increase in the past 30 or so years. GDP had been going up, but real standards have eroded.
A lot of your busy-ness increases GDP without creating actual value. Your system allows some to pollute (destroying value for others) while keeping benefits for themselves. Whether subsidizing mining, clear-cutting, burning fossil fuels... all are subsidized. Meanwhile, hiring people is taxed.
You could be spending money on schools and healthcare, but instead you spend it looking for inexistent weapons.
IOW, you have extraordinary wealth, you're just squandering it. It's not good for you or the rest of the world for the US to be reduced to nuke-wielding third world status. The US will no longer be a hegemon, but whether it has a decent standard of living is entirely up to you folks- all you need to do is stop wasting your resources.
Interesting problem. In business, we factor overhead to keep up-to-date on our field. Consultants charge double a normal wage, and then some.
Perhaps it is time to ally basic and applied research labs, where the applied folks factor in the basic as simply the cost of doing research.
Absolutely. Not giving visas to grad students is an obvious impediment to keeping them in the US- and they are refused entry because of post-9/11 rules.
As for conferences/symposia, if say, Cubans are not allowed on US soil, organizers are likely to organize in a European or other non-US city. You lose a lot of direct revenue, not to mention indirect opportunities (fewer grad students able to attend, etc...).
Also, like you said, many people would just rather avoid the US entirely. Too many have been harassed at the border, including many that have been held illegally without trial. For Canadians, the case of Maher Arar is in our minds, but there are many more.
If your customs/immigration were a bit more ethical, you may not have this problem.
Excellent series. thanks!
There already is a climate-friendly alternative, GreenFreeze. And the Europeans that have adopted this technology (despite the fact it was heavily pushed by GreenPeace) have a lot of experience making very energy-efficient appliances.
Unless they expect this to be cheaper/ more efficient, I can't understand why they would finance such research- except as publicity.
I have been using Struts for over a year now, and although I'm over the steep learning curve, I can't help but think there's something simpler.
Some have mentionned Spring, and I'd love it if anyone here could tell me how that compares to Struts, especially if they tried OpenSymphony's XWork or Webwork.
Any recommendations?
Methinks you underestimate some of those activists :)
I assure you that the arguments I put forward are quite common in that movement. There are some idiots -like in any church, social movement, corporation or government- but the people driving the opposition are keenly aware of the political and environmental risks.
The nastier problem is with using Bt. It is an approved organic method of pest-control, something you can spray on plants and disappears in a few days.
But putting it in the plant is just begging for trouble. Just like good antibiotics become ineffective due to overuse, persistent Bt is sure to create resistant bugs- and farmers lose a last line of defense against many bugs.
Not from me it won't. I was active trying to get people to pay attention to the threat of GM foods more than 5 years ago, but whole-heartedly support this technology, and have for years (this is rather old news).
/. before, I have been surprised how easily, and I would say uncritically, people embrace the technology. Monsanto has the same ethics as Microsoft. They promise to end world hunger when all that matters is the bottom line.
:)
Knowing many people in the "foodie" movement, and having heard organic famers describe their breeding programs, you'll find that most anti-GM activists will also support faster breeding, especially when it allows us to develop strains that are appropriate for local conditions and suitable for low-input, organic agriculture.
The anti-GM movement is not anti-science or anti-progress. It emerged out of serious concerns with corporate control of our food supply and the poor quality of the gene-splicing "science" used.
A big problem was found by Percy Schmeiser. He is one fine example of what happens when you get caught in Monsanto's lawyers cross-hairs. His crime? Monsanto's IP was in his field. No matter that they tresspassed to establish this, or that he didn't plant them, didn't want it, and viewed it as contamination of his crop... he lost his farm over this.
But the problem that made me cry foul was far more frightening than a Microsoft of agriculture wanting to control most of our food supply's IP, scary as that is. It's that you can't "undo". When you put a fish gene in a tomato, you can't take the fish gene back. If pollen escapes - if the plant is crossed with others in the field - you can't selectively remove that genetic material.
We could find a horrible allergy is introduced, a fatal toxin to some keystone critter, or a loss in yields. But once the open-pollinated strains are contaminated, how do you remove them? Go with all the commercially controlled hybrid varieties? hmm....
Contrast this to the approach described in the article. We know these genes to be quite safe, as people have been eating and growing them for a very long time. We're just accelerating breeding. It may not be 100% safe, but it's as safe as anything can be. AND we don't have to worry about corporate control of a basic resource.
When the topic of GM has come up on
When it tries to use proprietary chemicals to allow seeds to germinate, we should be appalled - the same way we are appalled at DRM. When they patent genes that were bred through generations of farmers work, it should be seen as Sun trying to hijack GPL code.
Anyhow, sorry for such a long post- the basic point being that no, most of us won't flip out and try to stop it if you call it gene-laundering
If Iraq is more radioactive than Chernobyl, it could become the next tourist "hot spot" (yeah, bad pun. so sue me, this is /.)
Fort Benning is also home to the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation," previously known as School of the Americas.
It also earned the nickname of "School of the Assasins" after training Latin American soldiers in such fields as "interrogation techniques" (torture), counterinsurgency techniques and psychological warfare.
Every year, protesters converge on the SOA and "cross the line" and get arrested, a mass protest to bring attention to this institutions horrible record. It is unlikely a surveillance blimp will deter many, but the first thought I had was that there had to be a link. The base may want to be able to identify more of those protesters that have only supporting roles and stay well behind the confrontation?
If instead of spending 10% of its military budget on fusion it spent it on wind or solar, you would using all renewables by 2050.
As it is, I'll be surprised if Cold Fusion is ready by then.
Your concern is that OOo is competing on 1998-2000 functionality, but this business person obviously doesn't care about anything more.
I am guessing that the features MS is adding are mainly needed to keep people updating. Focusing on features instead of actual end-user needs is not going to get us any further; if 20% of features make 80% of users happy it only makes sense that we start with those.