Conduit-cabling
Insulation, double or triple paned glass unless you live somewhere it's 65-80 degrees year round
Photovoltaic panels and solar hot water heater
LED strip lighting
Induction stovetop
Ground-source heat pump for heating and cooling
Vent the refridgerator to outside if you live somewhere hot
240V power in the garage
Power outlets in garage should be wired so the top outlet connects to a different breaker than the bottom outlet, so you can use high-power devices in both at once
Skylights
Heated floors in bathrooms (and maybe living areas)
Grey water system to direct wastewater from everywhere except your toilets to your yard
Septic system you'd need emptied every decade or so for your toilets
Rainwater collection tank
Fruit trees in the yard instead of purely decorative trees
Dual-flush toilets
Instant hot water tap in kitchen
And I really shouldn't have to say this but for crying out loud, if you're going to put a toilet in a separate room, include a sink so you can wash your hands before touching everything!
It's possible that at least part of the reason for the lack of Fortran improvements is that most of Cilk Plus seems to bring to C functionality that is already present in Fortran (array notation since F90 and parallel loops since F95 or via OpenMP).
I expect that the reason the efficiency is increased is precisely because the pits are narrower than the wavelength of the light, making it less likely to be reflected and more likely to be absorbed. (You can view this classically as the index of refraction changing gradually.) If you use a pit size greater than the wavelength of the light, you'll end up with each photon either hitting the bottom of the pit or next to the pit, and the pit will have no effect.
Here on earth our nuclear power comes from fission reactors producing 500-3000 MWt of heat which we in turn attach to a glorified thermal power plant consisting of water moving in a closed loop through pipes and turbines not fundamentally very different than a steam engine. This nuclear power is instead the radioactive decay of a small radioisotope, emitting a mere 500Wt (but with no way to turn it off because no fission is involved) which we in turn attach to a relatively unconventional thermoelectric generator which doesn't require the giant size or any moving parts (except electrons) which a terrestrial thermal power power plant employs.
In both cases you need a heat source (the nuclear fuel, probably ~500K) and a heat sink (either a large body of water at 300K or the outside of the spacecraft which is a cold ~100K because it radiates any heat into the vacuum of space) and generate electricity from the difference.
Off the top of my head:
How to buckle a seat belt; wear it any time you're seated.
Put your mask on first and that it might not inflate, but that's ok.
Life vests are under your seat, and how to wear one and not to inflate it until after you exit.
No smoking; it is a federal offense to tamper with the lavatory smoke detectors.
The nearest exit might be behind you.
There's a safety card in the seat pocket in front of you showing you how to brace if the plane crashes.
Your electronic devices may crash the plane if you use them, depending on location.
For takeoff and landing, have your seat back upright, your tray table, and all your stuff stowed.
Looks like they could just print it on the back of the seat back in front of you.
The utilities are sticking their heads in the sand and trying to pretend that technology won't move forward. In some places they are trying to add an interconnect fee for those with solar panels that's as large as my electricity bill. They also are requiring solar panel inverters to stop working entirely when the grid goes down, instead of just providing power for the house and still leaving the grid upstream unenergized. All this, and the price of electricity keeps going up. And they expect people won't move forward with batteries as technology improves?
Disconnecting from the grid entirely is large investment: people need a large solar array, several days worth of batteries, and probably smart appliances (mainly air conditioners and refrigerators). Or the utilities can make money helping to create a lower-investment intermediate option: staying connected to the grid with a smaller solar array and half a day worth of batteries which both help the utility with load balancing and can keep the house powered when the grid goes down. If they do this right, they will be able to remotely control when the system is storing energy or sending it to the grid, which probably means it's in their best interest if they write the software and maybe even make and sell (and install?) the hardware.
Plus, they can provide monitoring services and, if they want to really diversify, insurance services or financing options. Otherwise, as more people abandon the grid, it will become more expensive per person to maintain it, creating a downward spiral of grid usage.
Pictures are cool and all, but there's supercomputer currently at the Australian National University that has been benchmarked at 0.978 PetaFLOPS so saying that this one could be the fastest in the southern hemisphere with up to 1 PetaFLOPS seems a bit like counting your emus before they've hatched.
The evidence claims that so far, there hasn't been an increase in monetary cost of natural disasters relative to GDP. I'll let other, more informed people tackle this factual issue.* My problem is purely based on faulty logic; at the end of the article, the author extrapolates that this trend of disaster damage being correlated with and caused by increases in GDP will continue indefinitely. But the only evidence cited for the conclusion that climate change won't ever cause increased natural disasters actually says that US tropical cyclones won't significantly increase in frequency and severity for several decades; I found nothing about winter storms/polar vortex, crop loss due to drought, sea level rise, etc. and I'm not even sure how accurately you can extrapolate to tropical cycles in other places, not to mention many of us hope to still be around in several decades. I appreciate that Nate Silver is a great statistician, but this is going to go downhill really quick if the conclusions of articles posted on his site are only tangentially related to the actual statistics.
*The other disappointing thing is that the author has claimed this before, has been refuted, and hasn't changed his argument even so much as to mention the points made by various people who had rebuttals.
Other people have addressed several of your issues, so I'm just going to look at the claim that driving uphill empties those batteries in very little time.
As far as I can tell, the steepest drive in the United States (from the beach to the top of Mauna Kea, HI -- not entirely paved) is approximately 13800ft / 4200 m above sea level. Since the mass of a Tesla Model S is 2100 kg, this would consume 25 kWh of energy (30 kWh if you loaded it with 300 kg of people and stuff and factor in a 93% motor efficiency). The energy stored in a full Tesla battery is either 60 or 85 kWh, depending on the model. The drive from Hilo is 43 mi / 71 km (or Kona is 64 mi / 103 km), which over flat terrain would consume 15 (or 20) kWh, for a total of no more than 50 kWh. Thus, you could easily do the drive in a charged 60 kWh Model S. And, the drive back would be entirely free because you just brake all the way down -- just don't charge it at the top unless you want to burn out your brakes.
In theory, the potential energy of a Model S (+300 kg) on top of Mount Everest is 59 kWh, so I don't recommend that with the 60 kWh battery, but then I suspect you'd have issues trying to drive any car to the top of Mount Everest.
It's less about who makes the standards than how good the technology was. Early 1970s nuclear power plants are a lot less safe than new designs. The smart thing to do would be to build two new units for every old unit decomissioned, and we'd have a lower risk of a problem and we'd generate twice the (baseload) electricity.
How are you going to get the groceries back home, make 10 trips? I think I'd prefer to drive.
100m?! Unless you're on crutches, 100m to and from the grocery store is no trouble at all. I used to walk to the grocery store when it was over 300m away and I just carried a bag in each hand and (if necessary) slung a bag over each shoulder. If you prefer, you can bring a backpack. If it's raining, carry one fewer bag so you have a hand for an umbrella. Seriously, unless you're at Costco buying a TV and four cases of beer for a superbowl party, walking a limited distance to do your shopping most weeks isn't hard.
Even if you live 3 miles from your grocery store, all you need is a backpack and maybe a basket or two on your bike and you are set. If you have kids, hook up the kiddie trailer and fill it with groceries too. It's not that hard.
Believe it or not, most of the time most bicyclists don't like having to share the road with cars either (they belch exhaust right in front of you while you're trying to get as much oxygen as possible, they like to cut you off, they like to swerve into bike lanes without looking before turning, they drive at the speed limit even when it's not safe to do so due to poor visibility, etc.). If a bike is "in your way" chances are it's the only reasonable way for them to get to/from work while on a bike.
Sidewalks (in places where it's even legal to bike on sidewalks) often have low hanging branches, disappear without warning (either into a curb, 100-year old tree, or someone's yard) and you have to go a lot slower because if you're doing 20mph on a sidewalk it's not going to be long before you're going to run into some car backing out of a driveway that isn't looking that far for you.
Which is why there should be bike lanes on more roads. But even then, if you encounter a roundabout or want to make a left turn, you have to deal with cars, and cars have to deal with bikes. As it is, I go an extra 2/3 of a mile out of my way each trip to avoid cars as much as possible.
The fiber provider in my area (Canberra, Australia) has options for n GB(8am-2am) + n GB(2am-8am) where n is 20, 100, or 500. It's $100/month for the 500GB+500GB option at 100(down)/40(up)Mbps. Dropping down to 100GB+100GB at 12/1Mbps costs $60/month, which is what I was paying in Berkeley for Sonic DSL two months ago, and is pretty much the speed I was getting. Once you hit the cap, you're throttled to 256kbps both ways.
Seems reasonable to me. The more I use, the higher percentage of their "tubes" I'm using and the more they need to build.
It's not entirely the fault of the populace that they are ignorant. Have you tried finding out in what way GMO foods at your local supermarket have been modified?
Heck, if the agriculture companies had started using genetic engineering to make crops healthier, they would have been far more likely to be accepted. But they started by making crops more watery (and thus less nutritious), making it so farmers can blanket entire US states with herbicides without affecting the desired crops, and introducing pesticides that AFAIK are just assumed to be safe. So a broad brush was used, and because of the agriculture companies it was the bad brush instead of the good one.
I NEED A NEW ONE TOO!!!! MY OLD CAPS LOCK KEY STOPPED WORKING (CAN'T IMAGINE WHY) AND IT'S SO MUCH HARDER TO TYPE WITHOUT IT.
(stupid filter has no sense of humor)
(stupid filter has no sense of humor)
(stupid filter has no sense of humor)
(stupid filter has no sense of humor)
Duke's market capitalization is $50 billion and their annual earnings are $2.2 billion. How is $25 billion a pittance?
To that end, there are several companies trying to come out with pre-approved smaller reactor designs (50MW instead of 1100MW) which they would build for $1 billion apiece and then build them one after another on the same site until they had however many they wanted (could be 24, could be 6). That way, at any one time the financial risk is actually manageable.
The grad student union where I was a grad student is responsible for lowering the pay of grad student researchers and teaching assistants in sciences (when the first unionized 10 years ago). And the new postdoc union is responsible for contractual prohibitions on graduating PhD students getting temporary postdocs (as recently as 2 months ago) at their school before moving elsewhere, creating lots of unnecessary red tape, or being employed as a grad student researcher even after getting a PhD. Of course, that means you also are not eligible for the postdoc health insurance, (and you're not eligible for student health insurance if you're not enrolled).
The difference is, this time, you're an 800 pound gorilla and they are some annoying 8 year old "bully". Sure, it'll hurt if they actually hit you with their baseball bat, but things will not end well for them afterward.
Actually, the school offerred to give her one without a chip or battery. She still refused so I'm guessing she wouldn't be satisfied with the microwave trick.
Once a week is a bit extreme, and would require the post office to store a whole lot of mail over the course of a week, but I figure we could switch to standard 3-day delivery without a problem. Half of each zip code gets mail Mon, Wed, and Friday, and the other half gets mail Tues, Thurs, & Saturday. So if someone mails you something, it'll at most take an additional two days (1 extra day waiting to go out, and 1 extra at your post office waiting for your delivery day)---assuming you check your mail every day anyway. And the post office needs half as many maintained vehicles, half as many drivers, and uses half as much gas. And there's always the possibility of charging extra for everyday delivery.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I think it was less than two months ago when he announced he was still not going to divest from fossil fuels. http://www.washingtontimes.com...
So maybe he's moving from evil to hypocrite?
Conduit-cabling
Insulation, double or triple paned glass unless you live somewhere it's 65-80 degrees year round
Photovoltaic panels and solar hot water heater
LED strip lighting
Induction stovetop
Ground-source heat pump for heating and cooling
Vent the refridgerator to outside if you live somewhere hot
240V power in the garage
Power outlets in garage should be wired so the top outlet connects to a different breaker than the bottom outlet, so you can use high-power devices in both at once
Skylights
Heated floors in bathrooms (and maybe living areas)
Grey water system to direct wastewater from everywhere except your toilets to your yard
Septic system you'd need emptied every decade or so for your toilets
Rainwater collection tank
Fruit trees in the yard instead of purely decorative trees
Dual-flush toilets
Instant hot water tap in kitchen
And I really shouldn't have to say this but for crying out loud, if you're going to put a toilet in a separate room, include a sink so you can wash your hands before touching everything!
It's possible that at least part of the reason for the lack of Fortran improvements is that most of Cilk Plus seems to bring to C functionality that is already present in Fortran (array notation since F90 and parallel loops since F95 or via OpenMP).
I expect that the reason the efficiency is increased is precisely because the pits are narrower than the wavelength of the light, making it less likely to be reflected and more likely to be absorbed. (You can view this classically as the index of refraction changing gradually.) If you use a pit size greater than the wavelength of the light, you'll end up with each photon either hitting the bottom of the pit or next to the pit, and the pit will have no effect.
Here on earth our nuclear power comes from fission reactors producing 500-3000 MWt of heat which we in turn attach to a glorified thermal power plant consisting of water moving in a closed loop through pipes and turbines not fundamentally very different than a steam engine. This nuclear power is instead the radioactive decay of a small radioisotope, emitting a mere 500Wt (but with no way to turn it off because no fission is involved) which we in turn attach to a relatively unconventional thermoelectric generator which doesn't require the giant size or any moving parts (except electrons) which a terrestrial thermal power power plant employs.
In both cases you need a heat source (the nuclear fuel, probably ~500K) and a heat sink (either a large body of water at 300K or the outside of the spacecraft which is a cold ~100K because it radiates any heat into the vacuum of space) and generate electricity from the difference.
Off the top of my head:
How to buckle a seat belt; wear it any time you're seated.
Put your mask on first and that it might not inflate, but that's ok.
Life vests are under your seat, and how to wear one and not to inflate it until after you exit.
No smoking; it is a federal offense to tamper with the lavatory smoke detectors.
The nearest exit might be behind you.
There's a safety card in the seat pocket in front of you showing you how to brace if the plane crashes.
Your electronic devices may crash the plane if you use them, depending on location.
For takeoff and landing, have your seat back upright, your tray table, and all your stuff stowed. Looks like they could just print it on the back of the seat back in front of you.
The utilities are sticking their heads in the sand and trying to pretend that technology won't move forward. In some places they are trying to add an interconnect fee for those with solar panels that's as large as my electricity bill. They also are requiring solar panel inverters to stop working entirely when the grid goes down, instead of just providing power for the house and still leaving the grid upstream unenergized. All this, and the price of electricity keeps going up. And they expect people won't move forward with batteries as technology improves?
Disconnecting from the grid entirely is large investment: people need a large solar array, several days worth of batteries, and probably smart appliances (mainly air conditioners and refrigerators). Or the utilities can make money helping to create a lower-investment intermediate option: staying connected to the grid with a smaller solar array and half a day worth of batteries which both help the utility with load balancing and can keep the house powered when the grid goes down. If they do this right, they will be able to remotely control when the system is storing energy or sending it to the grid, which probably means it's in their best interest if they write the software and maybe even make and sell (and install?) the hardware.
Plus, they can provide monitoring services and, if they want to really diversify, insurance services or financing options. Otherwise, as more people abandon the grid, it will become more expensive per person to maintain it, creating a downward spiral of grid usage.
Pictures are cool and all, but there's supercomputer currently at the Australian National University that has been benchmarked at 0.978 PetaFLOPS so saying that this one could be the fastest in the southern hemisphere with up to 1 PetaFLOPS seems a bit like counting your emus before they've hatched.
The evidence claims that so far, there hasn't been an increase in monetary cost of natural disasters relative to GDP. I'll let other, more informed people tackle this factual issue.* My problem is purely based on faulty logic; at the end of the article, the author extrapolates that this trend of disaster damage being correlated with and caused by increases in GDP will continue indefinitely. But the only evidence cited for the conclusion that climate change won't ever cause increased natural disasters actually says that US tropical cyclones won't significantly increase in frequency and severity for several decades; I found nothing about winter storms/polar vortex, crop loss due to drought, sea level rise, etc. and I'm not even sure how accurately you can extrapolate to tropical cycles in other places, not to mention many of us hope to still be around in several decades. I appreciate that Nate Silver is a great statistician, but this is going to go downhill really quick if the conclusions of articles posted on his site are only tangentially related to the actual statistics.
*The other disappointing thing is that the author has claimed this before, has been refuted, and hasn't changed his argument even so much as to mention the points made by various people who had rebuttals.
Other people have addressed several of your issues, so I'm just going to look at the claim that driving uphill empties those batteries in very little time.
As far as I can tell, the steepest drive in the United States (from the beach to the top of Mauna Kea, HI -- not entirely paved) is approximately 13800ft / 4200 m above sea level. Since the mass of a Tesla Model S is 2100 kg, this would consume 25 kWh of energy (30 kWh if you loaded it with 300 kg of people and stuff and factor in a 93% motor efficiency). The energy stored in a full Tesla battery is either 60 or 85 kWh, depending on the model. The drive from Hilo is 43 mi / 71 km (or Kona is 64 mi / 103 km), which over flat terrain would consume 15 (or 20) kWh, for a total of no more than 50 kWh. Thus, you could easily do the drive in a charged 60 kWh Model S. And, the drive back would be entirely free because you just brake all the way down -- just don't charge it at the top unless you want to burn out your brakes.
In theory, the potential energy of a Model S (+300 kg) on top of Mount Everest is 59 kWh, so I don't recommend that with the 60 kWh battery, but then I suspect you'd have issues trying to drive any car to the top of Mount Everest.
It's less about who makes the standards than how good the technology was. Early 1970s nuclear power plants are a lot less safe than new designs. The smart thing to do would be to build two new units for every old unit decomissioned, and we'd have a lower risk of a problem and we'd generate twice the (baseload) electricity.
How are you going to get the groceries back home, make 10 trips? I think I'd prefer to drive.
100m?! Unless you're on crutches, 100m to and from the grocery store is no trouble at all. I used to walk to the grocery store when it was over 300m away and I just carried a bag in each hand and (if necessary) slung a bag over each shoulder. If you prefer, you can bring a backpack. If it's raining, carry one fewer bag so you have a hand for an umbrella. Seriously, unless you're at Costco buying a TV and four cases of beer for a superbowl party, walking a limited distance to do your shopping most weeks isn't hard.
Even if you live 3 miles from your grocery store, all you need is a backpack and maybe a basket or two on your bike and you are set. If you have kids, hook up the kiddie trailer and fill it with groceries too. It's not that hard.
Ok, as long as you agree not to partake of any of the derived benefits which definitely includes the Internet. So GTFO.
Believe it or not, most of the time most bicyclists don't like having to share the road with cars either (they belch exhaust right in front of you while you're trying to get as much oxygen as possible, they like to cut you off, they like to swerve into bike lanes without looking before turning, they drive at the speed limit even when it's not safe to do so due to poor visibility, etc.). If a bike is "in your way" chances are it's the only reasonable way for them to get to/from work while on a bike.
Sidewalks (in places where it's even legal to bike on sidewalks) often have low hanging branches, disappear without warning (either into a curb, 100-year old tree, or someone's yard) and you have to go a lot slower because if you're doing 20mph on a sidewalk it's not going to be long before you're going to run into some car backing out of a driveway that isn't looking that far for you.
Which is why there should be bike lanes on more roads. But even then, if you encounter a roundabout or want to make a left turn, you have to deal with cars, and cars have to deal with bikes. As it is, I go an extra 2/3 of a mile out of my way each trip to avoid cars as much as possible.
The fiber provider in my area (Canberra, Australia) has options for n GB(8am-2am) + n GB(2am-8am) where n is 20, 100, or 500. It's $100/month for the 500GB+500GB option at 100(down)/40(up)Mbps. Dropping down to 100GB+100GB at 12/1Mbps costs $60/month, which is what I was paying in Berkeley for Sonic DSL two months ago, and is pretty much the speed I was getting. Once you hit the cap, you're throttled to 256kbps both ways.
Seems reasonable to me. The more I use, the higher percentage of their "tubes" I'm using and the more they need to build.
I'm sure if this were remotely likely, it would have happened on Top Gear.
It's not entirely the fault of the populace that they are ignorant. Have you tried finding out in what way GMO foods at your local supermarket have been modified?
Heck, if the agriculture companies had started using genetic engineering to make crops healthier, they would have been far more likely to be accepted. But they started by making crops more watery (and thus less nutritious), making it so farmers can blanket entire US states with herbicides without affecting the desired crops, and introducing pesticides that AFAIK are just assumed to be safe. So a broad brush was used, and because of the agriculture companies it was the bad brush instead of the good one.
(stupid filter has no sense of humor)
(stupid filter has no sense of humor)
(stupid filter has no sense of humor)
(stupid filter has no sense of humor)
Duke's market capitalization is $50 billion and their annual earnings are $2.2 billion. How is $25 billion a pittance?
To that end, there are several companies trying to come out with pre-approved smaller reactor designs (50MW instead of 1100MW) which they would build for $1 billion apiece and then build them one after another on the same site until they had however many they wanted (could be 24, could be 6). That way, at any one time the financial risk is actually manageable.
The grad student union where I was a grad student is responsible for lowering the pay of grad student researchers and teaching assistants in sciences (when the first unionized 10 years ago). And the new postdoc union is responsible for contractual prohibitions on graduating PhD students getting temporary postdocs (as recently as 2 months ago) at their school before moving elsewhere, creating lots of unnecessary red tape, or being employed as a grad student researcher even after getting a PhD. Of course, that means you also are not eligible for the postdoc health insurance, (and you're not eligible for student health insurance if you're not enrolled).
None of that is remotely beneficial.
The difference is, this time, you're an 800 pound gorilla and they are some annoying 8 year old "bully". Sure, it'll hurt if they actually hit you with their baseball bat, but things will not end well for them afterward.
Tape delay it so you don't let people outside know a move until the opponent has made their subsequent move.
Whatever you do, don't take down 216.34.181.45.
Actually, the school offerred to give her one without a chip or battery. She still refused so I'm guessing she wouldn't be satisfied with the microwave trick.
Once a week is a bit extreme, and would require the post office to store a whole lot of mail over the course of a week, but I figure we could switch to standard 3-day delivery without a problem. Half of each zip code gets mail Mon, Wed, and Friday, and the other half gets mail Tues, Thurs, & Saturday. So if someone mails you something, it'll at most take an additional two days (1 extra day waiting to go out, and 1 extra at your post office waiting for your delivery day)---assuming you check your mail every day anyway. And the post office needs half as many maintained vehicles, half as many drivers, and uses half as much gas. And there's always the possibility of charging extra for everyday delivery.