I sleep a lot deeper with the phone and wifi off. Live in the country side far from neighbours wifi. Wife notices it too. Haven't slept this well in about 17 years. Pretty amazing for my quality of life now that I've finally figured it out. I could also never understand why I slept so well at my parents cabin until I made this connection.
As technology advances it can also decentralize power. Laws of war are cute to discuss if there are nations that are only capable of waging war. They are a mute point when some crazy dude in a home made bio lab engineers the next bubonic plague.
If the president came to you and said, "We have a national emergency. We need this to become a viable form of energy as soon as possible. You have the entire resources of the nation available. I will use my executive powers to make it happen. Whatever resources, funding and people you need..."
What kinds of things would you ask for? How long with the entire backing of a nation and the political will to make it happen would it take?
Do you find yourself hamstrung by patent issues? Are there approaches you would like to take that are just not worth pursuing because existing patents would get in the way?
This has worked well for the last three years at two different companies across a number of projects.
1) Break the project into features/stories/usecases (whatever you want to call them). Features should be as small as possible but large enough to still offer business value. The customer would say with this deployed, I can now solve a problem or acheive a goal with the system that I that I couldn't before.
2) Only give estimates in terms of complexity points:
1 point - I've done this before, its a fairly simple thing. I'm confident it won't grow in scope
3 points - Not too much unknown, a bit of new thinking involved, more than a trivial feature but not something you'd lose sleep over
5 points - pretty big chunk of work, fairly complex, fair amount of unknowns
8 points - too big to estimate or even make an educated guess about, try to break these into separate features
3) Do a couple of months of work and see how many points you get Done. Done means the users have tried it out and would sign off on the features being ready for production. In production is an even better point to measure done at.
4) Calculate how many points you can now commit to for the next given period based on read data. At this point, you are probably ready to provide fairly decent estimates. You will find that your notion of what is complex or not won't change much over time. That's why this this method works.
5) Get your customers to define what it will take to sign off on the feature up front. Don't talk in terms of solutions, but in terms of solved business problems or achievable business goals. The how and the details are to be worked out durring development and with the end users and especially the developers creativitity.
At some point in the next X years this will happen:
E-Vehicle Monthly Lease Rate + Charging Cost + Lower EV Maintenance Rates
will be less than or equal too Monthly fuel cost + higher maintenance costs of current gas powered vehicles
I think when this happens, it will trigger a lot of people to walk away from gas powered vehicles.
I've already taken the plunge and ride an electric bike to work every day. Its a 60km round trip and faster than car or transit. I get some exercise on it too when I feel like pedalling. I drool at the thought of a battery that would give my bike 600km range!
At the end of the article he sums it up in his own words:
"Here's the thing. I learned that I did my best. I mean, I really tried my best. How many people can say that? I worked hard, and I mean really hard. I worked seven days a week from 8 am until 3 am. Every day. We drilled and drilled all winter when it was dark and the windchill was 80 below. Everyone thought I was crazy. But most people just never do their best, hey. And I did."
Sad that society today would classify this kind of individual as a "rogue".
I'm almost 40 now, my manager who is close to sixty pedal cycles most days of the year on a similiar route.
The batteries and the extra capacity I've started with should easily last the rest of my commuting career:
http://www.a123systems.com/#/technology/life/lchart1/
I rode all winter last year, you just have to wear ski pants, goggles and a face mask with decent gloves and layer up or down accordingly. For the days that it goes below minus 25 celcius or if we get a really big blizzard, I took the bus or drove my car in. There were only a few of those last year.
A lot of us already have. I've converted my crappy mountain bike to electric and have been commuting to work on it for the past year. It does 50km/hr without peddaling, uses batteries out of dewalt drill packs bought off of ebay for reasonable prices and a simple hub motor. It goes in the rain, through snow with studded tires and is much faster than driving my car in traffic to work. Costs 5 cents a charge. I save 5 bucks a day in gas and 25 bucks a day in parking. And I've got this stupid grin on my face most of the day because it really is so much damn fun! I can even pedal if I want and get some exercise.
Get an ebike. Check out http://www.ebikes.ca/ and http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums. I had the same problem, no showers, must dress professionally etc. With the ebike, I use the throttle going to work, charge at the office and pedal like a mad man on the way home. Don't pay for gas, don't pay for parking, its a hell of a good way to commute.
Where I live, on the edge of a city of 1.5million, it takes me 18 minutes by electric bike, 40 by regular bike and 40 by car average commute. I don't have to pay for parking for it, and it costs 5 cents to charge it at todays electricity costs. I've got studs on my e-bike for the winter and have reduced my driving to only a day or two a month to get to work. The bike cost me 1000.00 for the batteries (harvested Dewalt drill batteries made by a123systems), 300 for the hub motor and 200 for the controller. The bike itself is a piece of crap low end mountain bike, about 600 bucks new. With parking at 20-30 bucks a day, I've already more than paid for it. Plus I can still pedal the thing and get exercise when I want to. So yeah, bring on the wind farms so that my total carbon foot print for commuting goes down even further!
When the montly cost of gasoline gets close to or surpasses the cost of leasing or financing one of these electric plug-ins.
Regular biking to work wasn't practical due to no shower facilities and it just plain took too long from where I live. The answer for me was to convert my commuter bike to an electric bike. I bought the parts off of www.ebikes.ca and had it converted in a weekend. It is cheaper than paying for gas and parking downtown where I work. It is also the fastest way for me to get to work in rush hour.
The pack for my bike uses batteries harvested from dewalt drill packs bought on ebay. I can do 55kph for 25km or more depending on how much I pedal. More than enough to to work and back. It costs pennies a day to charge and the batteries (http://www.a123systems.com/) will last for 3000 cycles. By the time my bike pack dies, I'll be retired anyway. And its damn fun to ride. The only moving part on the motor is the axle bearings. The conversion can cost about 500 to 2 or three thousand depending on how much you want to spend on batteries. I got a bit carried away but with $20-30 a day for parking, I'll have it paid for in three more months.
// an update to above, few more points and better formatting...
Before Biotech and GMO: The industry has always encouraged farmers to buy new commercial seed every year and not store seed from the previous year's harvest to plant in the current year. The reason for this is to preserve the hybridization of that specific variety of seed. Seed is grown by certified plant breeders that over time through breeding trials select for specific traits such as winter hardiness, disease resitance, baking quality in the case of wheat and protein content to name a few. It is a long and expensive method.
If farmers continue to plant seeds that are harvested from their own farm (what we call "bin run seed") then they will, over time, begin to loose the strength of the original hybrid commercial seed that they bought as it will inbreed and become a weaker strain. Therefore the quality for the traits that the original hybrid was bred will be lost. Therefore lower grade, lower price and pissed off customers ie the bakers and pasta makers if we use wheat as an example.
After Biotech, BMO. -- Obviously this is driven by the big seed companies but the technology is good and will in the long term benefit the food industry. It is a faster means to develop a plant breeding method through gene manipulation than through the slower natural selection process. For instance the industry can introduce a gene into cotton that will prohibit certain insects from damaging that crop and thus reduce the need to use pesticides. The end product is not affected by the gene and in other plants such as corn, neither is human health. The companies that develop this technology have user agreements which is at a cost to the farmer. The agreement usually prohibits the grower from using the harvested crop as seed the following year. The reason is to protect the integredity of the technology and the oringinal hybrid product. Also if the harvested seed is planted the following year it can over time produce the same problems as using harvested seed from traditionally grown varieties. Basically you lose control of the technology and produce an inferior product.
The terminator gene will at the end of a certain time period after harvest not allow that seed to germinate. Thus it would prevent the farmer from planting that seed and protect the industry's investment I think it is a good idea because it will protect the quality and traits of that particular seed for which it was designed . It will also provide for more control over the seed industry thus more confidence in developing more products and to continue research that will benefit the food industry and the consumer.
"Bin run seed" has always been a black eye in agriculture and it needs to be curtailed whether it is traditonal seed or GMO.
Before Biotech and GMO: The industry has always encouraged farmers to buy new commercial seed every year and not store seed from the previous year's harvest to plant in the current year. The reason for this is to preserve the hybridization of that specific variety of seed. Seed is grown by certified plant breeders that over time through breeding trials select for specific traits such as winter hardiness, disease resitance, baking quality in the case of wheat and protein content to name a few. It is a long and expensive method. They get paid a royalty on the sale of commercial seed.
If farmers continue to plant seeds that are harvested from their own farm (what is called "bin run seed") then they will, over time, begin to loose the strength of the original hybrid commercial seed that they bought as it will inbreed and become a weaker strain. Therefore the quality for the traits that the original hybrid was bred for will be lost. Therefore lower grade, lower price and pissed off customers ie the bakers and pasta makers if wheat is used as an example.
After Biotech, BMO. -- Obviously this is driven by the big seed companies but the technology is good and will in the long term benefit the food industry. It is a faster means to develop a plant breeding method through gene manipulation than through the slower natural selection process. For instance, the industry can introduce a gene into cotton that will prohibit certain insects from damaging that crop and thus eliminate the need to use pesticides. The end product is not affected by the gene and in other plants such as corn neither is human health. The companies that develop this technology have user aggreements which is at a cost to the farmer. The agreement usually prohibits the grower from using the harvested crop as seed the following year. The reason is to protect the integredity of the technology and the oringinal hybrid product. Also, if the harvested seed is planted the following year it can over time pollinate other similar non biotech crops and thus you could have contamination to another field. Basically, you lose control of the technology which the companies are wanting to protect and admitably keep their revenues growing.
There is also technology where they can produce insulin for diabetics in rice through gene manipulation and I see this as needed use for the terminator gene to maintain control.
The terminator gene will at the end of a certain time period after harvest not allow that seed to germinate. Thus it would prevent the farmer from planting that seed and protect the industries investment and revenues and reduce the risk of contaminating other fields
IMO, it is a good idea because it will protect the quality and traits of that particular seed for which it was designed . It will also provide for more control over the seed industry thus more confidence in developing more product that will benefit the food industry and the consumer.
"Bin run seed" has always been a black eye in agriculture and it needs to be curtailed whether it is traditonal seed or GMO.
Slashdot Mirror
I sleep a lot deeper with the phone and wifi off. Live in the country side far from neighbours wifi. Wife notices it too. Haven't slept this well in about 17 years. Pretty amazing for my quality of life now that I've finally figured it out. I could also never understand why I slept so well at my parents cabin until I made this connection.
Just Google photobiomodulation. Certain wavelengths of red light are a foundation of youth.
I wonder what this tool will think about my encrypted archive of the proceedings of Congress that I've renamed "The_anarchists_cookbook.zip".
Talk about a useless survey, everyone knows you can get HTML from watching porn. And if you do it with IE 7 or lower, there's no known cure!
As technology advances it can also decentralize power. Laws of war are cute to discuss if there are nations that are only capable of waging war. They are a mute point when some crazy dude in a home made bio lab engineers the next bubonic plague.
Quick, we don't have much time, lets end this on a high note...
An astronaut and a rock star! Hope he doesn't try to run for Prime Minister next, that would be a downgrade.
Capitalism? We haven't seen that on this planet for quite some time. Plenty of corporatism to go around though.
DMCA only applies to Earth and one small part on it.
I had to check the date to see if it was April 1. Nope...
If they hated us for our freedoms, we must be pretty well liked by now.
Make sure you have at least 4 days of food and water on hand.
If the president came to you and said, "We have a national emergency. We need this to become a viable form of energy as soon as possible. You have the entire resources of the nation available. I will use my executive powers to make it happen. Whatever resources, funding and people you need..." What kinds of things would you ask for? How long with the entire backing of a nation and the political will to make it happen would it take?
Do you find yourself hamstrung by patent issues? Are there approaches you would like to take that are just not worth pursuing because existing patents would get in the way?
This has worked well for the last three years at two different companies across a number of projects.
1) Break the project into features/stories/usecases (whatever you want to call them). Features should be as small as possible but large enough to still offer business value. The customer would say with this deployed, I can now solve a problem or acheive a goal with the system that I that I couldn't before.
2) Only give estimates in terms of complexity points: 1 point - I've done this before, its a fairly simple thing. I'm confident it won't grow in scope 3 points - Not too much unknown, a bit of new thinking involved, more than a trivial feature but not something you'd lose sleep over 5 points - pretty big chunk of work, fairly complex, fair amount of unknowns 8 points - too big to estimate or even make an educated guess about, try to break these into separate features
3) Do a couple of months of work and see how many points you get Done. Done means the users have tried it out and would sign off on the features being ready for production. In production is an even better point to measure done at.
4) Calculate how many points you can now commit to for the next given period based on read data. At this point, you are probably ready to provide fairly decent estimates. You will find that your notion of what is complex or not won't change much over time. That's why this this method works.
5) Get your customers to define what it will take to sign off on the feature up front. Don't talk in terms of solutions, but in terms of solved business problems or achievable business goals. The how and the details are to be worked out durring development and with the end users and especially the developers creativitity.
At some point in the next X years this will happen:
E-Vehicle Monthly Lease Rate + Charging Cost + Lower EV Maintenance Rates
will be less than or equal too
Monthly fuel cost + higher maintenance costs of current gas powered vehicles
I think when this happens, it will trigger a lot of people to walk away from gas powered vehicles.
I've already taken the plunge and ride an electric bike to work every day. Its a 60km round trip and faster than car or transit. I get some exercise on it too when I feel like pedalling. I drool at the thought of a battery that would give my bike 600km range!
At the end of the article he sums it up in his own words:
"Here's the thing. I learned that I did my best. I mean, I really tried my best. How many people can say that? I worked hard, and I mean really hard. I worked seven days a week from 8 am until 3 am. Every day. We drilled and drilled all winter when it was dark and the windchill was 80 below. Everyone thought I was crazy. But most people just never do their best, hey. And I did."
Sad that society today would classify this kind of individual as a "rogue".
I'm almost 40 now, my manager who is close to sixty pedal cycles most days of the year on a similiar route. The batteries and the extra capacity I've started with should easily last the rest of my commuting career: http://www.a123systems.com/#/technology/life/lchart1/ I rode all winter last year, you just have to wear ski pants, goggles and a face mask with decent gloves and layer up or down accordingly. For the days that it goes below minus 25 celcius or if we get a really big blizzard, I took the bus or drove my car in. There were only a few of those last year.
A lot of us already have. I've converted my crappy mountain bike to electric and have been commuting to work on it for the past year. It does 50km/hr without peddaling, uses batteries out of dewalt drill packs bought off of ebay for reasonable prices and a simple hub motor. It goes in the rain, through snow with studded tires and is much faster than driving my car in traffic to work. Costs 5 cents a charge. I save 5 bucks a day in gas and 25 bucks a day in parking. And I've got this stupid grin on my face most of the day because it really is so much damn fun! I can even pedal if I want and get some exercise.
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums
Get an ebike. Check out http://www.ebikes.ca/ and http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums. I had the same problem, no showers, must dress professionally etc. With the ebike, I use the throttle going to work, charge at the office and pedal like a mad man on the way home. Don't pay for gas, don't pay for parking, its a hell of a good way to commute.
Where I live, on the edge of a city of 1.5million, it takes me 18 minutes by electric bike, 40 by regular bike and 40 by car average commute. I don't have to pay for parking for it, and it costs 5 cents to charge it at todays electricity costs. I've got studs on my e-bike for the winter and have reduced my driving to only a day or two a month to get to work. The bike cost me 1000.00 for the batteries (harvested Dewalt drill batteries made by a123systems), 300 for the hub motor and 200 for the controller. The bike itself is a piece of crap low end mountain bike, about 600 bucks new. With parking at 20-30 bucks a day, I've already more than paid for it. Plus I can still pedal the thing and get exercise when I want to. So yeah, bring on the wind farms so that my total carbon foot print for commuting goes down even further!
When the montly cost of gasoline gets close to or surpasses the cost of leasing or financing one of these electric plug-ins. Regular biking to work wasn't practical due to no shower facilities and it just plain took too long from where I live. The answer for me was to convert my commuter bike to an electric bike. I bought the parts off of www.ebikes.ca and had it converted in a weekend. It is cheaper than paying for gas and parking downtown where I work. It is also the fastest way for me to get to work in rush hour. The pack for my bike uses batteries harvested from dewalt drill packs bought on ebay. I can do 55kph for 25km or more depending on how much I pedal. More than enough to to work and back. It costs pennies a day to charge and the batteries (http://www.a123systems.com/) will last for 3000 cycles. By the time my bike pack dies, I'll be retired anyway. And its damn fun to ride. The only moving part on the motor is the axle bearings. The conversion can cost about 500 to 2 or three thousand depending on how much you want to spend on batteries. I got a bit carried away but with $20-30 a day for parking, I'll have it paid for in three more months.
// an update to above, few more points and better formatting...
Before Biotech and GMO: The industry has always encouraged farmers to buy new commercial seed every year and not store seed from the previous year's harvest to plant in the current year. The reason for this is to preserve the hybridization of that specific variety of seed. Seed is grown by certified plant breeders that over time through breeding trials select for specific traits such as winter hardiness, disease resitance, baking quality in the case of wheat and protein content to name a few. It is a long and expensive method.
If farmers continue to plant seeds that are harvested from their own farm (what we call "bin run seed") then they will, over time, begin to loose the strength of the original hybrid commercial seed that they bought as it will inbreed and become a weaker strain. Therefore the quality for the traits that the original hybrid was bred will be lost. Therefore lower grade, lower price and pissed off customers ie the bakers and pasta makers if we use wheat as an example.
After Biotech, BMO. -- Obviously this is driven by the big seed companies but the technology is good and will in the long term benefit the food industry. It is a faster means to develop a plant breeding method through gene manipulation than through the slower natural selection process. For instance the industry can introduce a gene into cotton that will prohibit certain insects from damaging that crop and thus reduce the need to use pesticides. The end product is not affected by the gene and in other plants such as corn, neither is human health. The companies that develop this technology have user agreements which is at a cost to the farmer. The agreement usually prohibits the grower from using the harvested crop as seed the following year. The reason is to protect the integredity of the technology and the oringinal hybrid product. Also if the harvested seed is planted the following year it can over time produce the same problems as using harvested seed from traditionally grown varieties. Basically you lose control of the technology and produce an inferior product.
The terminator gene will at the end of a certain time period after harvest not allow that seed to germinate. Thus it would prevent the farmer from planting that seed and protect the industry's investment I think it is a good idea because it will protect the quality and traits of that particular seed for which it was designed . It will also provide for more control over the seed industry thus more confidence in developing more products and to continue research that will benefit the food industry and the consumer.
"Bin run seed" has always been a black eye in agriculture and it needs to be curtailed whether it is traditonal seed or GMO.
Before Biotech and GMO: The industry has always encouraged farmers to buy new commercial seed every year and not store seed from the previous year's harvest to plant in the current year. The reason for this is to preserve the hybridization of that specific variety of seed. Seed is grown by certified plant breeders that over time through breeding trials select for specific traits such as winter hardiness, disease resitance, baking quality in the case of wheat and protein content to name a few. It is a long and expensive method. They get paid a royalty on the sale of commercial seed. If farmers continue to plant seeds that are harvested from their own farm (what is called "bin run seed") then they will, over time, begin to loose the strength of the original hybrid commercial seed that they bought as it will inbreed and become a weaker strain. Therefore the quality for the traits that the original hybrid was bred for will be lost. Therefore lower grade, lower price and pissed off customers ie the bakers and pasta makers if wheat is used as an example. After Biotech, BMO. -- Obviously this is driven by the big seed companies but the technology is good and will in the long term benefit the food industry. It is a faster means to develop a plant breeding method through gene manipulation than through the slower natural selection process. For instance, the industry can introduce a gene into cotton that will prohibit certain insects from damaging that crop and thus eliminate the need to use pesticides. The end product is not affected by the gene and in other plants such as corn neither is human health. The companies that develop this technology have user aggreements which is at a cost to the farmer. The agreement usually prohibits the grower from using the harvested crop as seed the following year. The reason is to protect the integredity of the technology and the oringinal hybrid product. Also, if the harvested seed is planted the following year it can over time pollinate other similar non biotech crops and thus you could have contamination to another field. Basically, you lose control of the technology which the companies are wanting to protect and admitably keep their revenues growing. There is also technology where they can produce insulin for diabetics in rice through gene manipulation and I see this as needed use for the terminator gene to maintain control. The terminator gene will at the end of a certain time period after harvest not allow that seed to germinate. Thus it would prevent the farmer from planting that seed and protect the industries investment and revenues and reduce the risk of contaminating other fields IMO, it is a good idea because it will protect the quality and traits of that particular seed for which it was designed . It will also provide for more control over the seed industry thus more confidence in developing more product that will benefit the food industry and the consumer. "Bin run seed" has always been a black eye in agriculture and it needs to be curtailed whether it is traditonal seed or GMO.
She said it sounded to her like a sexually transmitted disease!