So just with my back-of-the-envelop calculations based on about 5 minutes with Google, the report seems to be bullshit.
Your answer is in the wrong units! The report was about the energy payback (in Joules), and your calculation was in dollars. I'll note that your calculations show wind turbines breaking even with their installation costs, despite the fact that your calculations count the subsidies for every other power source but not for wind, and you even discount that people are willing to pay a premium for renewable energy (both of these due to using the wholesale price of electricity). Not blaming you since it was only an estimate, just pointing it out for others.
So once a person factors in the battery and/or other large scale energy storage, does that change the calculus about the return?
Nope, it was already accounted for in the calculation. The grid (which is already built and paid for) smooths out the variable supply. Before you ask about the cost of upgrading the grid, the whole question of variable output is irrelevant to the energy return on investment.
It's also not necessary to have energy storage, or at least not very much. Certain industrial processes can absorb huge amounts of energy and run only when needed, eg electrolysis and certain types of heaters. Adding other variable power sources, even other wind turbines in a distant place, will on average balance the load. And power plants can be built specifically for variable output (eg hydroelectric with a few extra turbines, gas power plants). All of which we already have, and none of which is the problem of someone building wind turbines. The only problem would be if the grid needed upgrading and the turbine owners could sell the power at above market rates -- but even that would be fine with me, I'd rather subsidize renewables than coal and especially oil (see pricetag of our involvement in the Middle East).
As I understand it, taxpayers are already paying the majority of the costs for public transit. Why not just make the fare free, and save on collection costs as well? If more people use it, perhaps the price taxpayers pay per passenger will be lower. Bonus: less petroleum bought from countries that hate us, less congestion, more parking.
The political issues concerning the border are just there to distract people like you from the actual reasons we have so many illegal immigrants, which is because the people in power want them employed here. The attention is focused on the border, and not on the number who entered legally but overstayed their visas, and definitely not on the fact that we only pretend to punish the actual source of illegal immigration, the people who employ them, intentionally and because they are cheap labor.
The leading cause preventable of death in the U.S. is abortion; about 800,000 per year. Nobody wants to recognize it, however.
That's only true of people who define things the way you do -- others might say that it causes zero deaths (of people). And in case you're wondering, if you are in the former category you are a worse person than any of the people who allowed Nazi Germany to carry out the Holocaust.
Odds are it's probably cheating somehow, eg discovered which direction based on text fading/scrolling, or backwards voice, or something. Also, 80% success rate is rather poor, though I suppose some sort of things would be hard to tell (if they have little change in entropy).
Though I would rather they'd make fuel cells that run on alcohol, sugar, or a hydrocarbon. I don't expect storing hydrogen will turn out very well, especially for a fuel cell for a cell phone.
My watch has the time and date, a chronometer, an alarm, a light, and even a countdown timer. It's smartest features are its ability to hold a charge for over a year, plus being fairly rugged and cheap. Plus, it's got built-in 100% foolproof hardware protection against any tracking malware. Can't get much smarter than that.
They're coming here, stealing our jobs. We need to build a fence to keep them out, and allow warrentless searches of anyone who looks like a tornado. Ironically, to save on costs, most of the wall will actually be built by tornadoes.
I think this could be made legit with a simple modification: company pays owner of parked car for information on when he'll leave that spot (probably with updates either manually or via GPS tracking). Driver pays company for information on which parking spots will be vacated soon in a given area at a given time. Net result should be a small gain in the city's efficiency (less pollution, fuel, traffic, wasted time), albeit reduced by the opposite effects on people who don't use the information. Still a net positive as can be seen by considering what would happen if everyone used the information Could be non-commercialized by using karma transfers instead of money.
Also, since most apps these days track you via GPS, slightly inferior information could be automatically gathered and sold.
The fact that the machine was for mining bitcoins, or the value of bitcoins, or the existence of bitcoins, is entirely irrelevant. CoinTerra promised a computer with certain specs (2 terahashes per second and 1,200 watts, ie 1.67 gigahashes per watt) at a certain time (January 2014), and delivered a product with inferior specs (according to the plaintiff, 1.6 terahashes per second and 2,100 watts, ie 0.76 gigahashes per watt) at a later date (February 25, 2014). People who pre-ordered the product and pre-paid for it were pissed, more so since this is an investment and not a toy. I assume there was no contract, otherwise this would be an open-and-shut case. The late delivery probably won't affect the suit, because CoinTerra outlined what it would do if it delivered late.
This case is interesting because it will decide on the responsibilities of a manufacturer and one who pre-orders from them, concerning the advertized capabilities of the product. Unless there was deliberate deception, deciding one way will weaken consumer protections, while deciding the other will cripple development. I don't envy the judge in this case.
Apparently, there's a 1 in 10,000 chance that it's all a coincidence... and if you consider the number of observations being made, and the implications (aka other observations we should see), that's a really high chance. For example, it would mean that the Large Electron–Positron Collider was accelerating particles to faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, without anyone having noticed.
"Your honor, the free money generation machine the plaintiff promised me did not generate NEARLY enough free money!
Every investment is, in one way or another, a "money generation machine". This is exactly how an investor thinks about their investment, minus the "free" part because they subtract the opportunity cost of investing in that thing instead of in something else.
You put a bitcoin in an account at one of these 'exchanges'? Well kid, I'm afraid I have some bad news: from the perspective of the bitcoin system, the exchange now owns the bitcoin. You just gave it to them. You now own some flavor of promissory note that's probably roughly on par with really shit commercial paper, except that it probably doesn't even offer interest to compensate you for the risk and time value. Good work on that.
So, pretty much the same thing as if you put gold or cash in a bank?
This was done via the Mechanical Turk, so it's already filtered for people willing to do computery things for money. It would be a different story if this was a random website with the author anonymous.
Pretty much all the profit in colonizing Mars is going to be Martian land and resources, which can't be shipped back to Earth. Sure, eventually it will mean a whole world's worth of research and information-related production, but those can be done cheaper and more immediately on Earth. I think we're better off building a lunar colony first, since it can be saved from disaster more easily, and can serve as a launchpad for low-gravity spaceship engineering/refueling. Or an asteroid, for similar reasons.
On a similar note, I would expect the average female CS graduate to be better than the average male CS graduate. This is because they were willing to go against the flow to get their degree, possibly indicating grater interest or skill. Also because of the relative ratios in graduates, applications, and hiring at tech companies.
If you're trying to draw a parallel here, it's a really bad one. Most basketball players are tall because being tall makes you better at basketball. Being male on the other hand, doesn't make you better at computing, but it sure looks like that's what you want to say.
It's pretty obvious that being male makes you better at programming. And this is not a case of me confusing correlation and causation -- if you like, we can bet on the future programming skill of young males and females, rather than the current ones. The better question is why males are better at programming -- is it interest, stereotyping, opportunity, or something directly related to being male? Next you'll be telling me that women are not inherently better at nursing (giving milk to) young children.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Does not apply to politicians and government officials. If you doubt this, consider the near total amnesia they acquire when in the courtroom. Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity.
You can eat quite healthy (more than your average rich American) for very cheap, it's just not convenient and doesn't taste as good. It wouldn't surprise me if other factors more directly related to being poor contributed more to obesity (stress, for example).
Slashdot Mirror
So just with my back-of-the-envelop calculations based on about 5 minutes with Google, the report seems to be bullshit.
Your answer is in the wrong units! The report was about the energy payback (in Joules), and your calculation was in dollars. I'll note that your calculations show wind turbines breaking even with their installation costs, despite the fact that your calculations count the subsidies for every other power source but not for wind, and you even discount that people are willing to pay a premium for renewable energy (both of these due to using the wholesale price of electricity). Not blaming you since it was only an estimate, just pointing it out for others.
So once a person factors in the battery and/or other large scale energy storage, does that change the calculus about the return?
Nope, it was already accounted for in the calculation. The grid (which is already built and paid for) smooths out the variable supply. Before you ask about the cost of upgrading the grid, the whole question of variable output is irrelevant to the energy return on investment.
It's also not necessary to have energy storage, or at least not very much. Certain industrial processes can absorb huge amounts of energy and run only when needed, eg electrolysis and certain types of heaters. Adding other variable power sources, even other wind turbines in a distant place, will on average balance the load. And power plants can be built specifically for variable output (eg hydroelectric with a few extra turbines, gas power plants). All of which we already have, and none of which is the problem of someone building wind turbines. The only problem would be if the grid needed upgrading and the turbine owners could sell the power at above market rates -- but even that would be fine with me, I'd rather subsidize renewables than coal and especially oil (see pricetag of our involvement in the Middle East).
As I understand it, taxpayers are already paying the majority of the costs for public transit. Why not just make the fare free, and save on collection costs as well? If more people use it, perhaps the price taxpayers pay per passenger will be lower. Bonus: less petroleum bought from countries that hate us, less congestion, more parking.
The political issues concerning the border are just there to distract people like you from the actual reasons we have so many illegal immigrants, which is because the people in power want them employed here. The attention is focused on the border, and not on the number who entered legally but overstayed their visas, and definitely not on the fact that we only pretend to punish the actual source of illegal immigration, the people who employ them, intentionally and because they are cheap labor.
The leading cause preventable of death in the U.S. is abortion; about 800,000 per year. Nobody wants to recognize it, however.
That's only true of people who define things the way you do -- others might say that it causes zero deaths (of people). And in case you're wondering, if you are in the former category you are a worse person than any of the people who allowed Nazi Germany to carry out the Holocaust.
Odds are it's probably cheating somehow, eg discovered which direction based on text fading/scrolling, or backwards voice, or something. Also, 80% success rate is rather poor, though I suppose some sort of things would be hard to tell (if they have little change in entropy).
Better them than us.
Though I would rather they'd make fuel cells that run on alcohol, sugar, or a hydrocarbon. I don't expect storing hydrogen will turn out very well, especially for a fuel cell for a cell phone.
My watch has the time and date, a chronometer, an alarm, a light, and even a countdown timer. It's smartest features are its ability to hold a charge for over a year, plus being fairly rugged and cheap. Plus, it's got built-in 100% foolproof hardware protection against any tracking malware. Can't get much smarter than that.
They're coming here, stealing our jobs. We need to build a fence to keep them out, and allow warrentless searches of anyone who looks like a tornado. Ironically, to save on costs, most of the wall will actually be built by tornadoes.
I think this could be made legit with a simple modification: company pays owner of parked car for information on when he'll leave that spot (probably with updates either manually or via GPS tracking). Driver pays company for information on which parking spots will be vacated soon in a given area at a given time. Net result should be a small gain in the city's efficiency (less pollution, fuel, traffic, wasted time), albeit reduced by the opposite effects on people who don't use the information. Still a net positive as can be seen by considering what would happen if everyone used the information Could be non-commercialized by using karma transfers instead of money.
Also, since most apps these days track you via GPS, slightly inferior information could be automatically gathered and sold.
The fact that the machine was for mining bitcoins, or the value of bitcoins, or the existence of bitcoins, is entirely irrelevant. CoinTerra promised a computer with certain specs (2 terahashes per second and 1,200 watts, ie 1.67 gigahashes per watt) at a certain time (January 2014), and delivered a product with inferior specs (according to the plaintiff, 1.6 terahashes per second and 2,100 watts, ie 0.76 gigahashes per watt) at a later date (February 25, 2014). People who pre-ordered the product and pre-paid for it were pissed, more so since this is an investment and not a toy. I assume there was no contract, otherwise this would be an open-and-shut case. The late delivery probably won't affect the suit, because CoinTerra outlined what it would do if it delivered late.
This case is interesting because it will decide on the responsibilities of a manufacturer and one who pre-orders from them, concerning the advertized capabilities of the product. Unless there was deliberate deception, deciding one way will weaken consumer protections, while deciding the other will cripple development. I don't envy the judge in this case.
Apparently, there's a 1 in 10,000 chance that it's all a coincidence... and if you consider the number of observations being made, and the implications (aka other observations we should see), that's a really high chance. For example, it would mean that the Large Electron–Positron Collider was accelerating particles to faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, without anyone having noticed.
"Your honor, the free money generation machine the plaintiff promised me did not generate NEARLY enough free money!
Every investment is, in one way or another, a "money generation machine". This is exactly how an investor thinks about their investment, minus the "free" part because they subtract the opportunity cost of investing in that thing instead of in something else.
Patent infringement! Sue Disney for all they're worth! For the Progress of Science and useful Arts!
So you want microbes to burn the plastic, with the same environmental effects but no benefit to us?
You put a bitcoin in an account at one of these 'exchanges'? Well kid, I'm afraid I have some bad news: from the perspective of the bitcoin system, the exchange now owns the bitcoin. You just gave it to them. You now own some flavor of promissory note that's probably roughly on par with really shit commercial paper, except that it probably doesn't even offer interest to compensate you for the risk and time value. Good work on that.
So, pretty much the same thing as if you put gold or cash in a bank?
This was done via the Mechanical Turk, so it's already filtered for people willing to do computery things for money. It would be a different story if this was a random website with the author anonymous.
Pretty much all the profit in colonizing Mars is going to be Martian land and resources, which can't be shipped back to Earth. Sure, eventually it will mean a whole world's worth of research and information-related production, but those can be done cheaper and more immediately on Earth. I think we're better off building a lunar colony first, since it can be saved from disaster more easily, and can serve as a launchpad for low-gravity spaceship engineering/refueling. Or an asteroid, for similar reasons.
I'd be worried too if a country who had invaded mine in living history, was under-reporting plutonium.
On a similar note, I would expect the average female CS graduate to be better than the average male CS graduate. This is because they were willing to go against the flow to get their degree, possibly indicating grater interest or skill. Also because of the relative ratios in graduates, applications, and hiring at tech companies.
If you're trying to draw a parallel here, it's a really bad one. Most basketball players are tall because being tall makes you better at basketball. Being male on the other hand, doesn't make you better at computing, but it sure looks like that's what you want to say.
It's pretty obvious that being male makes you better at programming. And this is not a case of me confusing correlation and causation -- if you like, we can bet on the future programming skill of young males and females, rather than the current ones. The better question is why males are better at programming -- is it interest, stereotyping, opportunity, or something directly related to being male? Next you'll be telling me that women are not inherently better at nursing (giving milk to) young children.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Does not apply to politicians and government officials. If you doubt this, consider the near total amnesia they acquire when in the courtroom. Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Only Americans are allowed to spy on other people because non-citizens have no rights. Not cool if they do it to US.
You can eat quite healthy (more than your average rich American) for very cheap, it's just not convenient and doesn't taste as good. It wouldn't surprise me if other factors more directly related to being poor contributed more to obesity (stress, for example).
For the record, espresso should be made with 95 degree Celsius water - I doubt that you can get a "perfect" espresso with boiling water.
Easy, just brew your coffee at about 1400 meters elevation.