The solar energy concentration is not sufficient to convert the amount of energy we need with the technology we have without bulldozing half of the available landmass.
According to SciAm's "A Solar Grand Plan" all of the electricity used in the US in 2006 would take less land than in the Southwest to produce. But you're smarter than they are right?
If it were as easy as you think, it would already be solved, for Pete's sake.
Until you add vested interests.
Brazil contemplating how much of the rain forest they could knock down to grow corn
Except Brazil doesn't use corn, Brazil uses sugarcane which is a better feedstock than corn. An even better feedstock than sugarcane is Switchgrass.
nother one is front opening refrigerators and freezers. Top opening is much more efficient because all the cold air isn't displaced by room temperature air every time you open it
If the door, opening, is on the top then where is the compressor, you know the thing that heats up? Heat rises so if it's on the bottom then the compressor has to work harder thus creating more heat. There are some manufacturers that place the compressors on top, such as Sun Frost.
It's there, it's understood, it's completely doable and for a hell of lot less money than the democrats want to steal from the people of the US right now.
So I guess CATO and Forbes are Democrats. Where are these commercially running plants?
I'm not a vegetarian, I'm a pragmatist; The closer you get to the sun in what you eat the more energy you will receive from the food, potentially.
I'm not a vegetarian either, and don't plan on becoming one, but there's another wy to reduce the energy needed to get the food to your plate, grow your own.
we are currently suffering from a slight water shortage
You mean with the Murray-Darling Basin? I wouldn't exactly call that a "slight water shortage". The second driest continent, according to the Economist, is becoming drier.
When buildings are sealed tighter and the air locked in them, things like radon gas become more of a problem. Along with formaldehyde and other pathogens.
So design better buildings.
There has to be a 'building industry revolution' for energy efficient housing to work. Meaning entirely new structures and methods of shelter.
There is one, LEED, sponsored by the US Green Building Council. It has some problems though. Then there's those who build Off the Grid using passive solar designs among other techniques.
I do use less energy. All the light fixtures I use have CFLs in them. And when I'm not going to use my laptop, which uses less energy than desktop or tower PCs, for more than a few hours I turn it off. Though I have a car, in the more than 9 years I've had it I've only put 45,000 miles on it.
These supercapacitor we keep hearing about could conceivably be used as batteries, but I it is probably more realistic for nuclear plants to provide for the base load and have other technologies supplement during peak hours.
Are you talking about pumped storage or simply using a traditional power plant to cover the difference.
I didn't mention any particular method of storing energy but there are a number being worked on. Besides fuel cells, where excess energy is used to produce hydrogen, there's thermal energy storage, ultra capacitors which someone above mentioned may become feasible, and other methods of energy storage. I think one of the more promising sources for baseload power is geothermal. The Department of Energy [pdf] says "Because geothermal can provide a large amount of sustainable, indigenous, clean, base load and affordable energy for the nation"
I put every server option I could on before installation via LiveCD.
Ubuntu Server doesn't come on a LiveCD or DVD. I did read somewhere that the standard Ubuntu can be installed then the software needed to set it up as a server can be downloaded. That's probably what I'll do, basically what I want is a webserver, perl, a database, and maybe Ruby on Rails.
Conserving energy does nothing more than put the nation back a few decades in technology.
No it doesn't. With the exception of one light fixture, which I rarely use, all of the lights in my apartment are CFLs which use 1/4 the power of incandescent lights. That didn't put me back a few decades. With the right technology a building can be insulated so it does not need heating or cooling.
Plants use solar, but very few natural things use wind or tidal power. Nature has had a very long time to try and fill these energy niches, so it is a safe guess that they can't produce enough energy to sustain a large population at a reasonable standard of living.
It may not be true in some parts of the world but the US has plenty of potential wind energy. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists the potential of various places. For instance just as the Picken's Plan covers, the Rocky Mountains alone have enough potential to supple the 48 continuous states with electricity. There are plenty of other places as well.
base load is their problem - how do you generate power when the wind isn't blowing or when the tide is out? tidal also has a big impact on fisheries.
That's the same problem solar has. Unfortunately because most alternative energy sources are not continuous a base load is needed, until massive storage is developed.
No, I installed Ubuntu just two days ago (8.10) and it took me two reboots. One for Kernel then one for restricted drivers.
Right now, well the past week or so, I've been doing research on how to install Ubuntu 8.10 on my MacBook Pro to set it up to dualboot. In order to do so I'll need to reboot more than twice, just to install it. Then I'll need to run update. As I want to set it up as a server I'll probably have to do more reboots.
My point was that most people who want a laptop want to be able to get business done on it, or school, or apply for a job. Lots of people like to get work done (even coding) on the airplane.
I bought my 17" laptop to get work done. This economy isn't well for it but I want to start working as a developer and photographer.
I was kind of venting too. I wish I could get away with running just Linux for business
Okay.
In a netbook situation, where I may not have gigabytes up on gigabytes of storage for dual booting, I will have to go with Windows.
Yea, when I got my MBP the largest 7200 rmp hdd, which is needed for graphics and photography, for it was 160GB. As I only had about 25GB of free space on it a few weeks ago I replaced the hdd with a 320GB hdd. Now I'm thinking about setting up the laptop to dualboot by installing Ubuntu. If so what I'll do is make 3 partitions on the hdd, one for Leopard, one for Ubuntu, and one for user files. I'm not sure but I think I'll give each OS partition 30 to 50 GB.
If your idea of "surfing the net" includes anything remotely flash-intensive, a netbook isn't going to cut it, regardless of what OS it's running.
Then don't get one. I'm typing this on a 17" MacBook Pro. Before I bought it I looked at other laptops and I saw one in Best Buy with a 21" lcd. I started drooling, then I saw the OS, Windows. I wish Apple released as big a laptop as that one. Forget a 17" laptop, some people have said 15" was too big. But not for me. Does it take up too much space? It fits in my small backpack, and with it in the backpack that one fits in my larger one, with space for large books. Does it weigh too much? I used to hike and march with a backpack weighing 60+ pounds when I was in the Army. After I got out and started college I rode my bike to campus, about 8 miles, daily with the backpack weighing at least 20 pounds. If I can't carry 10 pounds, and the MBP weighs less than 7, I'm in real bad shape.
Check for applications/daemons (particularly scanner and peripheral helpers) launching from the various StartupItems folders.
I don't have a Startup folder, unless it's hidden, however I have Intego Net Barrier and Virus Barrier running. To be sure I quickly switched to the admin account, which I rarely ever use, and searched.
Also, try installing the next OS X _combo_ update
I last ran Software Update a few days ago, that's one of the few reasons I'll log in as admin.
some older builds of 10.5
The same things happened with Tiger, though I've had a Leopard install disk for more than a year it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when I installed it. It's not the hdd either, a couple of weeks ago I replaced the hdd that was in it with a bigger one. Actually I replaced the drive because there wasn't much space left and one of the geniuses in an Apple store warned me about that.
True, there was one interesting metric where Windows got its ass kicked (copying small files around). But for the most part, I saw no major ownage. In fact, it showed that Windows did a better job with large files and had a faster turn-around time to boot & shut-down.
While Windows 7 did bootup and move large files from one place to another on the same drive faster it was slower when shut down. The Shutdown Time chart shows the slowest version of Ubuntu taking 10 seconds to shutdown whereas Windows 7 took 13.4 seconds. Then for copying large files from USB flash drive to hard disk Windows 7 took 19.6 seconds whereas the slowest Ubuntu took 19.4 seconds.
In general it looks pretty much like it's a wash, though Windows 7 was faster than previous versions of Windows.
Other than that, they stacked up pretty evenly (at least the x86 versions of Ubuntu 9.04 & Windows 7 - That's all I was really looking at).
They didn't test the version of Ubuntu I was interested in, the 64 bit server edition. I'm hoping to install it in the next few days.
Slashdot Mirror
...Mars is also undergoing global warming...
Mars is not warming.
Falcon
As far as I know, scientists do not agree that we must reduce our carbon emissions to stop global warming.
Those who are experts in the subject, Climatologists, do agree. "97% of active climatologists agree that human activity is causing global warming".
Falcon
The solar energy concentration is not sufficient to convert the amount of energy we need with the technology we have without bulldozing half of the available landmass.
According to SciAm's "A Solar Grand Plan" all of the electricity used in the US in 2006 would take less land than in the Southwest to produce. But you're smarter than they are right?
If it were as easy as you think, it would already be solved, for Pete's sake.
Until you add vested interests.
Brazil contemplating how much of the rain forest they could knock down to grow corn
Except Brazil doesn't use corn, Brazil uses sugarcane which is a better feedstock than corn. An even better feedstock than sugarcane is Switchgrass.
Falcon
nother one is front opening refrigerators and freezers. Top opening is much more efficient because all the cold air isn't displaced by room temperature air every time you open it
If the door, opening, is on the top then where is the compressor, you know the thing that heats up? Heat rises so if it's on the bottom then the compressor has to work harder thus creating more heat. There are some manufacturers that place the compressors on top, such as Sun Frost.
Falcon
.. is suitable for realistically providing power for the typical modern life.
People who live Off the Grid are disproving you every day.
Falcon
Nuclear is not clean!
It's there, it's understood, it's completely doable and for a hell of lot less money than the democrats want to steal from the people of the US right now.
So I guess CATO and Forbes are Democrats. Where are these commercially running plants?
Falcon
I'm not a vegetarian, I'm a pragmatist; The closer you get to the sun in what you eat the more energy you will receive from the food, potentially.
I'm not a vegetarian either, and don't plan on becoming one, but there's another wy to reduce the energy needed to get the food to your plate, grow your own.
Falcon
we are currently suffering from a slight water shortage
You mean with the Murray-Darling Basin? I wouldn't exactly call that a "slight water shortage". The second driest continent, according to the Economist, is becoming drier.
Falcon
When buildings are sealed tighter and the air locked in them, things like radon gas become more of a problem. Along with formaldehyde and other pathogens.
So design better buildings.
There has to be a 'building industry revolution' for energy efficient housing to work. Meaning entirely new structures and methods of shelter.
There is one, LEED, sponsored by the US Green Building Council. It has some problems though. Then there's those who build Off the Grid using passive solar designs among other techniques.
Falcon
you first. start with turning off your pc.
I do use less energy. All the light fixtures I use have CFLs in them. And when I'm not going to use my laptop, which uses less energy than desktop or tower PCs, for more than a few hours I turn it off. Though I have a car, in the more than 9 years I've had it I've only put 45,000 miles on it.
Falcon
How so? All tidal power needs is the up and down of the tide. Plants don't create those.
Falcon
These supercapacitor we keep hearing about could conceivably be used as batteries, but I it is probably more realistic for nuclear plants to provide for the base load and have other technologies supplement during peak hours.
Geothermal can also be used as a baseload [pdf].
Falcon
It was the old wind turbines that had smaller blades that killed birds. Today's turbines have bigger blades and spin slower.
The birds are an integral part of the ecosystem.
Cats are also part of the ecosystem yet they kill more birds than wind turbines do. According to this building are a big killer of birds.
Falcon
I haven't heard anyone shouting about a silver shortage - especially since digital camera's became popular.
I'm not sure but I'd think a shortage of silver would be less likely with digital cameras. Photographic film uses silver halide.
Falcon
Are you talking about pumped storage or simply using a traditional power plant to cover the difference.
I didn't mention any particular method of storing energy but there are a number being worked on. Besides fuel cells, where excess energy is used to produce hydrogen, there's thermal energy storage, ultra capacitors which someone above mentioned may become feasible, and other methods of energy storage. I think one of the more promising sources for baseload power is geothermal. The Department of Energy [pdf] says "Because geothermal can provide a large amount of sustainable, indigenous, clean, base load and affordable energy for the nation"
Falcon
when indium dries up your going to have to coat your roof in cadnium.
When indium price rise then it will be economically feasible to mine it from places it is not feasible now, much like happened with oil.
i've said for years that PV is no good
PVs aren't the only way to generate power from the sun. At large scales solar concentrators may be more efficient. And PV tech may improve.
Falcon
I put every server option I could on before installation via LiveCD.
Ubuntu Server doesn't come on a LiveCD or DVD. I did read somewhere that the standard Ubuntu can be installed then the software needed to set it up as a server can be downloaded. That's probably what I'll do, basically what I want is a webserver, perl, a database, and maybe Ruby on Rails.
Falcon
Conserving energy does nothing more than put the nation back a few decades in technology.
No it doesn't. With the exception of one light fixture, which I rarely use, all of the lights in my apartment are CFLs which use 1/4 the power of incandescent lights. That didn't put me back a few decades. With the right technology a building can be insulated so it does not need heating or cooling.
China and India are growing in economic power
When you're low there's only one way to go, up.
Falcon
Plants use solar, but very few natural things use wind or tidal power. Nature has had a very long time to try and fill these energy niches, so it is a safe guess that they can't produce enough energy to sustain a large population at a reasonable standard of living.
It may not be true in some parts of the world but the US has plenty of potential wind energy. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists the potential of various places. For instance just as the Picken's Plan covers, the Rocky Mountains alone have enough potential to supple the 48 continuous states with electricity. There are plenty of other places as well.
Falcon
base load is their problem - how do you generate power when the wind isn't blowing or when the tide is out? tidal also has a big impact on fisheries.
That's the same problem solar has. Unfortunately because most alternative energy sources are not continuous a base load is needed, until massive storage is developed.
Falcon
No, I installed Ubuntu just two days ago (8.10) and it took me two reboots. One for Kernel then one for restricted drivers.
Right now, well the past week or so, I've been doing research on how to install Ubuntu 8.10 on my MacBook Pro to set it up to dualboot. In order to do so I'll need to reboot more than twice, just to install it. Then I'll need to run update. As I want to set it up as a server I'll probably have to do more reboots.
Falcon
My point was that most people who want a laptop want to be able to get business done on it, or school, or apply for a job. Lots of people like to get work done (even coding) on the airplane.
I bought my 17" laptop to get work done. This economy isn't well for it but I want to start working as a developer and photographer.
I was kind of venting too. I wish I could get away with running just Linux for business
Okay.
In a netbook situation, where I may not have gigabytes up on gigabytes of storage for dual booting, I will have to go with Windows.
Yea, when I got my MBP the largest 7200 rmp hdd, which is needed for graphics and photography, for it was 160GB. As I only had about 25GB of free space on it a few weeks ago I replaced the hdd with a 320GB hdd. Now I'm thinking about setting up the laptop to dualboot by installing Ubuntu. If so what I'll do is make 3 partitions on the hdd, one for Leopard, one for Ubuntu, and one for user files. I'm not sure but I think I'll give each OS partition 30 to 50 GB.
Falcon
If your idea of "surfing the net" includes anything remotely flash-intensive, a netbook isn't going to cut it, regardless of what OS it's running.
Then don't get one. I'm typing this on a 17" MacBook Pro. Before I bought it I looked at other laptops and I saw one in Best Buy with a 21" lcd. I started drooling, then I saw the OS, Windows. I wish Apple released as big a laptop as that one. Forget a 17" laptop, some people have said 15" was too big. But not for me. Does it take up too much space? It fits in my small backpack, and with it in the backpack that one fits in my larger one, with space for large books. Does it weigh too much? I used to hike and march with a backpack weighing 60+ pounds when I was in the Army. After I got out and started college I rode my bike to campus, about 8 miles, daily with the backpack weighing at least 20 pounds. If I can't carry 10 pounds, and the MBP weighs less than 7, I'm in real bad shape.
Falcon
Check for applications/daemons (particularly scanner and peripheral helpers) launching from the various StartupItems folders.
I don't have a Startup folder, unless it's hidden, however I have Intego Net Barrier and Virus Barrier running. To be sure I quickly switched to the admin account, which I rarely ever use, and searched.
Also, try installing the next OS X _combo_ update
I last ran Software Update a few days ago, that's one of the few reasons I'll log in as admin.
some older builds of 10.5
The same things happened with Tiger, though I've had a Leopard install disk for more than a year it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when I installed it. It's not the hdd either, a couple of weeks ago I replaced the hdd that was in it with a bigger one. Actually I replaced the drive because there wasn't much space left and one of the geniuses in an Apple store warned me about that.
Falcon
True, there was one interesting metric where Windows got its ass kicked (copying small files around). But for the most part, I saw no major ownage. In fact, it showed that Windows did a better job with large files and had a faster turn-around time to boot & shut-down.
While Windows 7 did bootup and move large files from one place to another on the same drive faster it was slower when shut down. The Shutdown Time chart shows the slowest version of Ubuntu taking 10 seconds to shutdown whereas Windows 7 took 13.4 seconds. Then for copying large files from USB flash drive to hard disk Windows 7 took 19.6 seconds whereas the slowest Ubuntu took 19.4 seconds.
In general it looks pretty much like it's a wash, though Windows 7 was faster than previous versions of Windows.
Other than that, they stacked up pretty evenly (at least the x86 versions of Ubuntu 9.04 & Windows 7 - That's all I was really looking at).
They didn't test the version of Ubuntu I was interested in, the 64 bit server edition. I'm hoping to install it in the next few days.
How exactly did "Ubuntu Wipe Windows 7"?
As usual it seems /. editors didn't RTFA.
Falcon