My only comfort is that there's a long way to go on the corruption scale from biased favoring of evidence that supports your position (something we do often) all the way to manufacturing evidence when there is none (something we don't do so often, in fact, I can't think of any examples)
That is the essence of Libertarianism, the idea that centralized decisionmaking is rarely best for either individuals or society as a whole. Barr simply doesn't get that.
Actually he does get it, he opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment saying it's a violation of states rights. Personally I oppose it too but not because it's a states rights issue I oppose it because it's a human rights issue.
For a US example, look at electrical and phone service in rural areas. It wasn't profitable for companies to offer service in those areas at a price consumers were willing to pay, but We The People decided electricity and telecommunications were important enough that people in those areas should have them anyway, so out came the subsidies.
Ah but phone service wasn't subsidized with general taxpayer money. Those who had phone service paid a tax which was then used to fund service in rural areas. This tax was the Federal telephone excise tax.
I must ask why is it not possible to both protect us from the terrorists (a proper role of government) and grant us our rights?
The proper roll of the US government is to Protect the People and their Rights. Government DOES NOT grant rights, rights are unalienable, government only protects them.
Sure, there are some non-citizens at Gitmo, but I happen to believe that most, if not all, were actively plotting against this country, or knowingly helping others who were.
First, the fact it can happen is troubling period! Next, many of those who were captured in Afghanistan had nothing to do with terrorism or fighting. Awards were handed out for those turned over. If you didn't like someone you could point them out and call them a terrorist then pick up some money. As for guilt, do you have ESP? You know without any doubt they were guilty so they could be locked up for years without even a trial?
I cannot vote for any candidate that voted in favor of this and now I'm not sure what to do.
Like you I used to support Obama. But now that he's sold out I can't support him now. Hde was supposed to be for change but all I see is the same old stuff.
I'm no longer voting for the lesser of two evils as they both are.
The last tyme I voted for the lesser of two evils the candidate I voted against had the election stolen so he still won, Bush in 2000. This year I'm voting for Bob Bar.
>When you ask your super will know you're at least looking for a new job.
Making this clear early and consistently, tends to make you more valuable in retention terms.
Yes, if they want to keep you. But it seems businesses are looking for ways to cut expenses, and one way is by cutting employees and having the rest do more or by letting go of employees who have been on the payroll longer and higher new ones at lower pay levels. If they aren't offshore outsourcing.
My current employer has been well aware that I work for this organization for specific benefits, that I am taking a third of the usual pay at my professional level, and they are grateful.
I'm on disability and don't work but I'd like to do some volunteer work. I love gardening and there's a university extension garden who uses volunteers. Besides working in the garden I was thinking of doing some photography and working on their website. Unfortunately it's a bit of a drive for me and with gas prices it would cost me more than I'm willing to pay to do some volunteering.
If you *aren't* "looking for a new job" you're complacent. This can have the opposite effect of what you expect.
No, if you're not "looking to get ahead" you may be complacent. Then again if you are then you're also part of the rat race. Perhaps what someone can do is look to see if they can generate some income from a hobby, they shouldn't push it though.
So let me see, current cells have 15% efficiency or so , the best stuff ( I.e GaAs ) can reach 30% - 40% , and this tech will increase output power by more than an order of magnitude, meaning they should output at least 150% of the energy they receive?
you could put the best solar cells in the world around the periphery of these concentrators and the combined system will have a lower efficiency than if you simply covered the area in solar cells in the first place.
Thing is is with these coatings sunlight is still able to pass through the window but with PV panels all the light gets blocked. In which case you'd have to provide other lighting.
I am waiting for the day when the general consumer can buy a bunch these panels and use them efficiently. Also I think that when something like this picks up, it should become a standard for home builders. With the markets the way they are noways, getting a little energy bill break wouldn't be half bad...
The easiest, cheapest, and fastest way to reduce the energy bill is by taking efficiency measures. Replace 75 watt incandescent bulbs with 12 or 15 watt CFLs, And when prices come down and they get better replacing those with LED lights, LEDs only use 10% of the energy incandescents do. The problems, 2, with LEDs are the cost of them and so far they are good only for spot lighting. They're bad for area lighting. Replace refrigerator freezer combos that have the freezer part on top and the compressor on bottom with one where the freezer is on bottom and compressor on top. Replace electric stove tops with inductive stovetops. Replace single paned windows with double or triple paned energy efficient windows. And improve the building's insulation, R value.
The panels you can buy today are very sensitive to shadows. Each cell produces only so much voltage. To get a useful voltage out of them, you have to wire them up in series. If some percentage (50%) of a row is shadowed, the panel will actually effectively shut itself down, and produce no power at all, because of the non-participating cells
That depends on the technology of the panels. Whereas the older PVs, single crystal cells, are sensitive to shade Amorphous cells aren't. With just 5% of the surface of the old tech PVs covered in shade the output can drop a lot but with amorphous cells 50% of the surface can be covered and it will still produce electricity. However single crystal cells are more efficient in full sun than amorphous cells are.
Another issue with modern panels is the fact that a classic semiconductor solar cell is useful only through a very narrow band of wavelengths. Sunlight is very broad band light. (No jokes about bitrates, thank you.) It shows up at your roof in all kinds of frequencies. The panels you can buy today ignore a large fraction of those frequencies, since they only work at what they're tuned for. However, in the process of ignoring the other frequencies, your standard cell also blocks them entirely. So even though you can manufacture semiconductor cells with different bandgaps that will absorb different sunlight frequencies, you can't stack them directly on top of each other and gain anything.
Actually you can stack the conductor so different layers capture different frequencies. A company in photography, Silicon Film which seems to have disappeared, was granted a patent on how to stack cmos layers on light sensors so a chip could capture 3 frequencies on the same pixel, at different depths.
The biggest advantage I see is at the end of the article - the MIT guys have founded a startup and intend to manufacture them.
Perhaps they can team up with NanoSolar. Larry and Serge have plenty of money, and if this can be commercialized can make a lot more.
I am not tired of hearing about it. I am TIRED of it never leaving the lab. I am tired of a lackluster-lipservice-bullshit attitude in government from local municipalities to federal about properly funding the reasearch and subsidizing the resultant industry and production of products.
Have you heard of T Boone Pickets', the wealthy oil man, idea to free the US from foreign oil? He wants to create at least 20% of the USA's electricity from wind, build wind farms from Canada to Mexico through the middle of the country. Then the natural gas, LNG, used in some power plants can be used as fuel for vehicles instead. CNN has been going on about it.
my take is that the subsidized pay off period is still pushing 20 years, so solar is pretty much only any good if you are rich
The payback, ROI, period depends on the system and where it's located. Some have payback periods of about 7 years whereas other are closer to 20. In virtually every case though it is shorter than the warranty on the components, except batteries. Now that's where some mess up, the payback period. Some sellers say it is short and some buyers want it short but those who get it realize it's a long term investment.
Window-mounted Solar only gets light for half the Solar day, so base utilization is 25% (less clouds and repair). Effectively doubling the price.
Actually it depends on where the sun is relative to the panels, if a window is on the opposite side of a building, north or south, from the sun it won't generate much electricity. Those on the east side will only have good exposure in the morning whereas the west side will only have good exposure after noon. That's why PVs mounted on trackers in an open area generate more power than those that aren't.
Well the advice I was given was by a dentist whose son had burn out from his software analyst job. He just didn't have any outside hobbies and had enough
I think not having outside interests is a big reason people burnout from their jobs. It's easy to burnout when you only do one thing.
I don't know the research data on it (if there is any) but I am sure that computer science / engineering jobs have an over-representation of one or another personality trait
I don't know that either but the last tyme I saw data the average person changed their careers 3 tymes in their work life. Maybe that's an indication of burnout, though it could be just a want of change.
Anyway thanks for your considered response.
No prob, actually I'd like to see data on the happiness of those who have little if any outside hobbies and those who have at least one hobby they spend at least a few hours a week doing.
I look for people who have a zest for life, but just happen to get some of their thrill from the act of creation inherent in designing and building working systems.
Two of my hobbies deals with designing and building, creating. One is gardening, I love to watch something I plant and take care of whether from seed or seedling grow into some beautiful. Especially if you can eat what's grown. A few days ago while I was watering my garden early in the morning someone walking his dog asked me how I was able to grow my tomato plants so big, some of them are about 5 feet high but he said his are scrawny. Others asked how I got my salad greens to grow so much.
Another hobby is photography, I love to shoot things growing, nature, rocks, and water mostly though I like to shoot people sometimes. The creation of the exposure is the beginning, I then like working in a darkroom to develop and make prints. When I get a DSLR, I'm on disability now and don't work so I can't afford one but hope to break into photography, I'll want to learn digital processes as well.
As part of photography I want to develop a software suite to do everything I can from billing, a database of photos and customers, to creating websites for photographers. Some years ago while in college, jr college, working on a programming degree because I needed one more elective I took a photography class and quite a few photography students expressed interest in having their own websites, as an online portfolio and or as a store. After hearing that and thinking about it a while I wondered about combining the two and setup a computer system to run a photography business for myself first then setup such systems for other photographers as well.
The trucks are cleaning the surfaces. This technology won't require cleaning because why?
Windows are already being cleaned, that's what many of those people on scaffolding on the sides of skyscrapers are doing. So I don't this as being a problem.
Before the make more energy than it takes to build them.
"A 2004 study published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for multicrystalline solar panels with an assumed efficiency of 12% yielded a payback period of a bit over 3.5 years."
if you go right back to when domestic electricity supply was the breakthrough, you will find the architect of that breakthrough (Edison) had enormous legal and public relations problems with the entrenched gaslight industry who were hell bent on stopping his electric light company.
Edison did the same himself. His electric company transmitted DC power and when Tesla came out with AC power Edison tried to make it look dangerous. Edison even electrocuted an elephant to prove his point.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be nice to move to a country consisting of Washington and Oregon
Oh, you mean the Republic of Cascadia?
Falcon
My only comfort is that there's a long way to go on the corruption scale from biased favoring of evidence that supports your position (something we do often) all the way to manufacturing evidence when there is none (something we don't do so often, in fact, I can't think of any examples)
You want an example? Try this, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, a fake incident used by the Johnson admin used to justify the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and air strikes on North Viet Nam.
Falcon
That is the essence of Libertarianism, the idea that centralized decisionmaking is rarely best for either individuals or society as a whole. Barr simply doesn't get that.
Actually he does get it, he opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment saying it's a violation of states rights. Personally I oppose it too but not because it's a states rights issue I oppose it because it's a human rights issue.
Falcon
His support for the Patriot Act
Bob Bar only supported the Patriot Act even after he added sunset clauses to it.
his support for a constitutional ban on the rights of gay couples to marry
He opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment.
Falcon
For a US example, look at electrical and phone service in rural areas. It wasn't profitable for companies to offer service in those areas at a price consumers were willing to pay, but We The People decided electricity and telecommunications were important enough that people in those areas should have them anyway, so out came the subsidies.
Ah but phone service wasn't subsidized with general taxpayer money. Those who had phone service paid a tax which was then used to fund service in rural areas. This tax was the Federal telephone excise tax.
Falcon
I must ask why is it not possible to both protect us from the terrorists (a proper role of government) and grant us our rights?
The proper roll of the US government is to Protect the People and their Rights. Government DOES NOT grant rights, rights are unalienable, government only protects them.
Falcon
Sure, there are some non-citizens at Gitmo, but I happen to believe that most, if not all, were actively plotting against this country, or knowingly helping others who were.
First, the fact it can happen is troubling period! Next, many of those who were captured in Afghanistan had nothing to do with terrorism or fighting. Awards were handed out for those turned over. If you didn't like someone you could point them out and call them a terrorist then pick up some money. As for guilt, do you have ESP? You know without any doubt they were guilty so they could be locked up for years without even a trial?
Falcon
I cannot vote for any candidate that voted in favor of this and now I'm not sure what to do.
Like you I used to support Obama. But now that he's sold out I can't support him now. Hde was supposed to be for change but all I see is the same old stuff.
I'm no longer voting for the lesser of two evils as they both are.
The last tyme I voted for the lesser of two evils the candidate I voted against had the election stolen so he still won, Bush in 2000. This year I'm voting for Bob Bar.
Falcon
>When you ask your super will know you're at least looking for a new job.
Making this clear early and consistently, tends to make you more valuable in retention terms.
Yes, if they want to keep you. But it seems businesses are looking for ways to cut expenses, and one way is by cutting employees and having the rest do more or by letting go of employees who have been on the payroll longer and higher new ones at lower pay levels. If they aren't offshore outsourcing.
My current employer has been well aware that I work for this organization for specific benefits, that I am taking a third of the usual pay at my professional level, and they are grateful.
I'm on disability and don't work but I'd like to do some volunteer work. I love gardening and there's a university extension garden who uses volunteers. Besides working in the garden I was thinking of doing some photography and working on their website. Unfortunately it's a bit of a drive for me and with gas prices it would cost me more than I'm willing to pay to do some volunteering.
If you *aren't* "looking for a new job" you're complacent. This can have the opposite effect of what you expect.
No, if you're not "looking to get ahead" you may be complacent. Then again if you are then you're also part of the rat race. Perhaps what someone can do is look to see if they can generate some income from a hobby, they shouldn't push it though.
Falcon
So let me see, current cells have 15% efficiency or so , the best stuff ( I.e GaAs ) can reach 30% - 40% , and this tech will increase output power by more than an order of magnitude, meaning they should output at least 150% of the energy they receive?
TFA says 40 X power not 40 X efficiency.
Falcon
Then we have to find some way of keeping them clean as even a little dirt will reduce the output of solar cells a great deal.
Shade significantly impacts single crystal PVs but not amorphous panels.
Falcon
you could put the best solar cells in the world around the periphery of these concentrators and the combined system will have a lower efficiency than if you simply covered the area in solar cells in the first place.
Thing is is with these coatings sunlight is still able to pass through the window but with PV panels all the light gets blocked. In which case you'd have to provide other lighting.
Falcon
I am waiting for the day when the general consumer can buy a bunch these panels and use them efficiently. Also I think that when something like this picks up, it should become a standard for home builders. With the markets the way they are noways, getting a little energy bill break wouldn't be half bad...
The easiest, cheapest, and fastest way to reduce the energy bill is by taking efficiency measures. Replace 75 watt incandescent bulbs with 12 or 15 watt CFLs, And when prices come down and they get better replacing those with LED lights, LEDs only use 10% of the energy incandescents do. The problems, 2, with LEDs are the cost of them and so far they are good only for spot lighting. They're bad for area lighting. Replace refrigerator freezer combos that have the freezer part on top and the compressor on bottom with one where the freezer is on bottom and compressor on top. Replace electric stove tops with inductive stovetops. Replace single paned windows with double or triple paned energy efficient windows. And improve the building's insulation, R value.
Falcon
The panels you can buy today are very sensitive to shadows. Each cell produces only so much voltage. To get a useful voltage out of them, you have to wire them up in series. If some percentage (50%) of a row is shadowed, the panel will actually effectively shut itself down, and produce no power at all, because of the non-participating cells
That depends on the technology of the panels. Whereas the older PVs, single crystal cells, are sensitive to shade Amorphous cells aren't. With just 5% of the surface of the old tech PVs covered in shade the output can drop a lot but with amorphous cells 50% of the surface can be covered and it will still produce electricity. However single crystal cells are more efficient in full sun than amorphous cells are.
Another issue with modern panels is the fact that a classic semiconductor solar cell is useful only through a very narrow band of wavelengths. Sunlight is very broad band light. (No jokes about bitrates, thank you.) It shows up at your roof in all kinds of frequencies. The panels you can buy today ignore a large fraction of those frequencies, since they only work at what they're tuned for. However, in the process of ignoring the other frequencies, your standard cell also blocks them entirely. So even though you can manufacture semiconductor cells with different bandgaps that will absorb different sunlight frequencies, you can't stack them directly on top of each other and gain anything.
Actually you can stack the conductor so different layers capture different frequencies. A company in photography, Silicon Film which seems to have disappeared, was granted a patent on how to stack cmos layers on light sensors so a chip could capture 3 frequencies on the same pixel, at different depths.
The biggest advantage I see is at the end of the article - the MIT guys have founded a startup and intend to manufacture them.
Perhaps they can team up with NanoSolar. Larry and Serge have plenty of money, and if this can be commercialized can make a lot more.
Falcon
I am not tired of hearing about it. I am TIRED of it never leaving the lab. I am tired of a lackluster-lipservice-bullshit attitude in government from local municipalities to federal about properly funding the reasearch and subsidizing the resultant industry and production of products.
Have you heard of T Boone Pickets', the wealthy oil man, idea to free the US from foreign oil? He wants to create at least 20% of the USA's electricity from wind, build wind farms from Canada to Mexico through the middle of the country. Then the natural gas, LNG, used in some power plants can be used as fuel for vehicles instead. CNN has been going on about it.
Falcon
Yep, economic swings and roundabouts. (And now elephants, thanks for the macarbe link)
Yea, when I read about that years ago I was shocked, figuratively.
Falcon
my take is that the subsidized pay off period is still pushing 20 years, so solar is pretty much only any good if you are rich
The payback, ROI, period depends on the system and where it's located. Some have payback periods of about 7 years whereas other are closer to 20. In virtually every case though it is shorter than the warranty on the components, except batteries. Now that's where some mess up, the payback period. Some sellers say it is short and some buyers want it short but those who get it realize it's a long term investment.
Falcon
Window-mounted Solar only gets light for half the Solar day, so base utilization is 25% (less clouds and repair). Effectively doubling the price.
Actually it depends on where the sun is relative to the panels, if a window is on the opposite side of a building, north or south, from the sun it won't generate much electricity. Those on the east side will only have good exposure in the morning whereas the west side will only have good exposure after noon. That's why PVs mounted on trackers in an open area generate more power than those that aren't.
Falcon
forgot to mention that since 62% of Solar owners forget to wash their cells this week, the production of solar went down for most owners?
Citation please.
Falcon
Well the advice I was given was by a dentist whose son had burn out from his software analyst job. He just didn't have any outside hobbies and had enough
I think not having outside interests is a big reason people burnout from their jobs. It's easy to burnout when you only do one thing.
I don't know the research data on it (if there is any) but I am sure that computer science / engineering jobs have an over-representation of one or another personality trait
I don't know that either but the last tyme I saw data the average person changed their careers 3 tymes in their work life. Maybe that's an indication of burnout, though it could be just a want of change.
Anyway thanks for your considered response.
No prob, actually I'd like to see data on the happiness of those who have little if any outside hobbies and those who have at least one hobby they spend at least a few hours a week doing.
Falcon
I look for people who have a zest for life, but just happen to get some of their thrill from the act of creation inherent in designing and building working systems.
Two of my hobbies deals with designing and building, creating. One is gardening, I love to watch something I plant and take care of whether from seed or seedling grow into some beautiful. Especially if you can eat what's grown. A few days ago while I was watering my garden early in the morning someone walking his dog asked me how I was able to grow my tomato plants so big, some of them are about 5 feet high but he said his are scrawny. Others asked how I got my salad greens to grow so much.
Another hobby is photography, I love to shoot things growing, nature, rocks, and water mostly though I like to shoot people sometimes. The creation of the exposure is the beginning, I then like working in a darkroom to develop and make prints. When I get a DSLR, I'm on disability now and don't work so I can't afford one but hope to break into photography, I'll want to learn digital processes as well.
As part of photography I want to develop a software suite to do everything I can from billing, a database of photos and customers, to creating websites for photographers. Some years ago while in college, jr college, working on a programming degree because I needed one more elective I took a photography class and quite a few photography students expressed interest in having their own websites, as an online portfolio and or as a store. After hearing that and thinking about it a while I wondered about combining the two and setup a computer system to run a photography business for myself first then setup such systems for other photographers as well.
Falcon
"Solar market grew 62% in 2007".
Falcon
The trucks are cleaning the surfaces. This technology won't require cleaning because why?
Windows are already being cleaned, that's what many of those people on scaffolding on the sides of skyscrapers are doing. So I don't this as being a problem.
Falcon
Before the make more energy than it takes to build them.
"A 2004 study published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for multicrystalline solar panels with an assumed efficiency of 12% yielded a payback period of a bit over 3.5 years."
Falcon
if you go right back to when domestic electricity supply was the breakthrough, you will find the architect of that breakthrough (Edison) had enormous legal and public relations problems with the entrenched gaslight industry who were hell bent on stopping his electric light company.
Edison did the same himself. His electric company transmitted DC power and when Tesla came out with AC power Edison tried to make it look dangerous. Edison even electrocuted an elephant to prove his point.
Falcon