Wind is quite cheap actually, even compared to modern nuclear power plants -- as long as you compare actual price for e.g. the new Finnish plants instead of prices in the budget. Like other large projects, nuclear power plants have a notorious tendency to cost more than expected. Wind turbines on the other hand are off-the-shelf.
If you're trying to create hydrogen wind turbines are fairly good, but they can't beat just cracking natural gas cost-wise. You can use heat from nuclear plants directly to create hydrogen, skipping the inefficient low temperature turbines used at most nuclear power plants, but I'm not aware that this has been put into production anywhere.
Land used for wind turbines can be used for farming as well. The only limitation is that it must be possible for service personnel to reach the wind turbines. You can also put them in the sea, which while more expensive also provides a steadier supply of power, and fewer neighbours will complain. By the way, a wind turbine has been put up at the conference center where the climate conference in Copenhagen will be held. I live ~500m from it, and I expected to be able to hear it or perhaps see distracting reflections of the sunlight off the wings. So far there has been no annoyances from it at all.
The Foundation series is based on the theory that the universe flows forward in a generally predictable way, except for once in a while when "tipping points" appear where just a little shift can make a large difference to history. Chaos theory has shown us that this view is false, that every moment is a tipping point.
This really seems like a ploy by VeriSign and friends to make ever more people and companies to purchase signed certificates at $100/year or whatever.
DNSSEC, as originally conceived, did the exact opposite. Signing a zone was either-or, so the registrars couldn't charge each client for signing their records. Once you signed it for one client, you signed for them all. At the same time DNSSEC obsoletes SSL certificate authorities.
Now, if you happen to be Verisign and make a lot of money selling SSL certificates, how does that sound to you? A bit of work, no potential income from it, and destruction of a major part of your business...
This all lead to NSEC3, where you can sign each subdomain individually and thereby preserve the business model of charging each client.
It is doubtful whether Nazi Germany could have avoided an eventual confrontation with Russia. Also, the parts of Europe controlled by Hitler before attacking Russia have insufficient natural resources to sustain a decade-long stand off.
It is understandable that Hitler went for what seemed like a quick and decisive way to end the war, because previous campaigns had been so successful. Luckily for all of us who live today it didn't work out and likely couldn't have worked out no matter which course of action he had chosen. We are also lucky that the losers of the war realized that they, as a group, had been in the wrong, and that the victors helped the losers afterwards instead of demanding another Versailles Treaty. I can't think of another war with that outcome.
In terms of damages, right? Wouldn't it then be up to the court to decide (based on evidence of damages, or statutory damages) exactly what the original author is entitled to?
Yes, certainly. That's what I meant by compensation. Microsoft would have to pay some amount decided by the courts to the author.
Couldn't the original author sue for damages and also demand that MS either removes the infringing code or becomes compliant with the GPL?
Certainly, they'd have to remove the code. I still think they'd prefer that over making Windows Free Software.
As far as I understand these matters, the original author would have the option of not letting Microsoft just pay up and continue redistributing.
Sorry if I implied that they could continue redistribution. They couldn't.
If there is GPL code in Windows, the FSF would probably start a case that would be revolutionary in the computer world since it could mean opensourcing Windows.
No, let me repeat this once more.
The author was entitled to compensation for the illegal distribution of his code, and he could demand that Microsoft stopped distributing it. That's it. (Well, there are harsher penalties for copyright infringement, including jail time, but they wouldn't apply in this case.)
Microsoft instead CHOSE to accept the GPL license for that particular code (they obviously hadn't accepted the license before, since they weren't even aware that it applied). They are either using the GPLv3 infringement remediation clauses or just hoping that the author will reinstate their license. But that was a CHOICE they made. They could have just paid up and had someone replace the GPL code with proprietary code.
If it turned out that GPL code was spread throughout Windows (highly unlikely, I'd think), they would almost certainly prefer to pay up rather than make Windows Free Software.
Most of the problem would be solved if the plugin just checked the mime type of the object it is trying to execute. If Silverlight does that, it's significantly better than Flash.
It's highly unlikely that HP will make money on that one. 3com doesn't have anything which HP doesn't have a better version of already. This makes even less sense than the Compaq deal.
PCI appeared, and with that the 3c905 and 3c900. Their primary distinguishing feature was that the actual chip used on the card changed every few months requiring a new driver without a change in product number. Then the DEC 21xxx (tulip) series appeared and 3com became just a bad memory.
Oil producers have no motivation to lie about oil reserves. They need the price to rise as the supply falls so that they maximize their profits. This will inevitably lead to your Reality A, a slow increase in price as supply falls.
This is not entirely true. In an entirely informed and rational market the switch away from oil will happen before the really high prices arrive, simply because investors can see that their investments in different energy sources will be profitable, and so they can make them earlier. On the other hand, as long as it is widely believed that oil is plentiful and will stay cheap, investments in different energy sources will be delayed. It is therefore clear that there is some incentive to keep the market uninformed and irrational. Notice the focus on energy conservation in the 70's after the oil crises, a focus which went away in the 80's as OPEC managed to keep prices steady.
The end-user doesn't have an agreement with the vendor. The GPL isn't in force, because the vendor obviously didn't accept it (otherwise the vendor would have complied with it). It's a simple copyright violation, and someone who doesn't own the code can't sue for copyright violation.
The adapters are fine, software-wise, if you use Linux or another OS with a generic USB-to-serial driver. They're a bit hit-and-miss in Windows, but you probably don't care about that anyway.
It's just not reasonable to carry around a USB-to-serial plus serial-to-RJ45 for the various vendors. Why can't they agree on a serial-over-RJ45 standard anyway? But that's a different rant. Anyway, always having to juggle two cables is too inconvenient and time-wasting. I'm definitely not getting rid of a real serial port until all network equipment comes with USB sockets or proper ethernet management ports.
The GPL gives rights to the end-user, but that doesn't give the end-user any standing to sue. Unfortunate perhaps, but that's the law. The same goes for the FSF.
USB to serial is just too painful in the long run. I had to deal with it for 3 years, but this laptop has a built-in serial port. Never again a laptop without it.
Car trains exist; I used one for a 1500km journey this summer. It's slow and inconvenient though, and apparently I have trouble sleeping on a train even in something resembling a proper bed.
They aren't very good for the environment because as efficient as trains are, adding an extra half-tonne of steel or so per passenger isn't good for fuel economy. A reasonably fuel-efficient car filled to capacity and driven at typical highway speeds is difficult to beat for all forms of public transport.
They are certainly drafting. It's just that flying things disturb the air in a quite different pattern from ground vehicles. Staying right behind someone flying means being in the down-draft which is keeping the leader up, which means you have to work harder to keep yourself up. To the side you can catch a bit of up-draft from their wing vortices, in addition to less wind resistance.
In the short term ( 1 minute), modern wind turbines have a stabilizing effect on the grid. There's quite a bit of inertial energy stored in the wings when the turbines are running which helps handling unexpected faults (e.g. a power line failure). Also, the electronics can supply as much reactive effect as the peak effect of the wind turbines even when the turbines are completely stopped.
Anyway, in the medium term many countries will have to move towards HVDC lines to help the grid. A completely AC synchronized grid like what is common today is too vulnerable to faults spreading, because each power line can only switch on and off. With HVDC you can say "transport 500MW" and it will transport that amount, and if the consumer end tries to sink 1GW, the line will just keep providing 500MW. With AC the line will be forced to provide 1GW or shut down entirely. To make an AC grid work you need a strong central authority who can tell everyone how much to produce and when, and this is incompatible with both a free market for electricity and a large amount of power producers.
Slashdot Mirror
Wind is quite cheap actually, even compared to modern nuclear power plants -- as long as you compare actual price for e.g. the new Finnish plants instead of prices in the budget. Like other large projects, nuclear power plants have a notorious tendency to cost more than expected. Wind turbines on the other hand are off-the-shelf.
If you're trying to create hydrogen wind turbines are fairly good, but they can't beat just cracking natural gas cost-wise. You can use heat from nuclear plants directly to create hydrogen, skipping the inefficient low temperature turbines used at most nuclear power plants, but I'm not aware that this has been put into production anywhere.
Land used for wind turbines can be used for farming as well. The only limitation is that it must be possible for service personnel to reach the wind turbines. You can also put them in the sea, which while more expensive also provides a steadier supply of power, and fewer neighbours will complain. By the way, a wind turbine has been put up at the conference center where the climate conference in Copenhagen will be held. I live ~500m from it, and I expected to be able to hear it or perhaps see distracting reflections of the sunlight off the wings. So far there has been no annoyances from it at all.
The Foundation series is based on the theory that the universe flows forward in a generally predictable way, except for once in a while when "tipping points" appear where just a little shift can make a large difference to history. Chaos theory has shown us that this view is false, that every moment is a tipping point.
This would be wrong Denmark. You may also have heard of the Pirate Bay trials in Sweden and Netherlands...
Official Fedora pages never even mention how to find other repositories, but I can certainly recommend rpmfusion.
This really seems like a ploy by VeriSign and friends to make ever more people and companies to purchase signed certificates at $100/year or whatever.
DNSSEC, as originally conceived, did the exact opposite. Signing a zone was either-or, so the registrars couldn't charge each client for signing their records. Once you signed it for one client, you signed for them all. At the same time DNSSEC obsoletes SSL certificate authorities.
Now, if you happen to be Verisign and make a lot of money selling SSL certificates, how does that sound to you? A bit of work, no potential income from it, and destruction of a major part of your business...
This all lead to NSEC3, where you can sign each subdomain individually and thereby preserve the business model of charging each client.
The civilians end up dead either way, don't they? Does it make it better if it isn't you firing the shots?
It is doubtful whether Nazi Germany could have avoided an eventual confrontation with Russia. Also, the parts of Europe controlled by Hitler before attacking Russia have insufficient natural resources to sustain a decade-long stand off.
It is understandable that Hitler went for what seemed like a quick and decisive way to end the war, because previous campaigns had been so successful. Luckily for all of us who live today it didn't work out and likely couldn't have worked out no matter which course of action he had chosen. We are also lucky that the losers of the war realized that they, as a group, had been in the wrong, and that the victors helped the losers afterwards instead of demanding another Versailles Treaty. I can't think of another war with that outcome.
In terms of damages, right? Wouldn't it then be up to the court to decide (based on evidence of damages, or statutory damages) exactly what the original author is entitled to?
Yes, certainly. That's what I meant by compensation. Microsoft would have to pay some amount decided by the courts to the author.
Couldn't the original author sue for damages and also demand that MS either removes the infringing code or becomes compliant with the GPL?
Certainly, they'd have to remove the code. I still think they'd prefer that over making Windows Free Software.
As far as I understand these matters, the original author would have the option of not letting Microsoft just pay up and continue redistributing.
Sorry if I implied that they could continue redistribution. They couldn't.
Flight mode. Very appropriately named, actually.
If there is GPL code in Windows, the FSF would probably start a case that would be revolutionary in the computer world since it could mean opensourcing Windows.
No, let me repeat this once more.
The author was entitled to compensation for the illegal distribution of his code, and he could demand that Microsoft stopped distributing it. That's it. (Well, there are harsher penalties for copyright infringement, including jail time, but they wouldn't apply in this case.)
Microsoft instead CHOSE to accept the GPL license for that particular code (they obviously hadn't accepted the license before, since they weren't even aware that it applied). They are either using the GPLv3 infringement remediation clauses or just hoping that the author will reinstate their license. But that was a CHOICE they made. They could have just paid up and had someone replace the GPL code with proprietary code.
If it turned out that GPL code was spread throughout Windows (highly unlikely, I'd think), they would almost certainly prefer to pay up rather than make Windows Free Software.
Most of the problem would be solved if the plugin just checked the mime type of the object it is trying to execute. If Silverlight does that, it's significantly better than Flash.
Let's just hope that HP does the decent thing and kills off the core switch and the edge routers.
It's highly unlikely that HP will make money on that one. 3com doesn't have anything which HP doesn't have a better version of already. This makes even less sense than the Compaq deal.
PCI appeared, and with that the 3c905 and 3c900. Their primary distinguishing feature was that the actual chip used on the card changed every few months requiring a new driver without a change in product number. Then the DEC 21xxx (tulip) series appeared and 3com became just a bad memory.
Demand has definitely decreased. Did you happen to notice the financial crisis perhaps? People save where they can.
Oil producers have no motivation to lie about oil reserves. They need the price to rise as the supply falls so that they maximize their profits. This will inevitably lead to your Reality A, a slow increase in price as supply falls.
This is not entirely true. In an entirely informed and rational market the switch away from oil will happen before the really high prices arrive, simply because investors can see that their investments in different energy sources will be profitable, and so they can make them earlier. On the other hand, as long as it is widely believed that oil is plentiful and will stay cheap, investments in different energy sources will be delayed. It is therefore clear that there is some incentive to keep the market uninformed and irrational. Notice the focus on energy conservation in the 70's after the oil crises, a focus which went away in the 80's as OPEC managed to keep prices steady.
The end-user doesn't have an agreement with the vendor. The GPL isn't in force, because the vendor obviously didn't accept it (otherwise the vendor would have complied with it). It's a simple copyright violation, and someone who doesn't own the code can't sue for copyright violation.
The adapters are fine, software-wise, if you use Linux or another OS with a generic USB-to-serial driver. They're a bit hit-and-miss in Windows, but you probably don't care about that anyway.
It's just not reasonable to carry around a USB-to-serial plus serial-to-RJ45 for the various vendors. Why can't they agree on a serial-over-RJ45 standard anyway? But that's a different rant. Anyway, always having to juggle two cables is too inconvenient and time-wasting. I'm definitely not getting rid of a real serial port until all network equipment comes with USB sockets or proper ethernet management ports.
The GPL gives rights to the end-user, but that doesn't give the end-user any standing to sue. Unfortunate perhaps, but that's the law. The same goes for the FSF.
USB to serial is just too painful in the long run. I had to deal with it for 3 years, but this laptop has a built-in serial port. Never again a laptop without it.
Just let them use the HOV or bus lane. Problem solved.
Car trains exist; I used one for a 1500km journey this summer. It's slow and inconvenient though, and apparently I have trouble sleeping on a train even in something resembling a proper bed.
They aren't very good for the environment because as efficient as trains are, adding an extra half-tonne of steel or so per passenger isn't good for fuel economy. A reasonably fuel-efficient car filled to capacity and driven at typical highway speeds is difficult to beat for all forms of public transport.
They are certainly drafting. It's just that flying things disturb the air in a quite different pattern from ground vehicles. Staying right behind someone flying means being in the down-draft which is keeping the leader up, which means you have to work harder to keep yourself up. To the side you can catch a bit of up-draft from their wing vortices, in addition to less wind resistance.
That is wrong. If you attach more consumers to the line the line will break down (voltage and with voltage current will break down).
With HVDC you have power electronics at each end. Those can limit the power drawn to whichever amount you want, to protect the producer end.
The rest of your article is about all the management an AC grid needs -- which is why it works better when supplemented with HVDC lines.
In the short term ( 1 minute), modern wind turbines have a stabilizing effect on the grid. There's quite a bit of inertial energy stored in the wings when the turbines are running which helps handling unexpected faults (e.g. a power line failure). Also, the electronics can supply as much reactive effect as the peak effect of the wind turbines even when the turbines are completely stopped.
Anyway, in the medium term many countries will have to move towards HVDC lines to help the grid. A completely AC synchronized grid like what is common today is too vulnerable to faults spreading, because each power line can only switch on and off. With HVDC you can say "transport 500MW" and it will transport that amount, and if the consumer end tries to sink 1GW, the line will just keep providing 500MW. With AC the line will be forced to provide 1GW or shut down entirely. To make an AC grid work you need a strong central authority who can tell everyone how much to produce and when, and this is incompatible with both a free market for electricity and a large amount of power producers.
Sometimes the wind does not blow at all, so you need to keep 100% generating capacity that can be brought on line within 20 minutes.
20 minutes? More like several days. That's what Spain just demonstrated.