You tell me: the plumber has to pay his $21 (or whatever. It's just a reference number so you can follow the money.) So exactly HOW is he going to give you $70 worth of service when he only has $49 income from it???
You earn $100. You pay $30 tax. You pay plumber $70. He pays $21 tax, so YOU get $49 worth of plumbing. The work value of your money at a 30% tax rate is less than 50%.
But wait, there's more!
Plumber pays $49 to electrician. Electrician pays $15 in tax. Plumber gets $35 worth of electrician's service.
So far (and this keeps going) $66 of your $100 has gone for taxes.
Income tax isn't so much "regressive" as it is a near-perfect vacuum.
Not into violating software agreements, terms of service, etc. As far as I know, OS X isn't licensed for use on non-Mac hardware. Be interesting to learn differently, though. Are you aware of a legally clear path to do this? If the answer to that is yes, the next question would be, are you aware of a high-end machine where OS X will install cleanly without any screwing around?
No interest at ALL in a macbook. Miserable chicklet keys, extremely limited I/O, small display... meh.
I would be interested (VERY!) in a new Mac Pro if they go back to a real computer case that can hold multiple drives, allows memory expansion, choice of and multiples of, graphics cards, a reasonable measure of physical security (a surface full of desk warts I most definitely do NOT want.) The current round model simply drove me to EBay to buy older units. I'd be interested in a couple of minis, too, if they were still actually upgrading them instead of downgrading them. Apple's choosing to go backwards with CPU capacity and memory upgradability closed the mini door pretty sharply.
Honestly, I think Apple has lost their way in the computer space. They've left a trail of severely buggy, unfixed OS's behind them, broken applications and services, dropped support for various aspects of the system, pretty much hosed the app store, limited (or eliminated) expandability and choice, built a bewilderingly non-functional macpro, knocked the mini back to much less of a computer than it used to be, and are pathologically fixed on the "thinner, thinner" mantra and associated tunnel-vision-like goals while functionality and bugfixing goes wanting.
I like working with OS X, but without the company having a decent vision, I can't move along with Apple, I just hang with my current OS level and hardware, or buy more hardware from the same series off EBay, and continue waiting to see if Apple is going to come to their senses, or not. I test my commercial and free software development under the latest OS X, but I don't use it, because it simply isn't functional enough. Things like missing PPC emulation are show-stoppers for me, I have many thousands of $ of PPC apps that work just fine and no intention of abandoning them, nor is it convenient to only run them in a VM. Nothing else I can really do. Don't like Windows, been there, been burned by Microsoft, not going back; and until/unless linux builds in a standard GUI layer I can depend upon without compromising my commercial software development financially or GPL-wise, it's not even in the running.
pumped storage is energy *storage* that was generated some other way; basically it's a battery
natural gas is already existing energy. Basically it's a root resource.
Unless you're talking about generating hydrogen, but in that case, there's almost none of that going on and pumped storage capacity far exceeds hydrogen generation / storage / regeneration capacity.
As for "economy doesn't work", that's also not comparable, because storage of energy from another source is not what natural gas does. Aside from the fact that pumped storage is the largest capacity method available for storing power, and that it is in large-scale use in many places.
yes... and no. For a tank installation, you just go get a tank. They're available, there are companies that do nothing but that. To dig a huge hole... that's a pretty significant undertaking. And to get a large elevation difference, you need something like a pre-existing mine. No one's going to dig a 100 foot hole just for a water tank, the expense would be horrific, but a 100 foot elevation tower - just order it and they'll set it up.
On the other hand, if you DO dig a hole, the visible disruption of the landscape is minimal. But so is the boating.:)
It's an interesting set of options. I like the idea.
Pump water vertically up when there is excess energy. When there isn't, let it run downhill through a turbine.
Smallish elevated steel water tanks (which are recyclable when EOL is reached) will do for small installations. Since they're up high, they can be very close to zero-footprint. For large ones, lakes work, though there's a definite real estate issue there, and artificial lakes are better because there's better leakage control. People tend to like lakes, too. As long as it doesn't require them to give up their property...
Pumped storage worldwide: Supply capacity: 127 GW; Reserve capacity: 740 TWh; efficiency 70...80%, some claims made for more.
Local control works, but (absurdly) requires a secure server as well as cloud-based comms with Amazon because that's the only way the Echo can understand what you told it.
All it really needs -- if they'd just get after it -- is a couple ip/ports open on the Echo so that one would send text to your computer when you spoke to the Echo, and one would receive text to be spoken from your computer. Then a single command that initiates that sequence, one you'd program in using the app. Imagine it was "custom" then you'd have this:
o You say: "Alexa, custom set the fishtank aeration to 40%" o Alexa cloud-decodes that using STT, sends the text string out to IP:port on your computer o Your computer parses the text, does what is required, whatever that is o Your computer sends "aeration set to forty percent" to IP:port on Echo o Echo says that
Notice the complete lack of a secure server requirement, and complete lack of having to set up a skill with/at Amazon using such a mechanism.
THAT would enable you to actually work with AI. As it stands, what you have to do is provide some canned strings to Amazon that they look over to see if what you said matches any of them, and if it does, it does a canned thing in response. There's no AI involved at all, really, it's just compare-and-do-preplanned-response.
It also allows your computer to send an asynch message to Echo for speaking that requires no precursor; for instance, when your computer finishes compiling a c program, you might have something in a makefile like:
echosay "compile of $(PROGRAMNAME) complete"
This is why MyCroft is much more interesting to me than Echo, even though I own an Echo and an Echo Dot. I want to integrate this capability with my home. I'm not interested in endlessly integrating services I have to pay for or expose my information to. I understand Amazon wants to monetize this above all else; that's fine. But that's also why I am more interested in MyCroft. They can want me to hand them my info and patronage; but that doesn't mean I have to.
Mycroft just released (Python, version unspecified) code they say you can run on your Raspberry Pi; Mycroft is an Alexa-like system, differences being it's open, the s/w is free so you can build your own, and the hardware is pretty open too.
There is cloud STT (Speech-To-Text) going on, but they're interested in local STT according to an email they sent around to those of us on their mailing list. My GPS (ca. 2013) does non-cloud general STT, so there's working code out there.
Speaking as an owner of both an Echo and an Echo Dot, I'm very hopeful that Mycroft will join them, perhaps even replace them.
Echo's huge drawback is that it doesn't have a local operating mode via LAN ports, nor local STT and TTS. Not to mention the absurd requirement that you put up an SSL server just to make the simplest possible function work.
the same way that a movie theater is better than your living room TV.
Like crying infants? Disease-ridden theatergoers? Uncomfortable seating? Deluges of bad ads? Bathroom half a football field away with no pause button? Like that?
Nope. I'll stick with my awesome home theater, thanks.
o be wired (ethernet or HD video), not wifi or OTA video o if data, be connected locally only, via LAN o if data, not be hooked to "the cloud" ("cloud" is a synonym for "I have no privacy or security... or clue, but I digress") o if data, never be accessible from outside the LAN o if data, be behind a dedicated firewall (ideally, multiple firewalls) or on a completely isolated network o be recording locally (DVR or equivalent) on a physically secure DVR/etc. o utilize armored, hidden cabling and armored, difficult to access camera mounts
Skip any of this, and you're just inviting unauthorized use of your video feeds.
Do you literally lament its loss? Or are you speaking figuratively? I demand photographic evidence of ripped collar(s), tears, collapsed posture, etc.
So anyway... etymology is a thing. Just because you're not willing to deal with it, or have identified a subculture that is ignorant of it, (some of them willfully) doesn't make it not a thing. Many people don't know much (or anything) about electron flow. That doesn't make it not a thing, either, or change its actual nature. Atheism is a word used as a base identifier. You should use it that way. If you call a rose a horse, that doesn't make it a horse. It simply demonstrates that your communications skills are either crippled or pathological. Which is fine. But pretty much drops your "cute" evaluation right in the roundfile.
No TL;DR here. Read your post carefully. Here's where I disagree:
Theism is about the belief in a god or gods. It does not speak to the existence of a god or gods. Just belief; faith. That's the very nature of theism, of religious faith that there is a god - it doesn't require consensually experiential observation, repeatability, falsification, or peer review. It does not, in fact, require the existence of anything. Theism is about a state of mind, conviction: faith.
Now, the cargo cult believes in a god; so yes, they are theists.
You, OTOH, believe in the existence of prince Philip; and he actually exists. This makes you a pretty mundane observer of reality, not a theist, in and of itself. If you believe prince Philip is a god, okay then, now you are a theist.
It's pretty important to understand what a god represents, as opposed to things that are not god (or gods.) It is also important to understand how simplistic outlooks can lead to people erecting bombers made of bamboo in hopes the GIs will come back; or looking at lightning and thunder and coming to the conclusion that Thor is actually a thing.
You, however, seem to be coming from the position that yes, you agree, lighting and thunder is a thing. But you're not asserting that Thor is a thing. When (if) you transition from the former to the latter, okay, again, now you're a theist. It's not about what the Vikings take on pure faith; it's about what you take on pure faith. So: Believing in prince Philip, lightning and thunder doesn't make you a theist.
Slashdot Mirror
And you should learn to recognize example numbers used to demonstrate a point when you see them. Cheers.
You tell me: the plumber has to pay his $21 (or whatever. It's just a reference number so you can follow the money.) So exactly HOW is he going to give you $70 worth of service when he only has $49 income from it???
Oh, right. He isn't.
You earn $100. You pay $30 tax. You pay plumber $70. He pays $21 tax, so YOU get $49 worth of plumbing. The work value of your money at a 30% tax rate is less than 50%.
But wait, there's more!
Plumber pays $49 to electrician. Electrician pays $15 in tax. Plumber gets $35 worth of electrician's service.
So far (and this keeps going) $66 of your $100 has gone for taxes.
Income tax isn't so much "regressive" as it is a near-perfect vacuum.
Okay, thanks. That was my understanding as well.
Not into violating software agreements, terms of service, etc. As far as I know, OS X isn't licensed for use on non-Mac hardware. Be interesting to learn differently, though. Are you aware of a legally clear path to do this? If the answer to that is yes, the next question would be, are you aware of a high-end machine where OS X will install cleanly without any screwing around?
No interest at ALL in a macbook. Miserable chicklet keys, extremely limited I/O, small display... meh.
I would be interested (VERY!) in a new Mac Pro if they go back to a real computer case that can hold multiple drives, allows memory expansion, choice of and multiples of, graphics cards, a reasonable measure of physical security (a surface full of desk warts I most definitely do NOT want.) The current round model simply drove me to EBay to buy older units. I'd be interested in a couple of minis, too, if they were still actually upgrading them instead of downgrading them. Apple's choosing to go backwards with CPU capacity and memory upgradability closed the mini door pretty sharply.
Honestly, I think Apple has lost their way in the computer space. They've left a trail of severely buggy, unfixed OS's behind them, broken applications and services, dropped support for various aspects of the system, pretty much hosed the app store, limited (or eliminated) expandability and choice, built a bewilderingly non-functional macpro, knocked the mini back to much less of a computer than it used to be, and are pathologically fixed on the "thinner, thinner" mantra and associated tunnel-vision-like goals while functionality and bugfixing goes wanting.
I like working with OS X, but without the company having a decent vision, I can't move along with Apple, I just hang with my current OS level and hardware, or buy more hardware from the same series off EBay, and continue waiting to see if Apple is going to come to their senses, or not. I test my commercial and free software development under the latest OS X, but I don't use it, because it simply isn't functional enough. Things like missing PPC emulation are show-stoppers for me, I have many thousands of $ of PPC apps that work just fine and no intention of abandoning them, nor is it convenient to only run them in a VM. Nothing else I can really do. Don't like Windows, been there, been burned by Microsoft, not going back; and until/unless linux builds in a standard GUI layer I can depend upon without compromising my commercial software development financially or GPL-wise, it's not even in the running.
pumped storage is energy *storage* that was generated some other way; basically it's a battery
natural gas is already existing energy. Basically it's a root resource.
Unless you're talking about generating hydrogen, but in that case, there's almost none of that going on and pumped storage capacity far exceeds hydrogen generation / storage / regeneration capacity.
As for "economy doesn't work", that's also not comparable, because storage of energy from another source is not what natural gas does. Aside from the fact that pumped storage is the largest capacity method available for storing power, and that it is in large-scale use in many places.
So... "not even wrong" :)
I'mJustHereToTellYouThatYou'reWastingSpace.
yes... and no. For a tank installation, you just go get a tank. They're available, there are companies that do nothing but that. To dig a huge hole... that's a pretty significant undertaking. And to get a large elevation difference, you need something like a pre-existing mine. No one's going to dig a 100 foot hole just for a water tank, the expense would be horrific, but a 100 foot elevation tower - just order it and they'll set it up.
On the other hand, if you DO dig a hole, the visible disruption of the landscape is minimal. But so is the boating. :)
It's an interesting set of options. I like the idea.
Well, you'd have to dig a hole large enough to take the output of the lake / tank. But other than that, yes. :)
Pump water vertically up when there is excess energy. When there isn't, let it run downhill through a turbine.
Smallish elevated steel water tanks (which are recyclable when EOL is reached) will do for small installations. Since they're up high, they can be very close to zero-footprint. For large ones, lakes work, though there's a definite real estate issue there, and artificial lakes are better because there's better leakage control. People tend to like lakes, too. As long as it doesn't require them to give up their property...
Pumped storage worldwide: Supply capacity: 127 GW; Reserve capacity: 740 TWh; efficiency 70...80%, some claims made for more.
Awesome stuff.
This has already been done.
"Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment"
Slashcode error: makes people type in worthless padding. Good job. Not.
Get "Network Signal Info Pro", by kaibits software. Then use it.
Local control works, but (absurdly) requires a secure server as well as cloud-based comms with Amazon because that's the only way the Echo can understand what you told it.
All it really needs -- if they'd just get after it -- is a couple ip/ports open on the Echo so that one would send text to your computer when you spoke to the Echo, and one would receive text to be spoken from your computer. Then a single command that initiates that sequence, one you'd program in using the app. Imagine it was "custom" then you'd have this:
o You say: "Alexa, custom set the fishtank aeration to 40%"
o Alexa cloud-decodes that using STT, sends the text string out to IP:port on your computer
o Your computer parses the text, does what is required, whatever that is
o Your computer sends "aeration set to forty percent" to IP:port on Echo
o Echo says that
Notice the complete lack of a secure server requirement, and complete lack of having to set up a skill with/at Amazon using such a mechanism.
THAT would enable you to actually work with AI. As it stands, what you have to do is provide some canned strings to Amazon that they look over to see if what you said matches any of them, and if it does, it does a canned thing in response. There's no AI involved at all, really, it's just compare-and-do-preplanned-response.
It also allows your computer to send an asynch message to Echo for speaking that requires no precursor; for instance, when your computer finishes compiling a c program, you might have something in a makefile like:
echosay "compile of $(PROGRAMNAME) complete"
This is why MyCroft is much more interesting to me than Echo, even though I own an Echo and an Echo Dot. I want to integrate this capability with my home. I'm not interested in endlessly integrating services I have to pay for or expose my information to. I understand Amazon wants to monetize this above all else; that's fine. But that's also why I am more interested in MyCroft. They can want me to hand them my info and patronage; but that doesn't mean I have to.
Mycroft just released (Python, version unspecified) code they say you can run on your Raspberry Pi; Mycroft is an Alexa-like system, differences being it's open, the s/w is free so you can build your own, and the hardware is pretty open too.
There is cloud STT (Speech-To-Text) going on, but they're interested in local STT according to an email they sent around to those of us on their mailing list. My GPS (ca. 2013) does non-cloud general STT, so there's working code out there.
Speaking as an owner of both an Echo and an Echo Dot, I'm very hopeful that Mycroft will join them, perhaps even replace them.
Echo's huge drawback is that it doesn't have a local operating mode via LAN ports, nor local STT and TTS. Not to mention the absurd requirement that you put up an SSL server just to make the simplest possible function work.
Like crying infants? Disease-ridden theatergoers? Uncomfortable seating? Deluges of bad ads? Bathroom half a football field away with no pause button? Like that?
Nope. I'll stick with my awesome home theater, thanks.
Buying the license does not mean "using the software supplied with the license" ...unless you want it to. :)
Locks are for honest people.
"Honest" does not include law enforcement.
Security camera systems should:
o be wired (ethernet or HD video), not wifi or OTA video
o if data, be connected locally only, via LAN
o if data, not be hooked to "the cloud" ("cloud" is a synonym for "I have no privacy or security... or clue, but I digress")
o if data, never be accessible from outside the LAN
o if data, be behind a dedicated firewall (ideally, multiple firewalls) or on a completely isolated network
o be recording locally (DVR or equivalent) on a physically secure DVR/etc.
o utilize armored, hidden cabling and armored, difficult to access camera mounts
Skip any of this, and you're just inviting unauthorized use of your video feeds.
Orwell was an optimist.
Mor lite, then.
After careful reflection on the matter, I must inform you that it was thoroughly incidental.
Do you literally lament its loss? Or are you speaking figuratively? I demand photographic evidence of ripped collar(s), tears, collapsed posture, etc.
So anyway... etymology is a thing. Just because you're not willing to deal with it, or have identified a subculture that is ignorant of it, (some of them willfully) doesn't make it not a thing. Many people don't know much (or anything) about electron flow. That doesn't make it not a thing, either, or change its actual nature. Atheism is a word used as a base identifier. You should use it that way. If you call a rose a horse, that doesn't make it a horse. It simply demonstrates that your communications skills are either crippled or pathological. Which is fine. But pretty much drops your "cute" evaluation right in the roundfile.
No TL;DR here. Read your post carefully. Here's where I disagree:
Theism is about the belief in a god or gods. It does not speak to the existence of a god or gods. Just belief; faith. That's the very nature of theism, of religious faith that there is a god - it doesn't require consensually experiential observation, repeatability, falsification, or peer review. It does not, in fact, require the existence of anything. Theism is about a state of mind, conviction: faith.
Now, the cargo cult believes in a god; so yes, they are theists.
You, OTOH, believe in the existence of prince Philip; and he actually exists. This makes you a pretty mundane observer of reality, not a theist, in and of itself. If you believe prince Philip is a god, okay then, now you are a theist.
It's pretty important to understand what a god represents, as opposed to things that are not god (or gods.) It is also important to understand how simplistic outlooks can lead to people erecting bombers made of bamboo in hopes the GIs will come back; or looking at lightning and thunder and coming to the conclusion that Thor is actually a thing.
You, however, seem to be coming from the position that yes, you agree, lighting and thunder is a thing. But you're not asserting that Thor is a thing. When (if) you transition from the former to the latter, okay, again, now you're a theist. It's not about what the Vikings take on pure faith; it's about what you take on pure faith. So: Believing in prince Philip, lightning and thunder doesn't make you a theist.
I don't think his existence is the fundamental issue there, but roll with it, it's still funny. :)