With regard to your "Java is shit, shit" you are talking nonsense and should take some deep breaths. Really, grow up. And the rude words don't add gravitas either.
I use and have used many languages over the last 40 years, 30 professionally, and while Java is not perfect *NOR IS ANYTHING ELSE*. I'm having to use C/C++/ASM again at the moment and would much prefer the inherent safety against, for example, buffer overflows from coding errors of Java, but the run-time is too expensive for my current main application.
Have you actually every tried writing a formal proof of correctness for any algorithm at all, let alone a non-trial one dependent on external subsystems and with huge amounts of state?
Yes, I have tried, and raised funding, and managed in fact to run one layer of our formal modelling language in real time (slowly). But we decided that the proof languages (Z and ML, with a sprinkling of CCS) weren't up to the task, and nor were we.
If a thermal plant,such as a nuke trips then you can't turn it up either, not it a hurry.
The last significant UK (well GB) load shedding, of 500k people, was due to a large nuke tripping off-line unexpectedly, followed by a large coal plant.
Dispersed renewables don't tend to fail suddenly in blocks like that for a start.
So, different generation sources have strengths and weaknesses.
Increased storage and demand management will greatly change what we take as axiomatic in running the grid today.
And the chief exec of the GB TSO, the UK's National Grid, is on record as saying that "base load" is an artifact, and I believe that our previous energy minister agrees also. They might actually know.
"Base load" is an artifact of how we have gotten used to running grids. And most nukes are as difficult to turn down as renewables are to turn up, in practice.
I'm afraid that I don't see GPL(2) as "fully open" because it deliberately nobbles some (to my mind entirely legitimate) uses of the software, as in this whole issue in fact. Which is why I prefer to license under Apache 2 (or BSD, etc) to give users of code I create (or pay to be created) as wide a range of choices as to what they do with it as I can.
Cue GPL vs permissive licence wars... 3... 2... 1...
The point here is the GPL2 is not some global universal agreed maximum of "freedom". It is a local maximum for some users and use cases at best.
Generally I had thought from way back when I did some genetics that killing the host cell was the only way to root out such integrated virii, but I'm not sure what's going on here: I must read TFA properly.
Not all research works out. Research is hard. If it wasn't then it would be a risk. If you only want finished products then camp out in a Apple store and stop reading Slashdot. This type of entitled whining is very very dull and adults should avoid it.
I'm running a research project right now. Guess what, bits of it aren't working as expected, but some of those failures are actually interesting and may save someone else a bunch of trouble.
Please don't mix energy with power or with storage capacity, and there is no such unit as kW/hr unless you are manufacturing non-SI generators perhaps.
If you don't like the nasty politics then don't start cursing Al Gore for stuff ad hominem, he's been a convenient demon to blame for the sun going out every night but really is no more to blame than for example the vested interests in nukes and fossil fuels spreading FUD. (And when this happened in computing with Microsoft somehow it didn't seem to turn into the same type of party bun-fight.)
What's distressing from my standpoint as not being very political is that groupings round the world that have traditionally been champions of conservation, etc, and that I would normally identify with, decided it was more important to set their face against whatever the other lot was doing and hang the environmental consequences, which is a game of political expediency that potentially gets us all killed. Can we please have our hyped up political fights about less existential things, like the colour of Trump's hair or the dubiousness of Clinton's email system?
"Very hard" in this case may simply be "wildly expensive or inefficient", which is probably less of a consideration for military use than civilian grid supply.
Actually I'm inclined to regard "baseload" as an artifact of how we have traditionally managed generation systems, eg the way the domestic consumption (and Economy 7 in particular) were encouraged basically to provide demand when factories weren't. Throw in lots of cheap local storage and baseload demand might simply evaporate making nukes hard to use; I know it's not happening yet, but the point is that baseload is an emergent and contingent property, not a fundamental one, IMHO.
And your use of the term "least desirable" is only in the eyes of the grid managers. I don't much like the long-term externalities of some of the non-renewable generation methods.
In any case we're agreed that a mix is good, and sources have pros and cons.
... Nuclear ranges between 80%-90%, wind is 20-30%....
There have been recent intervals when nuke capacity factor in the UK has been barely more than twice wind IIRC, and our last major (500,000-user) power-cut was induced by a single large nuke tripping off unexpectedly (followed by a large coal plant).
Note also that wind capacity factor is rising with better turbines, and in any case is already comfortably above 30% for UK offshore wind:
Only one nuke in the UK *can* even load follow, and never has. (My uncle was chief counsel that got it through the public enquiry; I'm really not against nukes at all.)
France has a nuke fleet that can nominally load follow, but how much depends on the age of the fuel and ranges from ~50% down to 0 IIRC, for an average of maybe 25% across the fleet, which is one of the reasons that nukes are limited to ~75% of French generation capacity, ie so that enough following can be provided by other means (given a typical 2:1 ratio between high and low demand). That is the best of my understanding, and I ran it past the UK's former energy minister recently who I was sharing a platform with on nuclear electricity generation, and he did not disagree, though maybe he was just being polite.
So, if even the French have not been able to get a fully load-following fleet I think it must be very hard to do.
So, again, I am simply not anti-nuke. Nor am I a frothing fan-boy. Nukes do not solve all problems and are most useful as part of a mixed fleet IMHO.
I like nukes (and solar and wind), but let's not forget the tiny tiny issues around radioactive fuel and waste, and the fact that nukes are pretty difficult to turn down to match variable load, and tend to fail in large blocks which causes the grid big problems.
The capacity factor of nukes is not 100% either (and indeed was only about twice that of wind in the UK), though I do agree that comparing name-plate ratings for intermittent renewables with run-always generators is unhelpful.
Anyone who believes that their "shit don't stink" has a problem. Do you believe that yours doesn't?
But we can avoid gratuitously making things worse.
And dismissing all things inconvenient because some other unrelated people made bad predictions is passive-aggressive stupid. Nostradamus made some bad calls but does that mean that you ignore all safety warnings and stab yourself with knives because all predictions of harm must be crap?
Being a functional adult includes trying to make rational decisions about what is good and what is bad amongst all the the noise and some bad actors. Not flailing out wildly against things that you happen not to like.
Describing me as in a death cult is rude and wrong and definitely not adult behaviour. Never mind that you don't know much about me personally.
On the other hand those that stick two fingers up at attempts to avert the risk of catastrophic risks including but not only climate change out of smugness or whatever really *are* risking widespread death and unhappiness.
Slashdot Mirror
Brevity is better than waffle, given the choice...
Rgds
Damon
Well, I guess if mere actual facts don't get in your way, life is so much more simple...
Anyway, no more feeding the trolls for me today.
So, you think I'm American for a start?
With regard to your "Java is shit, shit" you are talking nonsense and should take some deep breaths. Really, grow up. And the rude words don't add gravitas either.
I use and have used many languages over the last 40 years, 30 professionally, and while Java is not perfect *NOR IS ANYTHING ELSE*. I'm having to use C/C++/ASM again at the moment and would much prefer the inherent safety against, for example, buffer overflows from coding errors of Java, but the run-time is too expensive for my current main application.
Rgds
Damon
Have you actually every tried writing a formal proof of correctness for any algorithm at all, let alone a non-trial one dependent on external subsystems and with huge amounts of state?
Yes, I have tried, and raised funding, and managed in fact to run one layer of our formal modelling language in real time (slowly). But we decided that the proof languages (Z and ML, with a sprinkling of CCS) weren't up to the task, and nor were we.
Rgds
Damon
If a thermal plant,such as a nuke trips then you can't turn it up either, not it a hurry.
The last significant UK (well GB) load shedding, of 500k people, was due to a large nuke tripping off-line unexpectedly, followed by a large coal plant.
Dispersed renewables don't tend to fail suddenly in blocks like that for a start.
So, different generation sources have strengths and weaknesses.
Increased storage and demand management will greatly change what we take as axiomatic in running the grid today.
And the chief exec of the GB TSO, the UK's National Grid, is on record as saying that "base load" is an artifact, and I believe that our previous energy minister agrees also. They might actually know.
Rgds
Damon
"Base load" is an artifact of how we have gotten used to running grids. And most nukes are as difficult to turn down as renewables are to turn up, in practice.
Rgds
Damon
Don't hurry now; some tech matures with age! B^>
Maybe I could swap it for a Pilot I may stil have lurking...
Running a JVM on a Pilot was a challenge, on an RPI rather less so.
Rgds
Damon
[citation required]
And no, picking some random "entertainment" outlet or blog doesn't cut it.
I'm afraid that I don't see GPL(2) as "fully open" because it deliberately nobbles some (to my mind entirely legitimate) uses of the software, as in this whole issue in fact. Which is why I prefer to license under Apache 2 (or BSD, etc) to give users of code I create (or pay to be created) as wide a range of choices as to what they do with it as I can.
Cue GPL vs permissive licence wars... 3... 2... 1...
The point here is the GPL2 is not some global universal agreed maximum of "freedom". It is a local maximum for some users and use cases at best.
Rgds
Damon
Agreed.
Generally I had thought from way back when I did some genetics that killing the host cell was the only way to root out such integrated virii, but I'm not sure what's going on here: I must read TFA properly.
Rgds
Damon
Not all research works out. Research is hard. If it wasn't then it would be a risk. If you only want finished products then camp out in a Apple store and stop reading Slashdot. This type of entitled whining is very very dull and adults should avoid it.
I'm running a research project right now. Guess what, bits of it aren't working as expected, but some of those failures are actually interesting and may save someone else a bunch of trouble.
Damon
Please don't mix energy with power or with storage capacity, and there is no such unit as kW/hr unless you are manufacturing non-SI generators perhaps.
Rgds
Damon
Rouge? I suppose that HSBC's logo is red, yes... B^>
(We had a product at work that we delighted in calling RougeWave, is if a cosmetics explosion...)
Rgds
Damon
If you don't like the nasty politics then don't start cursing Al Gore for stuff ad hominem, he's been a convenient demon to blame for the sun going out every night but really is no more to blame than for example the vested interests in nukes and fossil fuels spreading FUD. (And when this happened in computing with Microsoft somehow it didn't seem to turn into the same type of party bun-fight.)
What's distressing from my standpoint as not being very political is that groupings round the world that have traditionally been champions of conservation, etc, and that I would normally identify with, decided it was more important to set their face against whatever the other lot was doing and hang the environmental consequences, which is a game of political expediency that potentially gets us all killed. Can we please have our hyped up political fights about less existential things, like the colour of Trump's hair or the dubiousness of Clinton's email system?
Rgds
Damon
Thanks, that's interesting.
Rgds
Damon
"Very hard" in this case may simply be "wildly expensive or inefficient", which is probably less of a consideration for military use than civilian grid supply.
Rgds
Damon
Actually I'm inclined to regard "baseload" as an artifact of how we have traditionally managed generation systems, eg the way the domestic consumption (and Economy 7 in particular) were encouraged basically to provide demand when factories weren't. Throw in lots of cheap local storage and baseload demand might simply evaporate making nukes hard to use; I know it's not happening yet, but the point is that baseload is an emergent and contingent property, not a fundamental one, IMHO.
And your use of the term "least desirable" is only in the eyes of the grid managers. I don't much like the long-term externalities of some of the non-renewable generation methods.
In any case we're agreed that a mix is good, and sources have pros and cons.
Rgds
Damon
... Nuclear ranges between 80%-90%, wind is 20-30%....
There have been recent intervals when nuke capacity factor in the UK has been barely more than twice wind IIRC, and our last major (500,000-user) power-cut was induced by a single large nuke tripping off unexpectedly (followed by a large coal plant).
Note also that wind capacity factor is rising with better turbines, and in any case is already comfortably above 30% for UK offshore wind:
http://www.renewableuk.com/en/...
For onshore wind this is 25.74%
For offshore wind this is 34.88%
The load factor for all wind (onshore + offshore) is 28.42%
Rgds
Damon
Actually no, AFAIK.
Only one nuke in the UK *can* even load follow, and never has. (My uncle was chief counsel that got it through the public enquiry; I'm really not against nukes at all.)
France has a nuke fleet that can nominally load follow, but how much depends on the age of the fuel and ranges from ~50% down to 0 IIRC, for an average of maybe 25% across the fleet, which is one of the reasons that nukes are limited to ~75% of French generation capacity, ie so that enough following can be provided by other means (given a typical 2:1 ratio between high and low demand). That is the best of my understanding, and I ran it past the UK's former energy minister recently who I was sharing a platform with on nuclear electricity generation, and he did not disagree, though maybe he was just being polite.
So, if even the French have not been able to get a fully load-following fleet I think it must be very hard to do.
So, again, I am simply not anti-nuke. Nor am I a frothing fan-boy. Nukes do not solve all problems and are most useful as part of a mixed fleet IMHO.
Rgds
Damon
I am not a fan of coal for many reasons including that.
Rgds
Damon
Agreed, agreed.
... These meters are hotly opposed by Greens because they radio their reading to the utility or as the Greens put it, "emit radiation."
Only science-illiterate "greens", who are therefore actively undermining their own attempts to do good. We need more science and less woo-woo.
Rgds
Damon
I like nukes (and solar and wind), but let's not forget the tiny tiny issues around radioactive fuel and waste, and the fact that nukes are pretty difficult to turn down to match variable load, and tend to fail in large blocks which causes the grid big problems.
The capacity factor of nukes is not 100% either (and indeed was only about twice that of wind in the UK), though I do agree that comparing name-plate ratings for intermittent renewables with run-always generators is unhelpful.
Rgds
Damon
Anyone who believes that their "shit don't stink" has a problem. Do you believe that yours doesn't?
But we can avoid gratuitously making things worse.
And dismissing all things inconvenient because some other unrelated people made bad predictions is passive-aggressive stupid. Nostradamus made some bad calls but does that mean that you ignore all safety warnings and stab yourself with knives because all predictions of harm must be crap?
Being a functional adult includes trying to make rational decisions about what is good and what is bad amongst all the the noise and some bad actors. Not flailing out wildly against things that you happen not to like.
Describing me as in a death cult is rude and wrong and definitely not adult behaviour. Never mind that you don't know much about me personally.
On the other hand those that stick two fingers up at attempts to avert the risk of catastrophic risks including but not only climate change out of smugness or whatever really *are* risking widespread death and unhappiness.
Rgds
Damon