Control system-Totaly supply and demand based. Everybody sets up controllers with rules like if price goes up over 7/kwh, switch to flywheel. Everybody gets flywheels to store power when the price - set by second to second supply and demand - goes low enough for them to store some for later. When the price goes up on the microgrid, you can even sell your stored power back to it and make some $$$ on the transfer.
Also, you set it up so that people can see whether they're making or losing money, which may be a powerful enough motivator to get people to turn off enough lights to get the meter to run backwards.
Hmm. Maybe it's not going to be easy to change the way we've done things as long as we can remember. Japan seems to have figured that out, and is taking steps to do something. Here in Canada, we're following the US. What's more retarded than that?
Check out The End Of Suburbia for a movie about how the suburbs will end up as the slums of the future - and all because of oil.
No, I'm not associated with them. I just like the movie.
That depends greatly on the nature of the people doing the thinking. And yes, the world today is full of people with stunted minds and incomplete characters.
It totally depends on the nature of the people doing the thinking. On an individual basis, the people doing the thinking are making discrete, rational choices, based on the options available to them.
These options are limited and consumer/corporation driven. Freedom isn't the problem. Society has been framed in such a way that true costs, especially long term ones, are not passed along to the consumers, who, en masse, control the market. Instead, true costs are dismissed as externalities, and not accounted for in any sort of economic calculation.
Solving ignorance is indeed a problem, but it feels to me like there are more and more people starting to understand the problem, and there may be economic, and economically stimulating solutions to it. However it will require foresight and significant capital expenditure, and neither of those pay off in the short run, which worries me.
It feels, in a way, like the choice between an academic education, and the school of hard knocks. If the economy checks out and takes our way of life with it, we'll havea small group of academics saying I told you so, and a large group of people getting very rapidly educated in the new economics of self reliance. Not this new age self reliance where people can make $40-70k/year astroturfing for $Corporation. Actual feeding & clothing yourself kind of reliance. But with computers and modern tech. It'll certainly be an interesting reality check.
It will be sudden, and it will be painful, but we can start preparing now - by supporting local farmers, building reliable, local energy supplies, and strengthening local communities.
I don't want to belittle the job of the first living organisms that evolved to use oxygen. It was a formidable task, but over millions of years they succeeded.
Now we've created quite the niche market for organisms which can metabolize asphalt, discarded tires and plastic bags, and life might find a way, but it won't happen soon enough to make a difference for humanity.
I have great confidence, that no matter what we as a Class 0 civilization can do to the planet, life in some form will go on. I also have an interest in the future of the human race, and I hope for its survival. Our mild climate is finely balanced such that we can survive here, and as far as we know, nowhere else. If we change the climate much, life will be fine, but we'll damage ourselves, make ourselves extinct, and leave the world to sleep for tens of millions of years until life comes back somehow.
This isn't about preserving some mythic state, it's about cleaning up our poo in our backyard. Localized decisions that seem best to us as humans leads to short term, market driven thinking. Market thinking excells at allocating scarce resources in the short term. For humanity to survive on a longer timeline, however, we need to embrace on a broad scale, biological processes, quit making 'waste' and start making 'food'. For this to happen however, it needs to be a better way of doing things than the one we've got. And the one we've got is good for probably another ten years. Which means nobody will bother changing, again, at least on a broad scale, until then. And then, whether it's ten years or not, we won't be as equipped to change, because the disaster had already happened. I was going to pull out a "When did Noah build the ark?" kind of question, but instead... "When's the best time to backup your data?"
Also, watch a movie called The End of Suburbia. More focused on oil, but still, totally worthwhile. When the revolution comes, don't say you weren't warned.
I understand the argument that humans are a part of nature, and so are their tools. (By the same token, a bullet to the forehead causes death quite naturally, er, so I'm told.)
The best way I've heard this expressed is Nature doesn't make waste. Nature makes food. (I'd love to claim this, but I can't remember for sure who said it. It might have been Bucky or Amory Lovins. At any rate, all the other species make food, and participate in the food chain and cycle all waste around.
We, as humans create waste that no biological process can deal with. Now humanure can be composted and reused, but there's lots of stuff that is good for no living thing.
I hadn't seen it before - but I recently upgraded to Tiger, complete with Safari RSS. As soon as I start typing things into Google, not just the googlepage, but even the main search page, it tries to complete it for me using previous search terms. I think it's new, but it might be that I just didn't notice it before. In Google's defense, this may have nothing to do with them, but it serves to remind one that if you don't want your search history saved and possibly scrutinized, steps should be taken to protect yourself.
The first thing that jumped out at me once I personalized my googlepage was that/lots/ of saved searches from a long time ago showed up in a drop down from the search bar.
Hopefully for the rest of you your googlepage doesn't fall into the wrong hands. If people were to find out what you had been searching for, how would they feel? How would you feel?
Heck, I felt a bit violated and it was only/me/ that saw them.
Seems like combining these LEDs with hybrid solar lighting could be even more energy efficient, and still give you the ability to run the lighting in your house like they do in those submarine movies.
If I remember correctly from the Columbia Disaster, things went bad around Mach 18, and most of the debris was over the western US, which puts any debris from a California Landing squarely in the Pacific Ocean.
If you're trying to land in California you need to be going more like hundreds of miles an hour. As for not attempting to slow its descent? - That would be like cliff diving and being concerned that the water wouldn't slow you down.
The comment about stashing it in orbit until it can be repaired is an interesting one, and then they can't use the excuse that they're using for the hubble about it being too far from the space station to attempt a rescue/repair mission, though I expect a shuttle would be tricky enough to fix on the ground, with a full ground crew that gets weeks and can sleep in their beds every night, rather than 3-7 extremely well trained, but ultimately human astronauts, who would only be able to accomplish so much...
Seems like the whole Shuttle program is rapidly becoming like the Canadian Experience with the Sea King Helicopter. I hope there's credible replacements for the Shuttle on the drawing board so that we don't have to wait for the space elevator to continue to visit space. Or else we could just give up on space and let China do it. (No, there's no oil in space.)
I can understand the need to not scatter debris all over the continental United States, but since the Space Shuttle can, as I understand it, land itself, why not let it land itself in California? If it disintegrates on re-entry, then they've justified the rescue mission. If it doesn't, they've saved a $3B shuttle, (though possibly opening themselves up to the question of why the rescue was necessary). Seems like a win-win scenario to me.
Which means that I'm obviously missing something. It probably has to do with the degree of 'wreckedness' of the shuttle.
Seriously though, if there's a good reason to not try to land it, I'm all ears.
What the world are you talking about? Most of the planet was explored/exploited and colonized by sailing ships that took many weeks or months to reach their destinations. The Spanish and the British managed to build global empires while dealing with that sort of transportation delay.
True, however these sailing ships had lots of room for crew, sleeping quarters and food which were easy to bring along, not to mention that survival is much easier on the surface of the planet where there's always fresh air to breathe (and which you don't need to bring along) than 100 km up.
It doesn't strike me as economical to be elevating all of the consumables that a two week trip to GEO would require. Mass is still a factor and will certainly limit the capacity of the climber. The less mass we have to waste on consumables for the way up, the less mass we need to "waste" in terms of radiation protection for the occupants, the more materials we can move to orbit.
When there's enough parts and food at the top, some astronauts fly up and put them together.
You will not ride the elevator to space. Rides to space will be done by whatever the next Scaled Composites or some version of a future x-prize.
I may be inventing this number, but I seem to recall about two weeks for a trip to the top.
This is about low cost freight.
You can ride a horse across Canada faster than you can build a railroad, however, if you want to move large quantities of stuff, you're better off with the railroad. The Space Shuttle, and indeed most rocketry based solutions for freight is like trying to haul stuff across the country on your horse.
Rocketry, (and/or spaceplanes) still make sense for getting people up there, as long as there are things up there for people to do when they get there. The elevator will be too slow for people, but the benefits of economically transporting freight to space will make actual space construction and exploration possible.
That's a fantastic idea.
As a matter of fact these guys built something kind of like that, and seem to be producing all sorts of concepts for cheap, clean, solar energy. I think they were featured in Discover in August of 2003. (The year might be wrong though.)
I just can't wait until they get into mass production, because the metric they seem to be using throws out traditional physical efficiency and relies on power per unit cost rather than conversion efficiencies.
It's also been implemented on a much larger scale in molten salt power towers which iirc use high temp (200-500C) salt to make steam to turn turbines. Yes, it's a solar plant that can work at night if it has to.
There have been many cases of credits disappearing from accounts and they dont care
I don't think they have to. IIRC, there was something in the eula (or somewhere) that said if you don't buy any credits in six months, they all go away, but if you keep buying them it resets the timer, and you can keep all your credits.
Maybe, and please understand, I'm as much of an Apple fanboy as the next guy, but I'm disappointed that Apple's winning this.
I'm even more disappointed that they're pursuing it. I am in favor of the freedom of the press. I can't possibly know all the details, including what sort of agreement Nick DePlume has with whoever his source is.
Seems like somebody told him some stuff and he published it on the web. It must have pretty good stuff. But if Nick told the Apple mole, who I'll call Gerald, that he wouldn't reveal Gerald's name to anyone, then he shouldn't. Don't break your word. Should you break the law to keep your word? People have to answer that question themselves based on their values and character, but I'd say yes. Even if it means jail.
Now, in order to play both sides of the fence here, the Mole at Apple, or one of their associated companies - whether it's a manufacturer, or some dude at an Ad Agency - has signed an NDA, then he should be living by it. Again, don't break your word.
But I have a hard time with this fishing expedition. And that being said, I didn't visit thinksecret much before, but the publicity that is being generated keeps me checking the place out. I'm not sure if that was Apple's intention, but there you go.
You want me to get to the point? Here it is:
Stamp out leaks internally. Don't sue fans.
Having said that, I'm still going to recommend to everybody in sight that they wait until Tiger (which has been announced) comes out, then buy the 12" iBook with the airport card and max out the ram. Or a Mini. Depending. Unless you want to run Linux on it. In which case buy it whenever.
The other thing I was wondering about - TFA calls it a criminal act, releasing that sort of info. Is it a criminal matter or a civil one?
Or do what I did, and relish the fact that people couldn't call you.
Between Adium for MSN, Skype for outgoing calls (from me when I needed to make them, and incoming calls from my friends who all were on skype), and email I had my communication covered.
This also had the only slightly intended benefit of freeing me from having to rush to answer the phone, ever, or having annoying group members be able to call me. Depending on how you choose to live your life, you don't have to be at anyone's call. You're not beholden to them. You may not be a beautiful and unique snowflake, but you can control when/where you talk to people.
In an increasingly connected world, the luxury becomes being out of touch.
(Yes I believe in technology. Yes, my iBook usually leaves the house with me. No I don't have a cellphone. No, nobody wants to talk to me anyway. This way I save money. It all works out. It's much like being able avoid viruses, even on windows, if your computer is unplugged and locked in a closet. You disconnect, they can't get you. This disconnection leaves you in control.)
You can have your peace and quiet. You just have to want it.
It's like back when Seinfeld episodes were new. Everybody would go home, watch them, then talk about them around the water cooler the next day. If you didn't see the episode, you couldn't be in on any of the master of your domain jokes.
My brother just got back from there and Thailand - a week before the Tsunami, and was going to internet cafes, downloading Skype, and calling me with it.
He said that the quality was better than phone. I think he was right.
I was in Japan for 3 weeks in 2000, and found my Handspring Visor (those were the days) indispensible for the simple fact that I had a copy of the Tokyo Subway system on there.
No matter where I went in Tokyo, I knew that if I could find a subway station I could find my way back to Nishi-Magome station, which was walking distance from where I was staying.
The elevator does not go from the earth to the moon.
The moon is not in geostationary orbit around anything. It rotates to keep the same side towards us.
The top of the elevator would be at Lagrange point L1, which is the point at which Lunar gravity and Earth's Gravity are balanced. It is balanced, but unstable. Stationkeeping would be necessary.
People would rarely use the Lunar Space Elevator for personal transport. It would be only for cargo. (Similar to the long awaited Space Elevator from Earth)
No, you can't ride on it.
No, you can't ride on it.
Getting materials off of the Moon is useful. People can explain how it's useful, but it's like lasers when they first came out. They were described (In National Geographic I think) as a solution without a problem.
It would probably be expensive.
It will, however, help make space exploration/development possible.
If we try to justify it economically right away, we will talk (or laugh) ourselves out of it.
Yes, some of these are editorial.
No, that doesn't bother me.
And for those of you who missed it, the article was good too.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, you set it up so that people can see whether they're making or losing money, which may be a powerful enough motivator to get people to turn off enough lights to get the meter to run backwards.
Anyone thought about DC in this sort of system?
Okay, okay, here's the real link.
Check out The End Of Suburbia for a movie about how the suburbs will end up as the slums of the future - and all because of oil.
No, I'm not associated with them. I just like the movie.
It totally depends on the nature of the people doing the thinking. On an individual basis, the people doing the thinking are making discrete, rational choices, based on the options available to them.
These options are limited and consumer/corporation driven. Freedom isn't the problem. Society has been framed in such a way that true costs, especially long term ones, are not passed along to the consumers, who, en masse, control the market. Instead, true costs are dismissed as externalities, and not accounted for in any sort of economic calculation.
Solving ignorance is indeed a problem, but it feels to me like there are more and more people starting to understand the problem, and there may be economic, and economically stimulating solutions to it. However it will require foresight and significant capital expenditure, and neither of those pay off in the short run, which worries me.
It feels, in a way, like the choice between an academic education, and the school of hard knocks. If the economy checks out and takes our way of life with it, we'll havea small group of academics saying I told you so, and a large group of people getting very rapidly educated in the new economics of self reliance. Not this new age self reliance where people can make $40-70k/year astroturfing for $Corporation. Actual feeding & clothing yourself kind of reliance. But with computers and modern tech. It'll certainly be an interesting reality check.
It will be sudden, and it will be painful, but we can start preparing now - by supporting local farmers, building reliable, local energy supplies, and strengthening local communities.
We'll get through this. Somehow.
Now we've created quite the niche market for organisms which can metabolize asphalt, discarded tires and plastic bags, and life might find a way, but it won't happen soon enough to make a difference for humanity.
I have great confidence, that no matter what we as a Class 0 civilization can do to the planet, life in some form will go on. I also have an interest in the future of the human race, and I hope for its survival. Our mild climate is finely balanced such that we can survive here, and as far as we know, nowhere else. If we change the climate much, life will be fine, but we'll damage ourselves, make ourselves extinct, and leave the world to sleep for tens of millions of years until life comes back somehow.
This isn't about preserving some mythic state, it's about cleaning up our poo in our backyard. Localized decisions that seem best to us as humans leads to short term, market driven thinking. Market thinking excells at allocating scarce resources in the short term. For humanity to survive on a longer timeline, however, we need to embrace on a broad scale, biological processes, quit making 'waste' and start making 'food'. For this to happen however, it needs to be a better way of doing things than the one we've got. And the one we've got is good for probably another ten years. Which means nobody will bother changing, again, at least on a broad scale, until then. And then, whether it's ten years or not, we won't be as equipped to change, because the disaster had already happened. I was going to pull out a "When did Noah build the ark?" kind of question, but instead... "When's the best time to backup your data?"
Also, watch a movie called The End of Suburbia. More focused on oil, but still, totally worthwhile. When the revolution comes, don't say you weren't warned.
The best way I've heard this expressed is Nature doesn't make waste. Nature makes food. (I'd love to claim this, but I can't remember for sure who said it. It might have been Bucky or Amory Lovins. At any rate, all the other species make food, and participate in the food chain and cycle all waste around.
We, as humans create waste that no biological process can deal with. Now humanure can be composted and reused, but there's lots of stuff that is good for no living thing.
That's the big difference. Waste not, want not.
(And off comes the tinfoil hat.)
Hopefully for the rest of you your googlepage doesn't fall into the wrong hands. If people were to find out what you had been searching for, how would they feel? How would you feel?
Heck, I felt a bit violated and it was only /me/ that saw them.
Red vs. Blue
Longhorn: Vaporware which now contains fewer instances of the Blue Screen of Death.
Seems like combining these LEDs with hybrid solar lighting could be even more energy efficient, and still give you the ability to run the lighting in your house like they do in those submarine movies.
If you're trying to land in California you need to be going more like hundreds of miles an hour. As for not attempting to slow its descent? - That would be like cliff diving and being concerned that the water wouldn't slow you down.
The comment about stashing it in orbit until it can be repaired is an interesting one, and then they can't use the excuse that they're using for the hubble about it being too far from the space station to attempt a rescue/repair mission, though I expect a shuttle would be tricky enough to fix on the ground, with a full ground crew that gets weeks and can sleep in their beds every night, rather than 3-7 extremely well trained, but ultimately human astronauts, who would only be able to accomplish so much...
Seems like the whole Shuttle program is rapidly becoming like the Canadian Experience with the Sea King Helicopter. I hope there's credible replacements for the Shuttle on the drawing board so that we don't have to wait for the space elevator to continue to visit space. Or else we could just give up on space and let China do it. (No, there's no oil in space.)
Which means that I'm obviously missing something. It probably has to do with the degree of 'wreckedness' of the shuttle.
Seriously though, if there's a good reason to not try to land it, I'm all ears.
-Holmes.
It doesn't strike me as economical to be elevating all of the consumables that a two week trip to GEO would require. Mass is still a factor and will certainly limit the capacity of the climber. The less mass we have to waste on consumables for the way up, the less mass we need to "waste" in terms of radiation protection for the occupants, the more materials we can move to orbit.
When there's enough parts and food at the top, some astronauts fly up and put them together.
You will not ride the elevator to space. Rides to space will be done by whatever the next Scaled Composites or some version of a future x-prize.
I may be inventing this number, but I seem to recall about two weeks for a trip to the top.
This is about low cost freight.
You can ride a horse across Canada faster than you can build a railroad, however, if you want to move large quantities of stuff, you're better off with the railroad. The Space Shuttle, and indeed most rocketry based solutions for freight is like trying to haul stuff across the country on your horse.
Rocketry, (and/or spaceplanes) still make sense for getting people up there, as long as there are things up there for people to do when they get there. The elevator will be too slow for people, but the benefits of economically transporting freight to space will make actual space construction and exploration possible.
As a matter of fact these guys built something kind of like that, and seem to be producing all sorts of concepts for cheap, clean, solar energy. I think they were featured in Discover in August of 2003. (The year might be wrong though.)
I just can't wait until they get into mass production, because the metric they seem to be using throws out traditional physical efficiency and relies on power per unit cost rather than conversion efficiencies.
It's also been implemented on a much larger scale in molten salt power towers which iirc use high temp (200-500C) salt to make steam to turn turbines. Yes, it's a solar plant that can work at night if it has to.
-Holmes.
You could probably narrow down the list of people who know about these sorts of things. Oh, and fire their asses.
Yes, I'm a fanboy. (Why buy Tiger separately, when you can get it and a computer for $500.)
Therefore - no heat transmitted inside, electrical generation to boot.
I don't think they have to. IIRC, there was something in the eula (or somewhere) that said if you don't buy any credits in six months, they all go away, but if you keep buying them it resets the timer, and you can keep all your credits.
I'm even more disappointed that they're pursuing it. I am in favor of the freedom of the press. I can't possibly know all the details, including what sort of agreement Nick DePlume has with whoever his source is.
Seems like somebody told him some stuff and he published it on the web. It must have pretty good stuff. But if Nick told the Apple mole, who I'll call Gerald, that he wouldn't reveal Gerald's name to anyone, then he shouldn't. Don't break your word. Should you break the law to keep your word? People have to answer that question themselves based on their values and character, but I'd say yes. Even if it means jail.
Now, in order to play both sides of the fence here, the Mole at Apple, or one of their associated companies - whether it's a manufacturer, or some dude at an Ad Agency - has signed an NDA, then he should be living by it. Again, don't break your word.
But I have a hard time with this fishing expedition. And that being said, I didn't visit thinksecret much before, but the publicity that is being generated keeps me checking the place out. I'm not sure if that was Apple's intention, but there you go.
You want me to get to the point? Here it is:
Stamp out leaks internally. Don't sue fans.
Having said that, I'm still going to recommend to everybody in sight that they wait until Tiger (which has been announced) comes out, then buy the 12" iBook with the airport card and max out the ram. Or a Mini. Depending. Unless you want to run Linux on it. In which case buy it whenever.
The other thing I was wondering about - TFA calls it a criminal act, releasing that sort of info. Is it a criminal matter or a civil one?
-Holmes.
Between Adium for MSN, Skype for outgoing calls (from me when I needed to make them, and incoming calls from my friends who all were on skype), and email I had my communication covered.
This also had the only slightly intended benefit of freeing me from having to rush to answer the phone, ever, or having annoying group members be able to call me. Depending on how you choose to live your life, you don't have to be at anyone's call. You're not beholden to them. You may not be a beautiful and unique snowflake, but you can control when/where you talk to people.
In an increasingly connected world, the luxury becomes being out of touch.
(Yes I believe in technology. Yes, my iBook usually leaves the house with me. No I don't have a cellphone. No, nobody wants to talk to me anyway. This way I save money. It all works out. It's much like being able avoid viruses, even on windows, if your computer is unplugged and locked in a closet. You disconnect, they can't get you. This disconnection leaves you in control.)
You can have your peace and quiet. You just have to want it.
It's like back when Seinfeld episodes were new. Everybody would go home, watch them, then talk about them around the water cooler the next day. If you didn't see the episode, you couldn't be in on any of the master of your domain jokes.
He said that the quality was better than phone. I think he was right.
No matter where I went in Tokyo, I knew that if I could find a subway station I could find my way back to Nishi-Magome station, which was walking distance from where I was staying.
Check out Metro. There's also a Pocket PC Version.
Is that still a live option? - And can be we ready in 2037 to try to keep it around?
The elevator does not go from the earth to the moon.
The moon is not in geostationary orbit around anything. It rotates to keep the same side towards us.
The top of the elevator would be at Lagrange point L1, which is the point at which Lunar gravity and Earth's Gravity are balanced. It is balanced, but unstable. Stationkeeping would be necessary.
People would rarely use the Lunar Space Elevator for personal transport. It would be only for cargo. (Similar to the long awaited Space Elevator from Earth)
No, you can't ride on it.
No, you can't ride on it.
Getting materials off of the Moon is useful. People can explain how it's useful, but it's like lasers when they first came out. They were described (In National Geographic I think) as a solution without a problem.
It would probably be expensive.
It will, however, help make space exploration/development possible.
If we try to justify it economically right away, we will talk (or laugh) ourselves out of it.
Yes, some of these are editorial.
No, that doesn't bother me.
And for those of you who missed it, the article was good too.