Generally no, the consumer never sees this price. The price-per-MW is going to be for transmission system exchanges ("power highway"), instead of distribution system customers ("local streets"). Odds are that the customers will see their bills go up in a month or two, as the power company exercises clauses in their utility contracts to 'cover their costs'.
In practice, it heavily depends on the customer's billing schedule. Here in Portland, OR, I have a fixed residential rate. Some companies, such as Pacific Gas & Electric (CA), Southern California Edison, and Hawaiian Electric, use (optional?) time-of-use (TOU) pricing, where the residential prices are higher during 'peak hours', when everyone is getting ready for work, or returning home and turning on their televisions. These TOU programs often have "if it didn't save you money, we'll bill you the fixed per-kWh rate" options. Real-time pricing for residential customers has been tested a few times, but hasn't been rolled out, for both technical and programmatic reasons. Check out the Olympic Peninsula GridWise Demonstration and the Pacific Northwest SmartGrid Demonstration from PNNL, starting here: http://bgintegration.pnnl.gov/...
This is actually perfectly normal behavior from real-time priced power markets. There's a certain point where the consumers are going to become non-responsive (you'll pay $1000/MWh if it's 90 degF in your house as the sun is setting) and that non-responsive load exceed the available generation. There needs to be enough dispatch-able generation (like the gas generator in the article) to cover all of the non-responsive load, or you get "market failures" like this, where the effective spot price climbs to infinity.
Source: demand-response simulations with GridLAB-D, a powerflow & residential simulator.
There are cases where it's okay to up and leave, yes. Management may want two weeks to wrap up loose ends, but it's just a matter of 'being polite' or 'being professional'. Yes, your references will suffer.
On the other hand, it's remarkably rare for employers to offer the same two weeks when they want you to be out the door, ranging from "there are free cookies in the lobby" to "this isn't working and you're done on Friday". So it's really a matter of turnabout being fair play.
Ultimately it should be a personal choice, but there's an element of wisdom in wearing a helmet.
I've been in two bike accidents (and am not yet 30), both times seemingly random faceplants at low speed. The first one was with a helmet, and I looked pretty banged up for it. The second was without a helmet, and required stitches.
Helmets are that ounce of prevention, and while bicycle accidents are statistically less fatal than car accidents, safety measures are still a very good idea.
The fact that it's M$, as mentioned above, is a fluke. Large power consumers will enter into contracts that say 'we will use Xm to XM power annually with S loadshape, will not consume more than L peak power at once, and will throttle our power use up or down if asked to N times a year fo D days.'
Deals like this help optimize generation and keeps the grid balanced. Unlike in SimCity, you can't just plop down a stack of generators and wait for load to catch up with it, the generators have to output at a fixed 50/60hz (+/- a little). Like a truck engine, the fuel required to keep a particular speed is dependent on the load at any one time. Forecasting this load then becomes an issue that a *lot* of utilities put time, money, and effort into, so that they can ramp up or down as needed, keep to their own contracts of power quality and quantity, and efficiently use the generators they have. It's not like they're happy about selling less power when the loan payments on the multimillion US$ generator comes up each month.
The power customer with simply taking the more contractually prudent course of action ~ spending $70k, rather than spending $210k. The fine is as much to cover the fuel burned on generators that were left spinning for the customer as to thwack them upside the head about contracts.
(disclaimer, I write software for the energy industry)
There hasn't been any mention of the tactical response times offered by a carrier. Sure, a country can launch ICBMs and strategic long-range bombers for long-range offense, but having a floating city twenty minutes out from the operational theater changes the game a fair bit.
In the rarely employed non-combat roles, there's again the benefit of having however many tens of thousands of tons of ship and resources at your disposal on-site.
A mouse that has a dedicated scroll wheel for hats. Extra buttons for hat-based emotes: tip, straighten, salute, decapitating throw. Two- and three- factor authentication. Age recognition scanners to auto-ban 13-year-olds. Hat-shaped controllers with force feedback. Tickle-Me Companion Cube with lifelike 'clunking' sounds.
If we can run a space station, we can run a moon base. One of them won't be in a constant state of free-fall, even if we'd need to figure out a way to balance the nonstop solar radiation with the need to not fry the occupants. It's all about the cost and the energy... and the will to make it happen.
Market value and strategic value are independent of each other. "Meaningful value" lacks quantifiable metrics.
What's the value of a company that designs and orders build contracts for entertainment devices? If the manufacturing is overseas? What's the value of a company that refines aluminium and steel alloys? If they do this domestically?
This is a really good idea, considering the fuel cost to get something up into orbit, plus the nonzero risk of the launch itself.
Heck, if we can start with refurbishing 'orbital junk', we're getting into orbital manufacturing. Mix in an odd asteroid for raw materials, and we might actually get off this rock!
In general, the *USA* laws say that you can legally photograph anything visible from public property that does not require "specialized equipment", and anything on public property. You cannot legally take photographs of places where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, including in restrooms, within private dwellings, and underneath clothing. Exceptions exist, but the law is far less restrictive than social norms are about photography.
The UK laws imply that you have the right to apply lubricant, if you brought it, before they violate your rights.
IANAL, but I have fun with a DSLR, and educate myself on what I legally can or can't do with it.
In the parking lot, the most the guard has the rights to do is to ask you to leave, and to escort you off the property. The police can escort you off the property, should a representative ask you to leave. Confiscation of cameras in the US is theft. Charges of wiretapping are bullshit, and routinely overturned when some police officer feels threatened by a camera.
You must've never played on "Hard" or "Realistic".
It's fairly tricky to set up an agent with believable vision and believable hearing. Being able to distract guards by throwing a bottle, and having them investigate fallen comrades, was a new level for agent environment awareness for the day.
Another good way to dissuade coworkers from hanging around is to pull out a camera. It's the shotgun of office politics ~ there's no mistaking the sounds of the lens covers coming off, or the click of the shutter. Point'n'shoots, with that whirrr-whir as it extends the lens, also gets people's attention.
Just some exposed glass has been enough to clear some of my coworkers out of the 4-plex, from time to time.
Every now and then I even turn the camera on and get some random pictures. 55-200 lens get REALLY CLOSE UP from 10'.
SSC never went active, whereas these data centers went live, were monitored, and deemed to be excess infrastructure that didn't help the deficit.
Something similar happened around here, with the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). Could've been pumping out medical isotopes, but noooo, we needed to shut that thing down.
That's pretty stupid, overall. He should've done his research before doing some experiments, and the government shouldn't've gone in with a vengeance.
As far as silly ways to get arrested, though, it's sillier than getting arrested for making moonshine in the US. http://www.burningstill.com/?q=node/57
I keep saying that "I don't get paid to trust people", here at work ~ most of my job is to find bugs and squash them, whether in the code or in the model files. Some days it's the model, some days it's the software, some days it's the user.
Then I talked to my neighbor and learned about his soon-to-be-ex wife problems. That simply reinforced the point that I don't get paid to trust people.
Then RSA, Sony, and everyone else got hacked. That really reinforced the point.
So hey, don't trust people. Trust the facts instead.
I want to observe that 'their models suggest that the planet is habitable'. Don't get all excited until their models are validated, verified, and well-tested. Until then, it could indeed turn out to just be that trick of curved space-time that brought in a few funny photons in the right place.
...because oh so much evolution occurs over the course of ten thousand years.
There have been much heavier influences on human development, such as agriculture, metalworking, medicine, and similar technological discoveries that have either overshadowed or also influenced our development. If anything, there's been too much noise in our systems to observe any small changes in the last 500 generations.
The problem is that you have to be defined as a "data access provider" to have the protections of a data access provider. Netting that definition requires you to play by whatever the written rules are, both in the law books and within your contract with your ISP.
It's not so much a question of if I think I should be held responsible if someone else is speeding in my car, it's an issue of how the laws are written and how my insurance policy is written.
Lawyers have this funny stance that "it's not real until it's in writing"... similarly, you'll be held responsible for what you've presumably read and signed your name to in agreement.
Yeah, sure, socially responsible thing to do. I'm not putting down $60/month and minding a wireless router just so that the neighbors can get free wireless Internet access on my dime, TYVM.
Last time I checked, there were also a few clauses that basically say that you may not pretend to be an ISP, resell bandwidth, or sublet bandwidth, should you be a Verizon/Charter/Clearwire/whoever Internet subscriber. That reads to me that if you do try to use a 'all the protections of an ISP' claim, your ISP will say 'no, WE'RE the ISP' and cut you off.
Nice try EFF, but it's not going to fly.
Awful lot of meat in your post. Can't say much during a lunch-break post, but I'll observe that there are a few billion dollars in the USG's ARRA grants, aimed at increasing T+D energy efficiency and improving renewable energy integration.
There's a remarkable degree of value in 'making something'. I've made 'fantasy stock' decisions based on whether or not a given company had a tangible product, and I wish I had a bit of money to throw at those decisions at times.
Such decisions directly chase the idea of strategic value in certain industries, mainly in energy and material security. See last quarter's rare earth metal 'panic', and speculate on what airlines are doing in the oil markets to cover their fuel supplies. See the massive US export of 'high technology', especially arms sales (tanks, jets, radar, and other military-sized toys ~ I love the DOD's research budgets). Heck, see farm subsidies.
The curious problem with capitalism is that it relies on there being disparity between the value of someone's work and the price they're willing to be paid for it. Eventually all the money winds up in the hands of the few who are paying for the work of many others', with only an increased disparity from the top to the bottom. If the 'top' isn't spending that money, preferably in a fashion that does not net returns, Bad Things happen to capitalism.
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Generally no, the consumer never sees this price. The price-per-MW is going to be for transmission system exchanges ("power highway"), instead of distribution system customers ("local streets"). Odds are that the customers will see their bills go up in a month or two, as the power company exercises clauses in their utility contracts to 'cover their costs'.
In practice, it heavily depends on the customer's billing schedule. Here in Portland, OR, I have a fixed residential rate. Some companies, such as Pacific Gas & Electric (CA), Southern California Edison, and Hawaiian Electric, use (optional?) time-of-use (TOU) pricing, where the residential prices are higher during 'peak hours', when everyone is getting ready for work, or returning home and turning on their televisions. These TOU programs often have "if it didn't save you money, we'll bill you the fixed per-kWh rate" options. Real-time pricing for residential customers has been tested a few times, but hasn't been rolled out, for both technical and programmatic reasons. Check out the Olympic Peninsula GridWise Demonstration and the Pacific Northwest SmartGrid Demonstration from PNNL, starting here: http://bgintegration.pnnl.gov/...
This is actually perfectly normal behavior from real-time priced power markets. There's a certain point where the consumers are going to become non-responsive (you'll pay $1000/MWh if it's 90 degF in your house as the sun is setting) and that non-responsive load exceed the available generation. There needs to be enough dispatch-able generation (like the gas generator in the article) to cover all of the non-responsive load, or you get "market failures" like this, where the effective spot price climbs to infinity.
Source: demand-response simulations with GridLAB-D, a powerflow & residential simulator.
There are cases where it's okay to up and leave, yes. Management may want two weeks to wrap up loose ends, but it's just a matter of 'being polite' or 'being professional'. Yes, your references will suffer.
On the other hand, it's remarkably rare for employers to offer the same two weeks when they want you to be out the door, ranging from "there are free cookies in the lobby" to "this isn't working and you're done on Friday". So it's really a matter of turnabout being fair play.
Ultimately it should be a personal choice, but there's an element of wisdom in wearing a helmet.
I've been in two bike accidents (and am not yet 30), both times seemingly random faceplants at low speed. The first one was with a helmet, and I looked pretty banged up for it. The second was without a helmet, and required stitches.
Helmets are that ounce of prevention, and while bicycle accidents are statistically less fatal than car accidents, safety measures are still a very good idea.
Except in Texas. ERCOT can set some pretty funky rules by not having to worry about interstate commerce.
The fact that it's M$, as mentioned above, is a fluke. Large power consumers will enter into contracts that say 'we will use Xm to XM power annually with S loadshape, will not consume more than L peak power at once, and will throttle our power use up or down if asked to N times a year fo D days.'
Deals like this help optimize generation and keeps the grid balanced. Unlike in SimCity, you can't just plop down a stack of generators and wait for load to catch up with it, the generators have to output at a fixed 50/60hz (+/- a little). Like a truck engine, the fuel required to keep a particular speed is dependent on the load at any one time. Forecasting this load then becomes an issue that a *lot* of utilities put time, money, and effort into, so that they can ramp up or down as needed, keep to their own contracts of power quality and quantity, and efficiently use the generators they have. It's not like they're happy about selling less power when the loan payments on the multimillion US$ generator comes up each month.
The power customer with simply taking the more contractually prudent course of action ~ spending $70k, rather than spending $210k. The fine is as much to cover the fuel burned on generators that were left spinning for the customer as to thwack them upside the head about contracts.
(disclaimer, I write software for the energy industry)
There hasn't been any mention of the tactical response times offered by a carrier. Sure, a country can launch ICBMs and strategic long-range bombers for long-range offense, but having a floating city twenty minutes out from the operational theater changes the game a fair bit.
In the rarely employed non-combat roles, there's again the benefit of having however many tens of thousands of tons of ship and resources at your disposal on-site.
Speculation:
A mouse that has a dedicated scroll wheel for hats.
Extra buttons for hat-based emotes: tip, straighten, salute, decapitating throw.
Two- and three- factor authentication.
Age recognition scanners to auto-ban 13-year-olds.
Hat-shaped controllers with force feedback.
Tickle-Me Companion Cube with lifelike 'clunking' sounds.
If we can run a space station, we can run a moon base. One of them won't be in a constant state of free-fall, even if we'd need to figure out a way to balance the nonstop solar radiation with the need to not fry the occupants. ... and the will to make it happen.
It's all about the cost and the energy
Market value and strategic value are independent of each other. "Meaningful value" lacks quantifiable metrics.
What's the value of a company that designs and orders build contracts for entertainment devices? If the manufacturing is overseas?
What's the value of a company that refines aluminium and steel alloys? If they do this domestically?
Roast beef sandwiches: the NEW national security threat!
This is a really good idea, considering the fuel cost to get something up into orbit, plus the nonzero risk of the launch itself. Heck, if we can start with refurbishing 'orbital junk', we're getting into orbital manufacturing. Mix in an odd asteroid for raw materials, and we might actually get off this rock!
You sound like someone who forgot his towel! Just wrap that around your midsection, and two of your problems are solved.
The UK laws imply that you have the right to apply lubricant, if you brought it, before they violate your rights.
IANAL, but I have fun with a DSLR, and educate myself on what I legally can or can't do with it.
In the parking lot, the most the guard has the rights to do is to ask you to leave, and to escort you off the property. The police can escort you off the property, should a representative ask you to leave. Confiscation of cameras in the US is theft. Charges of wiretapping are bullshit, and routinely overturned when some police officer feels threatened by a camera.
You must've never played on "Hard" or "Realistic". It's fairly tricky to set up an agent with believable vision and believable hearing. Being able to distract guards by throwing a bottle, and having them investigate fallen comrades, was a new level for agent environment awareness for the day.
Another good way to dissuade coworkers from hanging around is to pull out a camera. It's the shotgun of office politics ~ there's no mistaking the sounds of the lens covers coming off, or the click of the shutter. Point'n'shoots, with that whirrr-whir as it extends the lens, also gets people's attention. Just some exposed glass has been enough to clear some of my coworkers out of the 4-plex, from time to time. Every now and then I even turn the camera on and get some random pictures. 55-200 lens get REALLY CLOSE UP from 10'.
SSC never went active, whereas these data centers went live, were monitored, and deemed to be excess infrastructure that didn't help the deficit. Something similar happened around here, with the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). Could've been pumping out medical isotopes, but noooo, we needed to shut that thing down.
That's pretty stupid, overall. He should've done his research before doing some experiments, and the government shouldn't've gone in with a vengeance. As far as silly ways to get arrested, though, it's sillier than getting arrested for making moonshine in the US. http://www.burningstill.com/?q=node/57
I keep saying that "I don't get paid to trust people", here at work ~ most of my job is to find bugs and squash them, whether in the code or in the model files. Some days it's the model, some days it's the software, some days it's the user. Then I talked to my neighbor and learned about his soon-to-be-ex wife problems. That simply reinforced the point that I don't get paid to trust people. Then RSA, Sony, and everyone else got hacked. That really reinforced the point. So hey, don't trust people. Trust the facts instead.
I want to observe that 'their models suggest that the planet is habitable'. Don't get all excited until their models are validated, verified, and well-tested. Until then, it could indeed turn out to just be that trick of curved space-time that brought in a few funny photons in the right place.
...because oh so much evolution occurs over the course of ten thousand years. There have been much heavier influences on human development, such as agriculture, metalworking, medicine, and similar technological discoveries that have either overshadowed or also influenced our development. If anything, there's been too much noise in our systems to observe any small changes in the last 500 generations.
Still waiting for either an engineering or science field to be mentioned.
The problem is that you have to be defined as a "data access provider" to have the protections of a data access provider. Netting that definition requires you to play by whatever the written rules are, both in the law books and within your contract with your ISP. It's not so much a question of if I think I should be held responsible if someone else is speeding in my car, it's an issue of how the laws are written and how my insurance policy is written. Lawyers have this funny stance that "it's not real until it's in writing" ... similarly, you'll be held responsible for what you've presumably read and signed your name to in agreement.
Yeah, sure, socially responsible thing to do. I'm not putting down $60/month and minding a wireless router just so that the neighbors can get free wireless Internet access on my dime, TYVM. Last time I checked, there were also a few clauses that basically say that you may not pretend to be an ISP, resell bandwidth, or sublet bandwidth, should you be a Verizon/Charter/Clearwire/whoever Internet subscriber. That reads to me that if you do try to use a 'all the protections of an ISP' claim, your ISP will say 'no, WE'RE the ISP' and cut you off. Nice try EFF, but it's not going to fly.
Awful lot of meat in your post. Can't say much during a lunch-break post, but I'll observe that there are a few billion dollars in the USG's ARRA grants, aimed at increasing T+D energy efficiency and improving renewable energy integration. There's a remarkable degree of value in 'making something'. I've made 'fantasy stock' decisions based on whether or not a given company had a tangible product, and I wish I had a bit of money to throw at those decisions at times. Such decisions directly chase the idea of strategic value in certain industries, mainly in energy and material security. See last quarter's rare earth metal 'panic', and speculate on what airlines are doing in the oil markets to cover their fuel supplies. See the massive US export of 'high technology', especially arms sales (tanks, jets, radar, and other military-sized toys ~ I love the DOD's research budgets). Heck, see farm subsidies. The curious problem with capitalism is that it relies on there being disparity between the value of someone's work and the price they're willing to be paid for it. Eventually all the money winds up in the hands of the few who are paying for the work of many others', with only an increased disparity from the top to the bottom. If the 'top' isn't spending that money, preferably in a fashion that does not net returns, Bad Things happen to capitalism.