... is supposed to be drunk immediately anyway, so trying to turn it into a more "aged" wine is kind of defeating the purpose. wine snobs from all over travel to france every year to drink this wine on the day it comes out. personally, i can't stand beaujolais nouveau anyway, so maybe this would make it more bearable, but for those who do enjoy it this is kind of pointless.
This is a good idea, but maybe you could also take it one step further. Make all user posts anonymous until they get selected for the front page, and only THEN reveal who submitted it. That way it's not about who submitted it at all, but rather whether the story is good enough to make the final cut. Then we have noone to blame but ourselves if the same people happen to submit front page stories again and again.
There is no reason (sanitation wise) why these fixtures should not be installed. The only reason the plumbers do not want to see this implemented is because it effectively cuts the amount of work they have in half, which means they don't get paid as much. Because these fixtures do not require a main water feed, and only need a drain, the amount of piping that needs to be run to the fixtures is cut in half. These fixtures have been declared "illegal" in some municipalities due to the strong influence of plumbers unions.
I haven't completely made the switch to Linux yet, but right now I'd say I'm running windows about 60% of the time, using cygwin within windows about 10% of the time, and running Debian 30% of the time. The main thing that appeals to me as a poor college student is the fact that you can get an amazing OS with programs to do just about anything you could ever want for free! Before I found Linux I found myself using pirated copies of photoshop, microsoft office, and even OSs like Win2K, but with Linux I get the OS, the gimp, and openoffice/staroffice for nothing, plus the ability to script and code to my hearts content when I find that other programs can't quite meet my needs. Once I do finally make a full time switch over to Linux I may keep a windows box around just to fiddle with, but since Debian has been able to do everything I could ever want I'm sure I won't need to have windows around for much more than a curiosity.
I can definitely see the benefits of LEDs when compared to other forms of electric light. They do produce more lumens per watt than most other sources, but they do produce a good deal of heat when combined together into a large array, despite what people may tell you. They also have the added benefit of efficiently producing (since they only produce light in a certain wavelength) just about any color you would want through color mixing of different color LEDs (check out the tunnel in the Detroit airport if you'd like to see a well done example). Personally, though, I would love to see more daylight in spaces rather than a push for the latest and greatest in electric light. If done properly, daylighting can greatly increase light levels in the workplace and lower energy consumed by electric light. Generally, this will lead to an increase in cooling load, but this is almost always smaller than the amount of energy saved by eliminating electric lighting (again, if done properly). So while I'm all for more efficient electric lighting, it would be nice to see no electric lighting used during daylight hours when the sun is readily available.
for anyone out there interested in what this HDR business is all about, there's an HDR image builder (http://www.anyhere.com/) out there for mac and linux. the basic concept is that you take a series of photographs at different exposures ranging from extremely underexposed to extremely overexposed (which means this only works really well for still-life shots unfortunately) and the program can compile them into an image that would mimick fairly well what the human eye would see. this is also a good tool for those of you who might be interested in using your digital camera as a luminance meter by using radiance (http://www.radiance-online.org/) to generate falsecolor luminance maps. if nothing else, it'll give you a good idea of how they're generating the lighting for Lost Coast.
of "Highlander 2?" I'm ashamed to say I actually watched that movie, but didn't they have some sort of device to shield the Earth from the sun or something?
Anyway, this whole thing just seems like some bored scientists grasping at straws trying to come up with something interesting to get their names in the news, but I do have 2 questions I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on:
1) How desparate would we have to be to follow through with something like this?
2) How hard would it be to convince the mainstream population to spend research money on reducing greenhouse gas emissions rather than go along with this?
If you really are looking into getting a backup generator, you may just want to look into getting a CHP (combined heat and power) system for your shop instead. A CHP system will generate electricity for you, as well as allow you to use the waste heat from the generator to heat your shop, hot water, or use an absorption cooling device to cool your shop (although I've never seen one of these for a small-scale application). The CHP system would essentially eliminate or drastically reduce your need for energy from the grid, and probably save you a few bucks in the long run as well. There are only a few manufacturers out there right now though for smaller scale CHP systems (namely Honda, but I think there are a one or two others), and it also may depend on where you're situated (sometimes they will not let you purchase one unless your power company is actively involved in supporting CHP systems).
Overall it would likely save you a ton of money as you could just purchase natural gas instead of electricity. When you factor in generation costs, demand costs, transmission and hookup costs, peak load costs, etc from the electric company, it quickly makes sense to just generate the electricity yourself. Also, unless you have an electric heater for your home, you're probably already having to buy natural gas anyway so there's no additional hookup charge from the gas company.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if you had other shops/stores/residences near you that were interested in doing this it would be fairly simple to install a larger system, split the cost of the system, then just split up the gas bill accordingly (depending on how confident you are that your neighbors will pay on time of course:)
The fact that that is how these boards are chosen does not make it right. The fact that they are turning something a-political into something political does not make it right. The fact that they admitted it, even, does not make it right. I can admit that I stole a candy bar from a convenience store, but this doesn't mean they will let me keep the candy bar and go on my merry way.
I do agree that I'd like to see the personal perspective of the people actually affested by this, as I'm sure that there may be more to this, but THE FACT remains that this whole thing is based on the political leanings of these people, which again, is not right. The history of the United States has taught, if nothing else, that we as citizens have a right and a duty to stand up for what we believe in. It's the only way that we can insure that WE THE PEOPLE are in charge of our government, not some jerk who has a personal vendetta against anyone who doesn't support his cause. If we don't like the way he makes appointments to these boards we need to send a clear message to Washington that we will not tolerate it, either with actual letters or by voting for a complete change of administration over the next few years. Apathy like yours is only going to fuel the fire and make the current administration think that it can get away with more shit like this.
0x20 is exactly right. The point I was trying to make is that these people, who are experts in there field just like the scientists I referenced, are being denied the opportunity to use their expertise. The government should not dictate which "experts" can speak on a certain issues based soley on their political affiliations. Scientists and experts are supposed to be unbiased sources of information dedicated to discovering the TRUTH, or at the very least, eliminating as many untruths as possible. With this administration it seems like the only "truth" they wish to put forth is the one which benefits them the most. And in this case it doesn't even make any sense! What could the current administration possibly have to gain by not allowing these people to participate?
Actually, the current administration seems to be doing a fantastic job of judging scientists based on their political leanings. So many agencies and scientists are being leaned on to produce results that the administration wants to see that hardly an issue of Energy User News goes by without an article about a disgruntled scientist resigning because they refused to interpret results in a way favorable to the administration's policies. I don't have any doubt that each administration tries to impress upon researchers their hopes that the results match with what they'd like to see, but GW's is the first I've seen that actually strongarms its researchers into producing the results most beneficial to them. How are we supposed to make scientific advancements under conditions like this?
I'm a lighting and electrical systems design student and a lot of talk has been going on about LEDs these past few years. One thing people seem really excited about is the color mixing capabilities. While it may be true that a single white LED might not provide the kind of white you want, you can mix RGB to any color temperature of white you want (from a warmer incandescent color to the cooler color of the sun). I went to Lightfair a few years ago and saw an LED parking lot light that had an array of various color LEDs that mixed to white on the workplane, and an added bonus was that because there were so many colors in the array, the color rending was amazing.
Unfortunately, like the article says, the first cost is still prohibitive in a lot of cases, although the savings in energy would seem to make it worthwhile. LEDs also tend to get very, very hot in large quantities if they're used for a long period of time, so air circulation is a common problem as well.
Hopefully some of you computer engineers and programers can come up with a cheap way to produce and control LED arrays so I can start using them in practice! Building owners would be extremely happy if power consumption in buildings would go down significantly and if they had the ability to control the color and brightness (they are easily and cheaply dimmable, unlike flourescents) of any room individually.
Go may have simpler rules than chess, but it by no means a simple game. When I tell my friends about Go they laugh at me, but after explaining the game to them and giving them a 9 stone handicap and thoroughly trouncing them (I'm only around 12kyu... practically a beginner) they begin to see the game is much more complex and subtle than they anticipated. A computer program playing Go would have to be much more adaptive than a program playing chess, or have a much quicker algorithm to process the insane number of possible moves and responses. In either case, research into a computer that can play Go and can beat a human is something that is extremely worthwhile and applicable not just in Go, but in other AI applications as well. Don't get me wrong, research into chess playing programs is just as worthwhile, but any advance in Go will be orders of magnitude more impressive than any advance in playing chess.
Slashdot Mirror
... is supposed to be drunk immediately anyway, so trying to turn it into a more "aged" wine is kind of defeating the purpose. wine snobs from all over travel to france every year to drink this wine on the day it comes out. personally, i can't stand beaujolais nouveau anyway, so maybe this would make it more bearable, but for those who do enjoy it this is kind of pointless.
This is a good idea, but maybe you could also take it one step further. Make all user posts anonymous until they get selected for the front page, and only THEN reveal who submitted it. That way it's not about who submitted it at all, but rather whether the story is good enough to make the final cut. Then we have noone to blame but ourselves if the same people happen to submit front page stories again and again.
There is no reason (sanitation wise) why these fixtures should not be installed. The only reason the plumbers do not want to see this implemented is because it effectively cuts the amount of work they have in half, which means they don't get paid as much. Because these fixtures do not require a main water feed, and only need a drain, the amount of piping that needs to be run to the fixtures is cut in half. These fixtures have been declared "illegal" in some municipalities due to the strong influence of plumbers unions.
I haven't completely made the switch to Linux yet, but right now I'd say I'm running windows about 60% of the time, using cygwin within windows about 10% of the time, and running Debian 30% of the time. The main thing that appeals to me as a poor college student is the fact that you can get an amazing OS with programs to do just about anything you could ever want for free! Before I found Linux I found myself using pirated copies of photoshop, microsoft office, and even OSs like Win2K, but with Linux I get the OS, the gimp, and openoffice/staroffice for nothing, plus the ability to script and code to my hearts content when I find that other programs can't quite meet my needs. Once I do finally make a full time switch over to Linux I may keep a windows box around just to fiddle with, but since Debian has been able to do everything I could ever want I'm sure I won't need to have windows around for much more than a curiosity.
I can definitely see the benefits of LEDs when compared to other forms of electric light. They do produce more lumens per watt than most other sources, but they do produce a good deal of heat when combined together into a large array, despite what people may tell you. They also have the added benefit of efficiently producing (since they only produce light in a certain wavelength) just about any color you would want through color mixing of different color LEDs (check out the tunnel in the Detroit airport if you'd like to see a well done example). Personally, though, I would love to see more daylight in spaces rather than a push for the latest and greatest in electric light. If done properly, daylighting can greatly increase light levels in the workplace and lower energy consumed by electric light. Generally, this will lead to an increase in cooling load, but this is almost always smaller than the amount of energy saved by eliminating electric lighting (again, if done properly). So while I'm all for more efficient electric lighting, it would be nice to see no electric lighting used during daylight hours when the sun is readily available.
for anyone out there interested in what this HDR business is all about, there's an HDR image builder (http://www.anyhere.com/) out there for mac and linux. the basic concept is that you take a series of photographs at different exposures ranging from extremely underexposed to extremely overexposed (which means this only works really well for still-life shots unfortunately) and the program can compile them into an image that would mimick fairly well what the human eye would see. this is also a good tool for those of you who might be interested in using your digital camera as a luminance meter by using radiance (http://www.radiance-online.org/) to generate falsecolor luminance maps. if nothing else, it'll give you a good idea of how they're generating the lighting for Lost Coast.
of "Highlander 2?" I'm ashamed to say I actually watched that movie, but didn't they have some sort of device to shield the Earth from the sun or something?
Anyway, this whole thing just seems like some bored scientists grasping at straws trying to come up with something interesting to get their names in the news, but I do have 2 questions I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on:
1) How desparate would we have to be to follow through with something like this? 2) How hard would it be to convince the mainstream population to spend research money on reducing greenhouse gas emissions rather than go along with this?
If you really are looking into getting a backup generator, you may just want to look into getting a CHP (combined heat and power) system for your shop instead. A CHP system will generate electricity for you, as well as allow you to use the waste heat from the generator to heat your shop, hot water, or use an absorption cooling device to cool your shop (although I've never seen one of these for a small-scale application). The CHP system would essentially eliminate or drastically reduce your need for energy from the grid, and probably save you a few bucks in the long run as well. There are only a few manufacturers out there right now though for smaller scale CHP systems (namely Honda, but I think there are a one or two others), and it also may depend on where you're situated (sometimes they will not let you purchase one unless your power company is actively involved in supporting CHP systems).
:)
Overall it would likely save you a ton of money as you could just purchase natural gas instead of electricity. When you factor in generation costs, demand costs, transmission and hookup costs, peak load costs, etc from the electric company, it quickly makes sense to just generate the electricity yourself. Also, unless you have an electric heater for your home, you're probably already having to buy natural gas anyway so there's no additional hookup charge from the gas company.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if you had other shops/stores/residences near you that were interested in doing this it would be fairly simple to install a larger system, split the cost of the system, then just split up the gas bill accordingly (depending on how confident you are that your neighbors will pay on time of course
The fact that that is how these boards are chosen does not make it right. The fact that they are turning something a-political into something political does not make it right. The fact that they admitted it, even, does not make it right. I can admit that I stole a candy bar from a convenience store, but this doesn't mean they will let me keep the candy bar and go on my merry way.
I do agree that I'd like to see the personal perspective of the people actually affested by this, as I'm sure that there may be more to this, but THE FACT remains that this whole thing is based on the political leanings of these people, which again, is not right. The history of the United States has taught, if nothing else, that we as citizens have a right and a duty to stand up for what we believe in. It's the only way that we can insure that WE THE PEOPLE are in charge of our government, not some jerk who has a personal vendetta against anyone who doesn't support his cause. If we don't like the way he makes appointments to these boards we need to send a clear message to Washington that we will not tolerate it, either with actual letters or by voting for a complete change of administration over the next few years. Apathy like yours is only going to fuel the fire and make the current administration think that it can get away with more shit like this.
0x20 is exactly right. The point I was trying to make is that these people, who are experts in there field just like the scientists I referenced, are being denied the opportunity to use their expertise. The government should not dictate which "experts" can speak on a certain issues based soley on their political affiliations. Scientists and experts are supposed to be unbiased sources of information dedicated to discovering the TRUTH, or at the very least, eliminating as many untruths as possible. With this administration it seems like the only "truth" they wish to put forth is the one which benefits them the most. And in this case it doesn't even make any sense! What could the current administration possibly have to gain by not allowing these people to participate?
Actually, the current administration seems to be doing a fantastic job of judging scientists based on their political leanings. So many agencies and scientists are being leaned on to produce results that the administration wants to see that hardly an issue of Energy User News goes by without an article about a disgruntled scientist resigning because they refused to interpret results in a way favorable to the administration's policies. I don't have any doubt that each administration tries to impress upon researchers their hopes that the results match with what they'd like to see, but GW's is the first I've seen that actually strongarms its researchers into producing the results most beneficial to them. How are we supposed to make scientific advancements under conditions like this?
Unfortunately, like the article says, the first cost is still prohibitive in a lot of cases, although the savings in energy would seem to make it worthwhile. LEDs also tend to get very, very hot in large quantities if they're used for a long period of time, so air circulation is a common problem as well.
Hopefully some of you computer engineers and programers can come up with a cheap way to produce and control LED arrays so I can start using them in practice! Building owners would be extremely happy if power consumption in buildings would go down significantly and if they had the ability to control the color and brightness (they are easily and cheaply dimmable, unlike flourescents) of any room individually.
You'll have to forgive me :) I'm fairly new to the slashdot community.
Go may have simpler rules than chess, but it by no means a simple game. When I tell my friends about Go they laugh at me, but after explaining the game to them and giving them a 9 stone handicap and thoroughly trouncing them (I'm only around 12kyu... practically a beginner) they begin to see the game is much more complex and subtle than they anticipated. A computer program playing Go would have to be much more adaptive than a program playing chess, or have a much quicker algorithm to process the insane number of possible moves and responses. In either case, research into a computer that can play Go and can beat a human is something that is extremely worthwhile and applicable not just in Go, but in other AI applications as well. Don't get me wrong, research into chess playing programs is just as worthwhile, but any advance in Go will be orders of magnitude more impressive than any advance in playing chess.