Out of curiousity, but, how hard was it to set all of this up? How much did it cost?
Not really sure, he did it over a lot of years.
He likes to build houses, for fun.
So first he made an outdoor solar shower and toilet, using passive solar.
Then he bought the batteries - just car batteries, think a friend sold him a bunch cheap rather than ship them back - and got one of those panel solar cell grids and wired it up, after siting it for best elevation for his latitude and solar exposure - which I think he adjusts every month or so.
He installed the water turbine when he rechannelled the stream to make a pond and improve drainage, and has that power up the batteries.
It's all kind of piecemeal. So he had been talking about getting wind power, since he's just below the ridge, and owns the ridge as part of his 42 acres, so siting isn't a problem.
Since it's a working tree farm, it's agricultural, so the permits aren't needed for what he does, as I understand it - or maybe there are permits, but I never really asked him about that. Especially since he doesn't sell the power.
he runs off the grid in Vermont, with a battery-power system, some solar cells, and a river paddlewheel turbine, and has a ridge on his 42 acre property that he could site this on.
Which is why he uses a laptop instead of a PC - easier to wire it to trickle feed from the battery system.
and until this consumer product drops to the sweet spot of $500, it's still way too overpriced, according to my Marketing 101 classes from my first degree.
Hmmm, sounds like I should buy an HDTV set on President's Day 2006... when the electronics pricing is lowest....
Personally, I think it's more likely an excuse not to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, which more than 90 percent of the public wants, so they can plan more space station trips, which the public cares nothing about.
Either that or when they refuelled they ran short of cash...
My comp runs fine, but what about my ROOM?! I have central air cond, but my bedroom is the only room in the house that is boiling hot in the summer. As a power user who doesn't like turning off his comp, that sucks:P
Two things:
1. Open your window - if you need a screen on it, then get one.
2. Mount your PC so it's in the shade, with the exhaust going towards the window and the air intake coming from the shade.
3. Buy a box fan for your window, or put one so it pushes the hot air out.
4. Stop painting your room black when it faces south.
5. Put a large flat tray of water right after the box fan, so that the air moving towards the computer is cooled by evaporation. Make sure this does not result in condensation on your computer after 30 minutes at say 3 pm (hottest time).
6. If you can, buy louvred slats to cover your window and reflect out the sunlight but permit the airflow.
7. If you're not at home, make sure your computer has sleep mode - and use it. Most heat is generated by your monitor, so buy an LCD flat screen monitor (lower energy usage, lower heat generation, quieter).
The major problem with box fan cooling is the location of the PC and the location of the box fan.
If you have your PC near a window (or sliding door) that is covered by a screen or open, then you could position the box fan either inside pointing at the PC in such a way that the heated air from the PC would escape outside. But if you put the box fan facing inside from the window area, while this pulls in air, it means you're effectively moving heated air inside away from the outside, so this could heat up your place as well.
The best thing would be to have two windows/screens - one open (screened?) with a box fan pulling in air from the shaded part of the house (bottom of the floor is cooler), one pulling the heated air up and out thru another window (screen?), with the PC situated between the two.
Just bought a new 3.0 GHz AMD laptop and it's - well - a bit warm. In fact, the air intake/fan seems to be where my left knee would be if I use it on my lap, which is almost comfortable.
But, after using it for more than about 20 minutes, it gets a tad warm.
Any mods that might work for this situation? I'd think a gel pac underneath would only put off the heat for a few minutes, and then I'd have really hot gel pac to cope with.
One idea I've thought of is a reflective mat. Thermal pad, if you will - or a spare placemat that's the corded type but heat resistant - or maybe a set of oven gloves/mitts would be best.
Putting a drink on top would be kind of dangerous, and the ice cubes might cause condensation which would then drip into the laptop, so I think that's out.
I told him I was a little concerned with my p4 running around 60C and hee tells me that when they test out the chips, they test them at like 100C. Im not suggesting to run your CPU at 100C, but I don't think 60-70 is a problem.
Or you could move to the US, where 60-70 is really cool, unlike the rest of the world where it's very very hot.
Just don't try this in a cold lab - they use Kelvin and that's gonna make your metal very brittle, cause it's way too cold...
As to the thermal grease - your mileage may vary. Whatever you do, don't use butter - even the very best butter plays havoc with CPUs. Although it does have a pleasant aroma. Butter in watches - questionable. Butter in digital watches - ok, but not great. Butter on CPUs or Fan housings - sounds like a good idea, but even a low-fat organic butter can really throw it out of whack.
Before you add a fan, you have to buy one... Fans come in sizes measured in millimeters..
They also are measured in Watts for power consumption.
More Watts is better, provided you don't cover the intake with paper, thick dust, or plastic shrinkwrap from all those DVDs you ripped.
Keep your fans clean - and powerful.
While we all place our boxen on the floor, it's amazing how much less dust you get if you put them at least four inches above rug/floor level - I use an old table that has slats about four inches above my hardwood floors, which helps both cool the computers and keep dust out of them and their fans.
-> do not pay executives $42 million just for quitting, this should lower cost per page by at least 2 or 3 cents
Man, the way you think, one would think the shareholders were supposed to own the company...
But, yes, this is a major expense.
My question is: is this just an attempt to make us change our ink for something easier to patent - and thus maintain a monopoly or oligopoly on, thus keeping profits high?
I've taught in the military and now I work at the UW here in Seattle.
IMHO the major problems are:
1. We teach to test. This sounds great, and can be useful, but we spend far far far too much time teaching to take tests, and not to learn.
2. We teach to the lowest common denominator. When I went to middle and high school in BC, we taught to the highest denominator - we were pushed to do even better and just getting by was NOT acceptable. This doesn't mean ignoring those who don't get it, but assigning peers to assist them in getting it. This reinforces the peer students really knowing the material, it allows someone closer to the student falling behind to help translate, it keeps the student who is ahead from getting bored, and it's just plain effective.
Oh, and if you don't have enough textbooks and desks, stop whining about how expensive they are and make sure the school gets them - no matter what it takes.
don't knock Llamas until you've ridden around on Camels... SimCity may have a bias towards Llamas per se, but you don't see people dissing Zebras for their ornery tendancies either.
I look forward to watching the conflict in which the military takes a ball of junk and starts rolling people up in it, or carries ridiculous-sized swords and rides around on giant chickens (Wark!).
Amusingly, back when I was a play-by-mail RPG game designer in the late 70s, one of the things I did was create a civilization that actually were War Chickens, with a caste of Psionic Chickens, that adventured around the galaxy.
Almost as much fun as the ridiculous-sized swords, in game play terms.
in that your adventurer, even though at a place with male and female apprentices, is only allowed to be male.
In Black & White, another Lionhead game, even though it's supposed to be balanced, it feels like the dark side tries to get you to behave badly, as you can't pick up people and place them gently down on a pile of grain - which when I was little was really fun to slide down on - but are assumed to toss them over the building no matter how gently you do it.
Whoah you mean you were still walking your son to school at 7th grade AND carrying his backpack? Poor kid!
We live a few miles from the school. And it's uphill. Basically, I carried my backpack and his, since his was too heavy, but he still had to walk more than a mile to school - then I'd keep going the rest of the way to the university.
I always gave him his backpack before he went into the school. It was his idea not to carry the backpack all the way to school. On light days I'd have him carry it.
On the way home it depends on how heavy it is, from the Boys and Girls Club that I pick him up at. But we still walk, unless it's a really rainy day, even when it snows.
About the weight thing, it would be lighter I believe, since there'd be no textbooks, right?
Good point. But I seem to recall a lot of that was the binder - if everything was submitted electronically in class, perhaps that would cut the weight and compensate.
Slashdot Mirror
Out of curiousity, but, how hard was it to set all of this up? How much did it cost?
Not really sure, he did it over a lot of years.
He likes to build houses, for fun.
So first he made an outdoor solar shower and toilet, using passive solar.
Then he bought the batteries - just car batteries, think a friend sold him a bunch cheap rather than ship them back - and got one of those panel solar cell grids and wired it up, after siting it for best elevation for his latitude and solar exposure - which I think he adjusts every month or so.
He installed the water turbine when he rechannelled the stream to make a pond and improve drainage, and has that power up the batteries.
It's all kind of piecemeal. So he had been talking about getting wind power, since he's just below the ridge, and owns the ridge as part of his 42 acres, so siting isn't a problem.
Since it's a working tree farm, it's agricultural, so the permits aren't needed for what he does, as I understand it - or maybe there are permits, but I never really asked him about that. Especially since he doesn't sell the power.
He's a bit far to be attached to the grid anyway.
he runs off the grid in Vermont, with a battery-power system, some solar cells, and a river paddlewheel turbine, and has a ridge on his 42 acre property that he could site this on.
Which is why he uses a laptop instead of a PC - easier to wire it to trickle feed from the battery system.
to go on top of my legs while I watch VH1 and drink free bheer while surfing the Internets.
...
seriously, that would be useful.
but not one to make my laptop even harder to read on my desk
Slashdot DOS Attacks Cost User His Provider!
Ah, but in Soviet Amerika, Slashdotting sends you to Gitmo!
and until this consumer product drops to the sweet spot of $500, it's still way too overpriced, according to my Marketing 101 classes from my first degree.
... when the electronics pricing is lowest ....
Hmmm, sounds like I should buy an HDTV set on President's Day 2006
I understand government cutbacks but shouldn't the cargo be sent with a boeing heavy lift rocket or even outsource to Arianne ?
This way we could use money to go with a new design with money saved from the expensive shuttle.
Because the military space shuttle was busy ferrying lasers to the space station.
Running into the Sun way up in the Sky ...
...
Personally, I think it's more likely an excuse not to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, which more than 90 percent of the public wants, so they can plan more space station trips, which the public cares nothing about.
Either that or when they refuelled they ran short of cash
Two things:
sorry, I listed seven things when I started with two.
My comp runs fine, but what about my ROOM?! I have central air cond, but my bedroom is the only room in the house that is boiling hot in the summer. As a power user who doesn't like turning off his comp, that sucks :P
Two things:
1. Open your window - if you need a screen on it, then get one.
2. Mount your PC so it's in the shade, with the exhaust going towards the window and the air intake coming from the shade.
3. Buy a box fan for your window, or put one so it pushes the hot air out.
4. Stop painting your room black when it faces south.
5. Put a large flat tray of water right after the box fan, so that the air moving towards the computer is cooled by evaporation. Make sure this does not result in condensation on your computer after 30 minutes at say 3 pm (hottest time).
6. If you can, buy louvred slats to cover your window and reflect out the sunlight but permit the airflow.
7. If you're not at home, make sure your computer has sleep mode - and use it. Most heat is generated by your monitor, so buy an LCD flat screen monitor (lower energy usage, lower heat generation, quieter).
The major problem with box fan cooling is the location of the PC and the location of the box fan.
If you have your PC near a window (or sliding door) that is covered by a screen or open, then you could position the box fan either inside pointing at the PC in such a way that the heated air from the PC would escape outside. But if you put the box fan facing inside from the window area, while this pulls in air, it means you're effectively moving heated air inside away from the outside, so this could heat up your place as well.
The best thing would be to have two windows/screens - one open (screened?) with a box fan pulling in air from the shaded part of the house (bottom of the floor is cooler), one pulling the heated air up and out thru another window (screen?), with the PC situated between the two.
Just bought a new 3.0 GHz AMD laptop and it's - well - a bit warm. In fact, the air intake/fan seems to be where my left knee would be if I use it on my lap, which is almost comfortable.
But, after using it for more than about 20 minutes, it gets a tad warm.
Any mods that might work for this situation? I'd think a gel pac underneath would only put off the heat for a few minutes, and then I'd have really hot gel pac to cope with.
One idea I've thought of is a reflective mat. Thermal pad, if you will - or a spare placemat that's the corded type but heat resistant - or maybe a set of oven gloves/mitts would be best.
Putting a drink on top would be kind of dangerous, and the ice cubes might cause condensation which would then drip into the laptop, so I think that's out.
I told him I was a little concerned with my p4 running around 60C and hee tells me that when they test out the chips, they test them at like 100C.
...
Im not suggesting to run your CPU at 100C, but I don't think 60-70 is a problem.
Or you could move to the US, where 60-70 is really cool, unlike the rest of the world where it's very very hot.
Just don't try this in a cold lab - they use Kelvin and that's gonna make your metal very brittle, cause it's way too cold
As to the thermal grease - your mileage may vary. Whatever you do, don't use butter - even the very best butter plays havoc with CPUs. Although it does have a pleasant aroma. Butter in watches - questionable. Butter in digital watches - ok, but not great. Butter on CPUs or Fan housings - sounds like a good idea, but even a low-fat organic butter can really throw it out of whack.
Before you add a fan, you have to buy one... Fans come in sizes measured in millimeters..
They also are measured in Watts for power consumption.
More Watts is better, provided you don't cover the intake with paper, thick dust, or plastic shrinkwrap from all those DVDs you ripped.
Keep your fans clean - and powerful.
While we all place our boxen on the floor, it's amazing how much less dust you get if you put them at least four inches above rug/floor level - I use an old table that has slats about four inches above my hardwood floors, which helps both cool the computers and keep dust out of them and their fans.
Air is essential for the Guild navigators to pilot their bitTorrents from one node to another.
If the Air does not Flow, bitTorrents will be impacted.
The Air must Flow!
-
oh, and besides, those dust bunnies can get quite unruly at times, rabid almost, vorpal in their natures, if you will.
at least they'll run a surplus (profit), instead of a deficit (loss) ...
-> do not pay executives $42 million just for quitting, this should lower cost per page by at least 2 or 3 cents
...
Man, the way you think, one would think the shareholders were supposed to own the company
But, yes, this is a major expense.
My question is: is this just an attempt to make us change our ink for something easier to patent - and thus maintain a monopoly or oligopoly on, thus keeping profits high?
I've taught in the military and now I work at the UW here in Seattle.
IMHO the major problems are:
1. We teach to test. This sounds great, and can be useful, but we spend far far far too much time teaching to take tests, and not to learn.
2. We teach to the lowest common denominator. When I went to middle and high school in BC, we taught to the highest denominator - we were pushed to do even better and just getting by was NOT acceptable. This doesn't mean ignoring those who don't get it, but assigning peers to assist them in getting it. This reinforces the peer students really knowing the material, it allows someone closer to the student falling behind to help translate, it keeps the student who is ahead from getting bored, and it's just plain effective.
Oh, and if you don't have enough textbooks and desks, stop whining about how expensive they are and make sure the school gets them - no matter what it takes.
don't knock Llamas until you've ridden around on Camels ... SimCity may have a bias towards Llamas per se, but you don't see people dissing Zebras for their ornery tendancies either.
I look forward to watching the conflict in which the military takes a ball of junk and starts rolling people up in it, or carries ridiculous-sized swords and rides around on giant chickens (Wark!).
Amusingly, back when I was a play-by-mail RPG game designer in the late 70s, one of the things I did was create a civilization that actually were War Chickens, with a caste of Psionic Chickens, that adventured around the galaxy.
Almost as much fun as the ridiculous-sized swords, in game play terms.
in that your adventurer, even though at a place with male and female apprentices, is only allowed to be male.
In Black & White, another Lionhead game, even though it's supposed to be balanced, it feels like the dark side tries to get you to behave badly, as you can't pick up people and place them gently down on a pile of grain - which when I was little was really fun to slide down on - but are assumed to toss them over the building no matter how gently you do it.
you paint one of these little bikes [dodgetomohawk.com] red or blue, and ride around somewhere roomy [www.saltflats.com].
Back in my day, we used to call that:
Going to Burning Man
Whoah you mean you were still walking your son to school at 7th grade AND carrying his backpack? Poor kid!
We live a few miles from the school. And it's uphill. Basically, I carried my backpack and his, since his was too heavy, but he still had to walk more than a mile to school - then I'd keep going the rest of the way to the university.
I always gave him his backpack before he went into the school. It was his idea not to carry the backpack all the way to school. On light days I'd have him carry it.
On the way home it depends on how heavy it is, from the Boys and Girls Club that I pick him up at. But we still walk, unless it's a really rainy day, even when it snows.
About the weight thing, it would be lighter I believe, since there'd be no textbooks, right?
Good point. But I seem to recall a lot of that was the binder - if everything was submitted electronically in class, perhaps that would cut the weight and compensate.
7) People don't steal textbooks if left someplace. But someone definitely will if it's a laptop.
I've walked my son to school since kindergarten, and until grade 8 I carried his backpack.
I'd be more worried about adding another 10 pounds of weight to an already overloaded backpack, actually.
In my day we used these input and recording devices called pen, paper, and pencil. And we liked it!
laptops, haxx0red by someone who cherry picks their unencrypted WiFi packets and sets them searching for intelligent life in outer space?
...
I'm sure someone will