A tankless system should cost about $50/year less than the current one.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "storage" system, unless you're refering to a standard tank water heater, and if you are then you're mistaken about the two being about the same level of efficiency - otherwise why would anyone bother?:)
I'm in Silicon Valley in CA. We live at about the same latitude as Melbourne (obviously North instead of South). I'm guessing that the weather here is roughly the same (I glanced at the Wikipedia page for Melbourne), though since we're in an inland valley it can get up into the 30s for a few weeks in the summer.
If I do all the math, my best guess is that the water heating costs for us normally are about US$150/year (I'm removing the recent spike in prices caused by Katrina). We'll spend an extra US$500 for a tankless water heater fairly soon (our existing tank unit is 9 years old now), and then probably spend about $100/year on hot water. The new heater will last for 30 years. So we'll actually spend about $500 *less* over that time on water heaters, and then about $1500 less on natural gas - but that's assuming natural gas prices remain the same as they are now (not counting the Katrina spike, which is already starting to correct itself).
Mostly a combination of sediment/mineral/crud build-up (probably curable with a softener), leaks, and the expense of installation compared to return.
I posit (admitedly without proof) that you save more money over 30 years with a tankless heater than you would with solar assisted conventional tank heating (presuming the same heat source - electric or gas - for both).
You'll buy 3 10 year warrantied tank water heaters in that time (and you will. Ask any plumber - the warranty offered on a tank water heater is exactly equal to what its *actual* lifespan *will* be), plus unknown (to me) maintenance on the solar portion.
You'll spend 25% more to buy a tankless water heater once (it will last 30 years), then save ~30% or so on your water heating costs, minus an unknown (to me) benefit of the solar system.
It doesn't. And I'm fine with that. Everyone I know who has done solar water heating has had enough problems with it to totally wipe out any benefit. If I want solar, it will be a PV cogen system, but electricity rates will have to go up quite a bit more to make it worth the investment.
The house of tomorrow looks an awful lot like the house of yesterday. I'm a homeowner, so I can pass along some of my own observations about how I would change my house if I had the chance:
1. Insulate, insulate, insulate. You can never insulate too well. Even if you think you've insulated well enough for thermal control, extra insulation is also sound deadening, which is nice. While you're at it, seal up the house really well. BUT if you do that, make sure you install a heat-exchanger venting system to replace the house air. This isn't so much a health issue as much as it is an aesthetic one. When you drop a deuce in the master bath, a well sealed house will help make the, uh, memories linger unless you are changing out the air. And leaving the bathroom window open on a cold, rainy night is never a great plan.
2. Put the laundry "room" (alcove, closet, whatever) near the master bedroom. It takes some extra work and some extra space, but you'll thank me. Especially if you have a two story house. You didn't install the dishwasher in the garage, did you?
3. Nice big conduits to every room for low voltage / communications wiring. Yes, for today I want 2 cat 5 and 2 RG6, but what about tomorrow?
4. Oversize the utility inputs as much as you can. We swapped out our stove/oven for a gas model. This required bringing a second gas line in through the garage - a fairly ugly hack. It would have been much better to future-proof this up front.
5. Tankless water heater. More reliable and longer lasting, more energy efficient, more graceful failure mode. Who can argue with that?
6. A basement. Obviously in some places this is actually required to insure the foundation is below the frost line, but even in Silicon Valley I'd like to have one for storage and to make repairs and improvements easier. We have a crawl space. It's not so nice. If you have a basement and a single story, then you probably can strike out #3 above.
7. Attic stairs / finished attic. The trend nowadays in making your house bigger is to replace the attic with a 2nd story. The 2nd story winds up with rooms with angled ceilings and the like, and you don't get to have an attic at all. We don't have a big family, so we don't really need that. But we are storage-poor, so it would be really helpful to be able to conveniently use the giant, cavernous triangle above the ceiling to store stuff.
8. If you go with 2 stories, try and arrange to have a pair of closets vertically lined up. If your health declines as you get older (a house is a long term investment, mind you), you can convert them into an elevator.
9. Every (non Amish) modern house in America has a home theater. The only difference is how nice it is. A 23" TV in the den is the home theater if that's where you watch TV. I'm not saying you should plan your house around home theater, but if you know some of the rules of good theater design, you can decide how many of them you can try and incorporate in the place where the TV goes:
A. Sunlight is the enemy of your TV. The room doesn't have to be windowless, but try and avoid large picture windows facing West or South.
B. The distance between the screen and your eyes ideally should be about 2-3 times the height of the screen (at least, if we're talking about high definition TV. Sit further away, and you'll lose all of the extra detail you paid for when you bought an HD set).
10. Let nature help your HVAC situation. Plant deciduous trees to the south. In the summer, they'll shade the house. In the winter, they'll drop their leaves and let the sun through to warm you. Plant evergreens between your house and the prevailing winter wind (usually from the North).
The fact that you can use C#, VB.net or Managed C++ illustrates that it's not the language that matters. It all winds up being the same CLR code in the end. Every programmer can feel free to use the one that makes the most sense to them.
For me, the choice would be C#, because it's the one whose syntax makes the most sense to me (and I have used all 3).
The problem is not language. The problem is the class hierarchy. I much prefer Java because the Microsoft one is a mess. That, and the platform-tie-ins are skillfully camoflaged to insure that (like Microsoft's Java) though you may think you're writing OS independent code, you're not.
Apple already distributes software that decrypts a DVD, the DVD player. So Apple could just add a decrypt/compress into iPod format option to the DVD player and still be ok.
SIGH
No, they can't. Because if they did, they would lose their authorization from the DVD CCA and would then be in violation of the DMCA.
Let's try and make the leap from A to B without the teacher's help, folks.
1. CDs may go to 20 kHz, but MP3s and AACs generally do not. And CDs don't offer a great deal of information at 20 kHz. Not that average hearing is going to notice in any event.
2. The minimum frequency for the 3 inch speakers you refered to in the GP is not going to be *that* much higher (logarithmically speaking). 3 inches is pretty big - at least mid range and maybe even low midrange.
3. Because in this case the thing is for an iPod. GP post implied that the HiFi was Apple's complete view on audio, where in actuality it is a speaker set intended for use only with an iPod. S/PDIF implies high fidelity and often >2 channels. iPod implies a lot of music in a small space, with somewhat less fidelity (lossy compression).
2. The lower the frequency the less directional. That's why there's Dolby 5.1 and not 5.2.
3. Since most of the material on the world's collection of iPods is either 128 kbps AAC or 192 kbps MP3 how much utility would there be in a surround system for iPods?
Anyone can decrypt the DVD. The trick is in getting the authorization of the copyright owner, in this case represented by the DVD CCA. If you distribute software that decrypts a DVD without their authorization, then you got some 'splaining to do.
Pass a law to go after certain criminals, and it will be used for everything possible
RICO is the quintesential example of this. While intended to go after organized crime, it has been used to go after everyone from the RIAA to anti abortion protesters to Major League Baseball and even video store owners who rent adult movies.
This gets my goat. The last time I was on a plane (and this was after they made the announcement that you could use your "approved portable electronic devices"), I pulled out my phone WHICH I HAD PUT INTO AIRCRAFT MODE WHILE WE WERE ON THE GROUND. The flight attendant came over and said to put it away. I explainde that it was in aircraft mode and that therefore the transmitter was disabled. She replied, "we don't recognize aircraft modes."
Now since interfering with a flight crew is a serious matter, I did put the phone away, but I was seriously angry. I was not allowed to use my computer basically because of its shape. Meanwhile, two rows ahead, someone was using one of those PDA-phone combinations without a hassle (I have no idea whether or not he even had the aircraft mode option, and if so, if he used it).
I swear, I'm going to make a little plastic box to put my phone in to disguise it as a PSP or something.
Actually, because it's a violation of FCC rules, not because it has anything to do with the FAA.
Cell phones are land-mobile devices. They're not supposed to go up in the air. When a cell phone gains altitude, it becomes visible to many more cell towers than it should. This causes additional interference. Modern spread spectrum techniques ameliorate this somewhat, but it's still an issue.
The DMCA, that's what. Even if Apple were to DRM the ripped DVD, it would be a violation of the DMCA, since they would have to decrypt it (that is, to circumvent an access control mechanism). They can't get permission, because the DVD CCA would never allow it.
See how the DMCA stifles innovation? Not that anyone here is surprised...
In this case, the "triangles" in question are defined by the receiver and a pair of satellites. The length of each side of the triangle is either known (satellite-to-satellite because of the almanac), or measured (satellite-to-receiver).
It's just another way to look at it.
The way I said it, the angles become too small.
The way you say it, the ratio of the delta between the transit times and the transit times themselves becomes too small.
One fellow I spoke with once who, well, was a rocket scientist, said that GPS can be used in earth orbit, but you typically need to use specialized code that, for example, doesn't assume that the receiver will be under (that is, nearer to the center of the earth) the satellites.
So GPS can be used in space, but there is probably a limit to how far away it could be used. The satellite antennas are optimized to send signals towards the surface, and at some point the delta between the distances to the satellites probably get too small to be useful (as you get further away, the angles between the satellites get small).
Alas, I don't know how to do the math to find out how far away from the Earth you need to be to make GPS useless.
However, it would be as ludicrous to complain about people using the word "theft" when they mean "property misappropriation" as it would be to complain that people use the word "piracy" when they mean "willful copyright infringement"
Wrong.
"Theft" has always meant just that. "piracy" to mean other than armed robbery on the high seas is a very recent trend, one which serves the interests of the copyright cartels by making copyright infringement sound more harmful and serious than it is.
Apple doesn't want the Intel version of MacOS X to run on non-Apple Intel boxes.
In a way, at the moment it really is piracy, since no legitimate copies of MacOS X for Intel are available except those bundled with a new Intel Mac or obtained from Apple's developer support. And those are licensed for the hosts they came with only.
The situation will change when/if Apple makes boxed copies of MacOS X available in their stores - probably when 10.5 ships. If I buy a legitimate retail copy of the OS from Apple, then proceed to run it on non-sanctioned hardware, I don't think they can really use the "piracy" term anymore.
Of course, I don't think the term "piracy" applies to any situation other than armed robbery of ships on the high seas. The more accurate term is "Copyright infringement." The term that might apply to the situation described in the paragraph immediately above would be "Violation of License Terms," but that would rather depend on the terms of the license (which I'm sure will cover this situation explicitely).
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. Almost as hard to hear as irony flying over your head. :)
A tankless system should cost about $50/year less than the current one.
:)
I'm not sure what you mean by a "storage" system, unless you're refering to a standard tank water heater, and if you are then you're mistaken about the two being about the same level of efficiency - otherwise why would anyone bother?
Aha! Australia!
I'm in Silicon Valley in CA. We live at about the same latitude as Melbourne (obviously North instead of South). I'm guessing that the weather here is roughly the same (I glanced at the Wikipedia page for Melbourne), though since we're in an inland valley it can get up into the 30s for a few weeks in the summer.
If I do all the math, my best guess is that the water heating costs for us normally are about US$150/year (I'm removing the recent spike in prices caused by Katrina). We'll spend an extra US$500 for a tankless water heater fairly soon (our existing tank unit is 9 years old now), and then probably spend about $100/year on hot water. The new heater will last for 30 years. So we'll actually spend about $500 *less* over that time on water heaters, and then about $1500 less on natural gas - but that's assuming natural gas prices remain the same as they are now (not counting the Katrina spike, which is already starting to correct itself).
Mostly a combination of sediment/mineral/crud build-up (probably curable with a softener), leaks, and the expense of installation compared to return.
I posit (admitedly without proof) that you save more money over 30 years with a tankless heater than you would with solar assisted conventional tank heating (presuming the same heat source - electric or gas - for both).
You'll buy 3 10 year warrantied tank water heaters in that time (and you will. Ask any plumber - the warranty offered on a tank water heater is exactly equal to what its *actual* lifespan *will* be), plus unknown (to me) maintenance on the solar portion.
You'll spend 25% more to buy a tankless water heater once (it will last 30 years), then save ~30% or so on your water heating costs, minus an unknown (to me) benefit of the solar system.
And how does this work with solar heating?
It doesn't. And I'm fine with that. Everyone I know who has done solar water heating has had enough problems with it to totally wipe out any benefit. If I want solar, it will be a PV cogen system, but electricity rates will have to go up quite a bit more to make it worth the investment.
The house of tomorrow looks an awful lot like the house of yesterday. I'm a homeowner, so I can pass along some of my own observations about how I would change my house if I had the chance:
1. Insulate, insulate, insulate. You can never insulate too well. Even if you think you've insulated well enough for thermal control, extra insulation is also sound deadening, which is nice. While you're at it, seal up the house really well. BUT if you do that, make sure you install a heat-exchanger venting system to replace the house air. This isn't so much a health issue as much as it is an aesthetic one. When you drop a deuce in the master bath, a well sealed house will help make the, uh, memories linger unless you are changing out the air. And leaving the bathroom window open on a cold, rainy night is never a great plan.
2. Put the laundry "room" (alcove, closet, whatever) near the master bedroom. It takes some extra work and some extra space, but you'll thank me. Especially if you have a two story house. You didn't install the dishwasher in the garage, did you?
3. Nice big conduits to every room for low voltage / communications wiring. Yes, for today I want 2 cat 5 and 2 RG6, but what about tomorrow?
4. Oversize the utility inputs as much as you can. We swapped out our stove/oven for a gas model. This required bringing a second gas line in through the garage - a fairly ugly hack. It would have been much better to future-proof this up front.
5. Tankless water heater. More reliable and longer lasting, more energy efficient, more graceful failure mode. Who can argue with that?
6. A basement. Obviously in some places this is actually required to insure the foundation is below the frost line, but even in Silicon Valley I'd like to have one for storage and to make repairs and improvements easier. We have a crawl space. It's not so nice. If you have a basement and a single story, then you probably can strike out #3 above.
7. Attic stairs / finished attic. The trend nowadays in making your house bigger is to replace the attic with a 2nd story. The 2nd story winds up with rooms with angled ceilings and the like, and you don't get to have an attic at all. We don't have a big family, so we don't really need that. But we are storage-poor, so it would be really helpful to be able to conveniently use the giant, cavernous triangle above the ceiling to store stuff.
8. If you go with 2 stories, try and arrange to have a pair of closets vertically lined up. If your health declines as you get older (a house is a long term investment, mind you), you can convert them into an elevator.
9. Every (non Amish) modern house in America has a home theater. The only difference is how nice it is. A 23" TV in the den is the home theater if that's where you watch TV. I'm not saying you should plan your house around home theater, but if you know some of the rules of good theater design, you can decide how many of them you can try and incorporate in the place where the TV goes:
A. Sunlight is the enemy of your TV. The room doesn't have to be windowless, but try and avoid large picture windows facing West or South.
B. The distance between the screen and your eyes ideally should be about 2-3 times the height of the screen (at least, if we're talking about high definition TV. Sit further away, and you'll lose all of the extra detail you paid for when you bought an HD set).
10. Let nature help your HVAC situation. Plant deciduous trees to the south. In the summer, they'll shade the house. In the winter, they'll drop their leaves and let the sun through to warm you. Plant evergreens between your house and the prevailing winter wind (usually from the North).
Since when has anyone wanted to?
Certainly compared to the number of folks who would want to go the other way.
That's the series 3 they've said will be coming "after mid year."
The fact that you can use C#, VB.net or Managed C++ illustrates that it's not the language that matters. It all winds up being the same CLR code in the end. Every programmer can feel free to use the one that makes the most sense to them.
For me, the choice would be C#, because it's the one whose syntax makes the most sense to me (and I have used all 3).
The problem is not language. The problem is the class hierarchy. I much prefer Java because the Microsoft one is a mess. That, and the platform-tie-ins are skillfully camoflaged to insure that (like Microsoft's Java) though you may think you're writing OS independent code, you're not.
SIGH
No, they can't. Because if they did, they would lose their authorization from the DVD CCA and would then be in violation of the DMCA.
Let's try and make the leap from A to B without the teacher's help, folks.
Seeing as how we're talking about college, I'd say s/man/boy/, unless you're talking about the profs.
1. CDs may go to 20 kHz, but MP3s and AACs generally do not. And CDs don't offer a great deal of information at 20 kHz. Not that average hearing is going to notice in any event.
2. The minimum frequency for the 3 inch speakers you refered to in the GP is not going to be *that* much higher (logarithmically speaking). 3 inches is pretty big - at least mid range and maybe even low midrange.
3. Because in this case the thing is for an iPod. GP post implied that the HiFi was Apple's complete view on audio, where in actuality it is a speaker set intended for use only with an iPod. S/PDIF implies high fidelity and often >2 channels. iPod implies a lot of music in a small space, with somewhat less fidelity (lossy compression).
1. You misspelled "16 kHz"
2. The lower the frequency the less directional. That's why there's Dolby 5.1 and not 5.2.
3. Since most of the material on the world's collection of iPods is either 128 kbps AAC or 192 kbps MP3 how much utility would there be in a surround system for iPods?
Anyone can decrypt the DVD. The trick is in getting the authorization of the copyright owner, in this case represented by the DVD CCA. If you distribute software that decrypts a DVD without their authorization, then you got some 'splaining to do.
RICO is the quintesential example of this. While intended to go after organized crime, it has been used to go after everyone from the RIAA to anti abortion protesters to Major League Baseball and even video store owners who rent adult movies.
Absolute power, and all that.
This gets my goat. The last time I was on a plane (and this was after they made the announcement that you could use your "approved portable electronic devices"), I pulled out my phone WHICH I HAD PUT INTO AIRCRAFT MODE WHILE WE WERE ON THE GROUND. The flight attendant came over and said to put it away. I explainde that it was in aircraft mode and that therefore the transmitter was disabled. She replied, "we don't recognize aircraft modes."
Now since interfering with a flight crew is a serious matter, I did put the phone away, but I was seriously angry. I was not allowed to use my computer basically because of its shape. Meanwhile, two rows ahead, someone was using one of those PDA-phone combinations without a hassle (I have no idea whether or not he even had the aircraft mode option, and if so, if he used it).
I swear, I'm going to make a little plastic box to put my phone in to disguise it as a PSP or something.
Actually, because it's a violation of FCC rules, not because it has anything to do with the FAA.
Cell phones are land-mobile devices. They're not supposed to go up in the air. When a cell phone gains altitude, it becomes visible to many more cell towers than it should. This causes additional interference. Modern spread spectrum techniques ameliorate this somewhat, but it's still an issue.
If that were true, UA Flight 93 wouldn't have made it all the way to Pennsylvania.
The DMCA, that's what. Even if Apple were to DRM the ripped DVD, it would be a violation of the DMCA, since they would have to decrypt it (that is, to circumvent an access control mechanism). They can't get permission, because the DVD CCA would never allow it.
See how the DMCA stifles innovation? Not that anyone here is surprised...
Well, they let you burn to CD already. Yes, a burn and re-rip is lossy, but until they fix JHymn, it's the best you can do.
In this case, the "triangles" in question are defined by the receiver and a pair of satellites. The length of each side of the triangle is either known (satellite-to-satellite because of the almanac), or measured (satellite-to-receiver).
It's just another way to look at it.
The way I said it, the angles become too small.
The way you say it, the ratio of the delta between the transit times and the transit times themselves becomes too small.
Is GPS really unusable near the moon?
One fellow I spoke with once who, well, was a rocket scientist, said that GPS can be used in earth orbit, but you typically need to use specialized code that, for example, doesn't assume that the receiver will be under (that is, nearer to the center of the earth) the satellites.
So GPS can be used in space, but there is probably a limit to how far away it could be used. The satellite antennas are optimized to send signals towards the surface, and at some point the delta between the distances to the satellites probably get too small to be useful (as you get further away, the angles between the satellites get small).
Alas, I don't know how to do the math to find out how far away from the Earth you need to be to make GPS useless.
Wrong.
"Theft" has always meant just that. "piracy" to mean other than armed robbery on the high seas is a very recent trend, one which serves the interests of the copyright cartels by making copyright infringement sound more harmful and serious than it is.
I'm not the only one saying this, either.
In a way, at the moment it really is piracy, since no legitimate copies of MacOS X for Intel are available except those bundled with a new Intel Mac or obtained from Apple's developer support. And those are licensed for the hosts they came with only.
The situation will change when/if Apple makes boxed copies of MacOS X available in their stores - probably when 10.5 ships. If I buy a legitimate retail copy of the OS from Apple, then proceed to run it on non-sanctioned hardware, I don't think they can really use the "piracy" term anymore.
Of course, I don't think the term "piracy" applies to any situation other than armed robbery of ships on the high seas. The more accurate term is "Copyright infringement." The term that might apply to the situation described in the paragraph immediately above would be "Violation of License Terms," but that would rather depend on the terms of the license (which I'm sure will cover this situation explicitely).