You seem to be well versed due to being a generation dispatcher, so I hope it's OK I ask a question. =) Where would you get started if you wanted to be an independent power producer? Not small scale, I'm talking about 50,000 acres+ of GE 1-3MW wind turbines.
Oh good god, where do I begin. Your post is so full of fail.
Euhm, you are almost totally wrong. Sorry to say it so, but it's the case.
Nuclear is great indeed for a base load: but that's it, base load. It can not easily be switched on or off like a coal or gas fired plant, which can change load in a matter of minutes.
Base load (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical supply system over 24-hours: the load that exists 24 hours a day.
A base load power plant (or base load power station) is one that is best suited to serving this load because it takes a long time to start up and is relatively inefficient at less than full output. These plants run at all times through the year except in the case of repairs or scheduled maintenance.
A base load power plant is not supposed to be "on-demand" power. Of course, to supplement base load, you're going to use Peaking Power.
Natural gas and oil power plants are much faster to start, but have much higher fuel costs. These plants are typically scheduled to handle peak power demands since they can be ready to supply power in 30 minutes or less. They are more expensive to operate than coal power plants, primarily due to higher fuel costs.
Hydroelectric power is the fastest to respond to increasing power demands, reaching full power in about two to three minutes. These plants can provide both base load and peak load demands for power at a relatively low cost, but are limited by the amount of water available and other considerations, such as water demand for municipal or irrigation sources, or the need to limit water discharge for flood control reasons.
Your idea of using some power dump is nice, but electrical vehicles are not the place. How are you ever going to switch on and off their charging for a start? When the wind falls, these chargers should be switched off. That requires some sophisticated communications, and is quite error prone. And how are you going to get to work after a windless night, or a gusty night where your charger is switched on and off but mostly off?
You don't switch their charging on and off. They charge at night. No communications are necessary.
Major utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric and Austin Energy have studied this and found since Plug-In Hybrids are generally plugged in at night, the grid already has the nighttime capacity to charge these vehicles. A January 2007 Pacific National Laboratory study showed that if we woke up tomorrow and all our vehicles could plug in, today's grid could already support 84% of them charging at night without building a single power plant.
Power dumps could be cold storage warehouses, as discussed on Slashdot a few years ago (sorry, no link). Other power dumps, used already in e.g. France which is over-reliant on nuclear, could be pumping up water to the top of a hill during the night, and let it run down during the day when necessary.
Wind power is unstable, and we have to live with that. As nuclear is only a base load, wind may be used during the night to power the cold storage warehouses, which don't mind having no power for an hour or so. But during the day you will need back-up from conventional sources, just to maintain reliability. So far we haven't found a sufficiently reliable renewable energy source do do it otherwise.
On top of that power dumps are nice but also have limited capacity, both in absorption and release of energy on
That's why you use nuclear for base load and wind/solar for peak load and other tasks. Example: In the midwest of the US, we've been pumping fossil aquifers dry over the last 100 years (fossil aquifers don't replenish themselves like other aquifers do). During the day, huge windfarms covering the midwest should pump power into the grid of standard use, and at night they should pump power in the grid to charge electric vehicles. Unused power should be used to condense water from the air and pumped underground to replenish these aquifers we're pumping dry).
Renewable energy rule: Always have a dump load that has a purpose. Don't burn that valuable energy off as heat.
They would need to provide a "receipt" showing work units contributed and what platform contributed it. You would then fill in the electricity cost in your area, and compute the "in kind" donation. All of this is moot though unless they're a 501(c)(3) charity.
Perhaps it's that Tivo "just works"? If I wasn't gainfully employeed and had tens of hours a week to burn, I'd get a MythTV box. If I wanted to be frustrated all the time when watching TV, I'd get a Comcast DVR system. Tivo's benefit isn't software, or the guide data, it's usability. Those of us with disposable income don't mind paying $15/month to have all of our shows waiting for us and not having a problem when we try to watch them.
It means that not every trade you make is going to be profitable, but if you know what you're doing, you should still come out ahead across all your trades. I wasn't referring to currency value (dollar vs euro vs yuan).
RTFA: A california court ruled in favor or Lucasfilms, but since the designer lives in the UK, Lucasfilms has to sue there. Good luck getting a UK court to go along with the same tort bullshit the US passes off as civil law/justice.
There are almost always stocks out there that the market undervalues. The market isn't all-knowing. Being a savvy investor is picking up undervalued stocks before the market determines their true (hopefully, higher) value. Example: I bought Google a couple of days after their IPO for around $220-$230/share. The market has valued it as high as $700+/share. Now, you're not always going to beat the market (actually, you'll probably lose more than you'll win), but if done properly you'll still be ahead dollar wise.
Agreed. We purchase 200-300 Dell servers a month. If we weren't able to customize them anymore (which would mean we'd be wasting our time swapping components after they arrived all the same), we'd find another vendor (as others have pointed out, HP or IBM). Alienware may want to move into the server space, as they're use to high margins as it is (custom, high end desktops) and their customization they currently do with desktops/laptops could easily be extended to a server platform.
I doubt it, as freedom of speech would trump it (there was a similar case arguing that flashing headlights to warn of upcoming law enforcement was protected speech; the court ruled it was).
I think an important distinction to make is that Lennon lived in a time with rational enemies. The Cold War with the Soviet Union was largely uneventful (read: did not end in nuclear winter) because both the US and the Soviet Union enjoyed existing (both the countries and the people within those countries). Mutually assured destruction made sense as a defense strategy.
This no longer holds true, as there are now enemies who do not fear destruction/death/etc. The paradigm shifts. Peace should be tried at all costs before force is used, but reason does not always work. Diplomacy does not always work. As a last resort (and only that), sometimes force must be used. And once done, there is peace again.
Actively attacking someone and slipping covert code into software that you know is going to be pilfered are different things (from a strategic perspective).
Slashdot Mirror
You seem to be well versed due to being a generation dispatcher, so I hope it's OK I ask a question. =) Where would you get started if you wanted to be an independent power producer? Not small scale, I'm talking about 50,000 acres+ of GE 1-3MW wind turbines.
Euhm, you are almost totally wrong. Sorry to say it so, but it's the case. Nuclear is great indeed for a base load: but that's it, base load. It can not easily be switched on or off like a coal or gas fired plant, which can change load in a matter of minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load_power_plant
Base load (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical supply system over 24-hours: the load that exists 24 hours a day.
A base load power plant (or base load power station) is one that is best suited to serving this load because it takes a long time to start up and is relatively inefficient at less than full output. These plants run at all times through the year except in the case of repairs or scheduled maintenance.
A base load power plant is not supposed to be "on-demand" power. Of course, to supplement base load, you're going to use Peaking Power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load_power_plant#Peaking_power_plant_usage
Natural gas and oil power plants are much faster to start, but have much higher fuel costs. These plants are typically scheduled to handle peak power demands since they can be ready to supply power in 30 minutes or less. They are more expensive to operate than coal power plants, primarily due to higher fuel costs.
Hydroelectric power is the fastest to respond to increasing power demands, reaching full power in about two to three minutes. These plants can provide both base load and peak load demands for power at a relatively low cost, but are limited by the amount of water available and other considerations, such as water demand for municipal or irrigation sources, or the need to limit water discharge for flood control reasons.
Your idea of using some power dump is nice, but electrical vehicles are not the place. How are you ever going to switch on and off their charging for a start? When the wind falls, these chargers should be switched off. That requires some sophisticated communications, and is quite error prone. And how are you going to get to work after a windless night, or a gusty night where your charger is switched on and off but mostly off?
You don't switch their charging on and off. They charge at night. No communications are necessary.
http://www.pnl.gov/energy/eed/etd/pdfs/phev_feasibility_analysis_combined.pdf
Major utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric and Austin Energy have studied this and found since Plug-In Hybrids are generally plugged in at night, the grid already has the nighttime capacity to charge these vehicles. A January 2007 Pacific National Laboratory study showed that if we woke up tomorrow and all our vehicles could plug in, today's grid could already support 84% of them charging at night without building a single power plant.
Power dumps could be cold storage warehouses, as discussed on Slashdot a few years ago (sorry, no link). Other power dumps, used already in e.g. France which is over-reliant on nuclear, could be pumping up water to the top of a hill during the night, and let it run down during the day when necessary. Wind power is unstable, and we have to live with that. As nuclear is only a base load, wind may be used during the night to power the cold storage warehouses, which don't mind having no power for an hour or so. But during the day you will need back-up from conventional sources, just to maintain reliability. So far we haven't found a sufficiently reliable renewable energy source do do it otherwise. On top of that power dumps are nice but also have limited capacity, both in absorption and release of energy on
Renewable energy rule: Always have a dump load that has a purpose. Don't burn that valuable energy off as heat.
A damn fine short story I may add. +1 for your reference to it.
They would need to provide a "receipt" showing work units contributed and what platform contributed it. You would then fill in the electricity cost in your area, and compute the "in kind" donation. All of this is moot though unless they're a 501(c)(3) charity.
He probably just uses Amazon's EC2. =)
Since when is paying $15/month for an entertainment-related expense considered rich? What, you make $25K/year?
Perhaps it's that Tivo "just works"? If I wasn't gainfully employeed and had tens of hours a week to burn, I'd get a MythTV box. If I wanted to be frustrated all the time when watching TV, I'd get a Comcast DVR system. Tivo's benefit isn't software, or the guide data, it's usability. Those of us with disposable income don't mind paying $15/month to have all of our shows waiting for us and not having a problem when we try to watch them.
Actually, it would be better to move the tax burden to sales tax and let income be tax free. This would promote saving vs. promoting spending.
Netflix and LG are almost ready to roll their set top box out that ties into the "Watch It Now" feature of the Netflix site.
Your Slashdot handle is your license plate? That's fantastic.
It means that not every trade you make is going to be profitable, but if you know what you're doing, you should still come out ahead across all your trades. I wasn't referring to currency value (dollar vs euro vs yuan).
RTFA: A california court ruled in favor or Lucasfilms, but since the designer lives in the UK, Lucasfilms has to sue there. Good luck getting a UK court to go along with the same tort bullshit the US passes off as civil law/justice.
There are almost always stocks out there that the market undervalues. The market isn't all-knowing. Being a savvy investor is picking up undervalued stocks before the market determines their true (hopefully, higher) value. Example: I bought Google a couple of days after their IPO for around $220-$230/share. The market has valued it as high as $700+/share. Now, you're not always going to beat the market (actually, you'll probably lose more than you'll win), but if done properly you'll still be ahead dollar wise.
Perhaps the problem was that you were rooming with assholes?
I wasn't aware. That's depressing =( I checked their website before posting my comment, and didn't see any sign they were owned by Dell.
Agreed. We purchase 200-300 Dell servers a month. If we weren't able to customize them anymore (which would mean we'd be wasting our time swapping components after they arrived all the same), we'd find another vendor (as others have pointed out, HP or IBM). Alienware may want to move into the server space, as they're use to high margins as it is (custom, high end desktops) and their customization they currently do with desktops/laptops could easily be extended to a server platform.
You would write off strippers and booze under the "Entertainment" portion of your taxes. Keep receipts =)
Kind of like saying, "When did Chuck Norris become a bad ass." He's always been a bad ass, just like the universe has always existed.
I doubt it, as freedom of speech would trump it (there was a similar case arguing that flashing headlights to warn of upcoming law enforcement was protected speech; the court ruled it was).
This no longer holds true, as there are now enemies who do not fear destruction/death/etc. The paradigm shifts. Peace should be tried at all costs before force is used, but reason does not always work. Diplomacy does not always work. As a last resort (and only that), sometimes force must be used. And once done, there is peace again.
Sometimes to defend you have to attack first.
Actively attacking someone and slipping covert code into software that you know is going to be pilfered are different things (from a strategic perspective).
Perhaps the ability to flag the post or moderate it "-1 | Malicious link"?
Slashdot should prevent posting any link that goes to or redirects to nimp.org. Simple fix.