I don't believe the title here is accurate. It's not a new HDMI mode that allows the USB-C connections. The HDMI spec was expanded to support the USB-C connector. The USB-C spec supports alternate modes, which now includes the HDMI alternate mode.
Would not a more accurate title be: "New HDMI Spec Defines USB-C Alternate Mode"? Or: "HDMI Will Soon Allow Connection By USB-C Port"?
Then there is this line from the linked article: "Connecting a USB-C device to an HDMI display has been something of a mess, until now."
Yes, a "mess" for certain... Not. I go to Google and search for USB-C to HDMI cables and adapters and find multiple hits for suitable devices under $50. Most of those are dongles with a male USB-C to female HDMI, which means a "mess" of adding an HDMI cable. Finding a cable with USB-C on one end, and HDMI male on the other, might take a bit longer and a few more bucks but it's a "clean" conversion from USB Gen2 to HDMI 1. If one was short on funds and didn't mind some "mess" then a Type-A USB connector to HDMI or DVI adapter can be found, along with whatever cable is needed from there. This can plug into the more common USB 3.0 plug, which is typical on many computers and USB-C docks that people with USB-C laptops and even desktops would have.
There is no shortage of options to mate a modern computer to a display with HDMI input. If one feels they must use a USB port for this job then there are solutions, many with very high reviews. It would make more sense to connect this HDMI display to, you know, the HDMI port that most any PC has. Lacking that there are passive and inexpensive adapters for DVI and DP++. Active adapters don't cost much more. Thunderbolt to HDMI adapters exist too, which might give the best picture since that allows for a much more capable GPU than just a meager protocol conversion.
I have not yet seen a display that supported only HDMI. There is almost always one or more of a DVI, DisplayPort, component, or VGA port. It's not too hard to find a display with all the above. Again with inexpensive passive adapters that can turn HDMI to DVI or DisplayPort there does not seem to be a problem. One might see a problem in paying $79 for the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter but it allows for charging at the same time it provides HDMI output, and even a USB 3 Type-A port for other devices. Expensive but not "messy" since it is effectively a dock for the MacBook Air.
We already have plenty of standards, I don't see how this new one resolves any "mess".
After reading up on this some today I see it's more complicated than just having multiple competing video display modes on one connector, the cables will also be different.
A USB-C cable may not necessarily be able to carry HDMI unless specifically designed to do so. For example, a Thunderbolt 3 cable, which uses the USB-C connector, will fall back to USB-C if either device does not support the faster Thunderbolt protocol. Such cables will certainly be more expensive than a cable that does only USB-C. Thunderbolt is backward compatible with DisplayPort and so we know that one cable will do USB 3.1, Thunderbolt 3, and DisplayPort 1.2 (or perhaps newer). I found nothing to suggest such a cable will be capable of also supporting HDMI, MHL, or whatever other protocol that might share this port.
I see that the USB-C spec allows for a passive cable which I assume would allow for any protocol to pass, but there is a cost is in limited bandwidth and length. For example, one can use a passive cable for Thunderbolt 3 but the cable is likely limited to one meter (instead of three), and 5 Gb/s (instead of 40 Gb/s). A passive USB-C cable would also be limited to USB Gen1 speeds, not the faster Gen2. If HDMI is similarly limited then one might get only a 1080p image instead of 5K, assuming it works at all.
Not only does this make HDMI on USB-C appear to be doomed to fail but it also adds further confusion to the use of USB-C by consumers and may therefore make USB-C less attractive. USB in all its various versions is complicated enough before adding the alternate modes. There are three types of connectors (A, B, C), in three sizes for some (standard, mini, micro), in five different speeds (1.5M, 12M, 480M, 5G, and 10G), and I lost count on how many levels of voltage and amperage.
The prevalence of these multipurpose, and therefore two-way, connections are problematic as you point out. I suppose it is possible to require all ports be forced to legacy protocols through adapters to make them one-way again. That only works so long as the parts to do that are available.
Perhaps rather than trying to source computers and peripherals that use secure connections it may be possible to find someone willing to make cables that are secure. Computers and displays are expensive but the cables are cheap. If someone can make "hobbled" cables that force it to one way only communications cheap enough then perhaps a market could develop. It might mean a cable that would normally sell for $10 is now $100 but that would be cheap compared to, for example, trying to get someone to produce a "certified secure" 5K display. I'm sure the market would include more that just people in the corporate world, I can imagine quite a few paranoid computer users would buy them too.
Since the devices need to talk to each other the cables would have to be at least somewhat application specific. For example the cable cannot simply cut the outgoing data line but leave the incoming line intact, the computer would have to know if the device on the other end is a printer, video display, or whatever. I can imagine making a cable that reports itself as a standard display and pass through only the outgoing video would be relatively trivial. I don't know if that is a viable solution or not, perhaps there are better ideas out there.
Precisely. It's rare to see HDMI on anything new, at least in my experience.
You mean except for every single TV?
A solution already solved with existing inexpensive USB-C to HDMI cables. People will have to buy a cable to match the two devices regardless of the connector on each. I'm finding it real difficult to come up with a problem this is supposed to solve.
I suppose it is possible to see future TVs with USB-C inputs but then the question is, why even bother supporting HDMI on that port? USB-C alternate modes already include MHL and DisplayPort. HDMI is limited to 4K @ 60Hz currently. DisplayPort will do 5K @ 120Hz or 8K @ 60Hz. MHL will do 5K @ 60Hz. If TV makers want to support HDMI devices then put on some HDMI ports, it's not like a 60 inch TV, or even a "tiny" 20 inch TV, is going to be lacking the space for a full sized HDMI or DP++ (which is backward compatible to HDMI) port. Again, adapter cables are cheap and one is going to have to buy a cable to connect the devices regardless of the ports on the devices. Just get the right cable.
Still not seeing the problem this is supposed to solve besides diminishing HDMI port fee income.
Oh, great, now how many cables and connector types are we supposed to keep track of in order to correctly connect our devices?
Just one. That's the point.
Perhaps you speak generally and this does not apply, how is supporting HDMI on USB-C supposed to help? HDMI on USB-C is really only useful if one is interested in connecting a new device that does not wish to set aside the space and expense of a single purpose port like HDMI but also wishes to support legacy HDMI. Since USB to HDMI adapters are already available pretty cheap I see this as a solution looking for a problem.
Setting aside the HDMI on USB-C announcement there are still the many other cables that plug into USB-C with some other connector on the other end, we'll need to sort through those. Getting everyone to agree on one port/connector to rule them all is a wish that is not likely to ever come true. Not that I'd want it true as any such connector will inevitably be a compromise.
Even if all one had was USB-C connectors on every device, which I believe may be possible for someone to do if one was so inclined, there is still the problem of the many iterations of USB-C. This may solve the problem of having a pile of different cables since now one might get away with a single pile of USB-C cables but all USB-C ports are not equal. A device might need the higher power output as defined in the USB Power Delivery spec to function, this is not required by USB-C. A device might need the USB 3.1 speeds to function, but this is not required by the USB-C spec.
A device may require an alternate mode of USB-C to function, but this may be limited to devices and/or cables with some different connector on the other end of the cable. Presumably a USB-C device will fall back to USB protocol if the preferred alternate mode is not supported but maybe not. For example a display with a USB-C input could support one or more of HDMI, MHL, DisplayPort, or Thunerbolt modes but if your device only supports the USB protocol on the USB-C ports they will connect physically with the cable but there will be no video displayed. It's cases like this that are likely to be most frustrating for the novice user, they will see two identical ports and be able to connect them with a cable but their devices still won't work with each other.
It seems to me that this could be more than just a solution looking for a problem. I could argue this is a solution that will produce more problems. The USB people have already created enough animosity towards them from the ten different connector types, five different data speeds, two different voltages, and four different amperage ratings. What they don't need is to add another alternate mode to the spec when there are already four supported modes that will carry video.
I know tone of voice doesn't carry well in type so don't think I'm mad at you or anyone else that sees this as a fix to a problem. I'm frustrated at the USB people for making my job more difficult as someone that has to support these devices.
Precisely. It's rare to see HDMI on anything new, at least in my experience. They already collected their fee on the devices they've sold that included the port. They will collect in the future on anyone that buys an adapter that wants to preserve compatibility with these older devices, assuming that it's not replaced too.
I see this as an attempt to hang on a bit longer to collect their fees. They are hoping that people will seek this capability out in order to maximize backward compatibility and/or manufacturers will be willing to pay the fee so as to add another feature to their device in order to grab a few more buyers that are checklist shoppers.
The only problem this solves is the diminishing income they have from fewer new devices with HDMI ports.
I especially can't wait until internal hard drives are using USB-C for data and power.
I remember when FireWire was supposed to come to internal hard drives for data and power. I still come across PCs at work with an internal FireWire port for this reason. Obviously it didn't happen. Lots of things killed it.
FireWire isn't dead yet though, I still see it on professional audio equipment.
Here's an idea, let's do FireWire over USB-C. Too much? Well, we passed "too much" on USB-C a long time ago.
And yet, HDMI is on hundreds of millions of HD televisions that aren't going anywhere soon.
Which is readily solved with an inexpensive DP to HDMI adapter cable. The passive DP++ to HDMI cables are less than $10, and active DP to HDMI cables are less than $20. It seems rare to find a new computer that lacks a mini or full sized DP output. Assuming a USB-C connector has a DisplayPort alternate mode then a DP/USB-C to HDMI cable is trivial to produce, and produce cheaply.
Assuming the USB-C connector has a Thunderbolt alternate mode then one can connect any of a number of PCIe compatible video chips, allowing for HDMI or any other output to match whatever input that display might have. Price will vary based on desired output quality, of course. Given the many cheaper options I expect this to be used rarely, especially to connect to a 1080p or less TV that has nothing better than HDMI to drive it.
Assuming that the USB-C connector has a MHL alternate mode then HDMI support is included, if I'm reading the spec correctly. I found an adapter that has a micro-USB male connector on one side and female HDMI on the other and claims to use the MHL protocol for less than $10.
Assuming the USB-C connector has a, quite likely, USB mode then one can find a USB to HDMI adapter already for reasonable price. A quick search shows I can get one for less than $30, which also happens to be a USB-C to HDMI adapter. Adapters with USB-A connectors look to be almost double that but it may just be a matter of not finding the cheapest ones in my search.
I'm quite certain that the HDMI people are getting paid for the privilege of us using their connector and/or protocol on anything we buy. What they seem to be doing here is wanting us to pay for the privilege of the HDMI protocol on future USB-C devices even if we have no intention of ever using that capability.
Looks to me like a sneaky way to add a HDMI tax on a device for all for the benefit of the few that would actually use it. As they seem to tax per port then if I have a device that can output HDMI on DP and USB-C then I'm paying double for something I am unlikely to use. As the cost to me is likely less than the $10 I'd expect for an adapter that lacks this feature I can't complain much. What I do see though is a flood of money potentially going their way from the sale of devices with this feature.
The USB spec is already confusing, and they want to make it worse. We already have multiple voltage and ampere ratings to deal with. There's a confusing number of connectors as it is. I will admit though that this problem will solve itself in time as old devices die and we are soon left with mostly just USB-A, USB-micro-B, and USB-C.
The USB-C spec already includes two video modes, MHL and display port. As I see it HDMI is largely dying as a spec, just let it die. At work we have a lot of older computers with DVI-I outputs, which can output VGA or HDMI with a passive cable. I have yet to see a display that has an HDMI input. TVs will have HDMI, sure, but I even wonder how long that will last. The new computers that we get have DisplayPort and/or VGA. Even DVI output is rare any more, which is largely identical to HDMI except in the connector.
I can see why the HDMI people want to use a different connector for their video standard but I'm having trouble understanding the desire to use the USB spec, they are putting themselves in direct competition with the already established MHL and DisplayPort. What really confuses me though is the USB people agreeing to this.
I know that when one feels the need to ask, "Why?" the answer is usually, "Money." Where is the money in this though?
I don't get it. I don't want it. I'd rather use DisplayPort, VGA, or even DVI. Much of my complaint with HDMI is with the crappy connector but that is solved with using DVI or DisplayPort connectors. When it comes down to it I don't much care what protocol is on the wire so long as it works. I don't see the advantage to adding the HDMI protocol to anything. In fact it may make things worse since I'd have to pay the HDMI license fee for my device if it has it.
If you can build solar more cheaply than nuclear, then you can replace more coal for the same budget, meaning more lives saved.
Sure, "if", but we can't. At least not yet. Nuclear is cheaper than solar right now and safer than solar right now. So if the goal is to save lives then we should be building nuclear power plants right now.
I pointed this out from the start but it seems I must repeat myself. If we can assume that solar will get cheaper in the future due to technological advancement then we should be able to also assume that nuclear power will get cheaper due to technological advancement.
You are also comparing a privately developed solar power project to a government developed nuclear project, and then seem to imply that governments screw things up. Would not the solution be to get government out of the way and let the private sector develop nuclear power? I don't mean do away with government oversight completely, just put it on the same scale as we do with other energy sources.
It seems from what you state that government subsidies equate to expensive results, and I agree. IMHO, people that turn to the government for money tend to be people that cannot raise funds from investors. This tends to be because investors aren't as easily tricked into giving out money because it is their money that could disappear. Government is less concerned because they can just get more money from taxpayers.
This reminds me of something I read recently which I will paraphrase to fit this situation: "Solar power is such a great idea we need the government to pay people to buy it."
How does nuclear look if you change the metric to "lives significantly damaged"? It's hard to find stats but Fukushima alone is at least 300,000 by conservative estimates.
The Fukushima reactors that were damaged were old designs that were months or even days from being retired and dismantled. We don't build them like that any more. It's like you are saying we should stop building automobiles because you just read Unsafe At Any Speed from 1966.
It's impossible to compute "lives significantly damaged" as how would one define "damage" or even "significant"? An easy metric is deaths because death is a very final and binary state. From that we see with nuclear power, even with the design from the 1960s at Fukushima, is an order of magnitude safer than solar by using the deaths per megawatt metric. Many of the deaths from rooftop solar are from falls, how many of those people that fell didn't die but have their life "significantly damaged"?
My uncle did construction for many years but had to retire after he fell off a roof and busted up his arm real bad. How many solar panel installers had to do the same? Multiply that by the billions of solar panels that would have to be installed instead of thousands of nuclear power plants we'd need to power our world. What happens then? A world of people maimed from solar power? Wind power has similar death rates to solar and for much of the same reasons, people fall from heights, electrocutions, etc. I believe it would be safe to assume that wind shares a "lives significantly damaged" to that of solar.
Then you get back to the price difference. You again mention the cleanup costs of a 40 year old reactor as a reason to not build reactors in the future, reactors that are much improved in technology and safety. Have you considered the cleanup costs of those 40 year old solar panels? That can't be cheap either. Since solar panels aren't as popular as nuclear power we don't see those costs make the big headlines, at least not yet.
While I see your point I'm finding it difficult to see any merit in it. You speak of the deaths and "life damage" from nuclear but seem to be avoiding the similar effects on society from wind and solar. I see large trucks with windmill parts on the interstate all the time around here, how many traffic accidents have those caused? What of "life damage" from being stuck in traffic behind them as they try to navigate an exit ramp at crawling speeds? What of the deaths in the steel mills and iron mines that make the raw material for the blades and towers?
Which gets back to a point I made from the start, we don't have the mining capacity to produce enough steel and concrete to build windmills at the rate needed to replace coal power. We do have enough steel and concrete capacity to replace coal with nuclear. I tried finding the numbers on what it would take to replace coal with solar but I've not had much luck. Is it perhaps because the numbers would be so embarrassing?
Then we'd have to go through this 1,749,999 times every week for all the other roofs that would need to be covered to make up for the loss of one coal plant. Or, we can replace that one coal plant shut down every week with one nuclear power plant every week..
That's a lot of people up on roofs installing PV panels. No wonder PV fails compared to nuclear on deaths per terawatt hour. That would be a lot of people up on a roof and a lot of chances for people to fall off and break their neck.
You are comparing a single solar power plant from Chile to a single nuclear power plant in the UK. Is that a fair comparison? I stated averages in the USA and even so I'm sure we can find outliers that can make the comparison favor of any energy source we choose.
Let's put that aside and take it from another angle. I've been told for years that I am somehow obligated to pay higher utility rates in order to reduce my impact on the environment. If that is true then nuclear still wins in this comparison in many ways.
What you say is only relevant if solar has a lower CO2 output than nuclear, which it does not. There may be other benefits to solar but I believe it would be real hard to find them. As I pointed out before, solar means more people die. Is not saving lives the point?
1. I cannot put my own nuclear plant beside my house. I can put solar panels on my roof.
That's true but if you and some like minded people get together to pool your money you'd have that nuclear power plant, which would give twice as much energy per dollar. This is not a plan for the individual since an individual is not producing those solar panels, it's a large corporation made of many people pooling their resources.
Also, I'm not arguing that you should not be able to put solar panels on your roof. What I'm pointing out is the comparative costs of these energy sources, in dollars, lives, and CO2 released into the air. If you want solar panels then you need to know what you are getting into. Don't put up solar panels because you think you'll save humanity from itself, you won't. Don't put up solar panels thinking you'll save money, unless you live in a highly optimal location. Do it because it takes you off the grid and independent from it, or whatever else you might be trying to do.
2. There is an idea to diversify our sources of energy. Please stop talking in absolutes like "replacing coal with wind".
I mention the case of replacing coal with wind because that is what I've seen people claim we can do, or at least replace coal with a mix of wind, solar, hydro, or whatever else is "green" where wind is a large portion of that. Take the numbers I've found and scale them as appropriate to fit your vision of the future and see what you get. Even if we assume we can replace 10% of "dirty" energy with wind we'd still have to double our annual output of steel and concrete to meet the demand that much wind power would create.
I see a future where nuclear makes up something like 50% to 80% of total energy demand. The rest would be a mix of wind, hydro, natural gas, and a small bit from solar. We will not rid ourselves from coal for a very long time but if CO2 reduction is the goal then nuclear power is the best choice we have right now.
It is possible that some future technology will make nuclear look bad by comparison but we don't have that technology yet. If we wait for that technology to come then we are just making a bad problem worse. I'm not a big believer in CAGW because that is a trio of things that have to pile up just so for this to be a problem we can fix. First we must have global warming. The globe may be warming, or it may not, we don't know what the future holds. We've already seen a 15 year "pause" in warming and the "pause" may end soon, or it may not. If there is global warming then we must still prove that human activity is causing it. This may be something easier to prove but then it comes to the last part. We still don't know if this global warming can be considered "catastrophic" or not. We might see many places become inhospitable but the world already has many inhospitable places, there's a chance we'd be just moving them around. That would suck for many people but people can move and at the rate it's happening people might barely even notice. It's possible that we'd make the world better for us.
Even if catastrophic anthropogenic global warming does not happen I believe we still have many reasons to move to nuclear power. The air quality in China is a good example on why we should do so.
I vaguely recall someone talking about how much trouble it was for Bill Clinton to get his clearance. Apparently he had quite the history that would make us mere mortals be denied but this was POTUS and he cannot be denied. What they had to do was document everything, make up excuses on why such things would not be grounds to deny, and then hope no one looks too close later.
When I had to get my clearance I had troubles not because I had any interactions with law enforcement or such but because I moved around a lot for a few years. I had college, internships, a job that didn't last long, sleeping on people's couches for some time in between, more college, enlisted in the Army, seasonal work, all mixed in. The investigator had to verify that I lived in all the places I gave and at the times I gave them. Fortunately for the investigator my brother, who also had a security clearance at the time, gave his word on my being truthful. That apparently made things simple.
For someone that was accused of sexual harassment, had his license to practice law revoked, etc., etc. like Bill Clinton I can only imagine the hoops the investigators had to jump through to make things look good on paper.
When it comes to carbon footprint the top two on energy produced per greenhouse gasses emitted are hydroelectric and nuclear. Wind and solar are close behind. So close that if anyone wants to argue with me on this I'll call them all equal, perhaps I'd even grant wind and solar a 10x lead because even then nuclear is so much better than coal and oil. Geothermal is up there somewhere too but, like hydro, it is highly location dependent. Wind and solar are still location dependent but much less so. There are few places we cannot put nuclear.
Then there are lives lost per terawatt hour produced. Nuclear gets 0.04 lives lost per TWh produced, and this includes Fukushima, Chernobyl, and deaths by mining uranium. Rooftop solar has 0.1, wind has 0.15, hydro has 1.0 (mostly due to China, 0.1 otherwise), with the world average around 47, mostly due to coal, oil, and natural gas. Again, even if we take the nuclear number and multiply it by 10 it is still not bad compared to the rest.
When it comes to costs I'll take average numbers from the EIA because I feel like it and I found their numbers real quick. Nuclear is $95.2/MWh, conventional coal is $95.1, hydro is $83.5, peaking natural gas is $113.5, combined cycle natural gas is $75.2, wind is $73.6 onshore and $196.9 offshore, Solar is $125.3 for PV and $239.7 for thermal. Nuclear doesn't have a 10x advantage here but If someone wants to argue the numbers I'll grant a 2x advantage since then it still beats out the unreliable wind and solar in many cases. What I will not do is allow claims that wind and solar prices will improve but nuclear will not. If we grant that future technology improvement grants a better price for one energy source then we should be able to assume an equal gain on any other energy source. This is especially true if discussing any technology that turns heat or mechanical motion into electricity since nuclear power uses those just as much as wind or solar thermal.
Then it comes down to whether or not we can actually build it all. I saw a comparison on these energy sources based on a cubic mile of oil. This comparison spreads the construction over 50 years, and if we assume a 50 year lifespan of these power sources then it turns into a continuous rate of construction. We'd need one new 900MW nuclear power plant every week. 200 new 18GW hydroelectric dams every quarter. 1200 new windmills every week with 1.65MW capacity each. For PV solar we'd need to cover 250,000 roofs per day with 2.1kWh capacity each.
Here's where I think the final nail in the coffin on the idea that we can replace coal with wind lies. To replace coal with wind worldwide would require 10 billion tons of steel and concrete, and current annual production is 1.5 billion tons. Wind requires over 500 tons of steel and 1000 tons of concrete per MW installed, about ten times that of nuclear, coal, or gas. I got most of these numbers from the EIA and from Morgan Stanley.
I've heard people claim it is impossible for us to produce one new nuclear power plant per week worldwide. I call bullshit because nuclear power takes no more resources than coal or natural gas and we are currently building them at a similar rate. Arguments against nuclear on costs in lives and dollars also go out the window to anyone that does an honest analysis. Comparing nuclear to wind on resources required makes nuclear look so much easier. I tried to do a similar analysis on solar but my calculator doesn't do numbers that big.
I've largely ignored issues like reliability, location restrictions, etc. that count against wind and solar because I don't have to go there to make my point. If someone wants to argue about nuclear being unreliable but wind and solar can be predicted then I'll go there, but you'll lose.
It is capitalism that will likely save the helium. If it is as rare as people say then the price will reflect that, that's capitalism.
As prices rise the ability for people to afford helium for things like airships diminishes. As prices rise it becomes affordable for people to invest in new ways to obtain helium and pay for ways to prevent it being lost.
If we have the government dictate that no one can use helium for fuel saving airships like this then you have tyranny.
Seems rather unfair that we must choose between economic freedoms and having cheap helium for MRIs, doesn't it? Well, life is not fair.
Because a proper tool costs money and learning to use it takes time.
Research costs money and the people that can do the research with less costs get to do more research. Microsoft Office is "free" to most because it effectively comes with the computer. Getting the right software can costs thousands per seat.
That's easy to say but people need to understand what they are looking for. As a Specialist in the Army I happened to be in the ops office while one of the sergeants was working on a spreadsheet that handled some sort of inventory. He knew I knew something about computers and so he asked me to come over to look at the funny formatting that Excel was doing on him. What I saw was a number that could have been a date, price, part number, or something else. I started asking the sergeant what he was trying to do with the number and what kind of a number it was supposed to be. It didn't take long before he became frustrated with me and I was told I had somewhere else I needed to be.
This was probably something better managed by a database but databases are hard, and does Office even include a database product any more?
That's great for people that have access to Matlab from the college they attend or from their employer.
If you can prove you are a student the $500 price tag is a bit much. I don't recall how much I spent on the student version of Matlab I bought many years ago but being a student version there were imposed limits on the size of arrays it would hold. As such the one time I needed it for a project it proved worthless since it could not hold my data set. Guess what I used instead? Excel.
The "pro" version of Matlab costs over $2000 while Excel is effectively free. Microsoft has been so successful in marketing it's office products that few even think about how much that software costs. I have to wonder how many people even use Excel for it's intended purpose. People buy Office to get Word and Powerpoint, the fact it comes with Excel makes it nearly impossible for anyone to compete with that even in cases where people should know better to use a more appropriate tool.
We've seen the US government, and other governments, crack down on Microsoft for their near monopoly and largely fail. I don't think trying that again is going to break this trend. Even if somehow Microsoft is forced to break up the Office bundle there is still the matter of the inertia of the files floating around that people need to use. There is the matter of corporate culture where "no one got fired for buying Microsoft". Then there must be a product that competes with it. If the product is free (as in open source) there is an implied lack of value and quality due to no price tag on it. Someone might try to package FOSS applications as an alternative using that money to lure people from the way to get the same thing for free by promising additional proprietary features and capability. This packaging must then strike the balance between price, features, and packaging to give the right impression that people would want to buy it.
After going to college years ago for computer engineering I'm taking courses now on "big data". I have access to SAS, Matlab, Mathematica, and more that I cannot recall as I use them so irregularly. What I find myself doing is use Excel to format the data, produce some pretty graphs, and then paste them into a Word document for my final reports. This is because the tools cannot make things look as pretty, or it's just too hard to figure out when the assignment is due at midnight and being late can cost a 10% reduction in the grade.
How can this problem be solved? I don't know but I imagine it means the people that sell Matlab will have to gamble on selling their product at 1/10th the current price in the hopes they get 10X the number of buyers. That's just a minimum since the increase in support costs for the new influx of novice users will need to be covered too.
I like your idea and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I have a similar idea. Currently every even year we have an election, that stays. On odd years we have an automatic recall vote for everyone in office. If they win then they continue to serve their term. If they lose then they must leave office as soon as the vote is certified as official. Then their lieutenant/vice/deputy/whatever takes their place for executive positions until the next election. Legislative seats would be empty or filled by appointment like we do now for cases like retirement, illness, or whatever. In the next election that person in that seat currently can choose to run for the rest of that term as can anyone else eligible. This includes the person that was voted out the year prior.
At the normal end of the term there is a normal election. This keeps things relatively normal for things like keeping a four year term for POTUS, six year staggered terms for Senate, and two year for the House.
This means a continuous election season but how is that different than now? All it does is allow the voters to do something about it more often. While someone voted out of office could run again for the same seat there will be pressure from the political parties for them not to. If things are going well then the same people stay in office. These people would then be campaigning on how awesome they are and telling us about all the laws they got passed or voted down. Politicians would have a harder time hiding unpopular legislation during the off seasons.
These recall elections could be for appointed positions too, like cabinet positions and justices. This does not bar them from being appointed again but the person making that appointment is going to have to defend that or get voted out too.
You mean the punny things on subs and carriers? Sorry, that is like comparing an internal combustion engine in a car with a gas turbine. A naval reactor sizes range between 200MWt and 600MWt making them perhaps 1/10 the size of the biggest reactors on land to about the same size as the smaller ones operating in India. Point is we can build nuclear power plants in a reasonable time if we want to. I fail to see how the size matter here, just build more of them. You know, cheaper by the dozen, right?
Cheaper than nuclear. And in a a year or two cheaper than any other big scale power production. You must be living under a rock. You assume that wind and solar will get cheaper but nuclear power can not or will not. Who's living under a rock?
Unlikely. What exactly do you want to use to replace steel and concrete? Not replace steel and concrete exactly, just new ways of putting them together. Mass production, which can be done with those "punny" naval sized reactors, helps here. There will need to be new materials used, such as nickel alloys, to hold up to the higher temperatures from these highly efficient reactors.
We actually don't know how to really build such a reactor and especially we do not know what material to use, as liquide flourides are rather difficult to handle. Now I know you've been living under a rock. There are at least four companies in North America doing research on molten salt reactors and they know what materials to use. Then there are people in China, Japan, and probably elsewhere figuring this out. All that is needed is a license to build one to figure out some of the details for mass production.
And your randomly thrown in "cheap" makes nothing cheap. Nuclear power is right now the most expensive on the planet... always was and always will be. Regardless what technology you use to produce it. Always? I saw a video of a nuclear engineer talking about doing the assessment on the time, money, and effort required to build a modern nuclear power plant. They added it all up and found it no more expensive than a coal plant. This did not match the estimates they've seen elsewhere as their number was much much smaller than any other estimate. Then they realized where they went wrong, they did not add in the licensing costs.
Nuclear power is expensive only because the government decided it would be expensive. If they decided it was no longer going to be expensive then we'll see it cheaper than coal, that's quite certain. Whether it is cheaper than anything else is a matter of other market forces.
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I don't believe the title here is accurate. It's not a new HDMI mode that allows the USB-C connections. The HDMI spec was expanded to support the USB-C connector. The USB-C spec supports alternate modes, which now includes the HDMI alternate mode.
Would not a more accurate title be:
"New HDMI Spec Defines USB-C Alternate Mode"?
Or:
"HDMI Will Soon Allow Connection By USB-C Port"?
Then there is this line from the linked article:
"Connecting a USB-C device to an HDMI display has been something of a mess, until now."
Yes, a "mess" for certain... Not. I go to Google and search for USB-C to HDMI cables and adapters and find multiple hits for suitable devices under $50. Most of those are dongles with a male USB-C to female HDMI, which means a "mess" of adding an HDMI cable. Finding a cable with USB-C on one end, and HDMI male on the other, might take a bit longer and a few more bucks but it's a "clean" conversion from USB Gen2 to HDMI 1. If one was short on funds and didn't mind some "mess" then a Type-A USB connector to HDMI or DVI adapter can be found, along with whatever cable is needed from there. This can plug into the more common USB 3.0 plug, which is typical on many computers and USB-C docks that people with USB-C laptops and even desktops would have.
There is no shortage of options to mate a modern computer to a display with HDMI input. If one feels they must use a USB port for this job then there are solutions, many with very high reviews. It would make more sense to connect this HDMI display to, you know, the HDMI port that most any PC has. Lacking that there are passive and inexpensive adapters for DVI and DP++. Active adapters don't cost much more. Thunderbolt to HDMI adapters exist too, which might give the best picture since that allows for a much more capable GPU than just a meager protocol conversion.
I have not yet seen a display that supported only HDMI. There is almost always one or more of a DVI, DisplayPort, component, or VGA port. It's not too hard to find a display with all the above. Again with inexpensive passive adapters that can turn HDMI to DVI or DisplayPort there does not seem to be a problem. One might see a problem in paying $79 for the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter but it allows for charging at the same time it provides HDMI output, and even a USB 3 Type-A port for other devices. Expensive but not "messy" since it is effectively a dock for the MacBook Air.
We already have plenty of standards, I don't see how this new one resolves any "mess".
After reading up on this some today I see it's more complicated than just having multiple competing video display modes on one connector, the cables will also be different.
A USB-C cable may not necessarily be able to carry HDMI unless specifically designed to do so. For example, a Thunderbolt 3 cable, which uses the USB-C connector, will fall back to USB-C if either device does not support the faster Thunderbolt protocol. Such cables will certainly be more expensive than a cable that does only USB-C. Thunderbolt is backward compatible with DisplayPort and so we know that one cable will do USB 3.1, Thunderbolt 3, and DisplayPort 1.2 (or perhaps newer). I found nothing to suggest such a cable will be capable of also supporting HDMI, MHL, or whatever other protocol that might share this port.
I see that the USB-C spec allows for a passive cable which I assume would allow for any protocol to pass, but there is a cost is in limited bandwidth and length. For example, one can use a passive cable for Thunderbolt 3 but the cable is likely limited to one meter (instead of three), and 5 Gb/s (instead of 40 Gb/s). A passive USB-C cable would also be limited to USB Gen1 speeds, not the faster Gen2. If HDMI is similarly limited then one might get only a 1080p image instead of 5K, assuming it works at all.
Not only does this make HDMI on USB-C appear to be doomed to fail but it also adds further confusion to the use of USB-C by consumers and may therefore make USB-C less attractive. USB in all its various versions is complicated enough before adding the alternate modes. There are three types of connectors (A, B, C), in three sizes for some (standard, mini, micro), in five different speeds (1.5M, 12M, 480M, 5G, and 10G), and I lost count on how many levels of voltage and amperage.
Calling this "ridiculous" is about right.
The prevalence of these multipurpose, and therefore two-way, connections are problematic as you point out. I suppose it is possible to require all ports be forced to legacy protocols through adapters to make them one-way again. That only works so long as the parts to do that are available.
Perhaps rather than trying to source computers and peripherals that use secure connections it may be possible to find someone willing to make cables that are secure. Computers and displays are expensive but the cables are cheap. If someone can make "hobbled" cables that force it to one way only communications cheap enough then perhaps a market could develop. It might mean a cable that would normally sell for $10 is now $100 but that would be cheap compared to, for example, trying to get someone to produce a "certified secure" 5K display. I'm sure the market would include more that just people in the corporate world, I can imagine quite a few paranoid computer users would buy them too.
Since the devices need to talk to each other the cables would have to be at least somewhat application specific. For example the cable cannot simply cut the outgoing data line but leave the incoming line intact, the computer would have to know if the device on the other end is a printer, video display, or whatever. I can imagine making a cable that reports itself as a standard display and pass through only the outgoing video would be relatively trivial. I don't know if that is a viable solution or not, perhaps there are better ideas out there.
Precisely. It's rare to see HDMI on anything new, at least in my experience.
You mean except for every single TV?
A solution already solved with existing inexpensive USB-C to HDMI cables. People will have to buy a cable to match the two devices regardless of the connector on each. I'm finding it real difficult to come up with a problem this is supposed to solve.
I suppose it is possible to see future TVs with USB-C inputs but then the question is, why even bother supporting HDMI on that port? USB-C alternate modes already include MHL and DisplayPort. HDMI is limited to 4K @ 60Hz currently. DisplayPort will do 5K @ 120Hz or 8K @ 60Hz. MHL will do 5K @ 60Hz. If TV makers want to support HDMI devices then put on some HDMI ports, it's not like a 60 inch TV, or even a "tiny" 20 inch TV, is going to be lacking the space for a full sized HDMI or DP++ (which is backward compatible to HDMI) port. Again, adapter cables are cheap and one is going to have to buy a cable to connect the devices regardless of the ports on the devices. Just get the right cable.
Still not seeing the problem this is supposed to solve besides diminishing HDMI port fee income.
Oh, great, now how many cables and connector types are we supposed to keep track of in order to correctly connect our devices?
Just one. That's the point.
Perhaps you speak generally and this does not apply, how is supporting HDMI on USB-C supposed to help? HDMI on USB-C is really only useful if one is interested in connecting a new device that does not wish to set aside the space and expense of a single purpose port like HDMI but also wishes to support legacy HDMI. Since USB to HDMI adapters are already available pretty cheap I see this as a solution looking for a problem.
Setting aside the HDMI on USB-C announcement there are still the many other cables that plug into USB-C with some other connector on the other end, we'll need to sort through those. Getting everyone to agree on one port/connector to rule them all is a wish that is not likely to ever come true. Not that I'd want it true as any such connector will inevitably be a compromise.
Even if all one had was USB-C connectors on every device, which I believe may be possible for someone to do if one was so inclined, there is still the problem of the many iterations of USB-C. This may solve the problem of having a pile of different cables since now one might get away with a single pile of USB-C cables but all USB-C ports are not equal. A device might need the higher power output as defined in the USB Power Delivery spec to function, this is not required by USB-C. A device might need the USB 3.1 speeds to function, but this is not required by the USB-C spec.
A device may require an alternate mode of USB-C to function, but this may be limited to devices and/or cables with some different connector on the other end of the cable. Presumably a USB-C device will fall back to USB protocol if the preferred alternate mode is not supported but maybe not. For example a display with a USB-C input could support one or more of HDMI, MHL, DisplayPort, or Thunerbolt modes but if your device only supports the USB protocol on the USB-C ports they will connect physically with the cable but there will be no video displayed. It's cases like this that are likely to be most frustrating for the novice user, they will see two identical ports and be able to connect them with a cable but their devices still won't work with each other.
It seems to me that this could be more than just a solution looking for a problem. I could argue this is a solution that will produce more problems. The USB people have already created enough animosity towards them from the ten different connector types, five different data speeds, two different voltages, and four different amperage ratings. What they don't need is to add another alternate mode to the spec when there are already four supported modes that will carry video.
I know tone of voice doesn't carry well in type so don't think I'm mad at you or anyone else that sees this as a fix to a problem. I'm frustrated at the USB people for making my job more difficult as someone that has to support these devices.
No the point is to collect HDMI licensing fees.
Precisely. It's rare to see HDMI on anything new, at least in my experience. They already collected their fee on the devices they've sold that included the port. They will collect in the future on anyone that buys an adapter that wants to preserve compatibility with these older devices, assuming that it's not replaced too.
I see this as an attempt to hang on a bit longer to collect their fees. They are hoping that people will seek this capability out in order to maximize backward compatibility and/or manufacturers will be willing to pay the fee so as to add another feature to their device in order to grab a few more buyers that are checklist shoppers.
The only problem this solves is the diminishing income they have from fewer new devices with HDMI ports.
I especially can't wait until internal hard drives are using USB-C for data and power.
I remember when FireWire was supposed to come to internal hard drives for data and power. I still come across PCs at work with an internal FireWire port for this reason. Obviously it didn't happen. Lots of things killed it.
FireWire isn't dead yet though, I still see it on professional audio equipment.
Here's an idea, let's do FireWire over USB-C. Too much? Well, we passed "too much" on USB-C a long time ago.
And yet, HDMI is on hundreds of millions of HD televisions that aren't going anywhere soon.
Which is readily solved with an inexpensive DP to HDMI adapter cable. The passive DP++ to HDMI cables are less than $10, and active DP to HDMI cables are less than $20. It seems rare to find a new computer that lacks a mini or full sized DP output. Assuming a USB-C connector has a DisplayPort alternate mode then a DP/USB-C to HDMI cable is trivial to produce, and produce cheaply.
Assuming the USB-C connector has a Thunderbolt alternate mode then one can connect any of a number of PCIe compatible video chips, allowing for HDMI or any other output to match whatever input that display might have. Price will vary based on desired output quality, of course. Given the many cheaper options I expect this to be used rarely, especially to connect to a 1080p or less TV that has nothing better than HDMI to drive it.
Assuming that the USB-C connector has a MHL alternate mode then HDMI support is included, if I'm reading the spec correctly. I found an adapter that has a micro-USB male connector on one side and female HDMI on the other and claims to use the MHL protocol for less than $10.
Assuming the USB-C connector has a, quite likely, USB mode then one can find a USB to HDMI adapter already for reasonable price. A quick search shows I can get one for less than $30, which also happens to be a USB-C to HDMI adapter. Adapters with USB-A connectors look to be almost double that but it may just be a matter of not finding the cheapest ones in my search.
I'm quite certain that the HDMI people are getting paid for the privilege of us using their connector and/or protocol on anything we buy. What they seem to be doing here is wanting us to pay for the privilege of the HDMI protocol on future USB-C devices even if we have no intention of ever using that capability.
Looks to me like a sneaky way to add a HDMI tax on a device for all for the benefit of the few that would actually use it. As they seem to tax per port then if I have a device that can output HDMI on DP and USB-C then I'm paying double for something I am unlikely to use. As the cost to me is likely less than the $10 I'd expect for an adapter that lacks this feature I can't complain much. What I do see though is a flood of money potentially going their way from the sale of devices with this feature.
The USB spec is already confusing, and they want to make it worse. We already have multiple voltage and ampere ratings to deal with. There's a confusing number of connectors as it is. I will admit though that this problem will solve itself in time as old devices die and we are soon left with mostly just USB-A, USB-micro-B, and USB-C.
The USB-C spec already includes two video modes, MHL and display port. As I see it HDMI is largely dying as a spec, just let it die. At work we have a lot of older computers with DVI-I outputs, which can output VGA or HDMI with a passive cable. I have yet to see a display that has an HDMI input. TVs will have HDMI, sure, but I even wonder how long that will last. The new computers that we get have DisplayPort and/or VGA. Even DVI output is rare any more, which is largely identical to HDMI except in the connector.
I can see why the HDMI people want to use a different connector for their video standard but I'm having trouble understanding the desire to use the USB spec, they are putting themselves in direct competition with the already established MHL and DisplayPort. What really confuses me though is the USB people agreeing to this.
I know that when one feels the need to ask, "Why?" the answer is usually, "Money." Where is the money in this though?
I don't get it. I don't want it. I'd rather use DisplayPort, VGA, or even DVI. Much of my complaint with HDMI is with the crappy connector but that is solved with using DVI or DisplayPort connectors. When it comes down to it I don't much care what protocol is on the wire so long as it works. I don't see the advantage to adding the HDMI protocol to anything. In fact it may make things worse since I'd have to pay the HDMI license fee for my device if it has it.
If you can build solar more cheaply than nuclear, then you can replace more coal for the same budget, meaning more lives saved.
Sure, "if", but we can't. At least not yet. Nuclear is cheaper than solar right now and safer than solar right now. So if the goal is to save lives then we should be building nuclear power plants right now.
I pointed this out from the start but it seems I must repeat myself. If we can assume that solar will get cheaper in the future due to technological advancement then we should be able to also assume that nuclear power will get cheaper due to technological advancement.
You are also comparing a privately developed solar power project to a government developed nuclear project, and then seem to imply that governments screw things up. Would not the solution be to get government out of the way and let the private sector develop nuclear power? I don't mean do away with government oversight completely, just put it on the same scale as we do with other energy sources.
It seems from what you state that government subsidies equate to expensive results, and I agree. IMHO, people that turn to the government for money tend to be people that cannot raise funds from investors. This tends to be because investors aren't as easily tricked into giving out money because it is their money that could disappear. Government is less concerned because they can just get more money from taxpayers.
This reminds me of something I read recently which I will paraphrase to fit this situation: "Solar power is such a great idea we need the government to pay people to buy it."
How does nuclear look if you change the metric to "lives significantly damaged"? It's hard to find stats but Fukushima alone is at least 300,000 by conservative estimates.
The Fukushima reactors that were damaged were old designs that were months or even days from being retired and dismantled. We don't build them like that any more. It's like you are saying we should stop building automobiles because you just read Unsafe At Any Speed from 1966.
It's impossible to compute "lives significantly damaged" as how would one define "damage" or even "significant"? An easy metric is deaths because death is a very final and binary state. From that we see with nuclear power, even with the design from the 1960s at Fukushima, is an order of magnitude safer than solar by using the deaths per megawatt metric. Many of the deaths from rooftop solar are from falls, how many of those people that fell didn't die but have their life "significantly damaged"?
My uncle did construction for many years but had to retire after he fell off a roof and busted up his arm real bad. How many solar panel installers had to do the same? Multiply that by the billions of solar panels that would have to be installed instead of thousands of nuclear power plants we'd need to power our world. What happens then? A world of people maimed from solar power? Wind power has similar death rates to solar and for much of the same reasons, people fall from heights, electrocutions, etc. I believe it would be safe to assume that wind shares a "lives significantly damaged" to that of solar.
Then you get back to the price difference. You again mention the cleanup costs of a 40 year old reactor as a reason to not build reactors in the future, reactors that are much improved in technology and safety. Have you considered the cleanup costs of those 40 year old solar panels? That can't be cheap either. Since solar panels aren't as popular as nuclear power we don't see those costs make the big headlines, at least not yet.
While I see your point I'm finding it difficult to see any merit in it. You speak of the deaths and "life damage" from nuclear but seem to be avoiding the similar effects on society from wind and solar. I see large trucks with windmill parts on the interstate all the time around here, how many traffic accidents have those caused? What of "life damage" from being stuck in traffic behind them as they try to navigate an exit ramp at crawling speeds? What of the deaths in the steel mills and iron mines that make the raw material for the blades and towers?
Which gets back to a point I made from the start, we don't have the mining capacity to produce enough steel and concrete to build windmills at the rate needed to replace coal power. We do have enough steel and concrete capacity to replace coal with nuclear. I tried finding the numbers on what it would take to replace coal with solar but I've not had much luck. Is it perhaps because the numbers would be so embarrassing?
Then we'd have to go through this 1,749,999 times every week for all the other roofs that would need to be covered to make up for the loss of one coal plant. Or, we can replace that one coal plant shut down every week with one nuclear power plant every week..
That's a lot of people up on roofs installing PV panels. No wonder PV fails compared to nuclear on deaths per terawatt hour. That would be a lot of people up on a roof and a lot of chances for people to fall off and break their neck.
You are comparing a single solar power plant from Chile to a single nuclear power plant in the UK. Is that a fair comparison? I stated averages in the USA and even so I'm sure we can find outliers that can make the comparison favor of any energy source we choose.
Let's put that aside and take it from another angle. I've been told for years that I am somehow obligated to pay higher utility rates in order to reduce my impact on the environment. If that is true then nuclear still wins in this comparison in many ways.
What you say is only relevant if solar has a lower CO2 output than nuclear, which it does not. There may be other benefits to solar but I believe it would be real hard to find them. As I pointed out before, solar means more people die. Is not saving lives the point?
Deaths per terawatt hour produced, by energy source:
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2...
1. I cannot put my own nuclear plant beside my house. I can put solar panels on my roof.
That's true but if you and some like minded people get together to pool your money you'd have that nuclear power plant, which would give twice as much energy per dollar. This is not a plan for the individual since an individual is not producing those solar panels, it's a large corporation made of many people pooling their resources.
Also, I'm not arguing that you should not be able to put solar panels on your roof. What I'm pointing out is the comparative costs of these energy sources, in dollars, lives, and CO2 released into the air. If you want solar panels then you need to know what you are getting into. Don't put up solar panels because you think you'll save humanity from itself, you won't. Don't put up solar panels thinking you'll save money, unless you live in a highly optimal location. Do it because it takes you off the grid and independent from it, or whatever else you might be trying to do.
2. There is an idea to diversify our sources of energy. Please stop talking in absolutes like "replacing coal with wind".
I mention the case of replacing coal with wind because that is what I've seen people claim we can do, or at least replace coal with a mix of wind, solar, hydro, or whatever else is "green" where wind is a large portion of that. Take the numbers I've found and scale them as appropriate to fit your vision of the future and see what you get. Even if we assume we can replace 10% of "dirty" energy with wind we'd still have to double our annual output of steel and concrete to meet the demand that much wind power would create.
I see a future where nuclear makes up something like 50% to 80% of total energy demand. The rest would be a mix of wind, hydro, natural gas, and a small bit from solar. We will not rid ourselves from coal for a very long time but if CO2 reduction is the goal then nuclear power is the best choice we have right now.
It is possible that some future technology will make nuclear look bad by comparison but we don't have that technology yet. If we wait for that technology to come then we are just making a bad problem worse. I'm not a big believer in CAGW because that is a trio of things that have to pile up just so for this to be a problem we can fix. First we must have global warming. The globe may be warming, or it may not, we don't know what the future holds. We've already seen a 15 year "pause" in warming and the "pause" may end soon, or it may not. If there is global warming then we must still prove that human activity is causing it. This may be something easier to prove but then it comes to the last part. We still don't know if this global warming can be considered "catastrophic" or not. We might see many places become inhospitable but the world already has many inhospitable places, there's a chance we'd be just moving them around. That would suck for many people but people can move and at the rate it's happening people might barely even notice. It's possible that we'd make the world better for us.
Even if catastrophic anthropogenic global warming does not happen I believe we still have many reasons to move to nuclear power. The air quality in China is a good example on why we should do so.
I vaguely recall someone talking about how much trouble it was for Bill Clinton to get his clearance. Apparently he had quite the history that would make us mere mortals be denied but this was POTUS and he cannot be denied. What they had to do was document everything, make up excuses on why such things would not be grounds to deny, and then hope no one looks too close later.
When I had to get my clearance I had troubles not because I had any interactions with law enforcement or such but because I moved around a lot for a few years. I had college, internships, a job that didn't last long, sleeping on people's couches for some time in between, more college, enlisted in the Army, seasonal work, all mixed in. The investigator had to verify that I lived in all the places I gave and at the times I gave them. Fortunately for the investigator my brother, who also had a security clearance at the time, gave his word on my being truthful. That apparently made things simple.
For someone that was accused of sexual harassment, had his license to practice law revoked, etc., etc. like Bill Clinton I can only imagine the hoops the investigators had to jump through to make things look good on paper.
When it comes to carbon footprint the top two on energy produced per greenhouse gasses emitted are hydroelectric and nuclear. Wind and solar are close behind. So close that if anyone wants to argue with me on this I'll call them all equal, perhaps I'd even grant wind and solar a 10x lead because even then nuclear is so much better than coal and oil. Geothermal is up there somewhere too but, like hydro, it is highly location dependent. Wind and solar are still location dependent but much less so. There are few places we cannot put nuclear.
Then there are lives lost per terawatt hour produced. Nuclear gets 0.04 lives lost per TWh produced, and this includes Fukushima, Chernobyl, and deaths by mining uranium. Rooftop solar has 0.1, wind has 0.15, hydro has 1.0 (mostly due to China, 0.1 otherwise), with the world average around 47, mostly due to coal, oil, and natural gas. Again, even if we take the nuclear number and multiply it by 10 it is still not bad compared to the rest.
When it comes to costs I'll take average numbers from the EIA because I feel like it and I found their numbers real quick. Nuclear is $95.2/MWh, conventional coal is $95.1, hydro is $83.5, peaking natural gas is $113.5, combined cycle natural gas is $75.2, wind is $73.6 onshore and $196.9 offshore, Solar is $125.3 for PV and $239.7 for thermal. Nuclear doesn't have a 10x advantage here but If someone wants to argue the numbers I'll grant a 2x advantage since then it still beats out the unreliable wind and solar in many cases. What I will not do is allow claims that wind and solar prices will improve but nuclear will not. If we grant that future technology improvement grants a better price for one energy source then we should be able to assume an equal gain on any other energy source. This is especially true if discussing any technology that turns heat or mechanical motion into electricity since nuclear power uses those just as much as wind or solar thermal.
Then it comes down to whether or not we can actually build it all. I saw a comparison on these energy sources based on a cubic mile of oil. This comparison spreads the construction over 50 years, and if we assume a 50 year lifespan of these power sources then it turns into a continuous rate of construction. We'd need one new 900MW nuclear power plant every week. 200 new 18GW hydroelectric dams every quarter. 1200 new windmills every week with 1.65MW capacity each. For PV solar we'd need to cover 250,000 roofs per day with 2.1kWh capacity each.
Here's where I think the final nail in the coffin on the idea that we can replace coal with wind lies. To replace coal with wind worldwide would require 10 billion tons of steel and concrete, and current annual production is 1.5 billion tons. Wind requires over 500 tons of steel and 1000 tons of concrete per MW installed, about ten times that of nuclear, coal, or gas. I got most of these numbers from the EIA and from Morgan Stanley.
I've heard people claim it is impossible for us to produce one new nuclear power plant per week worldwide. I call bullshit because nuclear power takes no more resources than coal or natural gas and we are currently building them at a similar rate. Arguments against nuclear on costs in lives and dollars also go out the window to anyone that does an honest analysis. Comparing nuclear to wind on resources required makes nuclear look so much easier. I tried to do a similar analysis on solar but my calculator doesn't do numbers that big.
I've largely ignored issues like reliability, location restrictions, etc. that count against wind and solar because I don't have to go there to make my point. If someone wants to argue about nuclear being unreliable but wind and solar can be predicted then I'll go there, but you'll lose.
It is capitalism that will likely save the helium. If it is as rare as people say then the price will reflect that, that's capitalism.
As prices rise the ability for people to afford helium for things like airships diminishes. As prices rise it becomes affordable for people to invest in new ways to obtain helium and pay for ways to prevent it being lost.
If we have the government dictate that no one can use helium for fuel saving airships like this then you have tyranny.
Seems rather unfair that we must choose between economic freedoms and having cheap helium for MRIs, doesn't it? Well, life is not fair.
Because a proper tool costs money and learning to use it takes time.
Research costs money and the people that can do the research with less costs get to do more research. Microsoft Office is "free" to most because it effectively comes with the computer. Getting the right software can costs thousands per seat.
That's easy to say but people need to understand what they are looking for. As a Specialist in the Army I happened to be in the ops office while one of the sergeants was working on a spreadsheet that handled some sort of inventory. He knew I knew something about computers and so he asked me to come over to look at the funny formatting that Excel was doing on him. What I saw was a number that could have been a date, price, part number, or something else. I started asking the sergeant what he was trying to do with the number and what kind of a number it was supposed to be. It didn't take long before he became frustrated with me and I was told I had somewhere else I needed to be.
This was probably something better managed by a database but databases are hard, and does Office even include a database product any more?
That's great for people that have access to Matlab from the college they attend or from their employer.
If you can prove you are a student the $500 price tag is a bit much. I don't recall how much I spent on the student version of Matlab I bought many years ago but being a student version there were imposed limits on the size of arrays it would hold. As such the one time I needed it for a project it proved worthless since it could not hold my data set. Guess what I used instead? Excel.
The "pro" version of Matlab costs over $2000 while Excel is effectively free. Microsoft has been so successful in marketing it's office products that few even think about how much that software costs. I have to wonder how many people even use Excel for it's intended purpose. People buy Office to get Word and Powerpoint, the fact it comes with Excel makes it nearly impossible for anyone to compete with that even in cases where people should know better to use a more appropriate tool.
We've seen the US government, and other governments, crack down on Microsoft for their near monopoly and largely fail. I don't think trying that again is going to break this trend. Even if somehow Microsoft is forced to break up the Office bundle there is still the matter of the inertia of the files floating around that people need to use. There is the matter of corporate culture where "no one got fired for buying Microsoft". Then there must be a product that competes with it. If the product is free (as in open source) there is an implied lack of value and quality due to no price tag on it. Someone might try to package FOSS applications as an alternative using that money to lure people from the way to get the same thing for free by promising additional proprietary features and capability. This packaging must then strike the balance between price, features, and packaging to give the right impression that people would want to buy it.
After going to college years ago for computer engineering I'm taking courses now on "big data". I have access to SAS, Matlab, Mathematica, and more that I cannot recall as I use them so irregularly. What I find myself doing is use Excel to format the data, produce some pretty graphs, and then paste them into a Word document for my final reports. This is because the tools cannot make things look as pretty, or it's just too hard to figure out when the assignment is due at midnight and being late can cost a 10% reduction in the grade.
How can this problem be solved? I don't know but I imagine it means the people that sell Matlab will have to gamble on selling their product at 1/10th the current price in the hopes they get 10X the number of buyers. That's just a minimum since the increase in support costs for the new influx of novice users will need to be covered too.
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I have a similar idea. Currently every even year we have an election, that stays. On odd years we have an automatic recall vote for everyone in office. If they win then they continue to serve their term. If they lose then they must leave office as soon as the vote is certified as official. Then their lieutenant/vice/deputy/whatever takes their place for executive positions until the next election. Legislative seats would be empty or filled by appointment like we do now for cases like retirement, illness, or whatever. In the next election that person in that seat currently can choose to run for the rest of that term as can anyone else eligible. This includes the person that was voted out the year prior.
At the normal end of the term there is a normal election. This keeps things relatively normal for things like keeping a four year term for POTUS, six year staggered terms for Senate, and two year for the House.
This means a continuous election season but how is that different than now? All it does is allow the voters to do something about it more often. While someone voted out of office could run again for the same seat there will be pressure from the political parties for them not to. If things are going well then the same people stay in office. These people would then be campaigning on how awesome they are and telling us about all the laws they got passed or voted down. Politicians would have a harder time hiding unpopular legislation during the off seasons.
These recall elections could be for appointed positions too, like cabinet positions and justices. This does not bar them from being appointed again but the person making that appointment is going to have to defend that or get voted out too.
I'm confused, was the guy mad or did he have a seizure? Such a mental overload could cause either.
No, those were added in too.
You mean the punny things on subs and carriers? Sorry, that is like comparing an internal combustion engine in a car with a gas turbine.
A naval reactor sizes range between 200MWt and 600MWt making them perhaps 1/10 the size of the biggest reactors on land to about the same size as the smaller ones operating in India. Point is we can build nuclear power plants in a reasonable time if we want to. I fail to see how the size matter here, just build more of them. You know, cheaper by the dozen, right?
Cheaper than nuclear. And in a a year or two cheaper than any other big scale power production. You must be living under a rock.
You assume that wind and solar will get cheaper but nuclear power can not or will not. Who's living under a rock?
Unlikely. What exactly do you want to use to replace steel and concrete?
Not replace steel and concrete exactly, just new ways of putting them together. Mass production, which can be done with those "punny" naval sized reactors, helps here. There will need to be new materials used, such as nickel alloys, to hold up to the higher temperatures from these highly efficient reactors.
We actually don't know how to really build such a reactor and especially we do not know what material to use, as liquide flourides are rather difficult to handle.
Now I know you've been living under a rock. There are at least four companies in North America doing research on molten salt reactors and they know what materials to use. Then there are people in China, Japan, and probably elsewhere figuring this out. All that is needed is a license to build one to figure out some of the details for mass production.
And your randomly thrown in "cheap" makes nothing cheap. Nuclear power is right now the most expensive on the planet ... always was and always will be. Regardless what technology you use to produce it.
Always? I saw a video of a nuclear engineer talking about doing the assessment on the time, money, and effort required to build a modern nuclear power plant. They added it all up and found it no more expensive than a coal plant. This did not match the estimates they've seen elsewhere as their number was much much smaller than any other estimate. Then they realized where they went wrong, they did not add in the licensing costs.
Nuclear power is expensive only because the government decided it would be expensive. If they decided it was no longer going to be expensive then we'll see it cheaper than coal, that's quite certain. Whether it is cheaper than anything else is a matter of other market forces.