Actually, Walmart has solar panels on a number of their facilities, and has for 20 years. They do it for both green-washing and because it has a positive return on investment.
Distributed generation is an important concept for both efficiency and reliability.
The simplest way to push for rooftop solar is to change the structural design codes so they must add 5psf dead load for solar panels in every building.
You are missing the point. Verizon is FTTP where P is premises. In all cases, there is a dedicated ONT per customer. A building with three apartments will have three ONTs sitting outside with three battery backup units inside. Your neighbor gets a different ONT. Each ONT has its own fiber connection; nothing is daisy-chained.
You are referring to FTTN, where the N is node, and refers to a cabinet that serves 20-2000 customers typically. In the US, these cabinets have had fiber for a decade at least. If the Node is more than 100m from a premise the service provider's choices are to run local fiber, DSL, or coax. Almost nobody runs dedicated coax from a node to a customer; the only reason you use coax is to take advantage of the bus topology. Very few providers would chose to run fiber just from the node to the premises, as they would need an extra media converter; about the only reason to do it would be to exceed the speeds you can get from xDSL.
You can do Ethernet to the ONT if you want to, which can eliminate the Verizon router inside altogether (if you don't use them for TV). To upgrade to gigabit you need a new ONT usually, but the system can easily accommodate gigabit throughout.
AT&T's service is a mess in comparison. I've had several friends who needed the 30-year old copper replaced at least from the street to the demark point.
Today using FTTN as anything but a stopgap to FTTH is really a joke.
For Australia, the original goal and benefit of the NBN was that the physical infrastructure is independent of the service provider. FTTN makes that difficult.
Tape works very well for applications where you have a large number of archival batches; us use the fixed resources (parent's "c") more per TB storage. Once you have a tape silo with 100,000+ slots, your incremental storage costs are very small.
It will always be easier for a computer to evaluate likely passwords that a human would create than for the human to come up with an algorithm that the computer would not anticipate. Password generators eliminate this break point, but create a new weak point in that the password must be stored somewhere other than memory.
My wife might do a great job of creating passwords, but if they are stored in an unencrypted and unobscured place then they aren't necessarily more secure.
No. The utility company wants it in place in order to sell more electricity and make more money. Making electric cars viable is more valuable than the profit off a single station.
Actually getting one installed at a Target is fairly likely if requested. Might not be in the employee parking area, but I imagine you could use it for an hour without anybody complaining. Ok, so my local target has a few more Teslas running around than most, but still possible on a broader scale.
You can have third party providers install the stations and sell back the charging. In Claifornia the utility companies have a pretty streamlined process for it, complete with incentives.
Easily solved problem-- integrate supplemental electric power into your trailer so you have the power when you actually need it rather than lugging around all the extra weight all the time. Sure it drives up the trailer cost, and there are some logistics issues you would need to address for boat trailers.
Hopefully one would not need turn by turn directions for a daily commute or another familiar route.
But navigating to an unfamiliar location while remaining on a reasonably bike-friendly route can be much harder. More than once I have ended up in a tunnel with no shoulder because the road signs were not easy to read from a bike, and more than once I have found myself in a location where I really didn't want to stop due to safety.
I cannot imagine mounting a GPS to my bike, but I imagine there are times where I would use Siri to help navigate... if Apple's maps had reasonable bicycle directions. Navigational aides open up the world.
They have a few. People just aren't willing to pay the seven figure price for them. They expect a half-life on costs of under 12 months though, which by 2015 means you might see something in the $200k range....all for something getting 60mpg equivalent?!
This is true until you get to the point where production is linked to consumption directly, such as when the sun shining run the air conditioning, otherwise it gets hot. Or, if you believe in smart grid, regulate on an aggregate level. Basically, this is the opposite of net metering, which destroys the payback of PV.
Basically what has to happen is PV needs to make sense without all the subsidies. Net metering is one of those subsidies.
No, since it is the retail rate the utility gets no profit when it sells your energy, plus it credits it's non-energy costs back to you at that zero profit rate.
Batteries cost about $0.50/kWh over their life. If you take some liberties you can get that down to $0.15, but $0.25 is about the best most people can do. This is 3-4x the cost of energy in AZ, without adding in the $0.05/kWh lifetime of the panels.
The net metering and residential tariffs are the cause of the problem; residential customers typically are only charged per kWh as a blended rate. Take the example in parent, but let's say all usage is during the night. The transmission and distribution resources for the utility are actually 500+600kWh, although the generation cost is just 600-500kWh. (Yes, it makes me cringe too to use kWh rather than kW.). Since solar output is effectively 6 hours per day, you need to generate 3-4 times the kW rate as your average consumption to net out zero energy.
The proper solution to this is to have a peak demand component (max direction) on residential services. Based on California retail commercial rates, this would be about $17/kW, and the energy cost is closer to $0.15 peak period and $0.07 off peak. So, if you have a 4kW solar array, you produce 720kWh worth $108, and consume (say) 720kWh at a cost of $50, the demand charge adds $68, and your net cost is $10 (plus customer fees and such). The next issue is if you offset wholesale or retail generation costs, but ultimately that should reduce the spread between peak and off peak energy, or shift the peak period and/or eliminate a mid-peak tariff.
We have come to the painful realization that project and financial accounting cannot effectively be done with the same software. It actually has better value for us to hire anothe bookkeeper and run our tax books in QuickBooks and project accounting in a fairly simple database. All the downsides of rolling your own still exist in a packaged solution; the real costs are in the customization.
In retrospect, rolling our own (even at contract rates of $135/hour) would have had a 3-year payback compared to the solution we went with. We could have even phased expansion of the system to keep the expenditure cash-flow positive. But, in the end it comes down to enterprise will and dedicating the resources required to identify needs, priorities, and what the future holds.
Well, that little red button at the doors is suddenly going to get a lot more important. Not too keen on having automatic shut-off valves on the fuel supply to the fuel cells, especially if it is natural gas (or hydrogen gas) connected to the Emergency Power Off.
Also curious how you deal with the CO2 exhausted from the reformers in the room. That impacts a lot of the traditional assumptions for outside air ventilation rates.
Then you are talking dreamboat plus a local appliance server for a full business, which is pretty good, as long as the business has a single fixed point of operation. What about people that start something up with where a teak, of five people never are in the same place. For small companies starting out this is often the case, as they might be moonlighting to get started or on the road chasing clients.
I would call it turnkey, checkbox ordering of services, and not necessarily all done directly by one company.
The list provided by the OP is basically everything that a new small company needs to have a modern presence from a technology standpoint.
The problem with the list though is it is missing corporate filings, DBAs, basic accounting and tax advice, basic legal advice, insurance, banking, post box services, design and printing services, etc. Clearly no "hosting provider" would be expected to offer accounting advice, but offering that service makes it exponentially easier for someone to set up a business, and if done well, easier to operate the business on an ongoing basis. At some point you might hit a critical mass where it doesn't make sense anymore, but if you can defer the committment to it in the first 12 months life is much easier. NoLo makes a good business selling books to help people wade through these things themselves, but it still takes a lot of work and will cost you a lot of fees when you do it wrong.
There is a reason IT used to be run out of the CFOs arm and be called Management Information Systems.
Anybody that would think these systems offer any level of security is only kidding themselves. They are a simple convenience to avoid needing to set up a VPN for trivial data. I wish I could find a better solution, but for a camera that sits in the window looking at the street not especially worried.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Walmart has solar panels on a number of their facilities, and has for 20 years. They do it for both green-washing and because it has a positive return on investment.
Distributed generation is an important concept for both efficiency and reliability.
The simplest way to push for rooftop solar is to change the structural design codes so they must add 5psf dead load for solar panels in every building.
You are missing the point. Verizon is FTTP where P is premises. In all cases, there is a dedicated ONT per customer. A building with three apartments will have three ONTs sitting outside with three battery backup units inside. Your neighbor gets a different ONT. Each ONT has its own fiber connection; nothing is daisy-chained.
You are referring to FTTN, where the N is node, and refers to a cabinet that serves 20-2000 customers typically. In the US, these cabinets have had fiber for a decade at least. If the Node is more than 100m from a premise the service provider's choices are to run local fiber, DSL, or coax. Almost nobody runs dedicated coax from a node to a customer; the only reason you use coax is to take advantage of the bus topology. Very few providers would chose to run fiber just from the node to the premises, as they would need an extra media converter; about the only reason to do it would be to exceed the speeds you can get from xDSL.
You can do Ethernet to the ONT if you want to, which can eliminate the Verizon router inside altogether (if you don't use them for TV). To upgrade to gigabit you need a new ONT usually, but the system can easily accommodate gigabit throughout.
AT&T's service is a mess in comparison. I've had several friends who needed the 30-year old copper replaced at least from the street to the demark point.
Today using FTTN as anything but a stopgap to FTTH is really a joke.
For Australia, the original goal and benefit of the NBN was that the physical infrastructure is independent of the service provider. FTTN makes that difficult.
Under carpet power and data cables exist, less than 1/16" thick IIRC. Not a great idea for a whole office though.
Raised floor is nice, or can be. Best to use it for HVAC as well though as individual users gain inexpensive control.
Must be a bastardized translation or something; Volvo's headquarters (prior to purchase by the Chinese anyway) was Gothenburg.
Tape works very well for applications where you have a large number of archival batches; us use the fixed resources (parent's "c") more per TB storage. Once you have a tape silo with 100,000+ slots, your incremental storage costs are very small.
It will always be easier for a computer to evaluate likely passwords that a human would create than for the human to come up with an algorithm that the computer would not anticipate. Password generators eliminate this break point, but create a new weak point in that the password must be stored somewhere other than memory.
My wife might do a great job of creating passwords, but if they are stored in an unencrypted and unobscured place then they aren't necessarily more secure.
No. The utility company wants it in place in order to sell more electricity and make more money. Making electric cars viable is more valuable than the profit off a single station.
Actually getting one installed at a Target is fairly likely if requested. Might not be in the employee parking area, but I imagine you could use it for an hour without anybody complaining. Ok, so my local target has a few more Teslas running around than most, but still possible on a broader scale.
You can have third party providers install the stations and sell back the charging. In Claifornia the utility companies have a pretty streamlined process for it, complete with incentives.
Hook it up to a charger at work. No big deal.
Work doesn't have chargers? Lobby for them.
Easily solved problem-- integrate supplemental electric power into your trailer so you have the power when you actually need it rather than lugging around all the extra weight all the time. Sure it drives up the trailer cost, and there are some logistics issues you would need to address for boat trailers.
Hopefully one would not need turn by turn directions for a daily commute or another familiar route.
But navigating to an unfamiliar location while remaining on a reasonably bike-friendly route can be much harder. More than once I have ended up in a tunnel with no shoulder because the road signs were not easy to read from a bike, and more than once I have found myself in a location where I really didn't want to stop due to safety.
I cannot imagine mounting a GPS to my bike, but I imagine there are times where I would use Siri to help navigate... if Apple's maps had reasonable bicycle directions. Navigational aides open up the world.
They have a few. People just aren't willing to pay the seven figure price for them. They expect a half-life on costs of under 12 months though, which by 2015 means you might see something in the $200k range. ...all for something getting 60mpg equivalent?!
And counter with:
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Good-news-California-Surplus-is-2-4-billion-4997158.php
This is true until you get to the point where production is linked to consumption directly, such as when the sun shining run the air conditioning, otherwise it gets hot. Or, if you believe in smart grid, regulate on an aggregate level. Basically, this is the opposite of net metering, which destroys the payback of PV.
Basically what has to happen is PV needs to make sense without all the subsidies. Net metering is one of those subsidies.
Damn auto correct... Its its its!
No, since it is the retail rate the utility gets no profit when it sells your energy, plus it credits it's non-energy costs back to you at that zero profit rate.
Batteries cost about $0.50/kWh over their life. If you take some liberties you can get that down to $0.15, but $0.25 is about the best most people can do. This is 3-4x the cost of energy in AZ, without adding in the $0.05/kWh lifetime of the panels.
The net metering and residential tariffs are the cause of the problem; residential customers typically are only charged per kWh as a blended rate. Take the example in parent, but let's say all usage is during the night. The transmission and distribution resources for the utility are actually 500+600kWh, although the generation cost is just 600-500kWh. (Yes, it makes me cringe too to use kWh rather than kW.). Since solar output is effectively 6 hours per day, you need to generate 3-4 times the kW rate as your average consumption to net out zero energy.
The proper solution to this is to have a peak demand component (max direction) on residential services. Based on California retail commercial rates, this would be about $17/kW, and the energy cost is closer to $0.15 peak period and $0.07 off peak. So, if you have a 4kW solar array, you produce 720kWh worth $108, and consume (say) 720kWh at a cost of $50, the demand charge adds $68, and your net cost is $10 (plus customer fees and such). The next issue is if you offset wholesale or retail generation costs, but ultimately that should reduce the spread between peak and off peak energy, or shift the peak period and/or eliminate a mid-peak tariff.
We have come to the painful realization that project and financial accounting cannot effectively be done with the same software. It actually has better value for us to hire anothe bookkeeper and run our tax books in QuickBooks and project accounting in a fairly simple database. All the downsides of rolling your own still exist in a packaged solution; the real costs are in the customization.
In retrospect, rolling our own (even at contract rates of $135/hour) would have had a 3-year payback compared to the solution we went with. We could have even phased expansion of the system to keep the expenditure cash-flow positive. But, in the end it comes down to enterprise will and dedicating the resources required to identify needs, priorities, and what the future holds.
Well, that little red button at the doors is suddenly going to get a lot more important. Not too keen on having automatic shut-off valves on the fuel supply to the fuel cells, especially if it is natural gas (or hydrogen gas) connected to the Emergency Power Off.
Also curious how you deal with the CO2 exhausted from the reformers in the room. That impacts a lot of the traditional assumptions for outside air ventilation rates.
Then you are talking dreamboat plus a local appliance server for a full business, which is pretty good, as long as the business has a single fixed point of operation. What about people that start something up with where a teak, of five people never are in the same place. For small companies starting out this is often the case, as they might be moonlighting to get started or on the road chasing clients.
I would call it turnkey, checkbox ordering of services, and not necessarily all done directly by one company.
The list provided by the OP is basically everything that a new small company needs to have a modern presence from a technology standpoint.
The problem with the list though is it is missing corporate filings, DBAs, basic accounting and tax advice, basic legal advice, insurance, banking, post box services, design and printing services, etc. Clearly no "hosting provider" would be expected to offer accounting advice, but offering that service makes it exponentially easier for someone to set up a business, and if done well, easier to operate the business on an ongoing basis. At some point you might hit a critical mass where it doesn't make sense anymore, but if you can defer the committment to it in the first 12 months life is much easier. NoLo makes a good business selling books to help people wade through these things themselves, but it still takes a lot of work and will cost you a lot of fees when you do it wrong.
There is a reason IT used to be run out of the CFOs arm and be called Management Information Systems.
Anybody that would think these systems offer any level of security is only kidding themselves. They are a simple convenience to avoid needing to set up a VPN for trivial data. I wish I could find a better solution, but for a camera that sits in the window looking at the street not especially worried.