The map hardly tells the story. They acknowledge that it contains no data for China, but other countries like Thailand are right up there. Thailand is rather notorious for blocking websites, over 100,000 at present and counting according to some anti-censorship groups who are keeping track. And draconian prosecution and jail time for anything deemed illegal published on forums. Google has cred so would really like to see something comprehensive published by them.
Doesn't China already have a lock on most of the world's known surface deposits of rare earth elements? And now they are making moves to secure rare earths on the sea floor. They'll be firmly in the driver's seat soon on many fronts.
"If people making more than 160,000 a year are really going to quit working over a 4% increase in Federal tax income, I say good riddance."
That's me! I bailed on the U.S. almost 10 years ago. They don't get taxes out of me anymore. But you got it wrong - it's an ethical issue. I no longer fund the manufacture of land mines that blow the legs off of little kids across southeast Asia, or give a raise in benefits to unwed mothers each time they squeeze out another illegitimate kid soon to be a gang member, or award people who have "inflicted more fear, more loss of freedom and more loss of life than anyone else" (actual words of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates when honoring General Stanley McChrystal during the general’s retirement ceremony).
Nope, you are paying for those things, not me.
Besides, things like maps and directions are dangerous in the hands of foreigners. At least that's what Dept. of Homeland Obscurity leads us to believe.
I believe those numbers in the U.S. are for a *group* of solar *thermal* power plants. This is a *single* 73MW solar *PV* plant they are building in Thailand.
Developing countries also leading the way. Thailand broke ground this month on two large solar PV installations, a 38 MW plant and a 73 MW plant, the latter will be the world's largest when it goes into operation November 2011.
Thailand is not poor but it isn't rich either, yet it can figure out how to finance and build renewable energy systems on a large scale. More on the solar race in Thailand http://geomark.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/solar-race-is-on-in-thailand/
Very well could be made up. Look at how police are compensated. They get rewarded for closing cases. The focus is on arresting a suspect and getting a conviction. Whether or not it's the right person is not part of their pay package.
The effect I'm noticing here in Thailand is that the urban population is getting fat. It seems due to the influx of western style shopping malls and fast food - McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Swensens plus all the processed foods in the big supermarkets in the cities. Up-country it's still mostly the old ways, a big helping of rice and vegetables with a little meat and lots of spices - no fructose that's for sure. Although a lot of the traditional snacks and sweets have unhealthy ingredients like coconut cream and palm oil, most rural Thais seem to stay slim. The city folks are getting fat, and it's the kids who are getting fat the fastest - easy targets for the marketers pushing the processed junk food. They've got the whole world to push that surplus of corn products on.
I've read about that, too. That 36% is misleading. The solar cells still have only about 15% efficiency. They add a concentrator to gather more light and then play games with the numbers to arrive at an increase in efficiency. The true efficiency is a measure of converted enery per unit area. The Stirling system I mentioned is 32% efficient - a 10 meter diameter dish collects 78 kW of solar energy and the system outputs 25kW of electical energy. The concentrating solar cell system you mentioned doesn't pass that test. They are quoting efficiency in terms of the area of the solar cell array, not the entire collector array.
1,000 watts per square meter of direct normal solar radiation strike the earth's surface at sea level. That's a lot of raw energy hitting roof tops. Then the issue is converting it. Solar cells have been stuck at 15% or less conversion efficiency for decades with no real breakthrough on the horizon to improve upon that. Still, an average house with perhaps 100 square meters of roof area could generate far more engergy than it needs (during the day). Problem is, solar cells are still very expensive to manufacture, with no cost breathroughs significant enough to really change the economics.
Solar concentrating power is far cheaper. For example, the system from Stirling Energy Systems http://www.stirlingenergy.com/ once in production will produce electricity that is very cost competitive with electricity from fossil fuel fired plants. The technology is quite cool. A sun-tracking parabolic dish concentrates sunlight on the heater head of a Stirling engine. Each system produces 25kW and is about the same mass, complexity and materials as a mid-size automobile - in mass production it would cost about the same as a car. Pilot installations of the systems have been running for more than a decade. It's not suitable for roof tops, however, since it is a bit large and noisy. San Diego Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison both have contracts now to build large installations using this system.
It seems strange to me that most of the attention is still on non-economical solar cell based systems when a truly viable solution is already available.
The MySpace guys are big spyware guys. That's what this article by a guy named Trent Lapinski says. The founders use to run big spam and spyware companies.
So yes, MySpace is responsible, and they probably fully endorse it.
Seems pretty common for MySpace to be serving up spyware ads. Another recent case was reported here of spyware from Starware being advertised with a banner they made by sticking Osama's face on the body of an Asian model in a bikini.
Given the background of the founders of MySpace it shouldn't be surprising (they came from the spyware business according to references sited in that spyware report).
Fear of pandemic closes doors to fat people
on
Obesity Contagious?
·
· Score: 1
A likely result if this turns out to be true is that thin people will be even more reluctant to associate with fat people. And it might get interesting when fat people are denied access to places for fear of infecting others with the fat virus.
The contrary seem to be the norm. Skype calls are quite good for most users from what I've heard and read and experienced myself. I use it frequently to call from Thailand to the U.S., both PC-to-PC and PC-to-land line. PC-to-PC with broadband on each end is very good, good sound quality and latency is noticable but not annoying. To land lines my calls are usually quite good - sometimes the call gets dropped and I have to call again. But quality and latency are pretty good.
Slashdot Mirror
The map hardly tells the story. They acknowledge that it contains no data for China, but other countries like Thailand are right up there. Thailand is rather notorious for blocking websites, over 100,000 at present and counting according to some anti-censorship groups who are keeping track. And draconian prosecution and jail time for anything deemed illegal published on forums. Google has cred so would really like to see something comprehensive published by them.
Doesn't China already have a lock on most of the world's known surface deposits of rare earth elements? And now they are making moves to secure rare earths on the sea floor. They'll be firmly in the driver's seat soon on many fronts.
I'm surrounded by the little fellas (geckos). Ubiquitous in the tropics. Long wanted to be able to climb like them. Thinking this won't be my chance.
"If people making more than 160,000 a year are really going to quit working over a 4% increase in Federal tax income, I say good riddance." That's me! I bailed on the U.S. almost 10 years ago. They don't get taxes out of me anymore. But you got it wrong - it's an ethical issue. I no longer fund the manufacture of land mines that blow the legs off of little kids across southeast Asia, or give a raise in benefits to unwed mothers each time they squeeze out another illegitimate kid soon to be a gang member, or award people who have "inflicted more fear, more loss of freedom and more loss of life than anyone else" (actual words of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates when honoring General Stanley McChrystal during the general’s retirement ceremony). Nope, you are paying for those things, not me.
Besides, things like maps and directions are dangerous in the hands of foreigners. At least that's what Dept. of Homeland Obscurity leads us to believe.
I believe those numbers in the U.S. are for a *group* of solar *thermal* power plants. This is a *single* 73MW solar *PV* plant they are building in Thailand.
Developing countries also leading the way. Thailand broke ground this month on two large solar PV installations, a 38 MW plant and a 73 MW plant, the latter will be the world's largest when it goes into operation November 2011. Thailand is not poor but it isn't rich either, yet it can figure out how to finance and build renewable energy systems on a large scale. More on the solar race in Thailand http://geomark.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/solar-race-is-on-in-thailand/
Very well could be made up. Look at how police are compensated. They get rewarded for closing cases. The focus is on arresting a suspect and getting a conviction. Whether or not it's the right person is not part of their pay package.
The effect I'm noticing here in Thailand is that the urban population is getting fat. It seems due to the influx of western style shopping malls and fast food - McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Swensens plus all the processed foods in the big supermarkets in the cities. Up-country it's still mostly the old ways, a big helping of rice and vegetables with a little meat and lots of spices - no fructose that's for sure. Although a lot of the traditional snacks and sweets have unhealthy ingredients like coconut cream and palm oil, most rural Thais seem to stay slim. The city folks are getting fat, and it's the kids who are getting fat the fastest - easy targets for the marketers pushing the processed junk food. They've got the whole world to push that surplus of corn products on.
I've read about that, too. That 36% is misleading. The solar cells still have only about 15% efficiency. They add a concentrator to gather more light and then play games with the numbers to arrive at an increase in efficiency. The true efficiency is a measure of converted enery per unit area. The Stirling system I mentioned is 32% efficient - a 10 meter diameter dish collects 78 kW of solar energy and the system outputs 25kW of electical energy. The concentrating solar cell system you mentioned doesn't pass that test. They are quoting efficiency in terms of the area of the solar cell array, not the entire collector array.
1,000 watts per square meter of direct normal solar radiation strike the earth's surface at sea level. That's a lot of raw energy hitting roof tops. Then the issue is converting it. Solar cells have been stuck at 15% or less conversion efficiency for decades with no real breakthrough on the horizon to improve upon that. Still, an average house with perhaps 100 square meters of roof area could generate far more engergy than it needs (during the day). Problem is, solar cells are still very expensive to manufacture, with no cost breathroughs significant enough to really change the economics.
Solar concentrating power is far cheaper. For example, the system from Stirling Energy Systems http://www.stirlingenergy.com/ once in production will produce electricity that is very cost competitive with electricity from fossil fuel fired plants. The technology is quite cool. A sun-tracking parabolic dish concentrates sunlight on the heater head of a Stirling engine. Each system produces 25kW and is about the same mass, complexity and materials as a mid-size automobile - in mass production it would cost about the same as a car. Pilot installations of the systems have been running for more than a decade. It's not suitable for roof tops, however, since it is a bit large and noisy. San Diego Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison both have contracts now to build large installations using this system.
It seems strange to me that most of the attention is still on non-economical solar cell based systems when a truly viable solution is already available.
The MySpace guys are big spyware guys. That's what this article by a guy named Trent Lapinski says. The founders use to run big spam and spyware companies. So yes, MySpace is responsible, and they probably fully endorse it.
Seems pretty common for MySpace to be serving up spyware ads. Another recent case was reported here of spyware from Starware being advertised with a banner they made by sticking Osama's face on the body of an Asian model in a bikini. Given the background of the founders of MySpace it shouldn't be surprising (they came from the spyware business according to references sited in that spyware report).
A likely result if this turns out to be true is that thin people will be even more reluctant to associate with fat people. And it might get interesting when fat people are denied access to places for fear of infecting others with the fat virus.
The contrary seem to be the norm. Skype calls are quite good for most users from what I've heard and read and experienced myself. I use it frequently to call from Thailand to the U.S., both PC-to-PC and PC-to-land line. PC-to-PC with broadband on each end is very good, good sound quality and latency is noticable but not annoying. To land lines my calls are usually quite good - sometimes the call gets dropped and I have to call again. But quality and latency are pretty good.