Re: No worries, then . . .

[Bruce Bostwick]

The biggest factor helping that is overnight charging, which draws  
power during off-peak hours when only the most efficient generators  
are online ..

On Jul 24, 2008, at 10:14 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote:

> Utilities: Grid can handle influx of electric cars
>
>
> Which draws more juice from the electric grid, a big-screen plasma
> television or recharging a plug-in hybrid car?
>
> The nation's electric grid can handle a mass conversion to plug-in
> hybrid cars like this one, utility executives say.
>
> The answer is the car. But the electricity draw by plasma televisions
> is easing the minds of utility company executives across the nation
> as they plan for what is likely to be a conversion of much of the
> country's vehicle fleet from gasoline to electricity in the coming  
> years.
>
> Rechargeable cars, industry officials say, consume about four times
> the electricity as plasma TVs.
>
> But the industry already has dealt with increased electric demand
> from the millions of plasma TVs sold in recent years. Officials say
> that experience will help them deal with the vehicle fleet changeover.
>
> Full article:
> <
> http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/07/23/electriccars.grid.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
>>
>

"Correct morality can only be derived from what man is—not from what  
do-gooders and well-meaning Aunt Nellies would like him to be."  --  
Robert A. Heinlein


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No worries, then . . .

[Ronn! Blankenship]

Utilities: Grid can handle influx of electric cars


Which draws more juice from the electric grid, a big-screen plasma 
television or recharging a plug-in hybrid car?

The nation's electric grid can handle a mass conversion to plug-in 
hybrid cars like this one, utility executives say.

The answer is the car. But the electricity draw by plasma televisions 
is easing the minds of utility company executives across the nation 
as they plan for what is likely to be a conversion of much of the 
country's vehicle fleet from gasoline to electricity in the coming years.

Rechargeable cars, industry officials say, consume about four times 
the electricity as plasma TVs.

But the industry already has dealt with increased electric demand 
from the millions of plasma TVs sold in recent years. Officials say 
that experience will help them deal with the vehicle fleet changeover.

Full article:
< 
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/07/23/electriccars.grid.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
  
 >




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Re: Irregulars Question

[William T Goodall]

On 24 Jul 2008, at 23:04, Nick Arnett wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Dan M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
> wrote:
>
>> My wife's computer, running Vista,
>
>
> Although I'm tempted to say, "Well, there's your problem..."

Even Windows fans avoid Vista :-)

Progress Maru

-- 
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/

"I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If  
so, then Microsoft would have great products." - Steve Jobs


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Re: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[Charlie Bell]

On 25/07/2008, at 5:27 AM, hkhenson wrote:
>> And there are certain parts
>> of the population doing their best to outbreed everyone else just to
>> skew future demographics.  So it's likely to be a hard crash, and not
>> a very well controlled one at that.
>
> This would worry me more except I think the age of genes is about  
> over.

What do you mean by that? Do you mean that we'll be modifying  
ourselves rather than being subject to the random whims of mutation  
and selection in the next century (which is what I read) or did you  
mean something else?

Charlie
Or Did You Mean Denim Is Out Of Fashion Again Maru
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Re: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[Dave Land]

On Jul 24, 2008, at 1:21 PM, Bruce Bostwick wrote:

> On Jul 24, 2008, at 2:27 PM, hkhenson wrote:
>
>>> And there are certain parts
>>> of the population doing their best to outbreed everyone else just to
>>> skew future demographics.  So it's likely to be a hard crash, and  
>>> not
>>> a very well controlled one at that.
>>
>> This would worry me more except I think the age of genes is about
>> over.
>
> Eh?

I think Keith may be expressing the hope of the extropians.

Dave

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Re: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[Kevin B. O'Brien]

Curtis Burisch wrote:
> 2. Fusion (read up on IEC fusion; there are also another two very promising
> new fusion technologies. One or all of these will definitely work. Maybe
> more likely 15 years, not 5.)
>   
I'm a little skeptical on this. There have been so many rosy forecasts 
over the years for fusion, and they never seem to pan out.

"Fusion is 30 years away, and always will be."

Regards,

-- 
Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  Linux User #333216

"Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not 
punished." -- Jeremy Bentham
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Re: Irregulars Question

[Max Battcher]

Nick Arnett wrote:
> If it is making a connection to your wireless router, but behaving this way,
> it sounds like a gateway or DNS server address problem... make sure that
> your wireless connection is set to get the gateway address and DNS servers
> via DHCP.  If either of those is wrong, you'd get the symptoms you are
> describing.

I've found that often just right-clicking on the wireless connection 
icon and selecting "Repair" can help you figure out what is wrong (in 
both XP and Vista).  I believe that if either are the above problems are 
the case Repair actually should figure it out and fix things 
automatically...  If it's something more complicated the step that 
Repair fails on can yield a lot of information and potential next steps.

If you are seeing other computers but not internet websites you also may 
want to double/triple check the connection settings in your browser as 
well, particularly for any installed proxy/VPN set up.  Also double 
check all of your installed firewall software (don't forget to check if 
your virus scanner or other third party "security" tool is doing 
firewalling of any sort).

--
--Max Battcher--
http://www.worldmaker.net/
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Re: Irregulars Question

[Nick Arnett]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Dan M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> My wife's computer, running Vista,


Although I'm tempted to say, "Well, there's your problem..."

If it is making a connection to your wireless router, but behaving this way,
it sounds like a gateway or DNS server address problem... make sure that
your wireless connection is set to get the gateway address and DNS servers
via DHCP.  If either of those is wrong, you'd get the symptoms you are
describing.

Hope that helps...

Nick
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Solar Power article

[John Garcia]

An OpEd in yesterday's NY Times addresses Solar Power Satellites.

http://tiny.cc/dgbkI

john
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Re: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[Bruce Bostwick]

On Jul 24, 2008, at 2:27 PM, hkhenson wrote:

> At 12:00 PM 7/23/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote:
>
>> Pretty sure we're headed for a population crash at least that drastic
>> regardless.  it's obvious to me that the earth cannot support 6-7
>> billion sustainably no matter what we do.
>
> With a lot of low cost, low environmental damage energy the earth
> could support somewhat more than the current population--in style.

That's been obvious enough to me that it's the premise of at least one  
book I'm working on.  Energy is everything -- without it, we can't  
produce food (on anything like the scale it's being produced on now,  
at least), we can't get to and from work or do most of the kinds of  
work we do, we can't transport goods from where they're made to where  
they're needed, etc.  With more of it, with lower cost and less to  
zero environmental impact, yes, we could make Earth look like  
Coruscant and sustain it indefinitely.

(Tangential: That was one of the things that always bugged me the most  
about the Star Wars movies .. the enormous amount of energy obviously  
being consumed with no explanation as to the energy sources, other  
than they obviously had nearly limitless supplies of it.. :)

But the "if that energy source exists" is a BIG if.  I'm hoping it's  
found very soon.

(And I'm also hoping we use at least some of it to start terraforming  
Mars and maybe some other places to live in our solar system, so we  
don't have our entire population at the mercy of one biosphere.  But  
that's just me .. I'd move to a Mars colony tomorrow if they were  
recruiting.)

>> And there are certain parts
>> of the population doing their best to outbreed everyone else just to
>> skew future demographics.  So it's likely to be a hard crash, and not
>> a very well controlled one at that.
>
> This would worry me more except I think the age of genes is about  
> over.

Eh?

"Grotesque oppression isn't okay just because it's been  
institutionalized." -- Toby Ziegler


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Re: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[hkhenson]

I don't know why this failed to post the first time, try again.

At 12:00 PM 7/23/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote:

>Pretty sure we're headed for a population crash at least that drastic
>regardless.  it's obvious to me that the earth cannot support 6-7
>billion sustainably no matter what we do.

With a lot of low cost, low environmental damage energy the earth 
could support somewhat more than the current population--in style.

>And there are certain parts
>of the population doing their best to outbreed everyone else just to
>skew future demographics.  So it's likely to be a hard crash, and not
>a very well controlled one at that.

This would worry me more except I think the age of genes is about over.

Ronn! Blankenship wrote:

snip

>No.  I was just thinking that in the current situation, there would 
>probably be investors who would be very interested in getting in on 
>something which looked like it really would provide even a partial solution.

So far, have not found any interest.  But on the other hand, I don't 
know a lot of VC.

(keith wrote)
>>The only drawback is the size, it's on a par with the cost of a few
>>years of the Iraq War.
>
>I was thinking that what you would want to do would be to find 
>investors willing to fund a pilot facility and show that it worked 
>locally (city?  county?  state?  whatever . . . ).  If it did work 
>as predicted, it would be an easy matter to sell it to those willing 
>to expand it to larger areas.  That's one problem with some of the 
>suggestions out there:  they talk about savings (resource or 
>financial) to be realized only after the whole energy infrastructure 
>(at least of the entire US if not the world) has been converted from 
>what it is at present to the proposed new version.

The problem is one of optics that has been understood for more than 
200 years.  "The Airy disk (or Airy disc) is a phenomenon in 
optics. Owing to the 
wave nature of light, 
light passing through an 
aperture is 
diffracted and forms a 
pattern of light and dark regions on a screen some distance away from 
the aperture (see 
interference)." 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk

For microwaves that get through the atmosphere that we can make and 
turn back into electricity, the antennas on both ends are huge, a km 
in space and 10 km on the ground.  For economic power levels that's 
in the 5-10 GW.  A power sat that large weighs something like 10,000 
tons.  You could build one that delivered a few watts to the ground, 
but it would cost almost as much as a multi GW unit.

>Few people seem to be talking with any specificity about how to 
>accomplish the individual intermediate steps to get from here to 
>there and what the incremental savings or other advantages to be 
>gained from those intermediate steps will be.  And the proposals 
>which require the whole system to be replaced before any advantages 
>might be realized

Advantages or not, we will be exiting the oil era over the next 
decade or so.  Oil is huge.  The solution has to be the same.

>are so costly that the only way they could be funded is by the 
>government with taxpayer money, and we have seen for the past 40 
>years how well that works.  With a good proposal, hopefully private 
>industry would be interested in funding the initial local facility 
>and then expanding from there when it shows results.

I agree with how you feel about governments and taxpayer money.  I 
don't know how a project of this scale can be funded on private money 
or taxpayer money either.

Pat Mathews wrote:

> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > Showing again that the underlying problem is that people must
> > renounce greed and selfishness and replace them with cooperation 
> and altruism.
>
>"Great idea. Wrong species." E.O. Wilson

To the point.  :-)

Keith  

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Irregulars Question

[Dan M]

My wife's computer, running Vista, has been showing a very funny symptom.
It can no longer access the internet through our home wireless.  It can see
and access the other computers on the network, it can access the internet
through other wireless routers, it can access the internet through a cable
connected to the wireless router.  Does anyone have any ideas what happened?
My guess is a switch was accidently set, but I don't know how to get to it.
With XP, I think I could find it, but Vista is baffling me.

I've rebooted everything

Dan  M.

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RE: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[Curtis Burisch]

> In what way, specifically?

>>It's an unstable situation, implying change. One way or another it will 
>>sort itself out.

If we run out of energy, it will be a global catastrophe where billions die.
We will adapt to the new conditions. Stabilization achieved.

If we find a new source of energy, the situation will stabilize.

>>For what it's worth, I'm pretty confident we'll sort the energy crisis 
>>out completely within the next five years or so.

1. New solar technologies
2. Fusion (read up on IEC fusion; there are also another two very promising
new fusion technologies. One or all of these will definitely work. Maybe
more likely 15 years, not 5.)

Regards,
Curtis.



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RE: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[Ronn! Blankenship]

At 02:39 AM Thursday 7/24/2008, Curtis Burisch wrote:
>It's an unstable situation, implying change. One way or another it will sort
>itself out.
>
>For what it's worth, I'm pretty confident we'll sort the energy crisis out
>completely within the next five years or so.



In what way, specifically?


Plan Ahead Maru


. . . ronn!  :)



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Re: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[Ronn! Blankenship]

At 09:19 PM Wednesday 7/23/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote:
>On Jul 23, 2008, at 8:31 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote:
>
> >> Some of us get it.  But not enough, not by far, not yet ..
> >
> >
> >
> > Is there any other way to help them to "get it" than to keep
> > reminding them?
> >
> >
> > . . . ronn!  :)
>
>Now on that, I will wholeheartedly agree with you.  Reminders never
>hurt.
>
>And it also never hurts to remind people how much more rewarding life
>would be to live in a cooperative society.  (It's rewarding enough to
>experience little moments of cooperative action among individual
>strangers right now, just as it is rewarding to simply share a moment
>of being nice to each other or showing some token of mutual respect.
>It feels great, and it feels that way for a very good reason.)
>
>It's just going to take a lot of work to sell a critical mass of
>people on it, and get enough of them to believe in it that they can
>defend that cooperative ideal against the people who are guaranteed to
>try to tear it down.
>
>(I have to confess here that I have a very unflattering opinion of
>most of my species, primarily because the vast majority of them do not
>in fact get this basic concept.  I hope that the species might learn
>this lesson while I'm still alive, but my money is on closer to about
>a millennium from now..)



No one said it would be easy . . . :-\  OTOH, we have to keep trying . . .


. . . ronn!  :)



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RE: Dollar a gallon gasoline

[Curtis Burisch]

>> I am not optimistic that this will be done.  If this or some other 
>> really huge supply of primary energy is not found, we are going to be 
>> in for some nasty times.  The other way the energy crisis will be 
>> solved is for the world population to fall to about a billion.

>so we face either a collapse, or the singularity?  either one will solve
the problem...
>will any other brinlisters be at denvention, and are there plans to meet?

It's an unstable situation, implying change. One way or another it will sort
itself out.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty confident we'll sort the energy crisis out
completely within the next five years or so.

C

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