ridgeguy

94 ms·

961.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
There's a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg scheduled for July 22. VAFB is a large coastal installation with lots of room for a return to land. schedule: http://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/ read near the end
962.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
It's interesting to think about a case where Just Read The Instructions (the barge) might cooperate in the landing. Perhaps it could have an XY stage that could help compensate for residual X,Y or X,Y roll rates at touchdown. Looking a
963.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
I think it could. For example, the Leica Disto2 laser rangefinder has a minimum measuring distance of 5cm. I don't see why an RF-based system couldn't do adequately for this use case. http://www.leica-geosystems.us&#x2F
964.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
It can be, but that doesn't capture the value a consumer with fast response, controllable generation/storage supplies to the grid. Compensating the consumer for power or storage they supply at a particular time is complicated. Exi
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Yes. This is the grid owners' nightmare at the moment. Their old business model is rapidly dissolving as the price of solar + storage falls ever further and more electricity users essentially disconnect from buying grid power. That rev
966.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
It actually can be that price multiple. Pumped hydro is one of those fast response storage technologies that can supply power for high price premium ancillary services (transient supply/load matching, peak shaving, etc.).
967.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
The growth of distributed solar + storage (i.e., zillions of residences having 10kW arrays and 25kWhr storage) is accelerating. Projections I've seen suggest that this distributed storage (which doesn't belong to the power compani
968.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
My understanding is that nuclear power is used to serve base load, which is the demand that isn't subject to significant variation. This allows generator owners to run nuclear generators at their cost-effective maximum output. It'
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Pumped hydro works very well. Its main issue is that the enabling favorable combination of terrain (adjacent lakes or potential lakes at differing heights) and water supply aren't common, so cost-effective sites are restricted.
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Signal/noise issues would favor a low power omnidirectional emitter placed near a receiving dish, roughly in the known signal path. It could overwhelm the real signal by favorable inverse square intensity. Put the emitter on a drone.
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Has this system been committed to a modeling package (like COMSOL, for example) so it could be rapidly optimized for particular use cases?
972.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
I think evolution is more widely applicable than just to biological systems. To date, we've only studied its operation in biosystems, which, given our status as biological organisms, seems entirely reasonable. But I believe many of the
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
So long as (human, artificial) intelligences operate within an evolutionary dynamic, the definitions of what it means to "treat people right" (or even who's included in the class: people) will be embodied in the evolutionary
974.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
Is it known whether inkjet printers have a similar issue? My brief search didn't find anything.
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Thanks for these. The second link notes that the lithium battery recycling is profitable. Do you know of any links to more detailed economics of lithium battery recycling? I'm trying to estimate the cost of Li batteries in a fully recy
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Thanks for clarification and link to the teardown pix. Very interesting.
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
USGS says there's this much available lithium: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs... These guys http://www.erb.umich.edu/Research/InstituteReports&#x2F
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
I toured the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA last Monday. During the completely awesome 1 hour tour, our guide answered many detailed questions about their cars and manufacturing processes, including how Tesla instruments battery cells. We wer
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
I'll join you in appreciating Neruda. Me gusta especialmente Los Versos del Capitan. Night on the Island, just one of the gems. http://www.akirarabelais.com/vi/o/thelibraryofbabel/neruda/c...
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
As I age, I grow ever fonder of Tennyson, particularly his "Ulysses", from which: ...Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose h
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
I'm not sure how I would explain (as only one example among many) Facebook's market cap to our 1915 visitor. I think s/he would find it enigmatic, not having been along for the evolution of events.
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
H2S-induced suspended animation featured in Alastair Reynold's sci-fi novel Pushing Ice, which I've mentioned earlier in another context. Recommended as a good read.
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Agree that more use of 83(b) would reduce the frequency of startup equity taxation horror stories. The value of startup equity, given all the risk factors and historical outcome data, is extremely low. It's usually easy to show that an
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Palo Alto Medical Foundation, at their Palo Alto location
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Apologies if too far OT. I accompanied my wife earlier this week to two appointments with her docs. Both docs showed up wearing Google Glass, which is a New Thing at this clinic. This use case provides an audio feed through Glass to a human
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Browning understood Musk's impulse: “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?” Robert Browning, from Men and Women and Other Poems
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
I've gotten used to the frequent feeling of "everything you know is wrong" - or at least, more complicated - as more fields of investigation become computation-friendly and hop on the Moore's Law Express. But once in awh
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
In Alastair Reynold's scifi novel Pushing Ice, it wasn't Ceres, but another body in our solar system that with an apparent origin similar to what you've imagined...and behavior just too interesting for the curious primates to
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by ridgeguy 12y ago
Not far-fetched at all. There's precedent right here on our home planet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
990.
by ridgeguy 12y ago
Probably. Acoustic velocities in tungsten are quite a bit higher than in gold. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speeds_of_sound_of_the_elements... It should be straightforward to make an acoustic time of flight go&#x2

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