This thing, actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Back in my student days, we had an experiment with a solar panel with a single axis tracker. The panel we got for about $800, the tracker for about 1k, if memory serves. Mind you, this was a single axis tracker with the panel mounted along the direction of the rotation, not offset to the declination of the sun like you'd have with a proper equatorial mount used in astronomy (which you'd still need to adjust every month or so to keep up with the seasons).

Conclusion: a sort-of OK tracker (that you still need to adjust seasonally) cost more than the panel. And it's moving parts that wear out and need lubrication, and it needs to be accessible for maintenance and adjustment. So about double the cost and not practical for sloped roofs.

what 'math' questions make into any IQ tests? Actually I think IQ tests are subjective rather than objective on the more complex questions specifically because they are not math but in many casee intuition on complex pattern matching.

The inability to do well on those is more interesting, more indicative of lower intelligence than specialized knowledge.

I'd forgotten what my sig was, but I'll say that my current amusement and replacement website is mostly Ello. Already becoming concerned about their lack of any apparently viable financial model... I'm sure you've all been invited already, right?

Not sure I can really claim to be a non-coder, since I was a professional database programmer for some years, but I can definitely say that I would like to contribute to Open Source and the reason I mostly don't is basically the same as why I dropped off of /. some years ago: Bad financial models. (Today's visit is too long a story.)

Let me try to clarify the problem. Microsoft produces gawdawful software. Apple is against freedom of choice. Google is blossoming as an EVIL tyrant under the new motto "All your attentions is belonging to us." However, they all have viable financial models and they are kicking the hiney of little OSS.

Constructive suggestion for you to ignore (of course): Charity share brokerage (AKA reverse auction charity shares). Sort of like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, but with project management and clear SUCCESS criteria. If the slashdot people wanted to act as the charity brokerage, the donors would trust them to hold the money and provide lists of possible OSS projects to be implemented. If enough donors buy the shares to fund a project, then the funds would be released. (By the way, the same basic mechanism could be used for funding solution projects for problems that don't call for software solutions.)

The broker would earn a percentage mostly by making sure the project proposals are clear and complete. How many people are required and how much will they be paid? How much testing will be adequate? How will non-core contributors be rewarded? What is the schedule? What are the most likely problems and how can they be dealt with? That's to help potential donors assess the real risks. And, to my way of thinking, most important: What will success look like?

The donors (possibly even including yours truly) would basically get nothing but recognition for their donations on a project funder page. However, as minor doggie treats they should be the first people invited to use the completed software and their reviews might receive extra weight in evaluating the success (or even failure) of the project.

There is nothing more noble that creating opportunities for work for people who cannot create them for themselves. That's literally allowing people to survive on this planet where they couldn't figure out how to survive on their own without the employer.

The only people who should be careful are socialists/fascists and all types of dictatorial assholes, once they destroy the private sector there will be no jobs and then you'll know what it's like to live without anybody creating any opportunities for you not to be a subsistence hunger/gatherer and people with mental issues will not be doing that well under those circumstances compared to the others at all.

Wrong, a wealthy society is wealthy despite the government it has taking advantage of the wealth generated by the private sector.

Governments do not generate any wealth and there is nowhere to extract the wealth for a government of a society that has no wealth in the private sector. Wealth societies precisely appear as anarchies, USA was as close to an anarchy as it gets during the 19th century industrial revolution simply by the virtue of the tiniest of governments in the world up until that time.

Exploiting people? As in creating possibilities for people to work, to become useful in a society and to give meaning to many where they had little before, to make them feel useful and appreciated, to give them a way to earn a living while at it...

so 'exploitative', do you wish nobody ever created any businesses and offered jobs in them to others?

Wrong completely, but understandably. You look at the effect and believe it ti be the cause. A wealthy society grows cancer that is government, which steals the wealth, calls it 'taxes', creates a number of monopolies that are government propped and protected, which makes it look like infrastructure only can happen because of taxes.

The reality is that it was the wealthy economy that built the infrastructure, except the government destroyed competition and private initiative, making the infrastructure inefficient.

Poor economies cannot afford as much wasteful building as wealthy economies build due to theft called 'taxes'.

The result is that you are looking at inefficient glitter of a wealthy economy, that is overburdened with theft that is taxes and think that the economy is wealthy from the theft that is taxes. The reality is the opposite from what you believe.

Well, graphene seems to possess all of the properties of a silver bullet, it can filter water, store energy, cure cancer, establish world peace, so I would say a bullet and bulletproof vest out of this stuff will have to both, kill and save from being killed, generating enough uncertainty field, which would cause a temporal rip in the non graphene fabric of the Universe and taking the world back in time before the experiment takes place. Actually we are already in the 26th iteration of this loop. The interesting thing is that if you wrap yourself in a graphene sheet, you will stay anr not move back in time with everybody else, but the probabilistic shift of the Universe can cause you to jump into different parts of space without any speed limits, since I have a graphene sheet, I have already travelled to 15 differrent galaxies this way (the other times I was simply moved from the computer to the couch, to kitchen and to a girl's shower room, I am recording these important observations on my graphene based videocamera.

Fuck governments and Mega governments, I say break up all governments and do not touch private enterprises.

This is like a government coming out saying that a person should be dismembered or a family should be divorced because it's just 'too strong'.

Machismo has nothing to do with it, a person has the right to protect himself with deadly force when attacked and should not hesitate once it's a full frontal attack, do not leave the attacker capable of returning, coming from behind, coming after you later, take care of it once and for all right there and then and be done with it. Yes, taking another man's life is better than losing your own.

OMG, you fucking moron, learn something, read a book, go read some jokes, humour obviously is not your strong suit, but maybe you can learn to pretend you understand it, moron.

Funny you should talk about facts. Where do you get yours, Al Sharpton? You should stop for a moment and ask yourself a question: what am I doing with my life, moving through it in this much ignorance? Then you should engage your brain and do something useful, like read a book.