Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Why (Score 1) 251

by Andreas Mayer (#47756663) Attached to: New Windows Coming In Late September -- But Which One?

Why hasn't Google given Microsoft the coup de grace and actively developed some desktop/laptop distro ala Chromebook but without the stupid "web only" focus?

Because that wouldn't help them. Google is all about ads. They developed Android only because they were afraid they would be locked out of the emerging mobile systems.

There is no sign that desktop operating systems try to get rid of the browser. The only way to sell more ads on the desktop is to make the browser the OS. Which is exactly what Chrome does.

Comment Re:Another misconception bites the dust (Score 2, Informative) 365

by Andreas Mayer (#47339669) Attached to: Germany's Glut of Electricity Causing Prices To Plummet

Except that Germany mostly uses brown coal in it's coal plants which pollutes the environment the most. It's the dirtiest form of energy production. Lot's of CO2 and Sulphur products.

Plants in Germany are filtered. I don't know of any problems with sulfur. In fact, sulfur in the air is a lot less than in the 1980s.
(According to Wikipedia, modern plants filter out 99.5% of ash and 90% of sulfur dioxide.)

Though you are correct in that they produce more CO2. (Wikipedia says typically 850–1200 g CO2 per kWh compared to 750–1100 g CO2 per kWh for black coal.)

Obviously we need to move away from fossil fuels. Hence wind and solar.

Comment Re:Important Caveat (Score 1) 560

Just doing a little digging into the details of the 5th Amendment in practice, and found this interesting tidbit:

The Court acknowledged that it is well established that a witness, in a single proceeding, may not testify voluntarily about a subject and then invoke the Privilege against Self-Incrimination when questioned about the details.

That could very well apply in this case, so that even if there is additional evidence in the files beyond what he has admitted to, the moment he started admitting to some of it, he effectively waived his self-incrimination right.

So ... what if he said that there's also information on the laptop that is not related to the case - i.e. about something which he didn't talk about - but which might be illegal?
Then giving up the encryption keys would be self-incriminating, no?

Comment Re:Inefficient much (Score 1) 461

by Andreas Mayer (#47319817) Attached to: Half of Germany's Power Supplied By Solar, Briefly

In that people are shifting away from electric hot water, cooking, heating, etc with a net effect of moving from potentially clean electric power to co2 etc generating burning stuff.

Electrical heating is absurdly inefficient, so it's not used much since - well, since I can remember.

And I haven't heard of a single person moving from an electric stove to a gas one because of electricity prices.

So I'd guess you are completely and utterly wrong.

Comment Re: most of Germany's power not electric ? (Score 1) 461

by Andreas Mayer (#47319769) Attached to: Half of Germany's Power Supplied By Solar, Briefly

Do people have their own household generators running on natural gas or something?

No. That's really rare. I'd guess there are more generators in US homes (percentage wise I mean).

I could understand that power for heating could mostly come from gas, but presumably that is only needed in the winter?

Well, warm water is often supplied by oil or gas.

( Does Germany even have winter? I think Fahrenheit (the guy who invented the temperature scale) was German and he seemed to think that 0F was as cold as you could get, so I guess they don't have a real winter there.)

I guess that depend on what you consider "real winter".

Here are some numbers: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z...

The coldest month for last winter was January 2014 with an average of 2.1 degrees Celsius. 2013 it was February with -0.7 degrees C.

Coldest month since 1761 apparently was December 1788 with an average of -9.8 degrees Celsius followed by Feb. 1929 and Feb. 1959 with -9.6 degrees Celsius for both.

Comment Re:bad headline - most of Germany's power not elec (Score 1) 461

by Andreas Mayer (#47319665) Attached to: Half of Germany's Power Supplied By Solar, Briefly

It wasn't nearly half of the POWER used in Germany at that moment. It was, for a moment, about half of the public ELECTRIC grid, in a country where electric is unpopular because it's becoming outrageously expensive.

What the hell are you talking about?!

Yes, electricity is expensive. But 'unpopular'? What? Everyone is connected to the public grid. Of course there are other sources of power. For instance heating is usually provided by gas or oil. But really, it seems to me you are just trying to find a way to downplay the relative success of regenerative energy in Germany.

Slashdot Top Deals

Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man.

Close