The real numbers:

If you figure out what the "just enough" solar panel count would be for your max power needs during the shortest day of the year in full sunlight at whatever angle(s) you'll be able to manage, you'll need five to seven times that many to make sure that on non-sunny days you're good to go.

This is because solar panels produce between 15% and 20% of rated capacity on non-sunny days. Non-sunny days are not "dark", they are only "dim." It is a very rare day indeed where it is so dark as to drive a solar panel below 15% output (major snowstorm which has the atmosphere nearly opaque, that kind of thing.) But dim days can come in very long strings, so that's the target to aim at.

For a reliable system that will never let you down, you do tend to need considerably more space than you would initially think. But it is possible, given that you have the space (lots) and the budget (also lots) required. Panel-wise, it's a quantity issue.

But there's a wolverine in the woodpile: Batteries. To be blunt, they suck, as in, expensive to replace and very short lifetimes compared to the rest of the system.

Until or unless ultracaps reach a point where they are on par with batteries for the service you need, reasonable full-on solar installations remain quite expensive.

Installations that use batteries are regarded highly by their owners only until the first battery replacement. Then their wallets straighten them right out.

I have a lowish-power setup, with an unfortunate number of ultracaps (because capacity is very low, about 1/10th that of a battery right now) as the energy storage medium. I did it both to give my ham gear a constant supply, and to explore what would actually work. It took a custom controller design -- ultracaps don't act even remotely like batteries -- and it took me quite some time to put it all together and make it work like I wanted it to. There are way more panels than you'd expect because of that 15% number (my panels are cheap ones), and there are way more ultracaps than I wanted to expend room for, but I did have the room, so I kept at it. It works great, and it isn't going to need service for decades unless there is an actual component failure or a severe weather event (large hail, for instance.)

Trying to do this for a full house load? A typical US house? Not yet, I'm afraid. There will be tons of compromises to make in appliances, lights, and lifestyle, and in the end, you're not likely to have the same lifestyle you had prior to your switchover.

The battery problem will probably be solved. One way or another. Eventually. I have no idea if solar panel efficiency will get up into a range where the costs and space will fall within the range needed to go truly off grid. That's a physics question in an area where I have nowhere near enough knowledge. But right now? No.

Which brings us to on-grid, grid power use mitigation. Now that is an interesting area, and we can leave batteries right out of it, as peak power also comes during peak power use (right now... electric cars may change that.) But it involves all kinds of compromises for the utilities if it is adopted in any kind of mass manner. They will need power storage, as I understand it at the moment.

Full-on solar is a great, great thing with huge potential (ha, a pun, hooray), but it's not a panacea by any means except in very rare sets of circumstances that involve very large amounts of money and large areas of space for the panels.

If you trust all that, and you believe it isn't vulnerable to the NSA and hackers, that's your call to make.

As a professional videogame programmer, I can assure you that it's fairly newsworthy when a game designer uses math to solve problems like these.

There's more math in the corniest Free2Play game than there is in Witcher 3.

As a professional videogame programmer, I'm guessing you've heard of Eve Online. I'm just guessing here, because I'm not a professional videogame programmer, but I'll just bet they used a little math in the same way. Over a decade ago.

Anyway, my point was that I would have thought Slashdot readers would be beyond getting all excited when someone is discovered to be "using math". In programming an economy-simulator.

Just like most really rich guys. Trying like hell to clean his dark soul from what he did to get that rich.

In the United States, we like a good redemption story.

Or don't you believe in redemption?

Wait a minute here. Is there an editor so clueless that they thought the notion of a game developer "using math" is headline-worthy? What's next, a story about how "programmers" are "using math"?

I'll bet they used "physics" and even "engineering" too!

What the hell?

What about when you need a huge bunch of CPUs to compute something? That's an aspect of "the cloud" that actually seems reasonable. As long as you don't put anything you want kept secure out there, of course.

the first responsability of the CEO is to protect the money of the shareholders and make it profitable

Exactly right. Add just a smidgen of shortsightedness and some pressure from the board, and you have the perfect storm of next-quarter-itis.

After a few quarters like that, the CEO takes off for the next company, as the company tries to put out the fires they left behind them -- fired experts, cheapened and crippled products, new hires that don't know much about the domain, insufficiently-tested but out-the-door-anyway products...

Yeah, responsibility to the shareholders. Which means: Short term thinking and cannibalistic profiteering. That's the US corporate mantra, right there.

Might not be bad as a kids film.

That entire series had recurring villains too so you have a little bit to work with.

I just can't see anything compelling for adults.

If Marvel does it, it will be done well. Otherwise, it's going to be crap.

I've played since Greyhawk was in 3rd edition (1977ish). It's a great game, but it has a lot of artificiality to it because of the Vance material.

They need good characters. It would be better to tell the story of Drizzt or some other character with a lot of storyline than to make a "dnd" movie.

Speaking as a DND fan who still runs for 12 players in the level 20 range.

I think Robert Rhinehart is just trolling us. Who could possibly hate kitchens as much as he does? Check out his blog and tell me he's not either a troll or has some serious static in the attic. The section on kitchens is particularly illuminating.

http://robrhinehart.com/?p=133...

With no fridge, no dishes, no microwave, no oven, no range, no dishwasher, no utensils, no pests, no cleaning products nor dirty rags, my life is considerably simpler, lighter and cleaner than before. I think it was a bit presumptuous for the architect to assume I wanted a kitchen with my apartment and make me pay for it. My home is a place of peace. I don’t want to live with red hot heating elements and razor sharp knives. That sounds like a torture chamber. However, it’s not a total loss. I was able to use the cabinets to store part of my book collection.

Wait a kitchen is a "torture chamber"? Slow your roll there, big boy.

I mean, if he wants to make his life "simpler, lighter and cleaner" he could just tear out his bathroom and use catheter. It'd be about as much fun as living on Soylent 2.0.

I was being ironic too.

I think it was more like 20 million...

That may be. The official numbers estimate 10 million military and 14 million civilians. Either way, without Russia soaking up everything Hitler could muster against them, there might well not have been enough time to plan for a Normandy invasion before England was gone. The costs were horrific, and Americans who forget that it wasn't just G.I. Joe that defeated the Nazis dishonor themselves.

I mean nobody would dare say Black people shouldn't be pissed about Colonialism. Ooops this comment is likely to get censored due to "racism" but then again nobody will care, "OMG CENSORSHIP ON SLASHDOT. Racism ohh okay no problem then."

Geez, man. What are you so upset about? You better take care you don't have a stroke worrying about all that.

I was only in Istanbul once, and only long enough to have dinner, fall asleep and run to the airport. But my Serbian monther-in-law has some very strong opinions about Turks. She's usually such a sweet little old lady, but don't get her started on the Turks. I mean, the Ottoman Empire was gone before she was born, but damn, she's still mad about something.

Facebook couldn't disable your tablet if you pissed them off.

I use google+ but I was was concerned about reports of banning people from google+ resulting in loss of access to other services. So I firewalled them and had multiple id's.