The same "not in my backyard" argument that resisted cell towers is politically holding back adding the extra transmission capacity to connect solar farms to cities. Let me know if you need citations.

Moreso, I've read that the challenge of solar/wind in terms of harvesting the energy at sites in the middle of nowhere is storing the power for more than a few hours in case it gets cloudy or the wind calms down. Whereas all the other sources of energy can be controlled based on an input variable that's controlled by human interaction, wind and solar have completely external dependencies.

As far as you calling my comment stupid... you must have missed the overaching point that I was trying to make that solar panels don't generate very much energy based on the amount of space and resources they use. The key for solar is installing it in an area where space is a negligible consideration. Further... I think installing 100,000 acres of solar farms somewhere in the desert and then transmitting that power to a city would have unforeseen environmental effects because sand and solar panels have different heat absorption properties and it wouldn't surprise me if this cause negative weather effects.

Like I indicated... right now solar and wind are good rural and suburban options for roof installation. And that's significant. I'm not saying don't do solar. I'm just saying the technology doesn't currently exist to do it on a massive scale where it would make a dent in the national energy consumption requirements.

I wasn't talking about cost. I was talking about taking a great idea and then realizing after it's implemented that there were major drawbacks because nobody wants to live in a state that's completely blocked out by the sun (there are other reasons not to live in NJ... but that's for another topic).

It's an engineering challenge. The energy needs are X. The physical space and resources available are Y. If the energy solution generates power at a rate of X/Y then it's a non-starter.

Nuclear, hydro, wind, SOLAR, coal, gasoline, geothermal, natural gas, and steam. I support the energy sources that enable modern living. I was just pointing out that nuclear is a major benefit to densely populated areas. You can call me an Urban Playboy if you want because I think the advantages in terms of energy usage within cities far outweigh many other aspects. The two shiniest examples of why big urban centers are advantageous are public transportation utilization and district heating (where heat energy lost from operating systems is used instead of wasted like it is in areas where it easily escapes into the atmosphere).

Yeah... sure... put a solar panel on your house and watch your electricity bill go down to $10/month because you're generating 100kW with your panels. That's a good solution for you. I'd live in a place where energy costs are 50kW because I'm taking advantage of energy saving systems like Energy Star appliances, passive solar heating through insulated windows, and then shelling out the $100/month to pay for the energy generated by the electric and gas company that I've used. (caveat: the numbers I'm using here are pulled from my ass, but they are supposed to illustrate the point I'm making).

Yeah... Boeing and LM are just as big and resistant to change as any huge organization who has enjoyed many years with a business model that has let them coast along and collect money freely.

And as a further disclaimer... I work for a company who has been partnered with Orbital in the past, though I've never had anything to do with any of those projects.

Don't you mean Aperture Sciences? ~

I think if NASA adopted this "Dell business model" that you describe, space exploration would take about ten years before if became too dangerous for anybody without a powerful Anti-Debris Scan and Removable Tool. Unfortunately, the requirements of space are higher than the comparable code that McAfee and Microsoft churn out. The option to resign yourself to raising the white flag and start from scratch would have much more devastating results when you realize the Scan and Removable Tool has become overwhelmed.

On the other hand, this would pave the way for a huge Anti-Debris Scan industry which would create tens-of-millions of jobs to kick start the economy. Or is that just another example of the Broken Window Fallacy?

That's funny... I thought Albany was prosperous because of the Hudson River, the Rockefeller family with their railroad business, and Thomas Edison with his electric company. A quick peak at Wiki supports your claims, though. Nonetheless, being familiar with the area I guess it goes to show that cities need to evolve or die just like companies and countries do. I went to RPI for 4 years from 2001 to 2005 and during my tenure in Troy I watched it get nicer and nicer as the school poured money into the town improving campus as well as some hot spots downtown. I must say, though, that 4th street east of downtown looked like hell when I drove through in May. Many of those apartment tenements need to be torn down.

There are practical considerations why we don't use solar and wind power to run things. It's very inefficient and uses lots of resources to create it. I believe solar (using cutting edge tech that's been developed in the last two or three years) is slightly better than wind (which demands the right amount of wind for it to work).

I did some back of the envelope calculations a while back and (based on crude estimates) a population zone like New Jersey which consumes 8 GW of electricity would need to be completely blanketed in solar panels to get the power needed to run. As a comparison, the state currently gets 4 GW of electricity from 3 nuclear reactions that less than 5% of the population know about. In terms of staying out of the way of modern living, that's a major win.

My favorite part when I wrote it was rounding the value for pi down to 3.1 and then further truncating the 0.1 by casting it as an integer. But nobody *really* writes code like this. Right? Hopefully? I hope...

Wikibooks is the best source of open source educational books.

The folks at CK12.org also probably know a thing or two, since they get most of their content from Wikipedia and were recently distinguished by the governor of the state of California for producing three books which meets the state requirements for an elementary school text book.

I'm Cowboy Neal and I only write comments like this:

/* an integer for symbol A */
int A;

/* a double for pi */
double pi = 3.1;

/* set A equal to pi */
/* need to type-cast to avoid the warning */
A = (int)pi;

He correctly identified that you didn't meet what they were looking for in a candidate. By the sound of it, they didn't meet what you were looking for in an organization.

I've had similar interviews on both sides of the spectrum. One .NET shop was looking for a guy training in the Microsoft tools and looked down on the fact that I had general knowledge about comparable tools from other vendors. Another startup shop was looking for a whiz-bang Linux programmer who works long hours and writes lots of code really quickly. Neither environment really suited me. I fit better at a test-heavy, high-reliability shop who uses a good balance of proprietary and open development solutions. And that's where I wound up after my most recent job search a few years back.

Ben,

Thanks for the clarification and your efforts in the free books arena.

I took some time to look through a bit of what CK12 has available on their website and it's clear who the real champion of these free textbook successes is... Jimmy Wales and the work of Millions of dedicated people who have contributed to the Wikipedia project.

I take back calling you a liar.

Though, I'm not impressed with any of these deals. The lack of options for a phone you can pick is glaring.