Slashdot

Pickens writes "Wind turbines, once used primarily for farms and rural houses far from electrical service, are becoming more common in heavily populated residential areas as homeowners are attracted to ease of use, financial incentives and low environmental effects. Experts on renewable energy say a convergence of factors, political, technical and ecological, is causing a surge in the use of residential wind turbines, especially in the Northeast and California. "Back in the early days, off-grid electrical generation was pursued mostly by hippies and rednecks, usually in isolated, rural areas," said Joe Schwartz, editor of Home Power magazine. "Now, it's a lot more mainstream." Some of the new "plug and play" systems can be plugged directly into a circuit in the home electrical panel and homeowners can use energy from the wind turbine or the power company without taking action. Schwartz says that even with the economic benefits, it can take 20 years to pay back the installation cost. "This isn't about people putting turbines in to lower their electric bills as much as it is about people voting with their dollars to help the environment in some small way," he said."

rsax writes "Bell Canada's chief of regulatory affairs Mirko Bibic has been attempting to justify the throttling of the last-mile connection to independent ISPs. As is typical, Bell Canada is abusing people's confusion between issues around Network Neutrality and the last mile natural monopoly. If people continue to confuse these two related but separate issues, Bell Canada and other incumbent phone and cable companies will win this critical debate."

An anonymous reader writes "Slashdot readers will have seen an announcement by Stephen Wolfram offering a $25,000 prize for a proof or a disproof that a certain 2-state, 3-color Turing machine is universal. The prize was awarded on October 24th, 2007 to Alex Smith of Birmingham, UK.

However, according to discussion in the Foundation of Mathematics e-mail list, archives of which are available here, the members of the prize committee were "informed but not polled" as to the validity of the proof. The prize committee members were Lenore Blum, Greg Chaitin, Martin Davis, Ron Graham, Yuri Matiyasevich, Marvin Minsky, Dana Scott and Stephen Wolfram. On October 26, Martin Davis wrote to the FOM list that "The determination that Smith's proof is correct seems to have been made entirely by the Wolfram organization. My understanding is that the I/O involves complex encodings."

On October 29th, Stanford computer scientist Vaughan Pratt wrote to the Foundations of Mathematics list that the universality proof of the (2,3) Turing machine was flawed, asking "How did an argument containing such an elementary fallacy get through the filter?" Pratt points out that the fallacy of the proof could be used to "prove" the erroneous statement that a linear bounded automaton is universal. The text of Pratt's email is available here."

Comet 17P/Holmes, a relatively obscure and dim object has suddenly flared to be literally a million times brighter than it was two days ago, going from below magnitude 14 to 2.8 in less than 24 hours. It is just outside of the constellation Perseus, which puts it high in the sky and ideal for viewing at this time of year. The comet is now readily visible with the naked eye, and remarkable in binoculars or a telescope. This is a completely unexpected once-in-a-lifetime event, so get out your finest optics (even if it's just your eyes) and go comet watching! No one knows how long this will last, so grab the chance while it's there.

An anonymous reader writes "So, you want to go off-grid? Or maybe you want to find out what it's like before taking the plunge? How about taking one room of your house off grid? It's a less expensive way of learning the technology, before committing yourself.

We suggest starting with a bedroom. Look around your bedroom and see what devices you have that run on electric. As I look around my room, I see one table lamp, two floor lamps, wall lamp, digital TV, Stereo, satellite box, portable dvd player, vcr, and XBox. I also have a battery powered clock, powered by rechargeables, so I'll add the battery charger to our list. There is also a curling iron, hair dryer, and ceiling fan with lights, but we will leave those items off our list for now.

The first thing I need to do, is plug these devices in, one at a time, to my Kill-A-Watt ($30 or £16.20), to determine individual loads and daily run times. This will determine the battery capacity, and size and number of Photovoltaic (PV) panels necessary to support these loads.

Lets assume I need 100 watts to power any devices used simultaneously, and I use that load 6 hours a day. I would then need 100 x 6, or 600 watt-hours (wh's) per day to power that equipment. I would only need a 100 watt inverter, but there is little price difference between that and a 300, so I'll upgrade this item to a 300 watt inverter ($40 or £21.60).

I decide I want to have 1 days worth of power in a battery bank, in case of no sun, so I convert those watt hours into amp-hours (ah's) by dividing by 12, the voltage of my battery pack. 600 / 12 = 50 ah's. I do not want to discharge my battery pack more than 50%, to ensure long life, so I want a 100 ah pack. One deep cycle type 27 battery from Walmart is 115ah and cost $55 (£29.70).

To keep that battery charged, I need to be able to put 600 wh's per day back into the pack. My area of the world gets on average 2.5 sun hours daily, so 600 / 2.5 = 240 watts of PV. A 240 watt array (2 * 120w panels) ($480 or £259.50 each panel) would need a 30 amp (240 / 12 + 50%) charge controller ($180 or £97.30) to keep the array from overcharging the battery.

So there you have it, for less than $1300 (£702.70), you have taken one room off grid, and eliminated $0.09 / day (600wh's x $0.15 kWh) of grid electric, giving you a 40 year payback ($1300 / $0.09 = 14444 days / 365 = 39.6 years). And if electricity prices rise faster than inflation, which they will, the payback is much faster. In fact you get the double benefit of having made one room Kyoto-compliant, AND saving money."

An anonymous reader writes "Finally, the worst feature of Windows Vista comes to Linux!

Linux Genuine Advantage is an exciting and mandatory new way for you to place your computer under the remote control of an untrusted third party!

From the site: "According to an independent study conducted by some scientists, many users of Linux are running non-Genuine versions of their operating system. This puts them at the disadvantage of having their computers work normally, without periodically phoning home unannounced to see if it's OK for their computer to continue functioning. These users are also missing out on the Advantage of paying ongoing licensing fees to ensure their computer keeps operating properly."

Comes with complete working GPL licensed source code that will lock you out of your Linux machine if you don't pay licensing fees."

Crash McBang wonders: "In a recent IndustryWeek article, Mathew Hayward, assistant professor at the University of Colorado, does a Q&A on his new book, "Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris Is Wrecking Companies And Careers And How To Avoid The Trap", which shows how executives' inflated egos can impact what they choose to produce, the manufacturing decisions they make and how they market their products. What failures (colossal or otherwise) have you been involved in that could be attributed to Executive Hubris?"

julieanna6087 writes "Autodesk Encourages Students to Exhibit their 3D Design Talent

Student Design Contest Evokes Creativity and Innovation using Autodesk Inventor

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Jan. 29, 2007 — Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK) today furthered its ongoing commitment to education, launching the Inventor Student Design Contest. Until May 1, 2007, post-secondary students are invited to enter their innovative 3D designs created with Autodesk Inventor software for a chance to win top-of-the-line prizes from HP, AMD and 3Dconnexion. The judges, who include Autodesk employees, design professionals and industry experts, will judge the entries based on their broad use of Inventor capabilities, innovation and overall aesthetic appeal. Winners will be announced May 15, 2007.

"Students are the innovative leaders of tomorrow, and this contest is Autodesk's way of showcasing their talent and creativity," says Robert "Buzz" Kross, vice president of Autodesk Manufacturing Solutions. "This is a valuable opportunity for young designers to further develop their real-world design skills while being recognized by their peers and leading industry experts."

Autodesk Inventor is the world's foremost 3D mechanical design software and is taught at esteemed university and college campuses around the globe. The easy-to-learn software helps students build, apply and test their design skills and eventually enter the workforce with a competitive advantage. In its commitment to serve the next generation of engineers, Autodesk recently launched the Student Engineering and Design Community, a Web portal that allows students to download free* copies of Autodesk software, such as Inventor. In order for students to participate in the Inventor Student Design Contest, they must first register with the Autodesk Student Engineering and Design Community by visiting www.students.autodesk.com.

Along with peer and industry recognition, the winners will receive the following prizes:

Grand-Prize: HP xw4400 Workstation, including an ATI FireGL V7200 card and a 20" flat panel monitor, as well as a 3Dconnexion SpacePilot.
First-Place: Xbox 360 gaming system designed using ATI FireGL from AMD, courtesy of AMD and a 3Dconnexion SpaceExplorer.
Second-Place: ATI FireGL 7200 Graphics Card and 3Dconnexion SpaceTraveler.
Third-Place: ATI FireGL 3300 Graphics Cards from AMD and 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigators — Personal Edition to five third-place winners.

"Designers rely on the best 3D hardware and software tools to bring their ideas to life," said Janet Matsuda, senior director, Workstation Graphics, AMD. "Our focus is on creating products that substantially enhance the creativity and productivity of designers. Working with Autodesk, AMD is delivering high-performance graphics hardware solutions that remove design and production barriers, enabling artists, architects and engineers to create with greater speed and precision."

For specific submission requirements and detailed judging criteria, please visit http://students.autodesk.com/inventorcontest.

About Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is a Fortune 1000 company, wholly focused on ensuring that great ideas are turned into reality. With seven million users, Autodesk is the world's leading software and services company for the manufacturing, infrastructure, building, media and entertainment, and wireless data services fields. Autodesk's solutions help customers create, manage and share their data and digital assets more effectively. As a result, customers turn ideas into competitive advantage, become more productive, streamline project efficiency and maximize profits.

Founded in 1982, Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California. For additional information about Autodesk, please visit http://www.autodesk.com/.

*Free products are subject to the terms and conditions of the end-user license agreement that accompanies download of the software.
Autodesk, Autodesk Inventor and Inventor are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2007 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved."