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Comment Production by saving (Score 1) 255

A house of 10000 square feet (1000 square meters) for a couple, a car of 12000 pounds (3000 kg) are unsustainable. Not matter what sort of energy is being used.

The catastrophe in Japan was caused by excessive energy usage on geological scale, the same as no less catastrophic New York and New Jersey flooding last November.

Japan could just change business dress code, and they would not need these additional power stations. Instead of heavy business suites and long sleeve white shirts, which require immense amounts of energy for air-conditioning of offices, transportation inside air-conditioned motorized vehicles, daily dry cleaning, they could introduce compulsory classic style shorts and short sleeve shirts. That's it. Problem solved.

But the social change is the most difficult. It is easier to build new nuclear or coal power stations, cause new climate catastrophes, spoil the land completely, than to change people's attitudes.

Comment life-saving device for cycling (Score 2) 325

It could be an equivalent of a car dashboard camera but for cycling. Cyclists wear glasses anyway to prevent mosquitoes getting into the eyes.

Permanent recording could be a safety feature for cyclists. It would make road hooligans less enthusiastic as an HD video of an accident could be played later in a judicial assembly.

Comment smartphone is not just for reading (Score 1) 325

I use "OSMpad" on "iPhone" for mapping for the wiki-style "OpenStreetMap". So it is a precise GPS enabled data input tool. How can I do in with glasses?

If I can, I do not mind. Because every time I have to stop bicycle, take out iPhone, map a building or another structure, put back smartphone into the pocket, and so on.

Comment using wind energy directly (Score 1) 209

In many cities and suburbs drying clothing and linen outdoors is forbidden due to esthetics. Instead the electric driers are used, which convert water is vapor first and then condensing vapor on a refrigerated greed. It takes a lot of energy as the physical state of water changes twice: liquid into gas, and then again gas (vapor) into liquid.

The problem of esthetics could be solved by designing an esthetically acceptable outdoors drier. It means 7 billion people could daily dry clothing and linen outside freely.

But drying outdoors is also sort of a "poverty symbol". So the problem of wind power usage has got rather social and design character.

And the wind power (and sun power) are unlimited, at least for drying. Just no limit at all. It even cools environment on hot days.

Comment Office as a luxury (Score 1) 455

If there are couple of more floodings like in NYC recently, there will be no offices left. The world will probably sink into the New Middle Ages.

Working at least sometimes by telecommuting we reduce emissions during commuting.

It is much easier to move electrons around a city than protons. We are just to learn to move electrons efficiently.

Comment The worst thing (Score 1) 303

would be if they start to place large pieces of mirrors on roofs or on hill slopes. Normally it is forbidden by civil aviation authorities as mirrors blind pilots. It would blind cameras too.

Besides, it will make the satellite imagery unusable for an area.

If placing of mirrors on roofs will become sort of a mass civil defense measure, flying would become more dangerous for everyone.

Comment Re:Pardon me sir ... (Score 1) 104

Why not invest into research on more resilient buildings in the first place? It is not only meteors, but also hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes.

Say, include into the glass sort of nylon net by regulations and forget about millions of broken glass injuries every year.

The same about walls. If falling stones hurt people regularly, by scores, perhaps, more graceful disintegration could be engineered as part of the original building design. But not pretend that a building is to stand forever.

Comment actually interesting project (Score 1) 56

Robots are needed not only on Mars or in a nuclear power station.

Nobody want anymore clean dishes in restaurants. The job is to clean plates and put them into dish-washing machine.

Or cleaning public toilets. Not for any money, not immigrants. Nobody wants to do it.

If a robot is built who can do it robustly, controlled and protected by a server program via Internet, it would be the new industrial revolution.

Comment Re:So it's like the internet (Score 1) 102

In the middle of nowhere there are no towers anyway, they are not profitable to construct there. Still the messages will not be lost in the internet of wireless devices. As almost everywhere one meets people.

The protocol should use the last know geo-location of a wireless device and route a message to it to the nearest wireless devices in the area (in the encrypted format certainly).

There are only 3 numbers for the last know location: latitude, longitude and time. The protocol can use the excellent free map: www.osm.org

For example, if I am hiking here http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=42.157&mlon=-75.256&zoom=9&layers=M then my location on the planet is defined just by 2 numbers: 42.157 and -75.256 . And I cannot be on another planet.

Speaking is another story, but messaging is most important. Who speaks from the blue now? People first exchange messages and arrange a talk. So one can move closer to a WiFi spot to talk then. But robust messaging is quite doable in the internet of wireless devices. We have a lot of memory in our devices. I have 32 GB from which I use 1%.

All is need is the protocol and we will get the free mobile communication for the whole planet, just like we've got Wikipedia or OSM.

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