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Comment: Re:IF I understand this correctly (Score 1) 108

by Muad'Dave (#46453537) Attached to: How Engineers Are Building a Power Station At the South Pole

The temperature is irrelevant ...

Temperature has a very large effect on the storage capacity of the batteries they use to store the generated power until needed. Currently (hah!) they bury the batteries to protect them from 'temperature extremes'. As shown in this PDF, the capacity of a gel cell drops off quickly once you hit about 0C. At -20C you've lost 50% of your capacity.

Too bad they chose a gel battery instead of an AGM one - according to this PDF, the AGM has superior low temp performance, although the gel cell tolerates deep discharges better. "Gel battery power declines faster than an AGM battery as the temperature drops below 32F (0C)."

Comment: Re:So what happens (Score 1) 253

by Muad'Dave (#46407109) Attached to: Comcast Turning Chicago Homes Into Xfinity Hotspots

... many people respond to this as if Comcast is trespassing by forcefully installing their equipment for their business activity into their house.

They ARE. Note that they are doing this without informed consent and without explicit customer approval. It's opt-OUT, not out-IN. This a very slippery slope, this bundling of 'service' - what's next, you get your car's battery replaced and don't have a say in whether there's a satellite radio repeater built into it? You get your rear window replaced and there are ads embedded in it?

Comment: Re:Fun exercise (Score 2) 191

by Muad'Dave (#46395245) Attached to: PETA Abandons $1 Million Prize For Artificial Chicken

There was research into whether carbs were "essential"; that is, if the human body could not synthesize anything it needed instead of getting it from carbs. The result - carbs are NOT essential. You can get everything you need from being a carnivore. I can't find the paper right now, but it was written a long time ago by a doc that put people on different diets for 30+ days to find out what was/wasn't essential.

Comment: Horrible headline in article (Score 1) 1

by Muad'Dave (#46367315) Attached to: Stamp of Approval For New Living Cell Printing Technique

They are printing using living cells, not printing living cells. I was astounded that they could actually print all the organelles of a living cell, right down to the DNA/RNA - NOT!

If I say I'm printing an image, it means the result of the printing is an image, not that the ink is somehow the image.
