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Comment: iBeacon isn't a privacy issue alone (Score 1) 58

by YesIAmAScript (#48672789) Attached to: How Target's Mobile App Uses Location Tech To Track You

iBeacon helps your phone find itself and thus you. It doesn't let others map your phone.

A merchant could make a system which finds you using iBeacon by self reporting. That is your phone finds itself and then an app on your phone tells the merchant. So if you want to find yourself, you can using iBeacon. If you don't want to, you don't. If you want the retailer to know where you are, you run their app which reports your location using iBeacon. If you don't want to, you don't.

The other kinds of systems which track your WiFi signal around the store, where you are tracked without opting in, those are more likely to create privacy issues. Target already uses these kinds of systems.

Comment: Re:TFA Misunderstands the History (Score 2) 103

by YesIAmAScript (#48543025) Attached to: Neglecting the Lessons of Cypherpunk History

"when it was revealed that the NSA had actually, and pretty amazingly, undermined hardware random number generators on widely available chips"

Such a thing was never revealed.

"I have no idea if the NSA convinced Intel to do this with the hardware random number generator it embedded into its CPU chips, but I do know that it could." (could meaning it is conceivable here, he doesn't investigate anything about feasibility)

No one ever showed that the NSA did this. No one even tried.

It's really frustrating to see speculation reported as truth from a person who seems very careful to try to be sensible and not just ring alarm bells to get notice.

Comment: Macintosh 100? Terrible article. (Score 2) 296

by YesIAmAScript (#48218039) Attached to: How Sony, Intel, and Unix Made Apple's Mac a PC Competitor

There's no Macintosh 100.

There were two Mac Portables before the MacBook 100/140/170 came out.

Indeed both were enormous, each even had a lead-acid battery! The first one didn't even have a backlight.

The Sony-designed MacBook 100 was actually designed to just be a smaller version of the original Macintosh Portables, which is why it also was based upon the much slower 68000 processor (the 140/170 used 68030 processors).

The Powerbook 100 was well designed and small, but it wasn't really a big seller. The PowerBook 140 and PowerBook 170 took most of the sales. The later Powerbooks (145b, 160, 180, etc.) were all nearly identical to the 140/170 and not Sony's 100. This seemed to show that Apple didn't really take all that much from Sony's PowerBook 100.

Comment: claimed threat (Score 1, Flamebait) 289

by YesIAmAScript (#48216457) Attached to: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

Under a claimed threat of extradition to the US.

There's no actual evidence of it and in fact extradition from Sweden is harder than from the UK.

Let's not forget that Assange is where he is by choice. He says he fears extradition to the US, but there's a lot of other possibilities too. He may just simply fear conviction.

Comment: Re:DOCSYS? (Score 3, Insightful) 291

by YesIAmAScript (#48210145) Attached to: Will Fiber-To-the-Home Create a New Digital Divide?

That is not at all true. A single fiber cannot handle the world's internet bandwidth. And the PON systems used for homes don't even dedicate 1Gbit to each termination (house). You don't have a dedicated connection to a chassis with 2,000 other customers, you are PON split from a single fiber with a lot of other houses, then that goes to a chassis.

"It doesn't matter how it is shared as long as there is no congestion." is a useless truism. It's true for copper too.

I think it's hilarious that you think that your ISP is only oversubscribing their links 2x (2,000 1Gb connections to 1Tb backhaul). That's fantasyland at the prices that residential customers pay.


An Algorithm to End the Lines for Ice at Burning Man 342

Posted by timothy

Comment: your washer has a cycle time? (Score 4, Interesting) 602

by YesIAmAScript (#48002841) Attached to: The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy

This is crazy. Just because the service tech told you something doesn't make it true.

I have an HE washer/dryer that predates yours. I got it them 10 years ago and they're still going strong. It was the Maytag Neptune, which was the first HE washer on the US market. There was a flaw in the door latch on the first year or two model but I was lucky to avoid that, mine is from just after that.

The washer works fine, although it is nice if you leave the door open for a day once in a while to dry it out in there otherwise, since the door is sealed, any moisture left in the drum after a cycle just sits there until next time you use it. It doesn't have anything to do with hot water, hot water only stays hot for a short time and hot water doesn't kill mildew anyway, if it did you wouldn't need to scrub or bleach the grout in your shower! Later models from Samsung and LG don't have this problem.


Comment: it's simple math, similar triangles (Score 4, Insightful) 425







Comment: same junk as last time (Score 5, Insightful) 444

You cannot base any real analysis on figures take by looking at an artists rendering of the site.

The article says that they will have 85 windmills because there are 85 windmills in the picture. This is garbage. It is an artists rendering!

If you want to have a serious discussion, you have to wait until there is some actual real info to discuss.

Note that net metering is not running your plant completely off renewables. It's running it off renewables some of the time.

Comment: Re:batteries cost money (Score 1) 260

by YesIAmAScript (#47856753) Attached to: Tesla Plans To Power Its Gigafactory With Renewables Alone

I forgot to do the 30% part.

2900MWh times 61 * 0.3 or 53GWh, 53M kWh. 530,000 packs or $2.66B worth of packs (apparently I misplaced a decimal point before). 1 year of entire plant output.

A lot closer to workable, but still unworkable.

This is why grid-scale electricity storage is considered a nascent technology instead of a solved one.

Comment: batteries cost money (Score 2) 260

by YesIAmAScript (#47855725) Attached to: Tesla Plans To Power Its Gigafactory With Renewables Alone

And those batteries cannot hold a charge for 6 months anyway.

Even if they could, you're talking about a deficit of about 1/3rd at the peak of winter and a corresponding surplus in the summer. So let's assume you have a 1/3rd total energy surplus for 2 months in the summer and have to hold it 6 months until winter where you use it up.

That'd be 2900MWh times 61 or 177GWh. that's 177M kWh. A Tesla pack holds 85kWh, let's assume it's about to become 100kWh. And the pack costs over $10K, we'll assume it costs $5K.

That would mean they need 1,770,000 packs, at $5K a piece or $89B worth of packs. It's also the entire output of the plant for 3.5 years.

Does this seem workable to you?

I think you're not getting a good grip on the actual size of the problem.

Comment: Re:Musk worship (Score 1) 260

by YesIAmAScript (#47854581) Attached to: Tesla Plans To Power Its Gigafactory With Renewables Alone

> Is it getting major tax breaks?

Yes. It's getting huge tax breaks here. It got a nearly free auto plant from California.

It gets $7500/car in subsidy from the feds. Many states give $1500 to $5000 on top of that. Some countries they sell into give tens of thousands equivalent.

And this is beyond the emissions trading money it gets, which is a subsidy, but not directly from governments, just enforced by the government.

>becasue they are high end luxury vehicles. Do you send letter to Mercedes telling them their care a rudely expensive?

If they charged $90K for a car which is luxury equivalent to a Hyundai Sonata I would. It's a nice car, but it doesn't measure up to other $90K cars on luxury.

Comment: "some storage" (Score 2) 260

by YesIAmAScript (#47854499) Attached to: Tesla Plans To Power Its Gigafactory With Renewables Alone

From the article:

"Reno gets an average of five peak sun hours per day."

Remember, as soon as you say the word "average" you are counting on a huge amount of storage so that you get the average amount of energy every day, even if that day is below average. And even if every day for the last two weeks has been below average.

In in fact, if you are using solar, you have to understand that nearly every day between the autumn equinox and the spring equinox is below average. That means you need enough storage to store up electricity all summer so you can use it in the winter! This is not at all realistic. More realistic is to make sure you produce more than you need in the summer and enough in the winter.

This does use more than solar though. However, I can't believe this guy counted the windmills in a PR picture.

Anyway, buying and erecting a 3MW windmill costs about $10M. That would mean Tesla would spend $850M on windmills. You cannot seriously think that Tesla is going to spend $850M on windmills before the plant even opens.
