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Daniel Hennes

V3Solar puts a new spin on PV efficiency - 1 views

www.gizmag.com/...24352

technology NRG

shared by Daniel Hennes on 03 Sep 15 - No Cached
jcunha liked it
  • Daniel Hennes on 03 Sep 15
     
    "V3Solar has developed a cone-shaped solar energy harvester that is claimed to generate over 20 times more electricity than a flat panel thanks to a combination of concentrating lenses, dynamic spin, conical shape, and advanced electronics."
  • Thijs Versloot on 04 Sep 15
     
    Hmm.. that seems counter intuitive... how would it ever be that much better than a flat panel? Rotating the PV will only make sure only parts are illuminated. Operating temperature is a better argument, but that comes at the cost of exposure. Came across this little gem of a webpage, maybe we should outsource our impossibility EM drive work next time? :) https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-v3solars-spinning-solar-panel-cone-spin-cell-coolspin.t1166/
LeopoldS

YouTube - Pigeon: Impossible - 4 views

www.youtube.com/watch_popup

fim joke fun

shared by LeopoldS on 01 Feb 10 - Cached
  • LeopoldS on 01 Feb 10
     
    nice :-)
Luzi Bergamin

Physics in a Crisis - 3 views

www.rqm.ch/physics_in_a_crisis.htm

phy LHC crackpot fun

shared by Luzi Bergamin on 30 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Luzi Bergamin on 30 Mar 10
     
    Luckily I'm far away from Geneva, but this has to be said today, when the LHC starts! No, not tiny black holes will eat us (what a nonsense!), but the supernovae energy will let LHC explode!!! Pacome, I expect you to debunk this with gratest care!
  • ...2 more comments...
  • pacome delva on 30 Mar 10
     
    wtf is this! As I read this morning in the newspaper (not even a scientific one), 1 TeV is the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito... so be careful ! It seems they already sloved every thing on this website: "At the Institute for Space Quantum Physics ISQP, it was already proved in 1991-1992 that dark matter is in magnetic fields as magnetic space quantum flux." This website is the biggest source of crackpots i have seen in a long time...! (http://www.supernovae-energy.com/)
  • Ma Ru on 30 Mar 10
     
    Come on guys, this website is hilarious! "The HAITI EARTHQUAKE (...) were impossible for the Institute for Space Quantum Physics (ISQP) to compute because on one single planet was on a common line or axis with the Sun: Venus."
  • Luzi Bergamin on 30 Mar 10
     
    Unfortunately, most information I have about the guy (Hans Lehner, a Swiss) is in German, his official homepage is http://www.rqm.ch/ According to EsoWatch he is the Swiss analogue to Dr. Mills and his Blacklight power. Lehner apparently founded a company, which should have produced a "Raum-Quanten-Motor" that -- of course -- produces energy out of nothing. The theory is based on spookey forces mediated by Lehneronen. 11 Million Swiss Franks (about 8 Million Euro) were lost when the company bankrupt. And the guy is selling new stocks on his homepage again... Lehner calls another crackpot named Oliver Crane Zweistein (from Einstein being "Onestone") and himself "Dreistein". Now he is looking for Mister or Misses Vierstein. Perhaps you should apply, good luck!!
  • Nicholas Lan on 30 Mar 10
     
    i like the first line of their supernovae energy technology document "Dear potential investor:"...
Luís F. Simões

Shell energy scenarios to 2050 - 6 views

www.shell.com/...shell_energy_scenarios_2050

energy future forecast politics economy climate_change

shared by Luís F. Simões on 09 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Luís F. Simões on 09 Mar 11
     
    just in case you were feeling happy and optimistic
  • ...7 more comments...
  • Francesco Biscani on 09 Mar 11
     
    An energy scenario published by an oil company? Allow me to be sceptical...
  • Joris _ on 10 Mar 11
     
    Indeed, Shell is an energy company, not just oil, for some time now ... The two scenarii are, in their approach, dependant of economic and political situation, which is right now impossible to forecast. Reference to Kyoto is surprising, almost out-dated! But overall, I find it rather optimistic at some stages, and probably the timeline (p37-39) is unlikely with recent events.
  • Luís F. Simões on 10 Mar 11
     
    the report was published in 2008, which explains the reference to Kyoto, as the follow-up to it was much more uncertain at that point. The Blueprint scenario is indeed optimistic, but also quite unlikely I'd say. I don't see humanity suddenly becoming so wise and coordinated. Sadly, I see something closer to the Scramble scenario as much more likely to occur.
  • LeopoldS on 12 Mar 11
     
    not an oil company??? please have a look at the percentage of their revenues coming from oil and gas and then compare this with all their other energy activities together and you will see very quickly that it is only window dressing ... they are an oil and gas company ... and nothing more
  • Joris _ on 14 Mar 11
     
    not JUST oil. From a description: "Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies." Of course revenues coming from oil are the biggest, the investment turnover on other energy sources is small for now. Knowing that most of their revenues is from an expendable source, to guarantee their future, they invest elsewhere. They have invested >1b$ in renewable energy, including biofuels. They had the largest wind power business among so-called "oil" companies. Oil only defines what they do "best". As a comparison, some time ago, Apple were selling only computers and now they sell phones. But I would not say Apple is just a phone company.
  • LeopoldS on 14 Mar 11
     
    window dressing only ... e.g. Net cash from operating activities (pre-tax) in 2008: 70 Billion$ net income in 2008: 26 Billion revenues in 2008: 88 Billion Their investments and revenues in renewables don't even show up in their annual financial reports since probably they are under the heading of "marketing" which is already 1.7 Billion $ ... this is what they report on their investments: Capital investment, portfolio actions and business development Capital investment in 2009 was $24 billion. This represents a 26% decrease from 2008, which included over $8 billion in acquisitions, primarily relating to Duvernay Oil Corp. Capital investment included exploration expenditure of $4.5 billion (2008: $11.0 billion). In Abu Dhabi, Shell signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to extend the GASCO joint venture for a further 20 years. In Australia, Shell and its partners took the final investment decision (FID) for the Gorgon LNG project (Shell share 25%). Gorgon will supply global gas markets to at least 2050, with a capacity of 15 million tonnes (100% basis) of LNG per year and a major carbon capture and storage scheme. Shell has announced a front-end engineering and design study for a floating LNG (FLNG) project, with the potential to deploy these facilities at the Prelude offshore gas discovery in Australia (Shell share 100%). In Australia, Shell confirmed that it has accepted Woodside Petroleum Ltd.'s entitlement offer of new shares at a total cost of $0.8 billion, maintaining its 34.27% share in the company; $0.4 billion was paid in 2009 with the remainder paid in 2010. In Bolivia and Brazil, Shell sold its share in a gas pipeline and in a thermoelectric power plant and its related assets for a total of around $100 million. In Canada, the Government of Alberta and the national government jointly announced their intent to contribute $0.8 billion of funding towards the Quest carbon capture and sequestration project. Quest, which is at the f
  • Joris _ on 14 Mar 11
     
    thanks for the info :) They still have their 50% share in the wind farm in Noordzee (you can see it from ESTEC on a clear day). Look for Shell International Renewables, other subsidiaries and joint-ventures. I guess, the report is about the oil branch. http://sustainabilityreport.shell.com/2009/servicepages/downloads/files/all_shell_sr09.pdf http://www.noordzeewind.nl/
  • LeopoldS on 16 Mar 11
     
    no - its about Shell globally - all Shell .. these participations are just peanuts please read the intro of the CEO in the pdf you linked to: he does not even mention renewables! their entire sustainability strategy is about oil and gas - just making it (look) nicer and environmentally friendlier
  • Joris _ on 16 Mar 11
     
    Fair enough, for me even peanuts are worthy and I am not able to judge. Not all big-profit companies, like Shell, are evil :( Look in the pdf what is in the upstream and downstream you mentionned above. Non-shell sources for examples and more objectivity: http://www.nuon.com/company/Innovative-projects/noordzeewind.jsp http://www.e-energymarket.com/news/single-news/article/ferrari-tops-bahrain-gp-using-shell-biofuel.html thanks.
Luís F. Simões

Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen - 10 views

launch.is/...dangerous-project-weve-ev.html

bitcoin p2p money disruptive

shared by Luís F. Simões on 16 May 11 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • After month of research and discovery, we’ve learned the following:1. Bitcoin is a technologically sound project.2. Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.3. Bitcoin is the most dangerous open-source project ever created.4. Bitcoin may be the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.5. Bitcoin is a political statement by technotarians (technological libertarians).*6. Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.
  • The benefits of a currency like this:a) Your coins can’t be frozen (like a Paypal account can be)b) Your coins can’t be trackedc) Your coins can’t be taxedd) Transaction costs are extremely low (sorry credit card companies)
  • An individual with the name -- or perhaps handle -- of Satoshi Nakamoto first wrote about bitcoins in a paper called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • * We made this term up to describe the “good people” of the internet who believe in the fundamental rights of individuals to be free, have free speech, fight hypocrisy and stand behind logic, technology and science over religion, political structure and tradition. These are the people who build and support things like Wikileaks, Anonymous, Linux and Wikipedia. They think that people can, and should, govern themselves. They are against external forms of control such as DRM, laws that are bought and sold by lobbyists, and religions like Scientology. They include splinter groups that enforce these ideals in the form of hacktivism, such as the takedown of the Sony Playstation Network after Sony tried to prosecute a hacker for unlocking its console.
  • Ma Ru on 17 May 11
     
    Sounds good!
  • ...9 more comments...
  • pacome delva on 18 May 11
     
    wow it's frigthening! it's the dream of every anarchist, every drug, arm, human dealer! the world made as a global fiscal paradise... the idea is clever however it will not replace real money because 1 - no one will build a fortune on bitcoin if a technological breakthrough can ruin them 2 - government never allowed parallel money to flourish on their territory, so it will be almost impossible to change bitcoin against euros or dollars
  • Nicholas Lan on 18 May 11
     
    interesting stuff anyone read cryptonomicon by neal stephenson? similar theme.
  • Luís F. Simões on 18 May 11
     
    :) yes. One of the comments on reddit was precisely drawing the parallels with Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash / Diamond Age / Cryptonomicon. Interesting stuff indeed. It has a lot of potential for misuse, but also opens up new possibilities. We've discussed recently how emerging technologies will drive social change. Whether it's the likes of NSA / CIA who will benefit the most from the Twitters, Facebooks and so on, by gaining greater power for control, or whether individuals are being empowered to at least an identical degree. We saw last year VISA / PayPal censoring WikiLeaks... Well, here's a way for any individual to support such an organization, in a fully anonymous and uncontrollable way...
  • tvinko on 18 May 11
     
    One of my colleagues has made a nice, short write-up about BitCoin: http://www.pds.ewi.tudelft.nl/~victor/bitcoin.html
  • LeopoldS on 18 May 11
     
    very nice analysis indeed - thanks Tamas for sharing it!
  • pacome delva on 20 May 11
     
    mmm I'm not an expert but it seemed to me that, even if these criticisms are true, there is one fundamental difference between the money you exchange on internet via your bank, and bitcoins. The first one is virtual money and the second one aims at being real, physical, money, even if digital, in the same way as banknotes, coins, or gold.
  • nikolas smyrlakis on 20 May 11
     
    An algorithm wanna-be central bank issuing untraceable tax free money between internet users? not more likely than the end of the world supposed to take place tomorrow, in my opinion. Algorithms don't usually assault women though !:P
  • LeopoldS on 21 May 11
     
    well, most money is anyway just virtual and only based on expectations and trust ... (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply) and thus if people trust that this "money" has some value in the sense that they can get something of value to them in exchange, then not much more is needed it seems to me ...
  • pacome delva on 23 May 11
     
    @Leopold: ok let's use the rigth words then. Bitcoin aim at being a currency ("physical objects generally accepted as a medium of exchange" from wikipedia), different than the "demand deposit". In the article proposed by Tamas he compares what cannot be compared (currencies, demand deposits and their mean of exchange). The interesting question is wether one can create a digital currency which is too difficult to counterfeit. As far as I know, there is no existing digital currency except this bitcoins (and maybe the currencies from games as second life and others, but which are of limited use in real world).
  • nikolas smyrlakis on 23 May 11
     
    well of course money is trust, and even more loans and credit and even more stock and bond markets. It all represents trust and expectations. However since the first banks 500 years ago and the first loans etc. etc., and as well the fact that bonds and currencies bring down whole countries (Greece lately), and are mainly controlled by large financial centres and (central) banks, banks have always been on the winning side no matter what and that isn't going to change easily. So if you are talking about these new currencies it would be a new era, not just a new currency. So should Greece convert its debt to bitcoins ;P ?
  • pacome delva on 23 May 11
     
    well, from 1936 to 1993 the central bank of france was owned by the state and was supposed to serve the general interest...
Luís F. Simões

When Astronomy Met Computer Science | Cosmology | DISCOVER Magazine - 1 views

discovermagazine.com/...astronomy-met-computer-science

astronomy INF data mining

shared by Luís F. Simões on 25 Jul 11 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • “That’s impossible!” he told Borne. “Don’t you realize that the entire data set NASA has collected over the past 45 years is one terabyte?”
  • The LSST, producing 30 terabytes of data nightly, will become the centerpiece of what some experts have dubbed the age of peta­scale astronomy—that’s 1015 bits (what Borne jokingly calls “a tonabytes”).
  • A major sky survey might detect millions or even billions of objects, and for each object we might measure thousands of attributes in a thousand dimensions. You can get a data-mining package off the shelf, but if you want to deal with a billion data vectors in a thousand dimensions, you’re out of luck even if you own the world’s biggest supercomputer. The challenge is to develop a new scientific methodology for the 21st century.”
  • LeopoldS on 25 Jul 11
     
    Francesco please look at this and get back wrt to the /. question .... thanks
Ma Ru

Video prize for Dorigo & co. - 2 views

www.newscientist.com/...possible-wins-video-prize.html

technology AI INF science robotics

shared by Ma Ru on 15 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Ma Ru on 15 Aug 11
     
    Good ol' Swarmanoid.
LeopoldS

BBC News - Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern - 5 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-15017484

PHY physics Einstein

shared by LeopoldS on 22 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 22 Sep 11
     
    Sante, Luzi have a look at this???!!!
  • ...3 more comments...
  • Luís F. Simões on 23 Sep 11
     
    and here's the xkcd on it: http://xkcd.com/955/
  • Luzi Bergamin on 23 Sep 11
     
    And here's the arXiv paper http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897 Serious? Difficult to say. I'm theorist and can't really rate their measurement techniques. Certainly be cautious, mostly such things disappear faster than they appeared.
  • LeopoldS on 23 Sep 11
     
    it took them 3 years to "appear"!
  • Luzi Bergamin on 23 Sep 11
     
    Leo, you mean that they measured 3 years? That's not a point to criticize: since the only interaction of neutrinos with matter is the Weak Interaction (which is indeed very, very weak), it is extremely hard to get a reasonable statistic. By the same reason, it's essentially impossible to shield the experiment from the background. And this background (solar neutrinos, cosmic radiation neutrinos) is huge.
  • pacome delva on 28 Sep 11
     
    for sure a result to be taken seriously. It makes a buzz in my lab... but always be cautious with this kind of declaration, that hugely violates all physics we know and even most of the reasonable alternative theories... Remember the Pionneer anomaly for which it took almost ten years to set up that finally its a thermal effect.
Francesco Biscani

Slashdot Technology Story | Is Cloud Computing the Hotel California of Tech? - 2 views

tech.slashdot.org/...g-the-Hotel-California-of-Tech

inf

shared by Francesco Biscani on 06 Oct 09 - Cached
  • the cloud is still largely a one-way road into Web services, with closed data networks making it difficult to impossible to move data into competing services
  • Juxi Leitner on 06 Oct 09
     
    also interesting is this article quote: "How big can the cloud get before it starts to rain?" http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/09/30/0152200/Amazons-Cloud-May-Provision-50000-VMs-a-Day
Ma Ru

Dark Matter or Black Hole Propulsion? - 1 views

www.newscientist.com/...s-for-interstellar-travel.html

NRG propulsion star travel space PHY

shared by Ma Ru on 25 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Ma Ru on 25 Nov 09
     
    Anyone out there still doing propulsion stuff? Two more papers just waiting to get busted... http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1429v1 http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803
  • ...5 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 26 Nov 09
     
    What an awful bunch of complete nonsense!!! But I don't think anybody wants to hear MY opinion on this...
  • pacome delva on 26 Nov 09
     
    wow, is this serious at all...!?
  • Luzi Bergamin on 26 Nov 09
     
    Are you joking?? The BH drive propses a BH with a lifetime of about an year, just 10^7 tons, peanuts!! Then you have to produce it, better not on Earth, so you do this in space, with a laser that produces an equivalent of 10^9 tons highly foucussed, even more peanuts!! Reasonable losses in the production process (probably 99,999%) are not yet taken into account. Engineering problems... :-) The DM drive is even better, they want to collect DM and compress it in a propulsion chamber. Very easy to collect and compress a gas of particles that traverse the Earth without any interaction. Perhaps if the walls of the chamber are made of artificial BHs?? Who knows??
  • LeopoldS on 26 Nov 09
     
    WRONG!!! we are all just WAITING for your opinion on this ....!!!
  • pacome delva on 27 Nov 09
     
    well, yes my remark was ironic... I'm surprised they did a magazine on these concepts...! But the press is always waiting for sensational. They do not even wait for the work to be peer-reviewed now to make an article on it ! This is one of the bad sides of arxiv in my opinion. It's like a journalist that make an article with a copy-paste in wikipedia ! Anyway, this is of course complete bullsh..., and I would have laughed if I had read this in a sci-fi book... but in a "serious" article i'm crying... For the DM i do not agree with your remark Luzi. It's not dark energy they want to use. The DM is baryonic, it's dark just because it's cold so we don't see it by usual means. If you believe the in the standard model of cosmology, then the DM should be somewhere around the galaxies. But it's of course not uniformly distributed, so a DM engine would work (if at all...) only in the periphery of galaxies. It's already impossible to get there...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 27 Nov 09
     
    One reply to Pacome, though the discussion exceeds by far the relevance of the topic already. Baryonic DM is strictly limited by cosomology, if one believes in these models, of course. Anyway, even though most DM is cold, we are constantly bombarded by some DM particles that come together with cosmic radiation, solar wind etc. etc. If DM easily interacted with normal matter, we would have found it long ago. In the paper they consider DM as neutralinos, which are neither baryonic nor strongly or electromagnetically interacting.
  • pacome delva on 27 Nov 09
     
    well then I agree, how the fu.. they want to collect them !!!
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