Guard Dog

They look great but where it the power going? Their output is DC power. Which means the end-user must to be located very close by. Meters away not kilometers. Additionally a mass storage and mass inverter assembly must be located very nearby. this does not absolutely have to be the case. If the end-user wants DC power the inverters are not necessary. If power is not required except when the sun is up and the batteries are not necessary. But if the power is meant to serve as a supplement to a C utility power than you need both. The problem with DC power is ohms law. As resistance increases current decreases. The longer the transmission line the less usable it becomes. The lower the voltage dropped over the length of the run makes it less usable because inverters require a certain power level to work. And at peak efficiency thy are only 70.7% efficient. Take my own home system as an example. The solar panels used to be 120 feet from my house. 35M give or take. I cleared some trees and moved them to just 12’ about 3.9 M. I’m still using the same 6 AWG stranded cable but my battery charge rate increased by + 25%. That after a change of just 30m. It makes that big a difference.

LOL we have a lot more than A military base in Japan. There are eight in Okinawa alone.

Practical on a small scale yes. On a city wide scale that is a no. It is not realistic to expect to produce power in the order of megawatts from mass storage. Particularly since the inverter efficiency will never be better than 70.7%. that is not to say the technology will not improve going into the future. But as it stands today solar energy production for a single home it’s not only practical it’s a good idea. More than that is a pipe dream.

I was in Brownsville for business today. Stopped at the garden store over there to get some stuff for the greenhouse. I brought Sunmy in the store with me because it’s a small hick town and you get to do things like that. Anyway, I would had my hands full. Liquid plant food bag of potting soil was that kind of thing. Get up to the cash register and somebody gestured at Sunny and asked me if she was a service dog. I didn’t realize it but for reasons known only to her she picked up a bag of bird seed and was caring it in her mouth. I laughed and said nope it’s probably more accurate to say it’s the other way around.

Waste disposal will always be the problem here. The old saying says there’s no such thing as a free lunch. This is seriously true when it comes to energy production.

Exactly correct. There is no such thing as “green” energy... yet. The same problem exists is solar energy. Solar power creates DC electricity. It’s used to charge batteries that are connected to inverters. Inverters are by their nature inefficient and batteries decline over time. Even the best have 10 year lifespans and are costly to replace and VERY environmentally unfriendly to manufacture. My home solar system I calculated to be 68% efficient, meaning at full sun I am only capturing 68% of the panels theoretical production. The inverter is the big choke point. So even solar isn’t all that “green”. Out of all the available power sources nuclear is the cleanest relative to the capacity it can produce. The one advantage nuclear power has is it can be placed anywhere there is a water source for cooling. Geothermal is only available in places there are no cities to power. Wind and solar cannot be placed just anywhere and capacity is a real problem. At best they can supplement traditional fossil fuel power production

@Hurlshot & KP, that was a really great idea. One thing I always liked about the DVDs were the “making of“ features that come with it. Showing the special effects guys and how they do what they do how the costume designers work all of that is pretty cool. But like shady said it will never sell. Too bad.

How low do the ratings have to get on these award shows before they are taken off the air? Or relegated to E TV? Just curious.

After almost a year I’d say CK3 is good. Not great. It’s a vanilla milkshake with big ambitions it fell well short of on release. But, being a Paradox game it’s going to grow and evolve. My biggest complaint is that the game mechanics. Those actually work fairly well with a couple of exploits that are being fixed. It functions as it should. My biggest complaint is it covers almost half the landmass of the world yet treat every single kingdom exactly the same. It’s immersion breaking and just disappointing. However I think that will likely get fixed. two years ago I would’ve told you Imperatori Rome was a completely broken game that you would do well to avoid. These days it’s actually pretty decent. That’s paradox. It might take them a while to get there but they get there in the end.

I’m guessing the genies name was Clavicus Vile

New DLC announced next month: Crusader Kings 3’s new DLC will be revealed at PDXCon Remixed next month | PCGamesN So far I've played the Byzantines (hated it because it did not function at all like the real BE), Alto Aragorn (Bad starting position, seriously hard kingdom to play), Leon (this was a lot of fun) Duchy of Ulster (this is a breeze), several Asian tribes (they are just blah. Too vanilla. These cultures REALLY need some fleshing out), and several Norse Kingdoms. These are by far the most fun after the Lords of the North content back.

I have to say I’m very impressed at the way those football fans in Europe have rejected the Americanization of their sport. And that is exactly what the super league was.

In my profession if your resume had MIT, Caltech, or Georgia Tech on it it definitely commanded attention. I’ve never understood why. The curricula is almost the same. It’s not like they teach you the real math at the prestigious schools. But I think what impresses is less so much that you graduated from those schools rather that you got it in the first place.

Not the same thing. He had over 20 years of hands on political experience before running for president.

So Caitlyn Jenner is running for the governor of California. Matthew McConaughey might run for the governor of Texas. And people seem to think the rock is going to run for president. There was a lesson, a rather harsh one, talk to us between 2016 and 2020. And that’s not to make dip**** celebrities into politicians. Let’s see if that lesson was learned.

Allow me to not recommend Florida Atlantic. I hate that school, all the faculty, and everyone who ever went there with one exception. The best part about moving is they no longer have my address so I don’t have to get alumni mail from them.

I see why somebody wanted to get rid of that kitchen table. Whoever they were they had a cat that like to keep their claws sharp. But after about two hours with the hand sander and a little bit of detail work with grit blocks it’s all smoothed out. The wood is stained so I’m going to go with a dark varnish. Once it’s dry I’ll re-tap the holes as replace the hardware that mates the stand to the table top then start working on the chairs.

I wish sports and politics could be separated. But you know the old saying about putting toothpaste back in the tube. I could also say the same thing about politics and religion and politics and science. And Thanksgiving dinners too. funny story though. Somebody once said to me they love dogs because they were not political. I said bull crap. If you have more than three dogs and you have that pack dynamic going on in your house you better believe there are pack politics.

Exactly! That is the secret ingredient

I went to the dump this morning. There’s no trash pick up where I live so I have to bring my trash to them. Anyway someone left a very beaten up but solid wood kitchen dining table and two chairs. So after I dumped my trash I put them in the back of the truck. They’re in my barn now getting ready to have whatever varnish is on them stripped off, sand down and see if we can fix them up and refinish them. anyway It occurred to me I have officially hit rock bottom. You know you’re there when you’re actually bringing stuff back from the dump rather than to it LOL

Have you seen any of the guest hosts? I heard Aaron Rogers did a pretty good job. The others have had mixed reviews. No one seemed to like Dr. Oz. I'd imagine Anderson Cooper is having no trouble with this gig though.

Retired Ohio Sheriff and His K9 Partner, the World's Smallest Police Dog, Die on Same Day I could see that.

Actually the one state in the entire country that has the absolute right to subdivide was Texas. If I remember correctly that was actually part of their admittance to the union. I can’t see them hammering down the door to do that kind of a thing but maybe someone would think it’s advantageous somewhere down the road.

LOL not two hours after you posted this they were down by two runs in the bottom of the 10th inning. I thought for sure you had just laid a mighty jinx on them by posting this. But they somehow got out of that. @Hurlshotyour boys are going down tonight. The fish got you two out of three in Miami and they’re gonna do it again in San Francisco

LOL no, I wasn’t. Before I left my last job I had to do quite a bit of work for a number of state cabinet members and their staff. They have a hell of a lot of work to do it I didn’t envy them that.