Posts by Alicia 32 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Mar 2008
"The amount generated is metered; the amount fed into the grid is not."
Actually the amount fed into the gris is metered seperately to the amount produced. Because as well as the FiT, you get "reimbursed" by your electricity supplier for every unit you send their way. I think it's about 3p per unit
Shading is very bad, but if it only occurs when the sun is low (and therefore the radiation available to the panel is low) it's worth the pay off when the panel is unshaded and there are high levels of radiation.
The drop off in East/ West facing is 10-15% at the optimal tilt (roughly 30 degrees from horizontal in the UK) but can increase to 40 - 50% as the tilt varies. In the UK it's optimal to point the array slightly East of South, so a West facing array would have less exposure than an East facing array. However, you can split your array across an East and West facing roof surface. The arrays need to be tracked seperately, but you'll get a better performance overall (although the reduced number of modules per string means you need to be sure each string is within the tracking range of the inverter)
Which icon means pedant alert?
Cowboys won't bother accessing the appropriate data, but anyone who has a PV or ST Installation Qualification (they do exist, I worked on a project that developed them, but they're very new) will know how to do the calculations and where to get their data from. (The courses are 4 - 5 days, but you're required to be a qualified electrician before you can take it)
I don't think the qualifications are mandatory for installers yet, but I believe they will be in the near future.
I don't mind people saying I donated £x to cause y. Reason being if people just say "I donated to cause y" I bet there would be lots of companies who donate $1, but their PR spin it as a big deal because the actual amount is secret.
I don't like selling RTs, or the daft Celebrity auction that went up for comic relief last week
A few years back, Bradford uni cancelled an animatronics degree course after it had run for the first year. I don't remember the details specifically, but it was such a shambles that the students successfully sued. There were 20+ of them and they all got a sizeable payout (not into the millions though!). My guess is he heard about it and aimed high.
-A-
Americans tell me there is a lot of racism against Mexicans in the States. Therefore, if they leave comments in after the Mexican representative complains, the Beeb is seen as supporting the racists.
Also, it isn't feeble to claim that Top Gear is routinely edited for broadcasting abroad; it's accurate (because despite all Beeb's faults, there aren't any adverts during the programmes as shown on BBC1 or 2). And it's usually a bit of the news that gets cut out. Not always because someone complains, but because it's the least "action packed" part of the show.
-A-
It's a little presumptious to assume that because we can't survive on Venus that nothing can. There are places under the sea where the tectonic plates meet, spewing out heat and various noxious gases. There are creatures there that can not only tolerate that environment, but thrive in it.
So, I'd say it's conceivable in our reality that they are habitable. Just not to us. But then, we aren't really that important (unless you believe we are all the unique and special creations of a god that cares more about us than anything else he created).
Besides, doesn't the heat of the planet depend on a variety of things including a) how far it is from its sun b) how hot that sun is c) what makes up its atmosphere d) if it happens to orbit in the shade of another planet
In the same way that the people who can't afford to purchase films/ games/ music from legal retailers find cheaper ways to source their entertainment, it's only a matter of time before there is a rebellion against high eBook prices via piracy.
Unfortunately, I don't think the publishers will get the message. It's very sad.
Well, how about somebody has a look at if there's a correlation between overcrowding and a desire to kill your neighbour? They say that in murder cases the most likely suspect is the spouse and that could be as a result of proximity.
If it turns out that crowded places are more likely to have murders and places with guns are more likely to have gun related crime than the govt. can issue a law that declares every individual *must* live a set amount of distance from any other individual.
I haven't got any solid leads for me to put this forward as an absolute statement of fact, but there have been reports that the first major damage to be reported in the west was caused by people acting on government orders in an attempt to discredit the revolutionaries and provide an excuse to bring in the military.
Although I don't believe all the riots were staged, I do think your statement is a little harsh.
Women removing their clothes is a bad thing? So, we can't expose our torsos in public like men can? Not sexist at all! Maybe it's not about the lumps of fat that a large proportion of women grow (and some men, but apparently it's the lactating function that causes the moral issues here), maybe it's just that women shouldn't be allowed to display proudly any part of their body that may attract attention. Such as, say, their hair. Women should all cover their hair. They should not wear makeup, because God forbid they should be pro-active and complacent about their own sexual empowerment. In fact, it's probably best if they becaome completely asexual. Colour is used to attract, so women should only wear black. We don't want their bodies to be displayed, so a heavy fabric, with no shape to it.
Sounds familiar somehow. Help me out, feminist organisation. Where have I heard this before?
Well, just to add my tuppence, in response to a previous post. People can make fun of me as much as they like. I can fight back. I know what they're doing and I choose to either dismiss them as completely unimportant, or take a less than subtle revenge.
However, I have a fully functional awareness of the social rules and relationships around me. I get upset and offended when some one who doesn't understand or appreciate what is happening is taunted. I also feel nothing but contempt for those who are willing to hurt people who can't strike back.
I get satire. I'm in general OK with that. I don't find the jokes I read in the comments to be funny, but perhaps in context they were? What does amuse me is the irony of all those who were so desperately offended that anyone else dare be offended by something they don't care about.
I wonder if this is troll feeding?
So when Microsoft run an ad with a ffruistrated engineer snapping "fsck you" at a server that's not booting, is that a swear word? It is the literal truth, but he intends it as a venting of ire. I replace swearwords woith ridiculous things like "sugar butties" and people still know I'm swearing.
Any word can be a swearword, but there are some thyat are firmly established as being only swearwords. Fuck is one. I certainly can't think of any non-crass expression of it.
In this instance I'd say it all depended on the expression on the guys face. If he's looking angry or tense, then there could be a violence construed. But if he looks like he's enjoying the sun, then feck 'em all, he's clearly not intending to offend anyone.
they listened to the members of staff who weren't particularly enthusiastic about going round their workplace, looking over clients' shoulders and risking a confrontation by asking them to stop their entertainment.
Just because you can think of ways around their block doesn't mean staff should be put through that kind of embarrassment.
I'm going to assume that your average child these days has been exposed to theft, murder, war, rape and organised bodies of crime. This may be direct, through their peers, or indirect through news and the entertainment media.
Furthermore, I'll assume that a chunk of these children are both intelligent and imaginative. These are natural traits.
There will be a chunk of those whose parents have not imbued woth a sense of social responsibility. And you're saying that it's OK for these children to watch a film that demonstrates how to make people fear you? Act like a psychopath, threaten them with pain, put them in unbearable situations and then what?
This was not cartoon violence. This was incredibly convincing, well considered examples of mental imbalance and offering it to the viewers judgement of what is a moral action. And who can take responsibility for that action.
How can a child decide that? Particularly one who sees that the world is really in a bad state, and doesn't have the ability to fight back? What other options (on the fairly uneducated viewpoint of a child) does the film give? If you can't beat them, join them?
Firstly - "Temps absolutely do NOT represent a 'cheap option' for the firms they actually do the work at, I remember learning at one factory (where I was being paid £5.50, and the perms £7) that the agency was being paid £9.90 for me." Well, maybe so, but for the permanent staff at least you have to add all the extra cost - employer taxes, National insurance payments, workplace insurance, holiday and sick day allowances, etc. It's not what you or the agency have been paid, it's what the employer is paying out in total.
I agree with AC "at last" - big companies get an awful lot of benefits from not having to worry about the long term provision for their temp employees. I've met temps who've been in the same job for ten years, and won't get a pension, don't get paid sick days, etc. These people are going to benefit, and possibly it will benefit temps overall.
There is absolutely no point in getting rid of agencies. Yes, they're expensive, but they aren't as expensive as hiring a full time member of staff just to find people to work for you over a brief period of time.
Finally, with all the talk about how there aren't enough people in this country willing to do tier one jobs (accountancy and IT related jobs are all tier three I believe - there to make something unnecessary to survival easier for other people) what makes you think they aren't trying to get rid of the higher earners? Politically, getting rid of examples of high income earners would make the lower income earners less aware of what they're missing.
When I lived with Students and was on £9k a year, I easily supported myself and my boyfriend. Now we have a joined income considerably higher than that, but we've moved to an area where people are wealthier and we perceive ourselves as being worse off. Which is mathematically (and I've sat down with a calculator to double check this) ridiculous.
There are examples of crime, vandalism and and chavs all over this country. Not just Liverpool. It's not even especially prevalent in Liverpool (apart from the chavs, I'll grant you that)
If you're going to denounce somewhere/ something, find something you can point to and say "This doesn't happen anywhere else" otherwise it's just city-ism
FWIW, I grew up in Liverpool, and currently don't live there (I left for uni, and found a job where I now live). I grew up a geek, did well at school, had some minor bullying problems and have not escaped completely unscathed crimewise. I like to think I'm intelligent and rational enough to realise that would happen anywhere in this country. And I still like going home.
Have to disagree with you.
It's not a vast sum of money to someone who has sold many millions of books surely? If he was totally for self interest he'd have made a considerably bigger payment and claimed against his tax.
Who's saying he hasn't made many smaller less publicised donations directly to researchers anyway, and only made this payment to cash in on the pulicity that obviously comes with it? Whether on behalf of the charity or public opinion of himself?
Play cynicism like chess, it's more rewarding to find the 20th move ahead to show that he could just be a clever, cynical man himself.
And in case you're reading, Terry - <insert moment of worship>
I don't see why people object to Google choosing to drop, block, suppress or otherwise inconvenience a spammer.
My own experiences have led me to dread searching for anything mainstream, particularly if I'm in a hurry, simply because I seem to be a magnet for these sites. I am fed up of wanting an answer and instead having a pile of ads, another search site, or whatever thrown at me, and if Google can get rid of the blatant trash, I'm happy.
I freely admit to being a firm disciple of Google, although I am wary of them deciding to be evil after all, but even after dropping my biased viewpoint, I can't see a downside to them blocking this stuff.
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