Japan Aims to Beam Solar Energy Down from Orbit
(Sen) - The Japanese space agency JAXA is developing a revolutionary concept to put “power stations” in orbit to capture sunlight and beam it to Earth.
The country has been looking for new power sources following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March, 2011, that destroyed much of the north-east of the country and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Many of the country’s nuclear reactors were closed due to stricter safety regulations after the emergency. Now JAXA is aiming to set up a Space Solar Power System (SSPS) by 2030. An array of mirrors would sit in geostationary orbit to collect solar energy and then transmits it to a power plant on the ground via microwaves or laser beams. There it could be used to generate electricity and hydrogen.
Proponents of the technology say that it would provide continuous energy without any worry that resources would be depleted. It would be unaffected by the time of day or weather and would provide environmentally friendly, clean energy.
Interestingly, the idea is not a new one. An American, Dr Peter Glaser, designed a similar concept in 1968 to deploy large solar panels in space to generate power and convert it into microwaves to transmit to the ground. Following studies by NASA and the US Department of Energy, the project was deemed too costly and it was never developed.
Similar studies have been carried out in Europe. The idea is also reminiscent of a Russian plan in the 1990s to use mirrors to beam sunlight to the ground at night. This had astronomers and environmentalists up in arms because of the light pollution it would have caused. The Japanese concept is different because there would be no stray light emitted from the beam.
Yasuyuki Fukumuro is leading research and planning for SSPS. He says: “We have not yet decided whether to use microwaves or laser beams with SSPS, or whether we will somehow combine them. We are currently conducting ground-based experiments to find the most efficient way to transmit energy.
“Regardless of which transmission technology we use, when we collect sunlight from outside the Earth’s atmosphere, we can get a continuous supply of it, with almost no influence from the weather, the seasons, or time of day, allowing very efficient collection of solar energy.
“And since the energy source is the Sun, it’s an endlessly renewable resource - it won’t run out as long as the Sun is there. Also, because the power is generated in space and carbon dioxide is emitted only at the receiving site, emissions within the Earth’s atmosphere can be greatly reduced, which makes this technology very friendly to the environment.”
Fukumuro admits the system has its challenges. He says: “When transmitting power by microwaves, a significant technological challenge is how to control the direction, and transmit it with pinpoint accuracy from a geostationary orbit to a receiving site on the ground. Transmitting microwaves from an altitude of 36,000 km to a flat surface 3 km in diameter will be like threading a needle.”
Fukumuro suggests the technology will also be useful in disaster situations. In the event of a blackout, a collecting dish could be unfolded and deployed to receive microwaves from space for conversion into electrical energy.
JAXA is working with a collective of machining and engineering companies called Kyoto Shisaku Net to develop the array of reflectors that would be lifted into orbit by reusable shuttle-like spacecraft and then assemble themselves.
JAXA Engineer and Senior Researcher Katsuto Kisara says: “The biggest problem we’ve encountered with the project is developing solar mirrors that are incredibly lightweight. I think that there is certainly a way to do it, but it has presented quite the challenge.”
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Is Jakarta Dangerous?
I think that your biggest threat while being in Jakarta will be dealing with motorized vehicles, whether your are walking, in a car, or in a motorcycle. If you take the taxi for instance, you will notice cars don’t have a safety belt in the back. If you take an ojek (moto-taxi), the driver will give you a shitty helmet and drive recklessly, putting your life in danger every second.
How to avoid it: Take silver bird taxis, go in the passenger seat, avoid taking ojeks, be very careful when walking in Jakarta.
Natural Disaster: High
Flood, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis… Jakarta, as the rest of the country, is prone to natural disasters. In fact, according to the Natural Disaster Risk Index, Indonesia is the world’s second most dangerous nation regarding natural catastrophes after Bangladesh. I don’t think it can impact your stay in Jakarta though, because it is something you cannot really protect yourself from. All you can do is cross your finger and hope that everything will be OK.
Terrorism: Medium to High
I don’t know what I should say about terrorism. It happened in Jakarta and Bali, and even though the government is very active in fighting terrorists, we cannot ignore that new bombings could happen again in Jakarta/Indonesia in the future.
The targets of terrorists have always been places frequented by expats, like embassies, night clubs, restaurants or 5-star hotels. A safe precaution therefore is to avoid too crowded areas. Check your home country’s website for current warnings.
Some extremist religious groups have been attacking entertainment venues too, especially during religious times of the year like Ramadan. It is quite rare though and they are more scary than dangerous.
Pickpockets: Medium
It is the most common offence in Jakarta affecting expats: Having a small thing stolen while in a bar (usually a phone) or in a crowd. It is not so common either, but it happened to me with a camera, and it happened to a few of my friends, in particular in Stadium nightclub. I had once a problem with a drink that almost made me pass out… The guy I was with may have put something in it, but I’ll never know that for sure.
Robbery: Medium
I don’t have statistics about robbery, but from what I could observe, it involves most of the time the people working in your house: Maids, cooks, guards. It is usually low value items (in my situation, I had all my cleaning products disappearing…), but very annoying. To avoid any problems, look for staff that has been recommended to you by fellow expats, and pay them more than average.
Scams: High
Getting to pay the right price for things is a challenge in Jakarta when you are or when you look like an expat. Most of the times, it only requires negotiation, but sometimes, it gets tougher. Taxis are usually a pain in the ass: Apart from the reputed Blue Bird and Express brands, many drivers will try to get more from you by using various tricks: No meter, longer routes, fiddled meters. Beware also of “fake” Blue Bird taxis: They look exactly like them but belong to other companies. The danger is not so high, usually you only end up paying a few dollars extra, but in some cases, drivers can get violent (it happened with girls travelling alone)
Some people will warn you about credit card fraud, and you should be cautious about that. The same precaution applies when you want to change money: Always prefer a bank rather than street vendors.
Police: High
Having to deal with the police is one of the worst annoyances in Jakarta for an expat, especially if you own a car or a motorbike. Personally I take a personal pride in never bribing policemen, but to do so you need to be “clean” and have all the appropriate documentation with you (a copy of the passport, driving license, etc..).
Political instability: Low
Many tourists are afraid of the potential instability of Jakarta and Indonesia. I know many people in Malaysia from Chinese descent who refuses to come to Jakarta, because they are scared of what happened during the 1998 riots. I also know many people who are afraid of going to a Muslim country, because they think people won’t be tolerant if they say they are Catholics. I think there is absolutely no reason to be scared. Indonesians are among the most welcoming and tolerant people on earth. Terrorism is only supported by a extremely tiny minority, and you will realize that Indonesia is not the dark, dangerous country some medias are trying to describe.
Health Hazards (Food poisoning, pollution, etc): AverageJakarta is often dirty and not always very hygienic. It is very easy to get small diseases or asthma. If you are fragile, or if you are travelling with children or elderly people, I would advise you to be prepared to be in a hostile environment. I think if you avoid the most risky situation everything should be OK: No walking, no street food, do wash your hands, peel your fruits, drink bottled water, etc…
Physical assault: Low
It is very uncommon, but it happens. The most often, crime happens in Jakarta among gangs so you shouldn’t have troubles with it. Some clubs in North Jakarta have the reputation to be controlled by mafias, so if you want to be safe, you can start avoiding those
XML Syntax Highlighting: Colored Nested Tags
XML files could use colored nested tags as pictured (or a little smarter based on tag name). I know this would clash with color themes and such, and this is already a "sublime" editor anyway (since the minimap saves me much trouble in exactly the situations I wish for this). Colored tags, highlighted scope (fully colored lines instead of underlined tags) or something else to the effect of telling where I am and where that "where" starts and ends in some large XML file is my wish.
This would be analogous to LISP editors that color nested parens with different colors to easily distinguish the depth of some block you're viewing.
Dragging dividers that push another divider
You end up having to stop dragging the first divider, drag the 2nd divider to allow more space for the 1st divider, and then drag the 1st divider some more.
This would all be much nicer if when the first divider meets the 2nd divider, that it would push the 2nd divider depending on how far you drag the 1st divider. It would "push" the other dividers. This would streamline the window resizing process when having more than 2 sub-areas.
Online profiles for multi-machine consistency
In the case of Sublime this would be some sort database where all the packages you have installed are listed, and your personal settings, such as hotkeys, are stored. This would be absolutely awesome for me since I keep sublime on many different machines, and from time to time I find some awesome packages that I want. Currently I need to go to each machine and install it, if I remember. To have this automagically installed on the other machines when I boot up sublime would be great.
You should be allowed to opt out, of course, if you prefer having different setups on your different machines.
RegEx: Generate a sequence of numbers. Incremental replacement.
This would be a greatly valued feature!
Expression: Effect:
\i Replace with numbers starting from 1, incrementing by 1.
\i(10) Replace with numbers starting from 10, incrementing by 1.
\i(0,10) Replace with numbers starting from 0, incrementing by 10.
\i(100,-10) Replace with numbers starting from 100, decrementing by -10.
There are other, lesser, IDEs that replicate this functionality. A little bit of Python functionality in the replace field could address this issue. Python functionality in the replace field could address a lot of issues.
proxy server user/pass not in plain text for package control
I want to bring Sublime Text into a big company but there is a proxy server that requires authentication and I won't be able to get approval to bring this in from the security team if I have to put my user/pass in clear text to use Package Control. It would be great if Sublime Text could somehow hook into Windows > Internet Options > Local Area Network Settings > Proxy server.
Westhill Consulting Jakarta: What You Need to Know About IPO Investments
Westhill Consulting is a reputable investment advisory firm based in Jakarta Indonesia, dedicated to providing you the most advantageous investments based on how you want your portfolio managed for the private middle market.
You might be wondering how you can increase the profits you make from your market investing strategies. If you're searching for the most profitable forms of investing that are available today, you should definitely investigate the possibilities of using Initial Public Offering (IPO) investments.
A simple description of an IPO includes the fact that you're buying a business that is just entering the open marketplace. The moment the IPO is released to the public is the first time anyone has the ability to buy the company openly, and this will surely give you a good idea on where the stock itself resides when it comes to the value of the offering. You can wage it is preparing for a large rise in its value because they are just releasing their stock to the public.
Though most of the Initial Public Offering stocks skyrocket after they are first released, you must keep in mind that they are hardly a definite investment. Because of this, there are several factors you must definitely examine before you place your capital into this type of investment.
One of the first factors you must take into consideration before investing into the stock you are interested in is the basic fact that once the stock is available on the market you can't guess if there will be a great deal demand or a total lack.
Because of this, you must do your best to ascertain every bit of information available about the company before making a purchase.
As you comb the market for the best IPOs available today, you must consider the fact that IPOs are usually offered only to the market when a company plans on expansion. There are other instances where companies only want to increase their ability to borrow capital, but IPOs are mostly released to increase the amount of funds they have available for expansion plans.
It may look like a company which is preparing to expand is a sure bet on the stock market. However, that is not really the case. IPO stocks are usually considered as high-risk investments. That is why if you want to secure your investments to a degree, you must explore the overall performance of the company's operations in the long run.
When you have analyzed the essentials of the company you are interested on, you must also try to guess where the capital generated from the IPO will be used by the company. If you think the company's only choice is to put their capital into expansion activities, you can be sure that the stock value will increase over time because of the expanding capabilities of the business operation. As you examine the essentials of the company and estimate where the capital will be going once the IPO is sold to the public, you can make a reasonable evaluation of how the stocks are going to fare in the future. Being one of the top advisory firms in the industry, we gain the confidence of our clients by acting with integrity on all our business decisions.
Westhill Consulting practices a specific valuation procedure to determine how much a profitable business is worth and determine possible market opportunities.
http://www.westhillconsulting.com
The Carlyle Group: Creating Value
Value creation is at the core of our existence. We invest in assets, work to make them better and seek to sell them for a profit. Carlyle uses its One Carlyle global network, deep industry knowledge, Executive Operations Group and portfolio intelligence to create and execute a customized value creation plan for each of our corporate private equity and real asset investments. Our success helps investors achieve their goals, such as state pension funds working to secure the retirements of millions of public employees.
Expand Group View
It would be great if we could expand a tab group so that it takes up the full width of the screen (so that the layout looks like it goes to a single column, instead of two). There would be an icon next to the first tab of each group and a vertical bar next to the sidebar could show you what groups are available (and allow you to swap between groups). Please see image below as a potential mock-up.
Environmental effects: It’s our doing
http://hayatirazaka.wordpress.com/environmental-effects-its-our-doing/
Environmental effects: It’s our doing“Because the rates of emissions are growing, it looks like we could burn through the other half in the next 25 years” under one of the more dire scenarios outlined in the report.
Other scenarios show that the threshold will be reached later this century. The finding constitutes a warning to governments to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, which is generated by the burning of fossil fuels, industrial activity and deforestation.
Calling climate change “the greatest challenge of our time,” panel co-chair Thomas Stocker said humankind’s fate in the next 100 years “depends crucially on how much carbon dioxide will be emitted in the future”.
In the report, the panel said it is 95% certain that human activity is the dominant cause of the global warming observed since the 1950s. That is up from 90% six years ago.
“Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes,” the report said.
The report is the panel’s fifth major assessment since 1990. It reaffirms many of the conclusions of past reports, but with greater confidence.
“The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased,” the panel wrote in a 36-page summary of its findings.
Can't insert a TAB next to the word "YES" due to tab completion "feature"
A) How do I disable tab completion in the settings?
B) Can this be turned off by default in future versions?
Specs:
* Sublime Text 2.0.1
* Windows 7
html inline style
Is there a package that can re-DOM the inline style into classes? Thanks heaps.
Replacing in with a blank string causes the replace field to be repopulated with previous string
Customize window.show_input_panel() ?
i´ve got one question. I would like to develop a plugin for sublime text.
It should be easy to edit .scss or .css code directly into the .html-file. Don´t switch to the .scss- or .css-files and look for the right line anymore. (screenshot).
Is there a possibility to customize the window.show_input_panel() ? I didn´t find anything about it...
Thanks for your answers
.Best regards,
Martin
umount filesystem causes sublime 2 to freeze
Hi, this is not really sublimes fault but I think it could be handled better. If you unmount the filesystem that sublime is running on the whole application freezes and you have to force quit. I've only used sublime on Mac OSX, but I would expect the same thing to happen on Linux or windows. It would be nice if there was some sort of error message and or option to save in a new location when this happens. Really anything other than the hangup that happens now.
--Edit: Forgot to mention sublime version.
Westhill House Highgate Consulting London
Full-time receptionist and support staff
Purpose-built for individual and group psychotherapy
Architect-designed and elegantly furnished
All lighting and heating supplied from renewable sources
Soundproofed
Fully ventilated
Entryphones to all rooms
Waiting areas
Rent by hour or session
Daytime, evenings and weekends, 7 days a week
Broadband free of charge
One of our Westhill consultants specialize in the following:
Jamu (formerly Djamu) is traditional medicine in Indonesia, especially Jakarta. It is predominantly herbal medicine made from natural materials, such as parts of plants such as roots, leaves and bark, and fruit. There is also material from the bodies of animals, such as bile of goat or alligator used. [Warning! Alligators are only native to the United States and China not Indonesia]
In many large cities jamu herbal medicine is sold on the street by hawkers carry a refreshing drink, usually bitter but sweetened with honey. Herbal medicine is also produced in factories by large companies such as Air Mancur,Nyonya Meneer or Djamu Djago, and sold at various drug stores in sachet packaging. Packaged dried jamu should be dissolved in hot water first before drinking. Nowadays herbal medicine is also sold in the form of tablets, caplets and capsules.
The above information courtesy of Wikipedia.
READ MORE:
http://www.consulting-rooms.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2
Ignore empty configuration files
Westhill Consulting Business Testimonials News
Subject of the training was very interesting. Conducting classes, although it was extensive in time (3days) nużyło not all the time level of interest in training was very high. more » Agnieszka Gielarowska Junior Advisor European Leasing Fund SA
Taking demonstrated their knowledge and preparation for training. They could encourage participants to actively participate in training and exercises conducted.
The training I was very successful. Many things are communicated in a nice, consistent way. Raised a lot of things from greeting guests, More » Milena Mućka Exposure and the Public Guardian Royal Baths Museum in Warsaw work with visitors, proactive attitude after better communication with people. I liked the combination of the theory, practice relating to interpersonal communication with fun games that also have a bearing on our situation museum employee - Visitors to the museum.
really big plus for motivation, good communication, great preparation and great transmission of information by the teacher Christopher Filarskiego. Keep it up! Good Luck!
I worked with Krzysztof and Mariusz the way of training "Conversations evaluation", organized for the leaders of manufacturing more » Margaret Delk Head of Human Resources Development Polpharma SA
ZF Polpharma SA At the initial stage of discussing a specific subject training, impressed me with your dedication, inquisitiveness and professionalism. From the beginning, explored the internal specifics of working in the plant in order to best prepare the material for the target group
proved to be extremely helpful expectations survey participants and the discussions that We fought to prepare the most appropriate exercises for the workshop.
Trainers are extremely open, create a very welcoming atmosphere during training, establish excellent contact with the participants and activate those less involved. While both have a slightly different style of work (energy bursting Christopher and angelically serene Mariusz :-)) is a great complement. The fact that they work in pairs helps improve the efficiency of training, especially when you need to give guidance to the students to many couples.
would recommend your company Westhill - adjust the scope of training specifically to the needs of the client, work professionally, specifically, and the occasion with great commitment.
I had the pleasure of working with Krzysztof Filarskim and Mariusz Siechowiczem for over a year in the project: Supervision of coaches in the DB SCHENKERinfo. more » Aneta Chlebos Customer Service Center DB SCHENKERinfo Contact Centre's Supervisor
In addition to theoretical knowledge, knowledge of techniques and tools of coaching and managing our sessions also contained what is most important to me: the practice. Many of the exercises, simulations and discussions with the coaching staff allowed me to enter the world efficient coach. Thanks to our meetings, which are fully adapted to my needs and personality, met their strengths and areas for improvement, and I received many valuable tips that will help me in daily work. Each session was an inspiration to me for further action and development.
For More Testimonials:
http://westhill.pl/Klienci_o_nas
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