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Post by GTCGreg on May 15, 2015 15:29:16 GMT
we had an incident. we got called for a car fire. - which reduced the car to bare metal; though fortunately since it was an embossed license plate instead of the newer non-embossed plates, we could still get the letters/numbers off of it. (all other identifying marks were destroyed in the fire) we called in what we knew: (compact station wagon, and plate letters/numbers) so the dispatch center could try to look up the owner. at the same time, the owner was calling the dispatch center to report the car stolen. "umm... we've got good news and bad news... we already found your car..." That would be good news, its an immediate write-off in insurance, full payout, no quibbling. At full market value as well. I've been through that "full market value" crap with my insurance company. Their idea of market value and the actual market's idea of a car's value is pretty far apart. |
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Post by the light works on May 15, 2015 15:46:01 GMT
That would be good news, its an immediate write-off in insurance, full payout, no quibbling. At full market value as well. I've been through that "full market value" crap with my insurance company. Their idea of market value and the actual market's idea of a car's value is pretty far apart. indeed - one of my college buddies had his car totalled by a driver who was deemed fully at fault - the insurance check bought him a bicycle. |
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Post by silverdragon on May 16, 2015 8:16:55 GMT
Insurance values in UK are something known as "glass's guide"
I agree, they can be pretty stingy.
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Post by silverdragon on May 21, 2015 8:02:47 GMT
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Post by the light works on May 21, 2015 15:00:55 GMT
yep, we have a google server farm in Oregon, and they say they use more power to run the air conditioning than they do to power the servers. addendum: it looks like a better option would be to use fluid based aircon, and then pipe the hot fluid to surrounding buildings for heating. |
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Post by GTCGreg on May 21, 2015 15:50:21 GMT
yep, we have a google server farm in Oregon, and they say they use more power to run the air conditioning than they do to power the servers. addendum: it looks like a better option would be to use fluid based aircon, and then pipe the hot fluid to surrounding buildings for heating. The problem is the "quality" of the heat produced. Even if you have lots and lots of 120º heat, it's hard to move it around to where you can use it. You would be far better off having a smaller quantity of 250º heat then a large quantity of 120º heat, but that's not the temperature the servers operate at. The solution is to use heat pumps to concentrate the 120º heat to something more useful but operating heat pumps takes additional energy. It can be done, but overall capturing the server's waste heat is not as efficient as it would first appear. Using the heat pumps as part of the cooling system would help. A simpler solution may be to distribute the servers around in people's homes or office buildings and then directly use the wast heat to supplement the building's heating requirements. Of course, you would want to concentrate the servers in a colder climate where building heating is required most of the year. |
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Post by the light works on May 22, 2015 2:15:44 GMT
yep, we have a google server farm in Oregon, and they say they use more power to run the air conditioning than they do to power the servers. addendum: it looks like a better option would be to use fluid based aircon, and then pipe the hot fluid to surrounding buildings for heating. The problem is the "quality" of the heat produced. Even if you have lots and lots of 120º heat, it's hard to move it around to where you can use it. You would be far better off having a smaller quantity of 250º heat then a large quantity of 120º heat, but that's not the temperature the servers operate at. The solution is to use heat pumps to concentrate the 120º heat to something more useful but operating heat pumps takes additional energy. It can be done, but overall capturing the server's waste heat is not as efficient as it would first appear. Using the heat pumps as part of the cooling system would help. A simpler solution may be to distribute the servers around in people's homes or office buildings and then directly use the wast heat to supplement the building's heating requirements. Of course, you would want to concentrate the servers in a colder climate where building heating is required most of the year. I was thinking heat pump based heat transfer. the issue they pointed out with the household server/heater concept was that it works well for single processes, but advanced processes require bigger parallel arrays. the thing about heat pumps is that the concentrate and move heat - so if you can come up with an application where you remove unwanted heat from one place, and transfer it to someplace you want it, you can increase your operating efficiency by up to 100%. case in point - if I get the rental house rebuilt, I plan to install a heat pump type water heater in my pantry, and have my refrigerator in an open backed enclosure between the pantry and kitchen - that will allow the waste heat from the refrigerator to be captured by the water heater. |
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Post by GTCGreg on May 22, 2015 2:47:28 GMT
case in point - if I get the rental house rebuilt, I plan to install a heat pump type water heater in my pantry, and have my refrigerator in an open backed enclosure between the pantry and kitchen - that will allow the waste heat from the refrigerator to be captured by the water heater. Good plan. Just make sure you have some way of getting rid of the refrigerator heat load when the water heater isn't running. Maybe a small thermostatically controlled vent fan. The other problem is if the water heater requires more heat than the refrigerator puts out. I guess in that case, you can just use the pantry as a refrigerator. I've been working on a system (for a couple of years now) to recoup the heat from the central air condensing unit and use it to heat the swimming pool. I actually built a water cooled heat exchanger from an old DT pool filter tank. I wound a coil of 100' feet of 5/8" tubing and put it in the filter tank. My plan is to take the high side output of the AC compressor and connect it to the tubing in the tank and then run pool water through the tank using the existing pool filtration pump. I was actually to the point of hooking it all up last summer when the compressor on the AC system died. I installed a new condensing unit but non of the fittings I had matched up with the new condensing unit. Maybe I'll get around to completing the project this summer. |
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Post by the light works on May 22, 2015 3:39:35 GMT
case in point - if I get the rental house rebuilt, I plan to install a heat pump type water heater in my pantry, and have my refrigerator in an open backed enclosure between the pantry and kitchen - that will allow the waste heat from the refrigerator to be captured by the water heater. Good plan. Just make sure you have some way of getting rid of the refrigerator heat load when the water heater isn't running. Maybe a small thermostatically controlled vent fan. The other problem is if the water heater requires more heat than the refrigerator puts out. I guess in that case, you can just use the pantry as a refrigerator. I've been working on a system (for a couple of years now) to recoup the heat from the central air condensing unit and use it to heat the swimming pool. I actually built a water cooled heat exchanger from an old DT pool filter tank. I wound a coil of 100' feet of 5/8" tubing and put it in the filter tank. My plan is to take the high side output of the AC compressor and connect it to the tubing in the tank and then run pool water through the tank using the existing pool filtration pump. I was actually to the point of hooking it all up last summer when the compressor on the AC system died. I installed a new condensing unit but non of the fittings I had matched up with the new condensing unit. Maybe I'll get around to completing the project this summer. I hooked one up in a customer's house - with about an 8X10 mechanical room. the water heater keeps it about cellar temperature. - which is fine in a pantry. the other option would be to put it in the garage to use as a dehumidifier. |
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Post by silverdragon on May 22, 2015 8:41:00 GMT
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Post by silverdragon on May 22, 2015 8:47:25 GMT
If he does, GOOD. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32842332Uber, not a good idea. Cab sharing, Ok, But do I have a choice of who gets in or out?.. If I wanted a Bus, I would catch a bus. The reason I want a taxi is quick direct "PRIVATE" transport..... The fact that Uber is undercutting hard working taxi drivers and getting itsself in all kinds of trouble with unlicensed drivers, well, .... I know taxi drivers, they work hard, they are NOT rich people, they get a decent wage. OK, so, there are a few who are bad, but the majority of them are good honest decent citizens.... 10 years doing "The knowledge" in London, and now, you just need a sat-nav. If you want a Cab, hail one. If you want to sit next to strange people who have an unnatural interest in their pancake collection, get a Bus. |
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Post by GTCGreg on May 22, 2015 12:16:52 GMT
If he does, GOOD. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32842332Uber, not a good idea. Cab sharing, Ok, But do I have a choice of who gets in or out?.. If I wanted a Bus, I would catch a bus. The reason I want a taxi is quick direct "PRIVATE" transport..... The fact that Uber is undercutting hard working taxi drivers and getting itsself in all kinds of trouble with unlicensed drivers, well, .... I know taxi drivers, they work hard, they are NOT rich people, they get a decent wage. OK, so, there are a few who are bad, but the majority of them are good honest decent citizens.... 10 years doing "The knowledge" in London, and now, you just need a sat-nav. If you want a Cab, hail one. If you want to sit next to strange people who have an unnatural interest in their pancake collection, get a Bus. You have obviously never taken a taxi in Chicago. |
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Post by the light works on May 22, 2015 13:52:33 GMT
If he does, GOOD. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32842332Uber, not a good idea. Cab sharing, Ok, But do I have a choice of who gets in or out?.. If I wanted a Bus, I would catch a bus. The reason I want a taxi is quick direct "PRIVATE" transport..... The fact that Uber is undercutting hard working taxi drivers and getting itsself in all kinds of trouble with unlicensed drivers, well, .... I know taxi drivers, they work hard, they are NOT rich people, they get a decent wage. OK, so, there are a few who are bad, but the majority of them are good honest decent citizens.... 10 years doing "The knowledge" in London, and now, you just need a sat-nav. If you want a Cab, hail one. If you want to sit next to strange people who have an unnatural interest in their pancake collection, get a Bus. I agree about Uber - its business model is to sidestep regulations and licensing by pretending to be a glorified carpool. |
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Post by silverdragon on May 23, 2015 5:18:55 GMT
quote]You have obviously never taken a taxi in Chicago.[/quote]
I cant say I have.... and I cant say I ever want to either.
But then again, if I ever get there, I may just want to get from A to B.
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Post by OziRiS on Jun 2, 2015 7:30:55 GMT
yep, we have a google server farm in Oregon, and they say they use more power to run the air conditioning than they do to power the servers. addendum: it looks like a better option would be to use fluid based aircon, and then pipe the hot fluid to surrounding buildings for heating. The problem is the "quality" of the heat produced. Even if you have lots and lots of 120º heat, it's hard to move it around to where you can use it. You would be far better off having a smaller quantity of 250º heat then a large quantity of 120º heat, but that's not the temperature the servers operate at. The solution is to use heat pumps to concentrate the 120º heat to something more useful but operating heat pumps takes additional energy. It can be done, but overall capturing the server's waste heat is not as efficient as it would first appear. Using the heat pumps as part of the cooling system would help. A simpler solution may be to distribute the servers around in people's homes or office buildings and then directly use the wast heat to supplement the building's heating requirements. Of course, you would want to concentrate the servers in a colder climate where building heating is required most of the year. A buddy of mine once came up with a rather ingenious idea. He realized that the temperature of the return water from the radiators in his house was pretty low, so his water heater was using a lot of energy reheating that water before it went back out into the radiators. At around the same time, he also realized that his compost pile was generating a lot of heat that was going to waste, so his solution to both problems was to dig out a 6 foot deep hole under the deck of his raised terrace (raised about 3 feet above the ground to match the foundation of the house), insulate the bottom and sides of the hole, place a very large coil of copper tubing on the bottom, connect that to the pipes returning the cooled water to the water heater and filling the hole with compost. The return water would then pass through the copper pipe coil under the compost and be reheated by the decay process before returning to the water heater. Now, I don't know if the figures he provided are true, but IIRC, his water heater would heat the water to 50-55 o C (122-131 o F) before sending it out into the supply pipes for the house. His claim was that before he installed this compost reheater, the return water would only be about 20-25 o C (68-77 o F), but after he installed it, the water would return to the water heater with an average temperature of 35-45 o C (95-113 o F), saving him a lot of money on reheating that water. Now, I'm not a plumber or an engineer or anything, so I don't know how likely these figures are to be true, but I do know for a fact that decaying compost can produce a lot of heat, so the concept should at least work to some degree, even if he was exaggerating. My thought is, could a variation on that concept be used to take advantage of this server heat? If his figures for the normal temperature of return water are even close to true, 20-25 o C (68-77 o F) should be cold enough to cool the servers significantly if you ran the pipes through/around them. It might not be cold enough to be a stand alone system, but it would certainly take away the bulk of the heat, reducing the amount of energy needed to get the servers even colder. Watercooling computers has already been a thing for at least a decade, so the technology isn't all that foreign. However, instead of using the warm water from the pipes going through/around the servers to directly heat the building, it could just be led back into the water heater, reducing the amount of energy it needs to reheat the water. Feasible? |
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Post by silverdragon on Jun 3, 2015 10:27:54 GMT
Yes.
I use compost to heat the pond.
My pond has a water heater on it, "just in case", its a 3kw pipe heater nightmare, because thats a LOT of power to trickle heat the pond, it takes an hour of constant heat to raise 1degC....
At the back of my pond is a wall.
The pond is raised partly above ground.
That part of the pond is not insulated in any way...
But since I moved my compost heap to that wall, which I dug down to give a good area of contact, I have never needed the extra pipe heater running, the pond has stayed above the 2degC minimum required to kick in, its staying above 3degC on a regular basis all the time. That margins are small, but, they have to be, as it takes a LOT of time to change 1dgegC in 4,000+ UK gallons of water outside.
Too quick a change and the fish will literally "Catch cold".
(It has to go below 4degC during winter for my fish to enter torpor, their natural winter state of semi-hibernation...)
If I had the space to utilise a compost to do a water heater, I would probably use a heat exchange system to take the heat from the heap and transfer it to the water in some way.
However, I wouldnt use the actual water from the central heating...
If the heap gets cold and freezes?..
The heat exchange that they design for such use is much more economic anyway, and its full of antifreeze instead of just plain ol' water.
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Post by the light works on Jun 18, 2015 4:51:09 GMT
Yes. I use compost to heat the pond. My pond has a water heater on it, "just in case", its a 3kw pipe heater nightmare, because thats a LOT of power to trickle heat the pond, it takes an hour of constant heat to raise 1degC.... At the back of my pond is a wall. The pond is raised partly above ground. That part of the pond is not insulated in any way... But since I moved my compost heap to that wall, which I dug down to give a good area of contact, I have never needed the extra pipe heater running, the pond has stayed above the 2degC minimum required to kick in, its staying above 3degC on a regular basis all the time. That margins are small, but, they have to be, as it takes a LOT of time to change 1dgegC in 4,000+ UK gallons of water outside. Too quick a change and the fish will literally "Catch cold". (It has to go below 4degC during winter for my fish to enter torpor, their natural winter state of semi-hibernation...) If I had the space to utilise a compost to do a water heater, I would probably use a heat exchange system to take the heat from the heap and transfer it to the water in some way. However, I wouldnt use the actual water from the central heating... If the heap gets cold and freezes?.. The heat exchange that they design for such use is much more economic anyway, and its full of antifreeze instead of just plain ol' water. you could just have a loop under your compost pile with a temperature sensor at each end - if the outlet temperature is worse than the inlet temperature, it bypasses the loop. |
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Post by silverdragon on Jun 18, 2015 6:20:24 GMT
Could have should have would have.... and maybe I shouldnt anyway?...
Digging the hole for the pond was hard work, remembering to dig in an under-ground drain and separate well to draw water from the pond to filters was hard enough.
However, the way it works right now, with a warm wall from the compost, works well, as it sets up currents in the pond and the whole pond now has a warm spot against cooler spots, so the Koi can keep to the warm bit whilst the Sturgeon who prefer to be a touch cooler in winter can stay at the bottom in the other corner.
There is circulation in the pond by Filter and Pump, so eventually the warmth spreads, but slowly.
This actually produces a more natural environment for the fish, who are used to temp fluctuations in a natural environment anyway.
I like to keep my pond as natural as possible, so, by accident, I have done that better than I intended in the first place?...
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Post by the light works on Jun 18, 2015 14:41:33 GMT
Could have should have would have.... and maybe I shouldnt anyway?... Digging the hole for the pond was hard work, remembering to dig in an under-ground drain and separate well to draw water from the pond to filters was hard enough. However, the way it works right now, with a warm wall from the compost, works well, as it sets up currents in the pond and the whole pond now has a warm spot against cooler spots, so the Koi can keep to the warm bit whilst the Sturgeon who prefer to be a touch cooler in winter can stay at the bottom in the other corner. There is circulation in the pond by Filter and Pump, so eventually the warmth spreads, but slowly. This actually produces a more natural environment for the fish, who are used to temp fluctuations in a natural environment anyway. I like to keep my pond as natural as possible, so, by accident, I have done that better than I intended in the first place?... quite possibly. I haven't been able to see if I have fish this year, or not. but I have the benefit of having my fish facility take full care of itself except if I WANT to dabble. |
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 1, 2015 5:27:57 GMT
Flash player (Shockwave, Adobe, whatever) now is version 18, all lower versions are being actively blocked.
Remember to remove that tick from "install macaffeee (unwanted) Security check", otherwise you just get a load of bloatware that is nagware in disguise to fool you into installing a rival anti-nasty.
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