Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Teneb]

Wasn't sure where to put it, but Microsoft workers are... less than pleased at learning that their AR headset will go to the US military instead of groups like medical professionals.

Comment sections in any place talking about this are particularly salty and ultra-patriotic, to no one's surprise.

[Telgin]

I certainly understand their reservations, but Microsoft isn't exclusively providing the technology to the military, is it?  If it still gets used for peaceful purposes, that's something.

I'm less sure of AR's future than I was a few years ago, but it still feels like this kind of thing is inevitably going to end up with military applications, even if it's not Microsoft providing it.  Not that it's much consolation to Microsoft's employees.

[RadtheCad]

It'll end up in Windows^tm Deathbots_R powered by corpses, anyway.

[Akura]

the company would “support talent mobility” for employees who did not want to work on certain projects “for whatever reason”.

Pretty much corporate-speak for "either you do it or gtfo", right?

[Egan_BW]

Uh, no. It's saying that employees are welcome to switch over to other projects if they don't like this one.

[Starver]

The dedicated Microsoft Bob™ support-by-fax department!

[Teneb]

The main issue here is that employees who didn't want their work to go toward purposes of war worked on a project, and only after they had a prototype up and running did Microsoft go and decide to turn it into a means to make soldiers kill better.

[McTraveller]

Holy crap, I was just going to knock southern CA for their crazy high electricity use in the summer for cooling and then I did the equivalent energy use it takes to heat my house in MI.

We used 20MCF of natural gas in January-Feb. That's roughly 190kW-hr/day.  I mean - I know we had several days in that period with a high temp of about 0°F (-18°C) and we heat to about 68°F (20°C).  I guess 7.9kW is not *that* much heat loss over a 40-Kelvin temperature difference for something the size of a house but, yow, I feel bad about how I used to think my house was pretty energy efficient because our electric use is way below the national average, using only about 6750 kW-hr/year.  Natural gas though... ugh!  28400 kW-hr/year or so! Yikes...

In the summer we only cool to about 75-77, but that's only about 10F or so; mostly just for humidity. That runs about 20kW-hr/day over baseline.  So about 0.83 kW for a 5-Kelvin delta in the summer.  That's pretty good for back of the envelope actually now that I do all the numbers; (40/5 x 0.83 is about 6.5, which is within 20% of that 7.9kW number I got for gas, which wasn't rigorous at all esp. since I didn't subtract out hot water/cooking which is also nat gas).

[thompson]

Air conditioners are efficient as they work as heat pumps moving heat from one place to another. Energy is only required for pumping the heat, so higher than 100% efficiencies are possible. With natural gas you burn it and the energy released by combustion IS the heat, so 100% is the maximum efficiency. Hope that helps.

[McTraveller]

I suppose I did kind of mix analyses - but I think it's still valid for back-of-the envelope.  For instance, I didn't subtract the fan motor energy use from my AC consumption in the summer, but I also didn't include that in my heating number.  I don't think our AC unit COP is that great though; it's 25 years old.  That means the mechanical losses in the radiator fan and compressor itself probably dominate - I do know the radiator fan motor is a 3/4 HP (~550W) rated fan.

Regardless - I have to say I'm embarrassed at how I didn't really grasp the order of magnitude of energy consumption associated with our natural gas furnace.

It also goes to show the surprising cost difference between natural gas and electricity - our natural gas is about 1/5 the cost of electricity per kW-hr.

[Reelya]

Wasn't sure where to put it, but Microsoft workers are... less than pleased at learning that their AR headset will go to the US military instead of groups like medical professionals.

Comment sections in any place talking about this are particularly salty and ultra-patriotic, to no one's surprise.

Microsoft unveils a new improved "clippy" with a 100-round capacity.

"it looks like your trying to kill some terrorists ..."

[Egan_BW]

I SEE THAT YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO TERMINATE HUMANS. WOULD LIKE ME TO HELP BY TERMINATING ALL HUMANS?

[MrRoboto75]

I SEE THAT YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO TERMINATE HUMANS. WOULD LIKE ME TO HELP BY TERMINATING ALL HUMANS?

>Y

[Max™]

Now we just wait patiently for the blue screen of life to save us from the replicating deathbots.

[wierd]

There's no safety from the paperclip maximizer.